The Importance of the Resurrection

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information on our church, please visit grandparkway.org.

Amen.

You can have a seat if you've got a Bible.

I want you to take it, open up to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And uh I'll pick up reading in Matthew chapter 28, verse 1.

Matthew 28:1

Now notice that when we began our service, we read, some of you weren't there.

Matter of fact, I'll actually start reading at the end of chapter 27, verse 62, because some of you, I know it's Easter, and you've got to beat your kids and get them out the door on time and all that good stuff.

And so you might have walked in later.

I want you to get the context of what is going on.

Jesus has died, he's been buried, and the people of his day, they realize, hey, if we can just keep him from from the disciples from stealing his body because they just didn't have any context for the resurrection.

And by the way, you got to keep in mind that the resurrection wasn't more believable back then than it is now.

Let me say that again.

The resurrection wasn't easier to believe back then than it is now, because a lot of times we read things in the Bible and we think, oh yeah, well, they live with Jesus.

It's always easier for them.

Have you ever thought about it this way?

That these people walked with Jesus, his disciples, for three, three and a half years, best we can tell, and none of them expected him to rise from the dead.

Despite the fact that he told them the Son of Man is going to go to Jerusalem, he's going to suffer at the hands of sinful men, he's going to be beaten, he's going to be humiliated, and he's going to be crucified, and he buried in Horizon again on the third day.

Despite the fact that he told the religious leaders of his day, you destroy this temple, and I'll raise it up in three days, and boy, they tore their clothes at the thought of that.

They thought he was talking about tearing down their church building.

You want to get church people mad, you do something to their building.

You spill some coffee on our carpet this morning, an alarm will go off.

I'm just kidding, because I've already spilled mine this morning.

But anyway, I mean, you think they knew this coming, but here we are on the third day, and none of the male disciples show up.

Only some women, and they come with spices to anoint the body because they just that's what they did with dead people.

The resurrection wasn't any easier to believe back then.

And by the way, a lot of people claimed to be the Messiah and they would get a following, some as many as two, three thousand followers, and then they would be killed, and the following would go away.

See, that's what distinguishes Christianity is the resurrection, because when Jesus died and rose from the dead, just like he said he would, Christianity exploded.

Within 300 years of his death, burial, and resurrection, Christianity had permeated the entire Roman Empire.

Why?

Because of what we're going to read this morning.

Let's start reading verse 62 of chapter 27.

It says the next day, that is, after the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, Sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive, after three days, and I will rise.

Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, He's risen from the dead, and the last fraud will be worse than the first.

Pilate said to them, You have a guard of soldiers.

Here, go make it as secure as you can.

Translation, do all you can do to keep Jesus from being who he said he was going to be.

And so they went and they made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here, for he is risen.

As he said, Come, see the place where he lay, and then quickly go and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee, and there you will see him.

See, I have told you.

What's the big deal about the resurrection?

Why did some of you go buy a new dress and buy new shoes?

Why last night at 7 30 did our eighth grade daughter announce to my wife and I, Oh, I need some shoes for Easter?

I'm like, just go barefoot.

Jesus was barefoot, okay?

Some of you are here because your mom said, I'm not gonna buggy by going to church, but I want you to come to church with me on Easter.

And you're like, all right, get off my back.

I'm here.

And so you're looking at your watch right now thinking, uh-huh, how long is this gonna take?

Usually we go till noon, so get comfortable, okay?

Just kidding.

Some guys like.

What's the big deal about the resurrection?

You see, because that's why they said, hey, seal the tomb and roll the stone in there and kind of mortar it up around the edges just so this thing won't get out of hand, and we will disprove that because if Jesus doesn't rise from the dead, you don't have a faith worth telling anybody about.

You don't have a Bible that can be believed, and you don't have anybody to believe in.

That's why this week I walked around listening to the musical group and Need to Breathe.

They have a great CD.

But they have a song on it called These Hard Times.

And it just opens up with this driving beat and it says, Give me something brighter, give me something I can see, give me something vicious, give me something I can be.

It's just that's the cry of their heart.

That's what these people were about.

Jesus was buried.

They thought, well, that was fun while it lasted.

When they were expecting it, Mary and the other women show up and there's no one there.

And the angel says, Hey, just like he told you.

Just like he told you.

And all of a sudden Christianity explodes.

Why?

Because of the resurrection.

Well, then what's the big deal about the resurrection?

Four things I just want to point out this morning about the resurrection.

Number one, the resurrection assures us of God's forgiveness.

The resurrection assures us of God's forgiveness.

All of us, everybody in this room has done things that we're not proud of.

The Bible calls it sin.

That's not a word that we use.

Your kids aren't gonna come in on a weekend or get up on a Saturday morning and say, What'd you do last night?

I fell asleep before you got home.

Well, I went out and sinned tremendously, Mom, if you gotta know.

No, they're gonna say, Well, I went to a party, I went to this, we went to so-and-so's house and watched movies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But the Bible says that we've all done things we're not proud of.

