A Walk Through Easter Week

I'm going to look this morning at God's Word in relationship to what happened in Easter week. And, by the way, as you can see, a lot of folks have been working quite a bit to get ready. This Easter presentation will be different from last year's. It is going to be extremely powerful, and I'm going to be talking a little bit about that during this message. But one thing I don't want to forget to mention, that next Saturday morning, bright and early like today, when you want to get up on a spring morning and get to work, at 8am, a whole bunch of folks are going to be here to start retooling the sanctuary for Easter services. So how many of you own pickup trucks? How many of you own pickup trucks? Four people. That's interesting. You might think I'm going somewhere with this. I'm going to say, all of you who have pickup trucks, I really don't need you. It's the people who have cars. That's the other 96% of you. Seriously, how many of you might be able to come for an hour or two on Saturday next week to help us sort of reconfigure things, pull these things out? How many of you like to just tear things apart? If you're good at that, we really do need you. So let me just see hands of how many guys and gals would say, I'd be available and I'll show up between 8 and 9, if you want to get an extra cup of coffee. All right. Thank you. I can't see all your hands, but if you put them up, I'm just going to count on you being here. We really do need about 100 people to make it happen in the course of a couple hours so we can be ready for Easter. What a time it's going to be this week. I'm just blessed to be part of it, to be really honest. This excitement, it's seasonal, but yet it's beyond that. By the way, there's one other thing to notice here. Can we lift the screen up just a moment, please, up there? For those of you who wonder, you know, I like this church except they just don't have a cross in this church anywhere. We have two crosses today. I want you to notice that, okay? There's one back there and one up here as well. So there you go. So if you're insecure, we do believe in having a cross in the sanctuary, okay with that? Take a deep breath and say, okay. I was concerned we had this cross and then we had the screen that blocked and you wouldn't see that. So we have two of them today and there's a reason for all this. And the reason is that we don't worship a cross. Well, I've never heard you say that before. I don't know that I ever have said it before. We worship a person who died on the cross. His name is Jesus. And it's rather stunning after all, isn't it, friends, that when you look at life, and we share life at its fullest right now, don't we? This is the most wonderful time to be alive and even if you lost your shirt in the stock market last week, it's still a great time to be alive. We get to do things that kings 300 years ago only dreamed of doing, flying across oceans to visit places, living in homes and having our own private space and vehicles to get around in and food and everything that most of us could want. And yet when you shake it all out, isn't it very interesting that despite all of that, all the technological advances, all the progress in society, all the rest, life, when you strip it apart, still primarily comes down to one major question. What are you going to do with this person called Jesus? I find that fascinating. I mean, I read quite broadly. I try to stay in tune with what the world's talking about. It's interesting, I mean, even one of the major networks is going to do a mini-series on Jesus. I guess they thought he was newsworthy enough. Their little trailer thing says, you know, he changed history. We date our calendars by him and all that. And it's true, we do. But the only difference is this isn't just a story. This happened. And I want to talk about Easter week and I want to talk about what happened during that week that we all need to be alerted to so that we can fully enter into this week and come away changed as God's people and perhaps be used by the Lord to see others changed as well. What do we do with this Jesus? Some say he was a great teacher. Some say, well, he was just a great moral leader and so. But Jesus said this. He said, I am God. And that is either a very profound statement or a very problematic one, isn't it? Because he can't be both. I mean, he can't be a great teacher and say, I am God. He can't be a great leader and say, I'm God. I can stand up here today and perhaps give you a wonderful message. And you might say, well, Pastor Jay just had a great message today and you thank God for the gift that the Lord's allowed him to preach. But if I came up next week and said, hey, by the way, I'm God. If you're smart, you'd go somewhere else, right? Well, Jesus unapologetically said, I am God. So he was either a lunatic, didn't know what he was saying, crazy. Or he was a liar and trying to deceive people and willfully doing so. Or he was who he said he was. And we're going to talk next week a lot more about what that issue of saying, well, if he's the Lord, what does that mean? Because here in America, we have a really tainted idea of that. But I want to talk this week about what happened just prior to the resurrection. And it begins in this day that we call Palm Sunday. And it begins with what the event that we call the triumphal entry. So if