Saints & Sinners

Spending some time downtown in our beautiful city last week, you can't help but notice the amount of homeless men and women who make their beds on the streets of Sydney. Many of them hold cardboard signs reading, "Homeless…Hungry, please help".

As I watched many corporate men and women, shoppers and families walk past these precious people each morning, I couldn't help but wonder how many times I had done the same. And I wondered, if I held up a cardboard sign…what would it read?

Just a few years ago at our 25th anniversary, we did just that. Congregation members who had been saved at Hillsong over our 25 years, stood up on the platform with cardboard signs. On one side wrote words that described their past; honest revelations such as: drug addict, liar, gambler. And yet on the other side were words of redemption, words that described the hope they had in their new life with Christ.

You've heard the phrase, "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". Well that, my friend, is the story of each one of us…sinners. And the redemption message is the very central theme of Easter.

As we gather in our churches this weekend, as we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, can I encourage you: do not overlook anyone. This message is as much to myself as it is to you…Jesus came for ALL. He knows what was written on our old cardboard sign (and believe me, we all have one) and He knows what is written in our future. He doesn't walk by the dirty and the lonely, but He stops and sits, He believes and prays, knowing that there is hope and life and answers found in His Father.

May the pews and chairs and school halls and arenas the world over be filled with sinners this Easter weekend. All of us saved by grace - all of us with a past and yet, with a hope for the future. May your unsaved family and friends find themselves in communion and at Easter dinner tables this weekend with understanding men and women who have found LOVE and PEACE in the rugged cross of Calvary.

Easter is all about JESUS.
By His blood we are saved. And by His stripes, we are healed.
He did die… but Thank God, He rose again.

From our family to yours, have a wonderful, safe and happy Easter.
Love, Brian

For all of our Good Friday & Easter Sunday service times and locations please visit myhillsong.com/easter