The Bible calls it sin, but not only does the Bible call it sin, it goes on to say, after it says that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the Bible also says this that the wages, the paycheck, what you get for sin, the wages of sin is death.

And so when you talk about the resurrection, see, quickly you got to get your head around it.

It assures us of God's forgiveness.

How is that?

Well, we've all sinned.

The wages of sin is death.

Then somebody has to die because of our sin.

That's what the Bible tells us.

That's why Jesus is walking.

The closer he gets to Jerusalem, the more he tries to point out, hey, this is what's coming.

It's like, I don't know what's like in your house, but we have a 14-year-old and an eight-year-old, and we tell our eight-year-old, hey, bedtime is coming.

8:30 is coming.

Have you got all your chores done?

Have you got all your homework done?

And about 8 o'clock, hey, you got 30 more minutes.

You can watch one more show about 8.15.

Get ready to brush your teeth.

8.29.

Okay, Sophie, time for bed.

Oh my gosh, what?

It's like it sticks up on her every night.

And I'm just like, I just look at my wife.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

But I don't say that because I'm just like, you don't want to frighten your children.

But every night I'm thinking, are you kidding me?

Does this surprise you?

You go to your bed and lay down and close your eyes, and I get to go to my bed and lay down and close my eyes.

It's called sleep.

But every night, my eight-year-old, every day my ear gets up and thinks she's gonna stay up all night or something.

Because she just flops on the floor.

She just melts like wax and slides off the couch on the floor.

And I'm just like, uh, we got any cigarettes in the house.

I just want to smoke.

Why do I tell you that?

Because Jesus had to be that way.

He's walking to Jerusalem in Mark's gospel.

Mark chapter 8, he says, the Son of Man's gonna go to Jerusalem and I'm gonna die.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

They're like, got it, check.

Mark chapter 9, the Son of Man's gonna go and I'm gonna suffer at the hands of sinful men, and then I'm gonna die.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You said that the other day.

Say something different, okay?

You just say the same thing all the time, Jesus.

You got this morbid thing.

What are you listening to?

Nine-inch nails music, you're obsessed with death.

Then in Mark chapter 10, he says, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Click.

Jesus begins to kind of attach his death to our need to be delivered from our bondage to sin, our commitment to do the wrong thing.

See, he links our forgiveness with his death.

That's why at the Passover meal, like we commemorated on Wednesday night right here in this room, he holds up the communion cup and he says, This blood of the covenant, this is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

It's fresh in the front of their minds.

They realize Jesus is dying because the wages of sin is death, and death is a consequence of sin.

Jesus is saying, not only is he dying, but he's dying in my place.

That's what makes Good Friday good.

That's why it's a horribly painful, destructive thing, and yet we call it Good Friday, because it's good because somebody was willing.

The Bible even says rarely will someone die for a good man, for for but maybe for a righteous, but but Christ died for us when we were still sinners, when we were a long way off.

If you're a long way off today, if you came in this morning and got, oh, they got coffee, maybe I'll get something out of this.

Let me just tell you this.

You may be a million miles from God in your mind, but I just want to tell you Christ has already died for you.

He's already died for you.

See, the resurrection assures us of God's forgiveness.

And the Bible says that.

See, well, how can we know that he achieved in his death what he said he would achieve?

Well, if he never, if he stays dead, we don't.

He's like all the other upstart messiahs.

He's just, hey, he it was fun while it lasted, but he didn't remain dead.

Paul saw this clearly, so he says in 1 Corinthians 15, as Christ is, if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

But you see, because the resurrection, how does it remind us or assure us of God's forgiveness that Christ has been raised?

And the possibility of forgiveness now exists for everybody in the room.

That's why someone asked me recently, said, Do you ever get nervous talking to people?

Not really, not because I'm not afraid of people.

I've had people pull a knife on me.

I was in New Mexico, I didn't know they still sold switch plates.

Wow! I was like, Wow, you've been to Tijuana?

Where'd you get that thing?

He's like, I'll cut you from ear to ear.

And I was like, Okay, yeah, got it.

Check.

Why are you staring at me?

Wasn't I just looking at you?

I never seen a person that big before.

What are you staring at me?

What do you want to say to me?

That little voice down in here says, Tell him.

Absolutely.

But what how can you tell him?

Not because of personality, but because of understanding.

You see, the Bible says that Christ died for this guy.

And so out of my mouth, and my friend Scott kind of steps up and says, Hey, we just said, Hey, here's the deal.

We don't know you, we're not judging you.

But let me tell you why we're here.

And it's this great opportunity just to kind of, hey, this this is well, I've done a lot of bad things.

Put your switchblade up.

Well, I've done a lot of bad things.

Oh, yeah, I almost did one just then, but let's not focus on that.

What am I saying?

And because he's raised from the dead, God gives us this assurance that he accepts Jesus' death on your behalf.

