I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Amen.

Well, good morning, Sacred Mission.

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here, and it's my joy to be able to bring God's word to you this morning as we continue in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus.

Now, many of us, if we have any kind of church background in history, are probably pretty familiar with this story, right?

And we've we've read it, we we've heard messages on it, or we've uh even studied it in our own devotional time.

And here's what I'm trying to kind of help us prepare for.

I want us to try to take any of our uh predetermined, you know, understanding or comprehension of this story and kind of set it aside uh for the next 40 minutes or so and let us kind of dive in with fresh eyes on what John is trying to articulate in the story of Lazarus' resurrection by Jesus.

Uh, because we we tend to there there it's a complex story.

It's a complex story with all kinds of different emotions, all kinds of different circumstances, all kinds of cultural traditions and norms.

Uh, and so we got to kind of dive into it that we might understand its purpose uh for John, including it in his gospel work.

So we've got a lot to dive into, and uh we're gonna get busy right now.

So as we approach the text this morning, uh in the first section of the text, verses 17 through 27, I would summarize it like this gospel truth is the greatest care.

Gospel truth is the greatest care.

So as Jesus approaches the scene that we're reading about here, it says that Martha goes out when she gets word that Jesus is coming.

Martha goes out and she meets him, right?

And Jesus is about two miles away from the tomb of Lazarus.

Uh but Martha gets up and runs out to meet him.

And it says, John is purposeful, he says that it's been about four days since Lazarus had been buried in the tomb.

Now, we have to understand the nature of funerals in the ancient world.

They weren't as domesticated as they are today, right?

When we have a loved one who dies, uh, we have professionals come and take them away, and then another set of professionals like prepare everything for us.

Very out of sight, out of mind.

And when we come to the visitation, our loved one is in their best possible situation, right?

Clothed up, makeup on, all this kind of stuff.

And then professionals take them away and bury them.

And we kind of are very displaced or distant from the workings of this loved one who has died.

In the ancient world, it wasn't that way.

To have professional services kind of handle the passing of your loved ones and their funeral arrangements, you would have to be a very wealthy person.

And so this kind of normal family who had some means, we can kind of gather that from some of the particulars of the story, uh, their approach to burying their brother would have been much more primitive and simplistic than what we understand as far as burials go today.

There was no process of embalming or services provided by professionals because, again, the the cost was way too much.

And so this awareness of four days is really important to John.

He he actually addresses it twice in his telling of the story.

He does it first in verse 17.

He says, Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

In verse 39, John records, Jesus said, Take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, or as the King James Version says, he will stinketh.

Um they nailed that translation uh very, very good.

Um there'll be an odor.

Why?

Because he's been dead four days.

Now, this wasn't important to the story simply due to the amount of disgust or nausea that the odor would cause the people as they removed the stone.

The importance is actually rooted in what we would call rabbinic folk theology, right?

Rabbinic rabbi, a teacher, who kind of fabricated a theology uh because of experiences that they had had in their life.

You see, they believed that a spirit of a dead person would remain kind of hovering over the body for three days' time.

And during that time, the spirit would kind of be assessing do they want to re-enter that dead body?

Folk theology went on to say that on the fourth day, the body was determined by the spirit to be too decomposed to re-enter, so it would just depart in its finality, right?

And so, where does this folk theology come from?

Well, it probably came from some bad funerals, right?

Where they didn't really bury a dead person.

And all of a sudden it's like, oh no, you know, uh they're alive, and it's like, what happened?

And they're, well, I think maybe the spirit hovered over them.

No, uh, you just aren't good doctors, right?

And you're poor and you buried this person prematurely.

Uh, this probably where this came from.

Now we might giggle at it, but the people in the story, this is what they believed.

This is what they thought was true.

No matter how folk in its nature it was, they would hold this as dear, and there would be almost a sense of anticipation to see if their loved one would come back to life in those three days.

Fourth day, hope is gone.

So John wants to do something here.

