Good. It's good to be with you guys. It's a really, really, really good Friday, and I'm just glad

that you're spending it with us. If we haven't met yet, my name is Grant Trout, and I'm brand new to

staff, and so I am helping Freddie, our unbelievably talented worship leader, with young adults.

And so wife and I moved up here five months ago, and it's such a privilege and honor to be here with you guys. About a year and a half ago, I was working out in Branson, Missouri, random place in Missouri, and my parents came to visit me, and my two best friends came out to visit me, and they said, hey, we got something planned for you. It's going to be exciting. And they said, we're going to take you to a play.

And I was like, man, if there's a list of top 100 things, like, it's not a play. Guys, do you know me? And they said, no, it's not any play. It's the Jesus play. And so we're going to see the life of Jesus played out on a screen. And this was not any play. guys, I showed up.

This is a 300-foot stage that wrapped around both sides a hundred live animals in the play I am in the stands and there are camels walking

down the aisles there are birds being let out like blowing by my face and I'm like are these

trained like who's getting these back here? And I remember being in

this play, but there was a moment that I'll never forget. It's when Jesus saved the demon-possessed

man. And there's this song that the demon-possessed man is singing. And I look over, and there's this

75-year-old usher, who's a lady, and she has both of her arms raised, and she's singing the song, and she's crying. The tears are rolling down her face. And I was like, I've got to ask her story. And so during the intermission, it's a two-and-a-half-hour play, and I walk up to her, and I just said, hey, what did Jesus do for you? And she looks at me, and she smiles, and sheing up with tears again. And she goes, he changed everything about my life. I was in a relationship I shouldn't have been in. He brought me out. He brought me to Branson, Missouri. And now every single day I get to watch what my Savior did for me as my job. And she stopped me and she goes, but Grant, I want to tell you something. She goes,

I meet people every single day at this play that tell me they're Christians. And then I meet every

once in a while, I'll meet someone that has truly encountered the cross of Christ. And I said,

what's the difference? Like, how do you, how do you tell? She said, Grant, there's a fire in their eyes

and there's a freedom in their heart.

And it shook me because I think so many of us,

I grew up in a church just like this,

we know what this represents.

Like we know what the cross means,

but I don't know if we know the power behind this cross. I don't know if we've been truly

transformed by this cross. And so on Good Friday, there are so many different directions we could

go tonight. We could talk about the physical pain, the crucifixion, the scourging, everything

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