And by the way, this has always been the message of the church.

If you've got a Bible and you feel like turning, turn to the right to the book of Acts, we'll show you what I mean.

See, one of the uh universal needs of everybody in the world is forgiveness.

It's forgiveness.

See, the resurrection assures us of God's forgiveness.

Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

I'll start reading verse 39.

It'll come up on the screen.

See, this is always the message of Christianity.

This is the message of the church.

Sometimes the church gets infatuated with itself and we forget to tell you what we should be telling you on a consistent basis.

And it's in Acts chapter 10, verse 39.

Acts 10:39

He says that we are witnesses of all he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

They put him, Jesus, to death by hanging him on a tree.

But God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who have been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead, and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead.

Now get that just for a minute.

The Bible says we're commanded to tell you that God has appointed him.

He's gonna, he's it that we're supposed to tell you that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead.

Everyone is gonna face judgment, but look at the next verse, verse 43.

To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

You don't have to fear judgment because there's forgiveness.

You see, when I die, I'm gonna stand before a God who's going to evaluate my life, but he's also gonna evaluate my life on the basis that I'm forgiven.

I'm not perfect.

Don't have it all together.

See, the resurrection assures us, number one, of God's forgiveness.

Secondly, the resurrection reminds us of God's power.

Reminds us of God's power.

See, you have forgiveness for your past, but you have power in the present, in the moment.

Peter writes about it like this in 2 Peter chapter 1.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

He says, His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.

Remember Peter?

Remember Peter was the guy when they come to arrest Jesus in the garden and they then they start arresting.

Jesus has just got some inner redneck in him.

He grabs the sword and whack and cuts a guy's ear off.

Malchus and then falls to the ground and Jesus picks it up and 10-second roll, puts it back on.

Remember Peter?

That's Peter.

Peter's always, he's ready to get his gun on, he's ready to go.

He's kind of like, well, I'll tell you what, let's take our shirts off and go commando right here.

And Jesus is like, Peter, those who live by the sword die by the sword.

See, Peter understood power in terms of the flesh.

But after the resurrection, he began to understand power in terms of the spirit.

Because the Bible says, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.

See, men, there's one thing, it's one thing to be powerful, but there's a limit to what you can do.

There's no limit to what God can do.

And when the Bible talks about power, that's what it's talking about.

And the resurrection reminds us of this kind of power.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

The fundamental question we all have to ask ourselves is, can God really change people?

Can God really change people?

And if he can, how does he do it?

If you're in Acts, turn to the right to the book of Ephesians.

Again, it'll come up on the screen if you just want to look up there and think along.

But just think this morning.

If God can really change people, like I had coffee with some folks that are new to our church this week.

They said, hey, we got some questions.

Can you meet us at Starbucks at 7 o'clock on a Thursday?

Oh, absolutely.

Please, Burr Rabbit, don't throw me in that briar patch.

So I met them at Starbucks and did my pastoral duty and downed about three cups of coffee.

And they asked great questions like, Hey, when you first became a Christian, did you automatically quit sinning?

Well, see, uh, we're for very, very unto I say unto thee, brethren, uh see, preachers are mostly weasels.

You get them pinned down, they start doing God talk.

Hey, I said, Yeah, I said, I stopped smoking dope immediately because I love smoking pot too much.

And then the lady was like, uh, you used to smoke pot.

I smoked like wet wheat, like wet wood, okay?

I went to algebra too in my first period of class, baked every day in the tenth grade.

And this guy next to me is like, baked.

I was like, like you are right now.

Just sit there, pot smoker.

And so the girl said, Well, what was kind of hard?

And I said, I had to change the way I treated women.

And she said, So you were a player?

Yeah, that just sounded gross.

I just wanted to take a shower.

I wanted to go to the counter in Starbucks and go, do you have a hot shower and a power washer and a scrub brush?

I can just spray myself off.

But when I was 17, are you kidding me?

If somebody said you're a player, holla at a player when you see them on the street.

Doesn't sound sexy when you're 47 and you own a minivan.

You a player?

Uh, what's that?

Well, we're playing.

And I tried to explain in words.

They say some of y'all are like, I just threw up in my mouth.

And I tried to explain, I'm not who I used to be.

But I was running out of words, and finally I just said, the power of God changed me.

They're like, huh.

I gotta think about that for a little bit.

Not that they don't believe it.

She's like, I just can't fathom you being that way.

I said, Yeah, when I go back to my hometown and my friends come up to me and go, remember that time?

And my wife's like, You did what?

You stole the cow and did what?

Most of it I've forgotten.

Why?

Because that's not who I am anymore.

Why am I not that person anymore?

By the way, look at me.

Not because I thought, oh, I don't want to do this anymore.

Hey, you can't, you some of the people get to that point.

I wasn't at that point.

I loved it.

I loved.

I had ACDC back in black on A-Track.

Are you kidding me?