John wants to make sure in his retelling of the story by including these details, that we get, as his readers, the same impression that those who would be standing at the mouth of the tomb would get.

That it was only by the authority and power of Jesus that Lazarus walks out of the tomb.

That's what's going to be communicated to us.

That's what we need to embrace in this.

And so as Jesus was coming near to Lazarus' tomb, it says that Martha gets word of his arrival, runs out to meet him, two miles out, and John records for us that there had already been this crowd of people who were present with the sisters to console them in their grief.

It says, verse 19, and many of the Jews who had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

You see, the mourning of a deceased loved one was a really public event.

Whether you had a lot of means or a little means, you would often hire professional mourners to come and be at your loved one's funeral.

And their job was to exceed and extend the weeping and wailing of your grief and sorrow.

So, like even when you were kind of you've hopeful you've probably been in a place where you lost a loved one and your tears started to kind of dry up.

You know what I mean?

Not because your love for them waned or anything of that nature, but you just didn't have anything else to really give.

Well, these people would make sure that they stepped in, they start just weeping and wailing loudly to extend what you no longer have the energy or capacity for, and to hopefully spur on more weeping.

Like that was their job.

They wouldn't just hire professional mourners, but they would hire professional musicians.

And they would be these uh flute players who would kind of play this drone dredge music, right?

Just really sad and sorrowful, just to kind of set the tone, right?

In case you needed more reasons to cry, this horrible music playing around you the entire time is just wearing you down.

So before Jesus ever even arrives at the scene, there were already great attempts.

There was money and resources put toward attempts at consoling these sisters who just lost their brother.

And as Martha reaches Jesus, she expresses her grief.

Says in verse 21, Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

I hope you can step into Martha's shoes for a moment.

She just lost someone she loves dearly.

And she's looking in the eyes of the person who she really believed could do something about this circumstance.

And so imagine the confusion, imagine the frustration, imagine the the questioning, all of these things running through her mind and heart.

But she gives us a little glimmer of hope because she says in verse 22, but even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

And Jesus starts to bring comfort to Martha, to this broken heart before him.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

But I think it's fascinating the response that Martha gives to Jesus.

So she's standing before Jesus and looking him in the eyes and says, I know that whatever you ask from God, he'll grant you, he'll give it to you.

And he looks back at her and says, Your brother is going to rise again.

And what does Martha say?

Oh, I know.

In the resurrection, in the last day, he will rise.

Martha gave Jesus a very faithful theological response.

Right?

You can almost hear this timid hope in her voice of, in the last days, I know Lazarus will rise in the resurrection.

And this is something that she had been taught from being a little girl that the people of God would rise in resurrection power as the kingdom of God was fully consummated here on earth.

She had been taught this, she'd been catechized in this, and now she's having to have this come out of her mouth in the very presence of the death of her brother.

But there's something fascinating about this.

Martha gives a faithful theological confession standing before life himself.

She doesn't get it.

She doesn't get what Jesus is trying to communicate.

No, he's gonna rise now.

You see, I think we kind of struggle with this.

I think there's a lot of people who put their eggs in the basket of theology.

And you you got the right answers, you can regurgitate him, you can speak Christian knees.

If some if something hard happens in your life, you can give the verse, chapter, a quotation all day long.

But we don't know Jesus standing before us.

What do you think is happening in this deconstruction era that we're living in in culture?

You're seeing hundreds of people, people that you've observed from a distance, people that you've known intimately in relationship.

You're seeing people who could be just like Martha and give the right theological answer, could quote the words, could speak the language, but they never knew who was standing in front of them.

Martha's theology is not some just abstract idea.

It's an embodied person who's present in the midst of her sorrow.

And she can't even see it.

Her response is so complex.

Martha fails to understand that she isn't waiting for something hoped for in the future.

She's standing right in front of her present hope now.

And so Jesus moves beyond Martha's theological confession.

You see, Jesus doesn't join the crowd in this kind of public, extravagant mourning, nor does he try to console her with therapeutic counsel.

Jesus consoles her with himself.