you're taking notes, take your outline out and fill in the first blank because the triumphal entry of Jesus shows us his purpose. Go ahead and write the word purpose in there. And now you can see that's actually a shot from last year's presentation, now that I look at it. The triumphal entry of Jesus shows us his purpose. There's a great stir outside the city of Jerusalem for many weeks. Jesus had been called the Messiah. Now, that's not a word we hear very often in America, Messiah. I mean, what is that? That, in the Jewish tradition, was a promised deliverer who was prophesied by the Old Testament prophets, was going to come and release the Jews from 600 years of captivity. They'd been slaves for 600 years. And there was going to come a person who was going to set them free from that captivity. And they expected this Jesus, or this Messiah, to come in some powerful way and release them from the Roman army and set them free, maybe on a great white stallion, some kind of victorious, powerful military leader or whatever. But instead, he made his entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. And that didn't seem to fit. But the reason it didn't fit is because look at the next verse. They didn't read their Bibles very clearly, the scrolls that they had. Look at the verse. It says, Rejoice greatly, O people of Zion. That's the people of Israel. Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem. Speaking directly to the city. Look, your king is coming to you. He's righteous and victorious, yet he is humble. Say it with me. Riding on a donkey, even on a donkey's coal. So had they carefully read the scrolls, they would have known. And by the way, let me just wake a couple of you up and say, you better read your Bible very carefully about the second coming. Because we may find ourselves very much like the people back then and miss the signs of his second coming. They missed him. They weren't prepared because they hadn't read. They hadn't studied. They hadn't prepared themselves. I just want to say something. I didn't even leave room for this because I thought of it after the fact. But you might just want to jot this in under the next verse there. God rarely comes in the ways that we expect him to come. So again, God rarely comes in the ways that we expect him to come. We may be looking for him to come through some person that we think is a godly person. And we may expect him to send shivers down our spine sometime. And that's how we know it's God. Or we may expect some kind of experience or lightning bolt. And he may not come that way. He may come very simply. He may come very quietly. He may come in a way that you never anticipated. But friends, he will always come and fulfill his word. Look at the next verse. The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles that they had seen. You see, Jesus did fulfill his word. But he didn't do it in the way that they expected. He came to redeem them. Next blank, Jesus is our Redeemer. Jesus is our Redeemer. What does that mean? He is our Redeemer. Well, I thought about this, and that's not a word we use very often. How many of you remember green stamps? Date yourself a little bit. Yeah, and what did you do when you got a bunch of green stamps? Traded them in at the redemption center, right? There used to be one down at McKnight Road. And they had three or four things, like a rake and a skillet and a couple of things you'd get for your green stamps. But we saved those up and piled them, didn't we? Remember that? And I was thinking, what's a good image of redemption? And it'll be two years this Friday since my dad died. April 21st, he died two years ago. And next to the Lord and his family and serving at the church, nothing brought my dad more joy than restoring antique cars. Funny thing was, the greater the challenge of the restoration, the more he enjoyed it. And that flew right in the face of his relationship with my mom. I remember one night, I was in high school, and I was already in bed. He came home late at night. And my room was right near the driveway. And I heard the car pull in, and the lights went off, and even the engine went off. But I heard the wheels going down. It was my dad in his car, and he had a trailer behind it with an old junk car that he picked up in West Virginia somewhere, all rusted out and primered and bumpers strapped on over the side of it, no windows, anything. And I heard my mom get up. And I just remember this thing going on, something like, you're not bringing that piece of junk into this house. So it sat outside the garage that night. Next day, somehow, dad talked her into it and rolled it in the garage. And then for a couple of years, that's where it stayed. And he worked and worked and worked. And the word to redeem means to restore to its original purpose, intended purpose. Well, several years later, if you were watching, you already saw this was the outcome. That's the car that he rolled in. It's a 1946 Plymouth convertible. If you saw the Karate Kid, that's the car that he used, well, one night. Pretty cool, huh? I mean, I wouldn't mind having that to ride around in today, actually. But that car now runs like a top. It's been redeemed, you see? It was a junker. Rusted out and basically worthless. But with a lot of love and care and hard work, my dad redeemed that car. Friends, one of the reasons that Jesus came is to be