Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. They stood still, looking sad. Luke 24:17. Luke tells of the disillusioned disciples who were moping down the dusty road to Emmaus on the most fabulous day in history, Easter Day. Victory over the grave day, the day of all days, but They didn't know the Savior had walked out of the grave.
They didn't know that they were chatting with the risen Messiah. They saw their lives and the world through faulty spectacles, through despair-tinted lenses. and all the future looked dark. Until They paused. connected with the resurrected Christ, and looked again, Then, Luke says, their eyes were opened.
I bless your spiritual eyes to be opened. amidst your fellowship with the Lord today, so you can see as Jesus sees. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Isn't it interesting, fascinating, and wonderful? that there can be A transcendent victory.
A A win. a piece of wonderful news. that can be so good That while it doesn't erase all the pain, that went before. It does rewrite the story. That's Pastor Alan Wright.
Happy Easter and welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in our Easter series as presented at Rinolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, which can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
So, as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we'll happily send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or if you prefer, call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on all of this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's Easter teaching. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? There's no Fear so great.
Our disappointment So deep. Our valley so low. That An actual meeting with the resurrected Lord Jesus and all that that means. in the encounter of his love. couldn't make Okay.
The Resurrection of Christ and the meeting of him makes all of... our past pain go away. But I am saying Yeah. It rewrites our story. It puts our story in a different light.
And that really does change everything. Oh.
So, I've been given sort of a quota of sorts on how many golf illustrations I'm allowed to use. I'm not going to tell you who gave me the quota, I'll just give you his initials. His initials are Chris Lawson. But I'm sorry, I just have Jesus, I have the Word of God, I have family, and I got golf, and I just don't have that much else.
So they show up in the illustrations that I shouldn't be put on a quota, but I have been. Except when I said, Pastor Chris, have I reached my quota for this quarter? He said, Yes, but. If you're going to talk about the Masters and Rory McElroy, that doesn't count because everybody's thinking about the Masters and Rory McElroy.
So, this is not a golf illustration. It doesn't count against my quota. It's a human interest story. Rory McElroy was born in 1989 in Northern Ireland, and pretty soon they recognized he was a golf child prodigy. There's video of him chipping.
inside his house into the washing machine for practice. Both his parents took on extra jobs so they could help fund Rory's golf ambitions, and he was amazing. By age 17, He was amateur world champion. He was very clearly coming on the scene as one of the best golfers we've ever seen. And the world adored him with his baby face and those towering iron shots and his swagger with which he'd walk.
And he was met with early success on the tour. His first victory in our own backyard, right down here in Charlotte at Quayle Hollow, where on the last day he set the course record 62, beating Phil Mickelson by four strokes. Everybody loved him. And he always had a problem at the Masters on the sacred ground of Augusta National Golf Club.
Something would happen when he had a chance. It would happen over and over again. The worst of which was when he came with all of his youthful vitality in 2011 and carried a four-shot lead into the back nine. and got to hole number ten. And his swing just left the building.
His swing was gone. His T-shottle number 10 landed somewhere near Alabama. He made a triple bogey on the whole. The implosion had started. He got to the iconic number 12 par 3 and for-putted.
He shot an AD. And he fell out of the top 10. Didn't even make the top 10. It haunted him ever since. He won the other majors, U.S.
Open, PGA Championship, British Open. He just couldn't seem to win the Masters. And it's been hanging on him like a weight. Everything he's always choking. He's always going to implode.
He has his chances. 2015 is in the final group on the final day. Shot a six over parr, fell out of contention. 2018, the final pairing, once again, this time with Patrick Reed. Everybody wanted Rory to beat Patrick Reed.
And only golfers understand that. And. He imploded again, bogey number three, bogey number four, bogey number 11, bogey number 14, right? And next thing you know, he comes in about 10th. And it's just happened so many times, everybody, this year, when Rory was playing so good.
And he goes into the final day this past Sunday with a two-stroke lead. And everybody in the whole world that cares about golf is going, Is Rory going to do it this year? Is he going to fall apart again? And by his own admission later, he said he was extremely nervous on the first hole, and he just double-bogeed it. We're like, okay, here it goes.
It's happening. It's already happening. And Rory said later, it almost helped him. To go ahead and double boogie the first hole. Have you ever had something like that happen in your life, by the way?