Martha, I am the resurrection and the life.

Verse 25, 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.

Do you believe this?

Think about the most comforting thing Jesus could have given this broken-hearted woman standing before him.

Well, it was himself.

It was the truth and power and hope of the gospel, because the gospel alone is the care and comfort that we need in our life.

No matter what tragedy, sorrow, loss, grief that we could face, no matter what life circumstances we encounter, what we need most is a deeper faith, trust, and understanding in the gospel.

What is our only hope in life and death?

But to know that I am his.

It is the beauty of the gospel that gives us only the right healing balm that we need.

You see, we as a gospel-centered church, we need to become more gospel-fluent in our care for others.

To bring the words of comfort and strength and hope to the wounds of others that only the gospel can truly heal.

I find myself even a lot of times when trying to talk with people as they're going through hard circumstances, using just like empty consolement, right?

Hey, it's gonna be better tomorrow, champ.

You know, I don't know.

You guys probably talk better than I do, but uh you just I walk away from that and be like, man, they don't need me to say, I'm sorry, they don't need me to say it'll get better.

They need the gospel.

Because the only thing that could ever truly heal Mary's broken heart was the life that was standing in front of her.

She didn't know that yet, but it was coming.

Jeff Vanderstel started a church planting network called Soma, author of a lot of books, and one of his books that I like a lot is called Gospel Fluency.

And he has this quote in it that I think is really helpful.

He says, God wants his people to experience life with the gospel.

He wants them to be able to translate the world around them and the world inside of them through the lens of the gospel.

The truths of God revealed in the person and work of Jesus.

Gospel fluent people think, feel, and perceive everything in light of what has been accomplished in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Truly, every sin that we battle, every doubt that we come up against, every sense of anxiousness and worry and fear, all of these things, I am fully convinced, are remedied only by a deeper trust and faith of the gospel of Jesus.

Everything else is just empty consolation.

I mean, imagine if Jesus, in the wake of Martha's grief and sorrow, simply tried to console her with, gone from our sight, but never our hearts.

Jesus doesn't extend empty consolation.

He gives Martha the promise and power of himself, the hope of the gospel.

He tells Martha that he is the resurrection, not something that you're waiting to come down the future road.

I'm standing before you.

I am the life.

And then he unpacks these identities in the words that follow.

So as he says, I am the resurrection, he then goes on to say, though he die, yet shall he live.

You see, in Jesus, death is not the end.

We don't come to the end of our life, and then it's just over.

In Jesus, death does not have the final say.

Because we have placed our hope and trust in his finished work.

We, though we die, we shall live.

All of us in this room, we long for and we eagerly await the physical resurrection of our bodies if we are in Christ.

And it's at the coming again as he brings the fullness of his kingdom to his people.

Then he says, I am the life.

And he unpacks this by this.

He says, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

What we have to understand as the church is that resurrection life precedes physical death.

This is what Jesus is trying to communicate.

Resurrection life in him, to be made new, to be born again, to be brought into eternal life, it precedes our physical death.

In Christ, in him, we are made alive.

But apart from Jesus, we are dead in our sins.

We are Lazarus.

We are the rotting corpses inside the tombs of our sin and rebellion.

This is what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1 through 3.

Ephesians 2:1–3

He says, And you were dead.

Dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is 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 were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

All of us were Lazarus.

All of us were dead in our tombs.

But the power of God brings us to life.

The power of God causes us to breathe in the riches of his grace and mercy.

It causes our hearts to beat with an affection for him.

This is how Paul carries on that section of Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 4 and 5.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

He says, But God.

But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he did what?

He made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved.

As Jesus reveals this to Martha, as he stands before this broken-hearted woman and he declares, I am the resurrection and the life.

Do you believe this?

Do you believe this?

In all of our life, the greatest pursuit that we could have is the answer to that question.

Do we believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?

The whole thrust of this story of the resurrection of Lazarus is for the answer of that question.

Do we believe that Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life?

That in him we find the eternal life that we so desperately long for.