our Redeemer, to give us life, fullness of life, purpose and meaning, relationships, freedom from guilt. These are things you just don't find in the normal course of life. Look at the next verse. When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, look, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. One of my concerns in this church is that a lot of us are not receiving our full rights, all the benefits, all the blessings that God's intended for us. Jesus wants us to know those things. He died that we might receive them. Now, some of us have made a real mess of our lives, and we're desperate for a change. We know we need redeemed. We know we need restored to our original intended purpose. You're going to hear a story in a moment from someone who was desperately needing redeeming, but there are a great number of people, particularly in America today, who have another problem. And that is, even though they know there's a God, 96% or so say, yeah, definitely there's a God out there. And 92% say probably Jesus was God, 58% of those people say, but he's not relevant to everyday life. So they don't understand that they need redeemed. I mean, when it comes to death and dying in heaven, they think, well, I'll get to that sometime, but I'm not sure about now. I'm not sure that's what I need. I'm kind of doing okay. I'm kind of making it fairly well. I mean, I'm self-sufficient. I'm doing okay with my family. I don't know if I need that quote here. I hear this, that religious crutch. But the problem is, friends, it's not so much a crutch that you need. It's maybe glasses to see yourself as God really sees you. Because outside of his purpose, outside of moving in what God designed for you in the fullness of your sonship, the Rolls-Royce of a life that some of us think that we have in the eyes of God is really just a rusted out Model T. And we need to come to terms with that. Look at Luke 19.41, as they came closer to Jerusalem. Now, as Jesus is walking in through Bethany, and he's riding on the colt now. Says he saw the city ahead, and I've been to the Holy Land a couple of times, and I can tell you, it's just that you go down this long hill, and you look up, and you see this incredible cityscape with a big wall around it. And it's a very clear, it would be like driving down from the north side and then coming into where the three rivers meet and looking up at Mount Washington. It's that kind of impressive, broad landscape that you see. It says this, Jesus saw the city ahead, and he began to cry. Would you circle that? He began to cry. He says, I wish that even today you would find the way of peace, but now it is too late. And I did a little research. You know, Jesus only wept two times in the Bible. You know when they were? The first time was when? Right, when he saw Lazarus, and he saw the pain that death caused people. In a simple little verse, John, I think it's 1133, Jesus wept, he wept. And here's the other time that he cried. He cried at the blindness of the people who didn't see that the Messiah was coming. And I have to say, I believe that when Jesus Christ looks on Wexford, and Pittsburgh, and America, in many respects, I believe that he weeps for our blindness. I wanna ask you today, do you know anybody that's needing redeeming? Do you know anyone that needs to find their purpose for life? Do you know any folks that need to see Jesus as the king who came to set them free? Free from wasted lives, and from wickedness, and from meaningless routines? He came to redeem us from addiction, and from false gods like pride, and materialism, and power, and hedonism, and religious efforts for self-attained forgiveness, for every hopeless thought that some of us have had. Depression and despair from every possible burden of life, financial, or loneliness, or whatever it might be. Jesus came to redeem, all hail, King Jesus, the Redeemer. That's what the people said. And there's only two reasons why you might resist that today. One is, he doesn't come the way you expect. Maybe you came today and you said, I didn't expect all this, or I don't know what I believe about all this. I just wanna say, friend, once again, don't confine God to what you expect. Just listen to your heart. And number two, many people miss Jesus because the religious leaders of his day opposed him. And I wanna say this, you need to apply it to your life the way you know it applies. There are many of us who grew up with our religious leaders telling us certain things about the Bible, certain things about God, and telling us that only certain interpretations were right. And many of us have bought what other religious leaders have told us, instead of looking for ourself. And I just wanna say this, don't ever let a religious leader keep you from finding the Messiah. Don't ever let somebody's words keep you from hearing the words of life. My simple pragmatic answer to those of you who've heard people say, I wouldn't go to a church like that, or I wouldn't do this, or I wouldn't watch that person on TV or this. My simple answer is this, is what you're hearing from that person giving you life? Is it working in your life? Do you have peace with God? If so, then go for it. But if not, then say, thank you very much for your opinion, but I'm gonna find out if this Jesus is real. It's the most important question in all of life. Jesus is our Redeemer. Second, I