It's like you worried about it so much that. When you finally just went ahead and messed up like you dreamed you might, you kind of felt better after that. You know, just get it over with. And so he just got his double bogey over with, and it was a little bit of a roller coaster, but he was really looking good. And he had a four-shot lead going into number 13.
And number 13 is an easy hole for him. It's a par five, beautiful azalea-laden green. It's just glorious. He hit a safe shot on the drive, hit a layup shot for a second instead of risking. He didn't want to go for it in two and wind up in the creek.
And now he's left with a little wedge shot into number 13. Just easiest shot that you could have. Just hit it about 30 feet left of the pin. It trickles down towards the hole. It's so safe.
It's so easy. Just a little wedge shot. Just a little chip shot up there. I mean, I think Pastor Chris could have maybe gotten it on the green. I doubt it.
But anyway, it was just so easy a shot you could ever hit. And he hit one of the worst shots I've seen a PGA Touring Pro hit. It didn't go right of the pin, it went left of the pin, it went right of the pin. And short, it was terrible. And it fell right back into the water in Ray's Creek.
And he makes a double bokey. And everybody's going, I cannot believe it. He just brought all these contenders back into it. The tournament was his.
Somehow, he stayed on that roller coaster, though, and he took a one-shot lead into hole number 18. All he's got to do is make a par and he will win the Masters finally. He had a nice drive, but his second shot he hit into a bunker and then his His sand shot was okay, but not great. And he had a fairly short putt to win the Masters, but it didn't even come close. And now he's got to be in a sudden death playoff with Justin Rose, who was on fire that day and had already made ten birdies.
And everybody's just going, he's blown it again. And you know what Rory's feeling too. the crushing disappointment of that. And y'all, I love. What Rory's Caddy said to him as they made their way back to the 18th tee for the sudden death playoff.
The catty said, Well, mate, If they told us on Monday before the tournament started that we'd be right here on Sunday in a two-man sudden-death playoff for the championship, we'd have taken that, wouldn't we? And Roy said, yeah. You know, sometimes you need to have a reset like that, don't you? I've done that. Just something to go.
I've had some real disappointments. But I could start fresh today.
Somehow you gotta reset for the new day, no matter what disappointment you faced. And Rory did. Striped his drive right down the middle center cut. This time didn't push his approach shot into a bunker, hit it straight over the pin where you're supposed to. Got some backspin, caught the downhill, brought it back to the hole about three feet away.
Just in rows, made his par. All that Rory had to do was tap in the little birdie putt, and Rory did it. And then he just crumpled down to the ground, fell on the green, and he was just literally shaking with what later he said that was relief, not joy. He said the joy came later, but this was just relief. And then he was overjoyed because the fact now.
Is because of this victory, Rory McElroy. Will not be remembered mainly as a master's choker. He'll be remembered as a masters champion. And he'll be invited to come back. every year for the rest of his life.
I bet it'll win again. It changed everything. The reason for that whole long story? Isn't it interesting, fascinating, and wonderful? That there can be A transcendent victory.
A A win. a piece of wonderful news. that can be so good That while it doesn't erase all the pain that went before. It does rewrite the story in a beautiful way. It somehow makes You okay?
And I think that's what Easter does. I was drawn to this text in John 20. because these disciples were so afraid that they'd lock themselves into a room. And it just feels like a picture of what can happen with our souls. when we've been through The Valley.
They're locked in, it said, for fear of the Jews. They were locked in for fear. of the future they were closed in. They couldn't have been more dejected. And Jesus came.
and appeared And said to them what he had said in John 14 in his discourse with the disciples. He came with this word for them. Peace. Peace. Be with you.
And I think that's God's word. for us today as well. What? This is a question I kept having from the Holy Spirit this week. What disappointment.
Or grief. Or failure. What? No matter how bad. could be so Look at that.
that it could not be Made okay. Redeemed. By the real presence. of the resurrected Lord Jesus who sets our eyes on the power of Jesus over death. And sets our eyes on the magnitude of hope that is ours in him.
That's what I keep hearing in my spirit all week. No matter what you've been through Easter rewrites the story. It changes the narrative. Doesn't wash away all the past pain, but like for Rory. It makes the difference.
2011, he still had a catastrophic loss at the Masters, but now it doesn't matter in the same way. One win. Can be so great that it changes everything, and that's what Easter is. You know, I don't really fault these disciples for being afraid. I mean, Rome had all the power.