Jesus, he's delayed his arrival in coming to see Lazarus and his sisters.

He risked opposition from the religious leaders who had just previously tried to stone him and arrest him.

He's confounded people's perception of love for others.

All for the question to be answered.

Answered in this moment.

Do you believe this?

Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life?

Because faith in Jesus, faith in the person and work of Christ, not some abstract theological concept.

Jesus is the resurrection.

Finally, we see fruit in Martha's words as she moves from making this kind of theologically faithful statement to what seems to be a fruitful confession of faith.

She says in verse 27, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

In verses 28 through 37, we see a holy love that moves Jesus to righteous anger.

A holy love that moves Jesus to righteous anger.

So Martha just had this amazing exchange with Jesus.

She seems to be confessing faith in him as the Christ, as the resurrection of life.

So what does she do?

She runs to her sister, tells Mary, the master, the teachers here, he's calling for you.

So Mary gets up to meet Jesus.

And it says that the crowd who was there mourning with her, right?

They get up and go with her because they think that she's going to Lazarus' tomb to continue mourning and weeping.

But she's going out to meet Jesus.

And as she approaches Jesus, she falls to his feet.

And it's fascinating because she makes the exact same word for word misguided statement that her sister Martha did just a short time ago.

She says, Lord, if you had been here.

You're brokenhearted, you're sad, you're grieving.

But Jesus comes at it with a different approach.

And I think this is going to be important for us to understand in the context of the story.

You see, we tend to read this through the lens of like compassion, right?

Or maybe of how sensitive and soft Jesus' heart was as he was moved at the sight of Lazarus and his death and all the effect of this, right?

But John records something in verse 33, and this really helps give us context to what's happening in, and it really helps us understand probably one of the most perplexing parts of this whole story.

In verse 33, he says this when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

Again, we think, man, Jesus must have had so much compassion.

And he did, but we think of it in a different way, right?

We understand this in this kind of softness of Jesus.

But the language here of deeply moved, it's actually too soft for the proper understanding of the original language.

Our English translations don't really do this service.

In fact, the ones who get it the most, right, are the Germans, right?

They get they get a lot of things pretty good.

And this one they nailed.

In the German translations, they read that when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was outraged.

Outraged.

You see, the original language, it's it, the movement, the figure, the kind of picture they want you to see is that of a snort of a horse.

When a horse is angry and he lets you know it with this kind of warning sign, right?

It's this indignation that he has about what he's observing.

And what caused this?

What caused this response out of Jesus?

Well, it's Jesus seeing an unbelieving woman weeping before him and an unbelieving crowd weeping with her, as he observed that action, Jesus was outraged at what he saw.

It wasn't the weighty acceptance of Lazarus' death.

Finally, as he's there on the scene, it kind of hits him, right?

Have you ever been in that situation where maybe you had a friend or a family member pass away and you didn't really shed tears until you walked into that room of the visitation?

It's just like this flood hits you all of a sudden.

And that what Jesus was getting ready to walk up to that tomb and call this dead man back to life.

He wasn't sad or heartbroken over the situation.

Jesus was outraged at the unbelief of the people who were weeping around him.

And there, in that context, is where we get the shortest verse in all of the Bible.

Jesus wept.

Have you ever been so angry that you cry?

Angry crying is the ugliest kind of crying, right?

There's ugly crying, but then there's angry, ugly crying.

And it's it's real bad.

So John, I mean, verses and chapters didn't exist when John was writing this, but through Providence, we get the shortest verse.

Jesus wept.

But it's this language of like bewailing.

It's this language of this kind of explosive grief that he has.

And what was the driving force to cause that in him?

The outrage that he saw of the unbelief of the people weeping around him.

You see, the the whole point of this story is so that we would believe.

So we would believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Here's what I want to submit to you.

Jesus is a greater lover because he's more angry at sin and unrighteousness and wickedness and evil and unbelief.

Jesus is more righteously angry than we are, and that makes him a greater lover.