wanna talk today about the death of Jesus, because the death of Jesus shows his passion. Now this redemption is the result, this buying back of the price that Jesus paid for our lives. And I wanna put this verse in front of you, 1 Peter 1, 18. Just jot it down, I forgot to put it on the outline. You see, when Jesus bought us back, when he redeemed us, it says, it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life, but with the precious blood of Christ. You see, we weren't bought by a bag of silver or gold. Someone didn't just purchase us with some cash, but it was the blood of Christ that was spent for us. I want you to follow this for just a second. God has established law and order, has he not? I mean, all authority, Bible says, Romans 13, 1, comes from God. When laws are broken, a price is paid. Let me give you an illustration. How many have heard of the law of gravity? Okay, a little test for you. Go on, borrow a ladder, climb up on the roof of our building, and jump off. And you can say, I don't believe in the law of gravity. So you hit the ground and break your leg, or whatever you do, and you'll discover there's a price to pay for breaking the law, right? Go over 40 miles an hour on Route 19, and there's a price to pay. Right, Pastor Jeff? Where are you? Yeah, just for you to confirm that, it's just there's a price to pay for breaking the law. Don't pay your taxes tomorrow by midnight. There's a price to pay. Likewise, in the eternal courts, we have violated the law of God. In other words, we were called into a relationship with God, according to his terms, and all of us who are honest know that we violated that. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I just have to ask you, anyone here who wonders if whether or not, have you fallen a little short of the glory of God for your life? See, most everyone is honest enough to say, you know what? I've not lived a perfect life, I know that. The Bible tells you very clearly, all have sinned. Not one is righteous, it's right there on your outline, Romans 3.10. And the wages of that sin, the Bible clearly says, is death. In other words, the penalty that you pay for breaking that law of sinning is death, spiritual death, and spiritual death is separation from God forever. We say, well, that's awfully stiff, Pastor Jay. And the reason is, is because you see, when you sin, you're saying basically, God, I don't need you, I'm gonna run my own life. And God says, fine, run it on your own without me. And hell is just eternal separation from God. So the wages of sin is death. And on that day, when you stand before God to give an account, there will be no plea bargaining, no negotiating down your sentence, no blames, and saying, you know, they just didn't tell me right in my church when I was growing up. We will be called to give an account. And I just wanna ask you, what will you tell God? You're gonna give in payment for your sin. What will you offer to pay as your penalty? Well, God, if I'd really known how serious you were about this, I would have done it a little differently. I would have given you a little bit more of my resource, a little bit more. I mean, I would have. And by the way, you know, Lord, I'm not that bad. I mean, put it on the big scale of things. I know some people are a lot worse sinners than I was. And really, Lord, if I look at my life kind of objectively, I was a pretty good person. I was a good mom, good dad. I was faithful. But you see, the Bible said there's only one standard for living with God, and that's perfection. And there was only one perfect person, and that was Jesus. So the only way you can be with God forever is to have that life in you. There's no other way. And as simple as that is, you know, most Americans don't get that. They grade themselves on the curve. They think, well, I wasn't as bad as Hitler. I'm not as good as Mother Teresa was, but I'm gonna make it on my merit. The only payment for sin is death. And that's why Jesus comes into the picture, you see, because he realizes someone's gotta pay for this. Someone's gotta pay for the sin of these people. And so the only one who didn't deserve to die for his sin, willfully chose to die. And I wanna talk to you about that death for just a couple moments. As we walk through Easter week, because I'm not sure we fully understand. We know some of the elements, you know, the soldiers and the officials and the crowds and all that stuff. But if we wanna know Jesus as our savior, we need to understand a couple things about his death. Matthew 26, the Bible clearly says that Jesus began this terrible time of suffering. In verse 67, after he was arrested, the Bible says simply this, that they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. So I wanna stop right there. How many people are sitting here today and you've been struck with a fist? Now, don't put up your hand. Looking at some of the guys around here, some of the guys, I can tell. You don't need to put up your hand, I can tell. You've duked it out a few times, a couple broken noses around here. But most of us, really, most of us have never even been struck with a fist. I mean, either of those things, to be spit on or struck with a fist would cause enormous trauma to most every one of us here. That was the very first thing that happened to Jesus. That began his torture. And they dragged him off before