Pastor Chris said last week that history shows that there could be thousands of people that might have been executed that very week. in the Roman Empire. They were always showing their might and They'd seen Jesus crucified. They had given up their Own dreams, their own family life, their own careers to follow Jesus, and now it just looked like it was all in a devastating way, all may be just wrong. Maybe they just been wrong about Jesus.
I don't know who was in that room. I don't know how many were in the room. We're told Thomas wasn't there, but it implies that maybe some of the apostles were there. I don't know. Maybe there's a big group of followers of Jesus in a big room.
I'm not sure. And I'm not sure. This text doesn't tell us. Had some of them gotten the news that the tomb was empty? You know, Mary, Magdalene, and other women had seen it and went to tell.
Peter and John had seen the empty tomb. Maybe some of them word had even begun to spread the tomb was empty. But it wasn't enough for them. They were really, really afraid. They were afraid of their future.
They were afraid of what could happen to them. And they were really ashamed. They also had to be dealing with those internal emotions, like we weren't there for him when he really needed us. They're dealing with all the uncertainties that come with life. They've got all the biggest questions swirling around their mind.
This is what disappointment does in your soul. This is what dejection looks like. It looks like fear. And they were just locked up. You can get locked.
Up. that kind of soupy darkness. And they were. It's hard to fault them for the fears they had because of the traumatic events that they'd been through. As we've been learning about the healing of anxiety all year long, I've been studying this.
Trying to learn more about trauma, and trauma affects us, and it affects our brain and our physiology, and how we're wired neurologically, and it takes healing. And The thing that is so important to the healing is that somehow we're not left alone in it. And that's why I just love that Jesus comes. to them. This is Jesus.
He, in resurrected form, glorified body, just appears. I don't know if that means that when you get a resurrected body that you can just walk through walls, maybe that's what we're going to have. I don't know. It's a glorious thought, though. This is the promise for all of us.
Jesus was the first fruits of resurrection, but every Christian is going to have a resurrected body like that, glorified.
So, we're going to still be ourselves and recognize one another, but the body's going to be able to do some stuff that we can't do in a natural body. And I don't know, maybe just walk through the wall, I don't know. But he just appeared right in the middle. They're locked up in fear, and he just suddenly is standing in their midst. If you're new to the Christian gospel or exploring the Christian gospel, or you want to know something about what it's all about, let me just tell you as plainly as I can the first and most important thing to know about Christianity.
It is not really a religion. Which is something that is designed to get you acting in the right way so that you could find God. That's not Christianity at all. Instead, the whole story of the Bible and the whole story of Christianity Is that we didn't know how to get to God, and we could never be good enough to get to God anyway.
So he came. He came. And he put on human flesh. And he became a baby born in Bethlehem. God came near to us.
And so, even on Easter Day, after all of these events, and they're so afraid. Jesus came. I don't know who all was there. I'm not sure exactly how he walked through the wall. None of that really matters.
What matters is. He came. He did not leave those who were hurting and fearful alone. Jesus once said in Matthew 9:11, Those who are well have no need of physician. He came towards those who really need him.
God does not disdain those who hurt. He is drawn to them. God does not leave alone those who are afraid. He comes to comfort them. This is what he does.
It's what he wants to do. I was thinking this week also, like, you know, in my flesh, I could think of all the things I'd say to those disciples, right? I mean, they had really let them down. Remember, Peter had denied them three times. Nobody was around at the cross except for some of the women, and now they're hiding.
They're supposed to be on a mission. They're hiding. Could have been that he could have just gone for the sarcasm. You know, thanks for all the support back there, guys. I really feel the love, you know.
He could have maybe just given the straight shame. You know, just tiss, tis, tiss, shame on you. I would have expected more of you guys. I mean, he could have done that. He could have just gone for the humor.
I leave for three days and this is what you come up with, a fear convention. He could have just spiked the football in their face. Told you so. What's wrong with y'all? could have just gone for harshness.
What's wrong with you? Get over it. Or maybe he could just talk to Peter directly. Peter, the rooster wake you up this morning?
Well, he didn't do any of that, did he? He just said, Peace be with you. Twice he said it. Peace be with you. I think it's worthy of note.
that the first words Of the risen Lord Jesus to an assembled group of Christians. Must peace be with you. Pastor Alan Wright. Our good news message from this Easter series. Unlock the power of blessing your life.
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