I had an REO Speedwagon A-Track entitled You Can Tune a Piano, but you can't tune a fish.

I had an ELO album.

I used to get high and just sit in my room and listen to, hey there, Mr.

Blue.

Anybody remember ELO?

Please raise a hand.

Somebody, help a brother out.

Go drop that thing today and put it on, listen to it in your car.

Your kids will be like, shut up! What happened?

You changed.

You changed.

See, what you do can change.

But what I'm talking about is that look at me.

Who I am changed.

The Bible says, if any man's in Christ, he's a new creation.

Old things are passed away, and behold, all things become new.

You see, the resurrection reminds us of God's power.

Paul writes about it in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 18.

Ephesians 1:18

He's in this prayer, and he says, Having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know the hope to which he's called you.

What are the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints?

And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe?

That's what you need to hear today.

He says, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, look at me, beloved.

Look at me.

If you're just here for the first time and you're like, I'm just here, just get done.

We're going to grandma's to have ham.

Don't miss this.

Go enjoy the ham.

I think it's great on this day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Jewish Messiah.

We eat ham.

You guys enjoy that today.

By the way, I have a$61 ham from the honey baked ham to my fridge right now.

Have me some ham tonight.

I can't tell there's a vistro on the other side of the room because the guy's going.

What in the world?

He says, having the eyes of your heart in light and look at me.

Christianity is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart.

It's this outward, observable, objective reality called the resurrection.

He says, What?

Look at verse 19.

He says, and that's not enough.

Coming to church and laughing and drinking a cup of coffee, not enough.

He says, You may know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe.

What's it like?

He says, it's according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

What does the Bible tell us?

He said the Bible reminds us, the resurrection reminds us of God's power.

See, the Bible just says right there that the same power God used to raise Christ from the dead and seat him up in the heavenly places is the same power that he uses, not just to enlighten my heart.

See, when the Bible says the eyes of your heart were enlightened, it's when all of a sudden God reveals things to you and you see and you feel and you think differently, and then the power of God is brought to bear on you.

So when my friend Evelyn said to me and her husband Ricky, they said, she said, So, like, you're a player?

And I was like, uh, I just feel icky.

Why?

Because I'm a new creature.

Those old things passed away.

I've been married 19 years.

I've never thought a day in my life looked at another woman and thought, I wonder what it'd be like to be married to them.

Just never thought about it.

I want to treat my wife with dignity and honor.

I want to love her as Christ loves the church.

Why?

Because I was changed.

Not because of moral or discipline, but because the power of God is real.

And to help us get our head around it, he says, hey, you've not just this inward illumination in your heart, but this public objective reality called the resurrection.

Now I could talk to you about different people that got changed and famous people that became Christians and got changed, and millionaires who became Christians and gave their money away.

And I don't know that I would do that if I was a millionaire, but anyway.

But why go out there?

I can just tell you about people right here in this church.

When I first became the pastor here, I met a lady named uh Toby Garner.

If you've been here on a Wednesday night, you drank coffee.

Toby Garner makes that coffee.

And Toby Garner was married to a man named A C who had had a stroke.

Hard working man.

Saw a picture of AC.

He had this work shirt.

On and on the back of it, a big old oval patch was stitched, and it said, Uh, drink beer, make love, go fishing.

And I was like, She goes, That's my husband.

That's the three things he loved to do.

More than I need to know, right there.

So I go see him in the hospital because he's in the nursing home.

He's the nursing home.

He had a stroke and his speech was a little bit affected.

I fell in love with AC Garner the minute I walked in.

Oh, you the preacher?

And I said, Yes, sir, Mr.

Gardner.

And we would be talking, and AC was a hard-working man, worked with his hands, brilliant man, provided for his family.

AC was not a believer.

He'd never experienced the power of God.

And so I said, Well, Mr.

Gardner, I want to be friends with you and come and see you.

And I'm just talking away, and he just reaches over and grabs the bedroom and turns his back on me and goes, Not enough.

And I was like, Are we done?

Yeah.

And so when you'd go see him, when he got done listening, he would just turn his back on you and go, Not enough.

We do that to our wives, men.

We just don't say naughty night.

We just drift off into the TV and she's like, Are you listening?

I can tell you everything you just said.

That's not what I'm asking you.

Because, see, we can watch TV and recite what you just said, but you're not listening.

Because at some point she'll hit you or pinch you or take that thumbnail and stick it in your inner thigh, and she'll say, Look at me when you're listening.

I don't have to.

I've got stereophonic, I got two ears.

One's on the TV and one's on you.

But I'm not talking.

And then God on the eighth day invented the DVR.

Glory to his name.

Pause.

Yes, dear.

AC did he just, not enough! So I'd go see him and I said, Hey, AC, I want to start, I want to read you the Bible when I come.

Can I start reading the Gospel of John?

So I'd go read the Gospel of John to AC.

I'd be reading John chapter 2, and it came about in those days in the region of Canaan that Jesus and his type went to a marriage feast.