Pilate. And Pilate tried to figure out what was going on with this. And he didn't wanna get embroiled in the whole thing. But he gave into the crowd. And I asked our tech people to put up here on the screen for you a few verses out of Matthew chapter 27. Let's just read them together, shall we? And all the people gathered before Pilate answered, let his blood be on us and on our children. Then they released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified. I just wanna pause there. He had Jesus flogged. We just read that word flogged. And we say, well, yeah, that's some old thing that they used to do. What that was, was this. They took a heavy leather whip. And on the end, they had what was called a cat of nine tails. And on each of those leather strips that came out, nine of them, they tied bits of metal or glass or small pieces of sharp rock. And then they bound the individual over a stump, so that they were totally immobilized, bent over. And then they just wailed away 39 times. And the reason it was 39 was because the Roman law said 40 was maximum punishment. And if you went over 40, you would receive the same. So the person administering the punishment was very careful and stopped at 39 just in case they miscounted. And it was not uncommon for the flogging itself and the bleeding that followed to kill the person. But that's what they did to Jesus. Let's read on. And then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. The company, you know, is about 150 people. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. And then they twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. I just wanna point out, that crown of thorns, these are sharp, barbed things. And this isn't just some little pleasant, cute little thing that you see. This is painfully penetrating into his skin. Let's go ahead, next slide please. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail, king of the Jews, they said, mocking what had just happened a few days before. And they spit on him and took this staff and struck him on the head. Remember, he has this crown of thorn things, and it's piercing. And how many of you have ever been scratched or punctured in the forehead? What happens when you get that, something in your forehead? What happens? A lot of blood, right? I mean, just something happens there, a lot of blood comes down. I don't think the movies that we see, the reenactments that we see come close to describing how bloody this face was. Isaiah the prophet says, he was bloodied beyond recognition. And they mocked him and then threw his own clothes back on him and led him away to be crucified. He'd been up for 24 hours, he was exhausted. He was beaten. And I won't talk a long time about the crucifixion. It's such a common image. But the spikes that they took weren't gone through the palms like you often see. They went right here underneath this bone in your wrist, because the weight of the body wouldn't hold otherwise. And just go ahead and pinch right there. There's a nerve that goes right there. It's the same nerve that runs up your funny bone. You know how you hit your funny bone once in a while? Imagine someone driving a spike through right there. They did that in both arms. And the way people died, by the way, in crucifixion, was not really normally because of the pain or the injury. It was because when they were hung there, they began to suffocate. Because when you're hanging, your body weight is hanging. They could breathe in, but they couldn't exhale the poison. So what the Romans would do would be to cross the legs over just a little bit and put a little step at the bottom. That's why you see some crosses have a little step at the bottom. So that a little bit of your body weight could be there, and then the person could just heave up a little bit to get the air out, just like that. And it was not uncommon for people to live two or three days like that. That's why Pilate was surprised when he checked on Jesus. In just a few hours, he was dead. And normally, the Romans, when they felt like a person couldn't just, you know, should be over, they would come and break their legs. And they would die in a matter of moments just because of the, you see, and that's what sin costs. That's the penalty. And I just want to say today, if you can look at that dispassionately, if you can just listen to that and say, well, you know, guess somebody had to do it. Then dear ones, you need to look at your life. You need to ask God to take the blinders off of your eyes and see how much he loved you and see how terrible our sin is. And let that be for you a motivation when temptation comes to realize that when you give in to that temptation, it's that very reason that Jesus suffered the way that he did. And don't you thank God for the fact that Jesus willingly gave himself to die for us. And don't you thank him for the fact that he took our penalty. I want you to hear a story today from someone who's discovered Jesus in both of these roles, as both Redeemer, one who gave her back her intended purpose, and as Savior, one who paid the price for her sin. Now listen carefully. We have testimonies here very regularly, but I want you to listen to the testimony. And I want you to listen in detail, because the numbers are not inflated and the story's not exaggerated. It's a true story. It's a story about how much God loves us and how powerful