If I had more righteous anger about the sin in my life, about the disbelief in my heart, about the unfaithfulness of my actions, I'd be a greater lover.

If I was more righteously angry about the things that come against my children and my spouse, my family, my friends, the wickedness in this world, the depravity that surrounds us, the unrighteousness that floods culture.

If we were more angry about those things in righteous ways, we'd be greater lovers like Jesus was.

Because it's his anger against that that moves him in a loving action.

Jesus doesn't come and start uh um yelling at them.

He doesn't come and start picking fights, he doesn't get physical or rough with them.

What does Jesus do?

He brings life, he raises the dead, and he gives these people the greatest thing that they could ever have even imagined, belief.

And Jesus was moved in this loving way because of righteous anger.

Maybe we don't move toward people enough because we're not angry enough.

And maybe we're not as loving as we want to be because we're not angry enough.

God is angry and he does not sin.

God's anger is perfect and righteous.

His love is perfect and righteous.

And I just want us to contemplate the harmony of those two realities.

That God's anger against our sin ultimately caused him to do the most loving thing, to crush his own son.

Jesus sees Mary in the crowd weeping.

He's moved to outrage at their disbelief.

And that holy anger caused this physical expression of weeping.

As the crowd of mourners witnesses Jesus' response to the situation, they said something really funny.

They said, Oh, see how he loved him?

Do you see how he loved him?

When Jesus here is outraged and it comes gushing out of him in this bewailing and this explosion of grief, the people around say, Oh, do you see how he loved?

But they didn't get it.

They still didn't understand.

Throughout the whole story of John, as he's recording what people are saying, right?

He's just he's just writing out the narrative.

There's two places where John records what people said, and it's about Jesus' love for Lazarus.

And they use the word phileo.

It's this brotherly love, it's this warm affection.

But every time they communicate this phileo love that they perceived Jesus had for Lazarus and his sisters, it was almost always coupled with a perception of action Jesus should take if he really loved him that way.

It was heal Lazarus.

Look at what they say at the end.

Wasn't could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have also kept this man from dying?

Look how he loved him.

Couldn't he have healed him?

There's one time in the whole story where John actually brings his own commentary in.

So you have to think through.

Throughout the story, John's writing, Mary did this, Martha did that, these people said this, Jesus said that.

And then in verse 5, John enters into the story and he provides his own commentary.

Separate from the actual accounts of what was taking place, he enters in and he says, Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

But there's something fascinating.

He uses the word agape.

He doesn't use the word phileo, brotherly love.

He uses agape, which is the way that God loves us.

And because of that love, we're supposed to love God and love one another.

So we have to ask the question: well, why would John do that?

Why would John take the time and energy to insert himself into the story to provide commentary to clarify something?

I believe because he wanted us to know how deep Jesus loved these people.

And it was a way that confounded their understanding and perception of what love really is.

You see, when the people around Jesus were communicating his love for them, it was with this language of Phileo, brotherly love.

And this led them to presume that if Jesus really did love Lazarus, well, he would heal him instead of let him die.

But John records for us in verse 5, oh no, Jesus did love them.

You don't understand how much Jesus loved them.

He loved them with agape love.

So we use this functional definition of agape love at sacred mission.

It's the steady intention of the will toward another's highest good.

The steady intention of the will toward another's highest good.

This is the love that John comments Jesus had for Lazarus and his sisters.

A love that determined he would delay his coming by two days.

A love that would allow what seemed the worst possible outcome to occur.

A love that worked itself out contrary to their understanding of their own ultimate good.

What John wants us to know even this morning is that Jesus loved them more than they could ever realize or understand what love was.

He loved them so much that he was determined to give them what they needed instead of what they wanted or even their own perceived understanding of what they needed themselves.

Jesus' love for them was holy.

His outrage was righteous, and the combination of these two realities would produce their ultimate good.

We find verse 39 through 44.

A dead man is brought to life so dead men can live.

At the time Jesus actually approaches the tomb of Lazarus, John says that he was deeply moved again.