John 2 · chapter mention

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

He's just like, not enough.

And he just turned his back.

I just pick up where we left off.

One day I got a call from Toby.

He says, AC wants to see you.

He had gotten an infection.

He was at Memorial Southwest up here at 59.

So I walk in to see him.

He's in ICU.

He's all hooked up to stuff, but he's he's doing okay.

He's not dying or anything.

And I walked in and I said, Well, hello, Mr.

Garner.

I'm ready.

You crazy old fool.

What are you talking about?

He just laughed.

I'm ready.

And it dawned on me in that moment what he was saying.

See, the power of God is not limited to this room right here.

We were in ICU, and the nurse was standing there, and she's like, I said, stay right here.

You fixing to see a dead man get raised.

She's like, I'm a Christian.

I said, me too, but I'm not crying.

Why are you crying?

This is so beautiful.

I said, Mr.

Gardner, you ready to give your life to Christ?

I'm ready.

Can you say anything besides that?

I'm ready.

You ain't gonna go nighty night on me when I'm talking here, are you?

I'm ready.

Right there, with his crooked mouth and his broken heart.

AC Gardner was changed by the power of God.

Months later, when he died, I stood up and lit his funeral, looked at all his friends and family, packed out little funeral home, and I said, AC Garner was ready.

You better get ready.

See, the resurrection reminds us of God's power.

That's why I just keep going to the nursing home and just talking to Mr.

Garner.

That's why I'm not afraid to tell you, hey, by the way, you can be forgiven.

Not because you feel bad, but because Christ died, the death that you and I should have died.

See, thirdly, the resurrection defines Christianity.

Stay in the book of Ephesians if you're there.

It defines Christianity.

So when we speak of terms of Christianity, we talk about, well, I'm trying harder and I got this new focus in my life, and I'm determined, and I'm gonna turn over a new leaf, or my New Year's resolution is to go to church more.

You know, going to church doesn't make you a Christian, right?

Some of you Baptist bunnies that hop in on Easter and Christmas just got sad.

Like, what you're talking about, Willis.

I bought some new shoes for this.

Some of you women right now, your heart is beating in your feet.

You got up this morning, buttered your shoe, your foot like a sausage, and stuck it down in there.

I can wear these.

You're gonna walk out to that car and kick them things off in about 10, about 15 minutes, and gonna be light up a cigarette.

Free at last, free at last.

And God Almighty, I'm free at last.

Take mom under the Western Sizzling.

I'm hungry.

I ain't cooking for you bratty kids today.

It's Easter.

See, the resurrection defines Christianity.

You say, it defines it in interesting terms.

It defines it not in terms of I'm trying harder or this is what I need to do.

It defines it, listen to this, in terms of what only God can do.

Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

I'll start reading in verse 1 so you get the context.

He says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of air, the spirit that is work now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved, and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now stop right there.

Does that sound familiar?

That's what he's the exact same thing he said in chapter 1, he did in Christ, for Jesus, said he raised him up and seated us in the heavenly realms.

The Bible says that Christianity, my becoming a Christian is not a bad person trying to be good.

Look at me.

It's a dead person being resurrected, being raised up.

We don't talk about that much.

My wife and I were on a date, 19 years.

She still wants to go on a date.

I'm like, I told you I loved you when I married you.

I changed my mind, you'd be the first to know.

I don't go in my house.

I wake up every once in a while, my day off is Thursday, and I just think I'm gonna go play about 36 holes of golf at Greatwood and have some lunch and then stop at Starbucks across 59 there, then come rolling home, like, hey woman, my supper ready?

Not so much.

I wake up, what are you doing today?

I don't know, I was thinking maybe we'd have lunch.

I was thinking the same thing.

Yes, I was.

I didn't want to go to Gallsmith and putt around and test out new putters on that little putt and green they got in the back and look at those rocket balls, drivers they have that make the ball go far.

I want to go to Panera Bread and listen to you talk.

I love a burning dialogue about women's issues.

There's a part of me that's just thinking, if I had a blunt object, I'd just beat myself to death right here.

So you're probably wondering, boys and girls, then why do you do it?

Because I love that woman.

I don't love Panera bread.

I sure don't love La Madeline's.

We go there and I just look at my wife and go, look around.

I'm the only man in here.

Well, there's the man over there.

That's not a man.

No, sir.

No, sir.

Listen to that voice.

It's got on skinny jeans.

No.

No.

Men don't wear skinny jeans.

I'm sorry.

If you wear skinny jeans, see me after the service.

We can help you with that.

You say, what do you mean?

See, the Bible defines Christianity.

Don't miss this.

Not in terms of your effort or what you try to do or want to do, but what only God can do.

And that's not normal.

We don't do that.

See, I my being a Christian means I no longer live for myself.

It means a lot of other things, but it means at its core that I've experienced resurrection.