he is. I want you to give a warm welcome. Would you please, to Nancy Schmidt as she comes to give her testimony. Hi Nancy, I'm sorry you have to walk up that long platform. And this is your son with you? Yes, I asked Arie to come and share with me, because he's so much a part of the story. Her name's Arie. Arie. Bless you, okay, go ahead. Good morning. The medical report read 44-year-old white female, blood alcohol level 0.57, stomach pumped for overdose of Valium. This third hospital admission in three months, at least 20 hospital admissions over the past 20 years for alcohol, depression, and cirrhosis of the liver. This is poor, little hope of recovery. Patient has lost all hope in the will to live. This was part of the medical report of my last hospital admission on September 24th, 1998. My life was supposed to be over according to my plans, but God had other plans. Let me tell you a little about how I got to this point. I was 26 years old, divorced, no job, living in my parents' attic with my two-year-old son. Prior to this, I was happily married for seven years, had a nice home, two car garage, and a dog, the American dream. This all came to an unexpected end when my husband met another woman. After the divorce, I was lost and lonely. Most of all, I was filled with tremendous fear, fear of the unknown, fear of taking care of myself. How was I going to raise a child on my own? This was not part of my plan. I was not prepared for this. I had no job, no husband, no money. This is when I found my false God. This new God was alcohol and Valium. This new God of mine was my daily friend. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I thought about him. This false God took away my fear, my anxiety, and my loneliness. I did not have to think or feel anything when we were together. This new friend told me that I never had to be lonely again. Just drink me, swallow me. I'll take away your fear. I'll take away your anxiety. I'll take away your loneliness. You don't need anyone. You don't need anything. You just need me. I had a very reliable friend, and I just stopped feeling. I viewed my life from this point as an outsider. Life was going on around me. People were laughing, living, touching, interacting, having relationships, and I was in a bubble. I was in a world of total isolation and loneliness. I was just getting through each day. I was a daily drinker, and when things got rough, I had Valium to couple with the alcohol. Over the past 15 years, I tried numerous times to get help with my addiction through psychiatrists, psychologists, rehabs, detox centers, but I could not stop drinking. I was too afraid to face life. I was terrified of what I may feel and what I may find. The loneliness and the despair was all too overwhelming. Even though I was diagnosed with the cirrhosis of the liver, I could not stop drinking. All these years, I continued to work and had a good job. I was supplying all the material needs for my son, a private school, a car for his 16th birthday, vacation, clothes, and I'll look well on the outside. It really looked like I had it together. I was able to pull this off for many, many years. I always looked and acted professional. On the inside, I was dead. I was an empty shell just existing. About two years ago, I could no longer hold this together anymore. My son was now 19 years old, and I was feeling less and less needed by him. I was beginning to feel that my purpose for life was over. I was finding it harder and harder every day just to get up for work and to function. I had no purpose. I had no direction. Life had become too much of a burden, and I had lost all hope, and I wanted to die. I planned what I thought were going to be my last days here. I sent my son to Germany to visit my sister. I did not want him to be here when they found me dead. Due to some very unusual circumstances, I ended up here at North Way, and during the week that I was planning my end, I came here very reluctantly. I don't remember what it was exactly, what Pastor Jay said, but at some point during the service, my heart was softened. It was pierced, and I just began to weep. All my defenses fell down, and at the end of the service, I shared with one of my elders all my total despair and my hopelessness. He prayed with me and quoted from the scripture, Jeremiah 29, 11, where God says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, "'plans for good and not for evil, "'to give you a future and a hope.'" And I remember thinking, a future and a hope, could this possibly mean for me that I could have a future? Could there really be hope when I felt so hopeless and at the end? I left here, and later that week, I pursued my plan of self-destruction, but my God had other plans. I ended up in an emergency room, strapped to a bed, to a table, wheeled into a dark room by myself, and this is where I found the presence and the Word of my Jesus. I had a sense of overwhelming peace and love, a sense of hope. This was over a year and a half ago. I've not had a pill or a drink since that day. My liver is completely healed. I started to attend North Way on a regular basis. I went through the Alpha program, which was a wonderful experience. I met Christian friends here who walked along with me and answered the questions I had. I took a Bible class. I went to a woman's retreat. I'm currently signed up for a cell group and