You can feel the tension building, right?

His response to the unbelieving, weeping people around him.

He asked, Where is Lazarus buried?

He goes forth.

John records he was moved again.

And here in the tension in his voice in 39 almost, just imagine it for a moment.

Jesus said, Take away the stone.

And Martha, the sister, is like, he's been dead four days.

There's going to be an odor.

He said, Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

And at that time, he begins to pray.

It says in verse 41, So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.

Jesus prayed publicly so that those around him would believe that he was the Son of God who had been sent into the world.

There was no doubt in his mind that the Father heard and gave divine attention to every word that he spoke.

His prayer was full of faith to a faithful father.

But Jesus wanted to communicate the intimacy and oneness that he has with the Father to those standing in the crowd.

And so in verse 43, we read, When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth.

Jesus said to them, and bind him and let him go.

Right here in this moment, the glory of God is displayed.

Here in the raising of Lazarus, Jesus, the Son of God's glory, is revealed.

You see, those standing near would have no ability but to believe and confess just like Martha did.

Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

I love how one commentator, he remarked that Jesus had to be specific.

The power and glory that was revealed in that moment, Jesus had to be specific.

Lazarus, come out.

Because if he had not been, all of Judea would have spit forth its dead from their tombs.

Can you imagine that moment standing there?

You would have no other option but what your eyes just witness to proclaim you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

The dead man in the tomb came stumbling out to its opening, bound in linen.

He was called to resurrected life by the resurrection and the life himself.

And here's the whole point of the story.

He was called so that the dead men bearing witness to the account would live also.

You see, we are Lazarus.

We are dead corpses, rotting in tombs of our own sin and depravity.

But here's what happens in the gospel: Jesus lays in our tomb in our place.

Jesus exchanges this death that we are in, that we might live in his resurrection life.

This is the hope of the gospel.

Jesus sacrificed his life that we would truly live in his resurrection.

Jesus died for dead men.

And if you look at the comparison of Lazarus' resurrection, Lazarus had to have men roll away his stone.

There had to be some external power calling him to come out.

He kind of stumbles to the opening of the tomb and he's bound in linen.

His face is covered.

But not so with Christ.

Christ needed no man to roll away his stone.

He needed no voice to call him forward.

His burial linens were found bundled on the floor.

His face covering folded and wrapped and put on the slab where his cold body had laid.

And he walked out of that tomb in glory and power.

And what does that mean for us?

That as surely as he got into our tomb, we get into his resurrection life.

And so by faith in Christ, we are brought out of death and into life.

We are no longer the Lazarus of the story, but we are in Christ.

We are the ones living, living in eternal life in resurrection power because of Jesus.

We truly live now.

This is what Jesus said.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

John masterfully wrote this story so that us dead men reading it would be made alive because of one thing: faith.

The gift of faith.

This is what Jesus is trying to communicate.

The greatest gift that he could give you is faith.

We often think that our own physical life is like the greatest thing that we could have.

And we're devastated when that's threatened or lost.

Man, Jesus allowed one of his best friends to die and remain dead for four days.

And he comes kind of strolling in.

And then all this kind of stuff.

Why did he do all of that?

He did all that.

One, he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

But two, he knew that the greatest gift that he could give Lazarus, he could give his sisters, he could give the weeping people around the tomb was faith.

Because it's only in faith that we actually live at all.

You see, we have this false conception that we're alive.

Apart from Christ, we're not alive.

Sure, your physical lungs are breathing, your heart, your physical heart is beating, your mind might be sending sensory signals all throughout your.

You're dead.

And guess what?

This is the best that it gets.

Of course, if you're not in Christ, the weeping is natural because this is as good as it's gonna get, and when it's gone, it's gone.

But in Christ, dead men live.

And we who are in Christ have been made alive in him.

We are not waiting to be made alive in the future.

Sure, our physical bodies will resurrect in his second coming, but we have eternal life now in him.

All who are in Christ can say with full confidence that we live, we believe in him, and we shall never die.

Let's pray.