So don't ask yourself today, hey, have I ever felt bad and said to God, hey, I need to do gooder and stop doing bad?

Ask yourself, have you ever been resurrected?

My wife and I were on one of our little dates, and the other place we love to go is the black walnut.

Shut up.

She never says, let's go to a steakhouse and just eat red meat with our bare hands and take our shirts off and just smear the grease all over ourselves.

No.

Let's go to the black walnut.

I was hoping you would say that.

So we go to the black walnut.

We're sitting in there having coffee.

They have high-backed chairs in the black walnut.

You think, I'm going to sit on those high-back chairs, and it's great when you're sitting back, laid back with your mind on your mummy and your money on your mind, sipping coffee, thinking, man, I'm not king of the world.

And then your food comes and you're sunk down like this, and the table's up here.

You're just shoveling it in right off the table.

This is fun.

How's your food?

Good.

Like, does this surprise you?

These chairs are too low.

I feel like I'm in my kids' little tree house or something.

And then there's this couple walked in, and they're kind of something about them, and I was kind of like, and and they said something, oh, we love my wife's shirt.

And they said, and and and I said, Well, I love yours.

And she said, I just I I got it in Nepal.

When's the last time you met somebody who's been to been to Nepal?

Nepal is a country.

It's not like a flavor of ice cream bluebells coming out with, you know, like Nepal?

What in the world?

Yeah.

And so she said Nepal, and I just kind of thought, Nepal, that's no one goes to Nepal on vacation.

Ain't none of y'all going to Nepal.

I mean, Nepal is like the place like in Indiana Jones where that woman who drinks vodka lives.

That's jacked up.

It snows so much over there, they don't even measure it.

And something inside of me said, they went to Nepal for a reason.

And so I went to get some more coffee just to dull the pain of the black wall, just two hours.

Um, and sitting there with my knees up by my ears.

This is fun.

And I said, What were you guys doing in Nepal?

And the guy said, actually, we're missionaries.

So we're kind of clandestine.

We kind of secretly go over there, but the church is exploding.

And there's a little guy, a little girl behind the counter, that gelato that's been there since 1979.

It's melted and froze over every night.

And my kids go, We want some of that.

Not so much.

And so, and I said, He said, We're missionaries, and then the church exploded, and we just got back, and we saw people, we saw miracles, we saw people come to faith in Christ.

We saw people raise from the dead, and these two teenagers went, it was like Scooby-Doo.

And I kind of and he kind of picked up on me.

I was like, And he said, That's right.

We saw dead people get up and come back to life.

And he walked off, kind of like, what's the big deal about that?

I was like, you can't drop that on me and then walk off.

And then I realized they're looking at me, taking their clues from me.

And they looked at me and they're like, and I said, It's no big deal.

I used to be dead.

And then I had them.

I mean, they just leaned on the counter.

I said, Oh yeah.

You ever seen those shows like Oprah?

People go down there, I had a near-death experience.

It was a big tunnel of light.

And I grabbed the edges of the tunnel and pulled myself back out.

I wasn't ready to go.

Not making light of that.

Hey, people in our church had experiences where they they they died and they could tell you, hey, I and the guy's like, What do you mean?

I see, I was dead for 18 years.

And the girl was like, creepy.

See, but that's the way the Bible defines Christianity.

It wasn't that I couldn't do the right thing, I didn't want to do the right thing.

I wanted to do the right thing.

I couldn't.

I couldn't.

But see, the resurrection reminds us of the power of God and it redefines or it defines, redefines, it defines Christianity.

It's not bad people doing becoming good people, it's dead people being brought to life.

So ask yourself today, have you ever been brought to life?

Have you ever been resurrected?

Fourthly and finally this morning, the resurrection gives us hope for the future.

Gives us hope for the future.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

It gives you hope for the future.

The disciples in Matthew, they had no hope.

They just given up.

They thought, this is great while it lasted.

Matter of fact, in John's gospel, you can read in John 21, it begins with Peter saying, I'm going fishing.

What was Peter before Christ called him?

He's a fisherman.

I'm going back to my way of life.

This was fun.

It's kind of sexy.

Jesus made some people mad.

They killed him.

We'll wait for the next Messiah to come along.

The major differences between all the world religions is their vision of the future.

Most offer no hope.

Just this big, circular, just a big circle with this endless cycle of reincarnations.

If you're good, you come back as this.

If you're bad, you come back as that.

So you gotta be good and start all over again.

And maybe at the end, if you're good enough, you climb all the way up to this non-existent state of nirvana, which was not just a Seattle grunge band that had good music, but it's this enlightened state where you just kind of float around doing nothing.

Who wants that?

Or Marxists would tell you that we create a utopian society.

Some politicians believe that as well.

That by giving people everything, you create this utopian society.

Don't work for yourself, depend on the government.

You don't know any countries that are like that, do you?

I'm not thinking of the one you're thinking of.

Been to Cuba lately.

It's Marxist.

