The Resurrection and Life | Pastor Rick Wright | The Church at CW

I am the good shepherd.

Y'all heard me, and my mic wasn't even on.

That's pretty good.

Hopefully, you had a great week.

It's been a good week.

We started our week off here with cooking camp with a lot of little cookers and Pastor Dave and Miss Anna, and then a bunch of our church ladies, and uh, no telling what got cooked up here, but it seemed like they were enjoying it.

And uh a busy, busy week.

That there was a group of people who went whitewater rafting yesterday, and many of them are here.

God bless you.

Spend the day white water rafting and be here.

The teens, I went with them on the hottest day of planet Earth this year.

Eli, myself, and some other leaders and 30 kids went to six flags.

I lost five pounds that day, so I look a little better this week.

Thank you very much.

Um, been a good week, busy week also this week.

Uh my wife celebrated her birthday.

So happy birthday.

Dave's trying to tell me to put up the number.

I'm not doing it.

But happy birthday.

And uh also Harry and Niva celebrating their 58th anniversary.

That's exciting.

Speaking of anniversaries, I'll give you this quick commercial.

Two weeks.

CCW turns 14.

We don't want to miss our party.

There's gonna be a pinata, the whole works.

Not really, but there is gonna be dinner on the grounds uh that Friday before, ladies, there's a women's um dinner.

Miss Susan Lovin is a phenomenal Bible teacher.

Ladies, you'll be filled up.

I hope that you'll register for that and come.

And then uh again, dinner on the grounds that Sunday.

Afterwards, we've combined that with our kids' back to school bash.

So there's gonna be inflatables and stuff for the kids that stick around, a lot of fun.

Want you to celebrate our 14th with us.

All right.

If you got one of these devices, you're probably just human, right?

But this little thing can run lives.

This little thing has a GPS on it, and without that, many of you can't get where you're going.

On this thing used to be that you would keep phone numbers.

Nobody keeps a phone number anymore.

There's many of you don't know your wife's or husband's phone number in this room.

You put down the emergency contact, and you go, I don't know what I would do in emergency because I don't have the contact in my head.

So you gotta find your phone.

This thing has thousands of pictures, right?

Your life has been stored in it for the last several years.

And it can remind you of appointments that you have.

And this is what I know it doesn't matter how updated, how fancy or pretty it is.

Hello, Siri, hello.

If it does not have any power in it, we've got a problem.

None of those things will matter.

If it doesn't have, hello, if it doesn't have any life in it, then there's a problem.

Sadly, I believe this is a truth that in churches everywhere today, this Sunday, there are people a lot like this.

Not bad people, not atheist people, not immoral people, but disconnected from life people.

People that need to know this this morning.

Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.

He came, church, this morning to make things be alive.

Can you pray with me?

Father, we ask this morning that your presence would be felt in this place.

God, without that, this meeting does not matter one bit.

And God, we need you to go before us.

We need your presence.

We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds and our hearts for what you have to say to us from your word.

I pray today that we would leave understanding that you are resurrection.

You are life.

So many things are vying for our lives, and you are life.

Help us to uh understand that fact today and change our hearts, move us towards you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

In John chapter 11, we find an insurmountable predicament.

John 11 · chapter mention

I want you to turn there, John 11, and we'll look at verses 1 through 6.

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the town of Mary, her sister Martha.

It was that Mary who was anointed, who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.

Therefore the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, the he whom you love is sick.

When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days.

If I were you, I'd put a question mark there.

In the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, Let us go to Judea again.

Letter A, we see the predicament of infection.

Lazarus got sick.

Lazarus was a friend of Jesus.

Somebody here needs to hear this today.

You're here for this.

It says, the one whom Jesus loved got sick.

Maybe if you're not here for any other reason, you need to hear the one, the one that Jesus loved got sick.

Because you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, does not exempt you from a fallen world.

So what do you do when you get sick?

How many of you, you got fast fingers over to that WebMD?

Anybody like this?

You Google it, you have a couple of symptoms, and you start typing them in, and then you go, I think I got NCS.

Oh no, I've got the NCS.

And your mind goes down a road, and after a few minutes of looking up the detrimental symptoms of NCS, you say, I don't even know who will sing at my funeral.

You say, honey, tell the kids I love them.

I've got NCS.

I've got nasal congestion syndrome.

Right?

John uses the Greek here term for what Lazarus has is sickness, and it's astineo, and it means to be weak unto death.

It's not simply catching a cold.

This sickness that Lazarus has is not incidental, but the picture here I want you to see is Lazarus is not unique getting sick here.

He is a picture of every man.

Every man has tendency towards sickness, and it's because Romans 5, 2, it says, by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.

In Hebrews it says, every man has an appointment, Hebrews 9, with death.

Death is not just a medical problem, though.

It's a spiritual problem that began in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Lazarus got infected with sickness, but every man that's been born since Eden has a sin infection.

And so we all are infected.

You didn't get a choice as a baby and say, you know, I'm gonna go with perfection.

I want to live in a perfect utopia.

I want to live in a world like that.

We've all been infected.

Jesus' friends call for Jesus because the infection was a predicament.

A predicament that they believed from what they saw of Jesus.

If we get him, he could fix it.

He's got an infection, he's got a problem, it's near unto death.