People drive around 1957 Chevy scrounging car parts.

And people on the street will tell you, man, this is jacked up.

These people cannot create what they promised.

They can't deliver the goods.

And now they're finally realizing the brother's in charge.

He's kind of realizing we gotta let people have some small business, some say in how their lives are lived.

See, there, because every major world religion has a vision of the future.

Even atheism.

Here's the vision of the future of atheism.

Famous atheist.

When he was 30, he sat down and wrote this.

As a matter of fact, he wrote a paper and he'd go around presenting it at colleges.

It was entitled, Why I Am Not a Christian.

His name was Bertrand Russell.

And in this paper, he writes this.

He says there's no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.

That all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system.

And that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be brought beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

Translation: the world's gonna end, and then it's over.

You're just a banquet for the worms.

That's all that's gonna happen.

That's what an atheist believes.

There's no sense in believing because it doesn't matter.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

And then what?

See, the Bible presents a different view of the future.

The Bible refers to Jesus as the first fruits of the harvest and the firstborn from among the dead.

See, the resurrection tells a different story.

We not only survive death, but we're given new bodies after death.

Do you realize that?

When you get to heaven, the Bible talks about you get a new and glorified body.

That means not you ain't got to squeeze your shoe, your foot into a shoe anymore, ladies.

That means you don't look in the mirror and kind of go, Well, I hate that, and I wish I didn't have that, and what's that?

And why do you have that magnifying mirror?

My wife has a mirror about that big and her sitting on the vanity in our bathroom right now.

And I picked it up the other day and I was like, oh Lord.

I said, What is this?

Is this just self-hatred?

She goes, Well, it makes your pores look really big.

It look really big.

It's like I had a volcano.

And I was like, What is that?

Just a little bitty pour of your skin.

And she goes, Wow, I use that and I look at my skin.

And I was like, Do you really want to see yourself that clearly?

Well, I mean, sometimes.

I was like, is that why it's face down?

Mm-hmm.

Good news, ladies.

The Bible says when you're resurrected as a Christian, you get a new glorified body.

That's why my friend David died of cerebral palsy at 47.

On his casket was a little sign that said, He's not here.

This is just the house he lived in.

My friend David has legs that work now.

He had polio as a kid.

So his legs work, but they look like little ringers hanging out of a bell.

We were fishing one time and we were all stripping down because you get rednecks in a boat.

We're gonna take our clothes off.

We were all stripping down to our shorts.

We're out there shirtless fishing, and Dave's over there and got pants on.

And I looked at him and said, Dave, you got shorts on under there?

I said, I don't care what your legs look like, man.

Bust them pants off.

It's 108 degrees out here.

He took his pants off.

His legs are about as big as my arm.

And I said, Look at me.

I said, No one's staring at your legs thinking, What's wrong with you?

I'm looking at your legs thinking, in the resurrection, you're gonna have a new glorified body.

Your legs are gonna be incredible, Dave.

You know that?

That man sat down, put his face in his hands, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Johnny Erickson taught of the paraplegic who was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident when she was like in the eighth grade.

Was at a conference one time, strapped in a wheelchair, and the speaker said, I'd like us all to get down on our knees.

And she tried to wheel herself down out of the wheelchair, and she just sat there and sobbed.

And she said, I wasn't sobbing because I couldn't get down.

I was sobbing because I thought about the resurrection.

There'll come a day where I won't have gnarled and knobby knees and crooked legs and arms that don't work.

I'll have glorious knees I can get down before my glorious Savior and bow before him.

You see, the resurrection gives us a hope for the future.

Let me just ask you this: what is your hope for the future?

Because the Bible talks about it in no uncertain terms.

See, Job says in Job 14, 14, he says, if a man dies, will he live again?

And the answer is yes.

Every one of you in this room, regardless of your race, color, creed, religion, preference, whatever, you're all gonna live again.

And secondly, you're all gonna live forever.

You need to hear that.

You're like, all right, good news.

Not necessarily.

You say, What do you mean?

The issue is not will you live forever.

The issue is where will you spend eternity?

Because people in hell are there forever too.

The Bible says that hell is a place of unquenchable fire.

Why does the fire never go out?

Because people never stop being there.

It's not like you go to hell for 20 minutes and they're like, that's enough.

I get it.

I'm sorry.

No, the Bible says that people are in agony there day and night, forever and ever and ever.

We've got to stop saying, Well, if you go to heaven, you get to live forever.

Everybody lives forever.

It's just where do you spare you spend forever?

Jesus, after he raised Lazarus, he's getting ready to, he's talking to one of his sisters, and she says, You know, I know he'll be raised in the resurrection.

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Then he asks this simple question.

He said, Do you believe that?

I love how practical Jesus is.

He's not like us preachers.

He's just right down to the to the heart of the matter.

Do you believe that?

Because see, this is all true.

If you leave here today and don't believe it, it makes no difference in your life.

Somebody will stand at the side of your bed when you're dying, and you know what they'll say?

They'll say what Bertrand Russell said.

They'll say, No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave, that all the laborers of this age, blah, blah, blah.

Shut up.

I stood beside the hospital bed with a man that used to go to this church who was 57 and had a stroke just out of nowhere.

And was brain dead by the time he hit the floor, and the family had him hooked up to machines and everything.

And I was there when they said, He's not gonna get any better.

And the family said, This is not my dad.

I said, We're gonna unplug him.

And we all got around the bed and everybody said their peace.

We held hands and we started singing.

And they unplugged the machinery.

And because the reality of what I'm telling you, the future.

See, the resurrection gives us hope for the future.

I stood there and held hands with two daughters and a wife, as the thing just flatlined and then beep and the guy just detected reached up and turned the volume down.

And all you could hear was us saying, When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing his praise than when we first begun.

And it just echoed and boomed out the halls of that hospital.

People were crying, I was crying, nurses were crying, God across the thing, we're in this triage kind of ER set up, and God across pulled his curtain back, had his hands up.

See, the resurrection gives you a hope for the future.

So I would just ask you today what is your hope for the future?

Because this hope gives you a perspective in the midst of suffering here in this world.

I'm not suffering so I can go to heaven.

It's not like I've had a hard life.

Here, God owes me a good life there.

I don't suffer so I can go to heaven.

I suffer because I'm not there yet.

And you're gonna suffer because you're not there yet.

Because you live in a fallen world.

The world's not the way God designed it to be.

People screwed it up because we sinned and fell short.

So, what that means is your spouse's memory is gonna begin to fade away.

It's already happened in our house.

I don't know where anything is.

If my wife died tomorrow, I wouldn't know where anything is, and I wouldn't know anybody's name.

But your parents will outlive their money.

Your spouse may be unfaithful, your kids may break your heart, the doctor may walk in with a grim look on his face and say, we've done all we can.

What buoys you in that moment?

See, Jesus said, In this world you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world.

Peter.

Remember Peter?

Same guy, Peter.

I'll tell you what, everybody else is gonna deny you, but not me.

Peter got to a point where he stopped trusting in his own ability and he understood what it meant to be a powerful man.

He wrote this in 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 3.

1 Peter 1:3

He said, According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, and it's kept in heaven for you.

Blessed be the God of our Father, of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy.

Hear those two words today.

Great mercy.

You say, Man, I got a lot of sin.

You don't have more sin than God has mercy.

I don't care who you are.

Let me say it again.

You cannot outsend the greatness of God's mercy.

He's caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Focus as I close this morning on those two little words in the third line.

He's caused us to be born again.

So you don't get this hope without being born again.

So I ask you this morning, has that ever happened for you?

Jesus was talking to a man named Nicodemus in John 3, and he's talking about being born again.

He says, You you you don't get into the kingdom of God unless you're born again.

And Nicodemus was thinking physical birth, and he said, Well, how can I be born again?

I climbed back in my mother's womb, and Jesus said, No, you've got to be born of the flesh, but also, I mean, uh uh, uh of the flesh, but also of the spirit.

This is what he talks about.

He talks about being raised from the dead.

My friends I met at Starbucks on Thursday night, they said, now, she said, the lady said, I've been coming, and when you talk, it makes sense.

And sometimes I just cry.

I just I don't know why, I just cry.

And I said, That's God revealing himself to you.

And she goes, I know, but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

And I said, You know what's happening?

I said, I think God's calling you to himself.

He's telling you, He wants you, he wants a relationship with you.

And I said, the way I explain it to my church is it's like you have a cup and a pitcher of water and you start pouring it, and you just keep pouring eventually, it fills up and overflows.

And she's bursting to tears right there in Starbucks.

And the lady who's sitting right over there is trying not to eavesdrop, but she was doing this.

And I could see her out of the corner of my peripheral vision, and I just looked at my friend and I said, Hey, her and her husband sitting there, and I said, You sense what God's doing?

And she said, and I said, You don't have to be in church when your cup overflows, just tell God, I want a relationship with you.

You don't have to use a magical phrase.

Sometimes we use, you we use, we talk about a sinner's prayer, it's just a person saying, God, I realize I've sinned and you died.

What makes Good Friday good is that you died as payment for my sin.

And I want a relationship with you.

I said, You understand that?

And she's like, and her husband's like, Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm trying to talk about.

She asked me questions, I don't know what to say.

I said, I don't know what to say sometimes.

Well, what do you do when you don't know what to say?

I say, I don't know.

Because I gave up the illusion of being perfect a long time ago.

Why don't you give it up today?

Have you ever been born again?

Because by entering into a relationship with Jesus is where this hope comes from.

That sustains you in suffering, but it also, also, hear this, beloved, it sustains you in suffering, but it also sustains you in death.

Stand to your feet.

Hold your hands out.

He is risen.

Depart now and live the resurrection.

In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.