But if we get a hold of Jesus, we've seen what Jesus can do.

But he wasn't there.

Why wasn't he there?

Let's look at that.

The predicament of inconvenience.

Look down at chapter 11, verse 14.

Jesus says to his disciples plainly, Lazarus is dead.

And I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there.

Question mark.

That you may believe.

Nevertheless, let us go to him.

Then Thomas, who was called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, Let us go that we may die with him.

So when Jesus came, he found that he had already been in the tomb four days.

Now Bethany, this is important, was near Jerusalem, about two miles away, and many of the Jews had joined the women around Mary and Martha, comforting concerning Lazarus.

So we see this timing issue.

This chapter should bring some question marks to you.

It says, the one that Jesus loved was sick.

Now it says Jesus said it's good that he dies.

And then we see this waiting.

Nobody likes to wait, right?

Y'all with me?

Anybody like the waiting line of the checkout is my favorite part?

Nobody likes to wait.

We don't like waiting in traffic.

We don't like waiting in the doctor's office.

We don't like waiting on test results.

Um, we just don't like waiting.

And we definitely don't like waiting on God.

When I was 21 years old, I come to understand around Christmas break that I had wasted about two years in a relationship.

Two years is too long to realize you've been wasting that much time.

And then I really started thinking about all the people that I have dated up to that point.

And then y'all have heard, some of y'all have heard this, many of you.

Then the Lord sent me back to Tennessee Temple.

I broke up with that two-year relationship, and the very next night on God's timing, two years, I walk into Stake and Shake, one of the most romantic places a person could ever walk.

The wind breeze blew this girl's hair at the end of the table.

And I looked out, she was at the very opposite end of me, and I clenched my jaw.

I looked at her.

I wanted to know that I noticed her, but I didn't want her to notice me staring, so I looked back and I looked down, and I was waiting for an opportunity for a moment that maybe I could make a move.

And as I was awaiting all of that, the hypothetical conversation that began at that table was if you were an animal, what animal would you be and why?

And this girl who hadn't spoken a word to me in that 30 minutes of eating all this pointed across the table, 10, 11 people, and she said, Well, we know what Rick would be.

He looks like a raccoon, doesn't he?

I said, I turned around and looked at her and I said, That's okay, horse teeth.

And it's been love ever since.

We have not been away from each other one day that I can remember since that day we've always been together.

But I think about God's timing.

You might question God's timing, and one day you might realize God's timing was actually better than yours.

Some of you have heard this uh song, Garth Brooks song, some of God's greatest gift are unanswered prayers.

God is above us, knowing things that we need when we're praying for things that we don't need.

He sent a word, it says, to Jesus.

They sent a word, but he never came.

That's a predicament.

It was an inconvenience of timing.

Or, or was it?

This is richer than inconvenience.

Look back there at verse 6.

It says, so when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was.

That almost sounds wrong, doesn't it?

He stayed longer.

He loved them, they needed him, therefore he stayed a little bit longer.

And we go, that's puzzling.

Well, I said, look at the location.

I read a verse about it.

Bethany, it wasn't like Jesus was a journey away.

Jesus was two miles from Jerusalem in Bethany.

I went to Six Flags Tuesday.

I walked two miles from the parking lot to the gate.

I show you my phone.

I got seven miles in.

I was proud of it by the end of the day.

Like, look at me.

Jesus wasn't far from them geographically.

He was far from them intentionally.

He loved them.

And sometimes, hear me, church, God delays something because you need an inconvenience.

Pastor, what are you saying?

I'm not feeling very comforted today.

Sometimes, because God loves you, hear me, you are allotted the blessing of an inconvenience.

And that's hard.

We don't want to hear that.

I'm leaving, Pastor.

I understand.

I texted my cousin Carrie Ann this week, and uh during the funeral, my mom passed.

I saw Carrie Ann, and she lost her mom less than two years ago, my aunt Donna, and um kind of catching up.

And in the last year, Carrie Ann has gotten cancer.

Lost her mom and gotten cancer, and so I just wanted to send her a text to encourage her.

And this is what she responded to me.

She said, I have learned when we face things so overwhelming, there is a closeness to God that we do not typically experience in normal living.

She said, Rick, you're experiencing it right now with your loss.

She said, It's a holy closeness.

And then she said, This probably that I'm going through is the hardest thing I've ever faced.

Physically, it is the hardest.

She said, So I offer it as worship.

When I go to heaven, I won't get to give him my pain.

CCW, this predicament of Lazarus' infection unto death was on purpose.

Let's see a little more about it.

An inconceivable pledge is the second thing I want you to see.

Look at verse 20.

Jesus and the disciples move on.

Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming in verse 20, went and met him.

But Mary was sitting in the house.

Now Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

I want you to park there for a moment.

We see letter A, an uncertain pledge of hope.

Mary and Martha believe, and through this passage, they believe and then they doubt.

And then they believe and then they doubt.

Anyone here ever been like this?

Right?

She says, If you'd been there, I know whatever you ask of God.

Lord, I know one day, verse 24 says, on the resurrection day, but why weren't you here?

Christians, intellectually, we believe that Jesus can.

We believe that he can, but they just struggle believing that he will.

There's a scripture, you remember?

It says, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

This should apply to most of us.

If you're out of this and your roller coaster is always sitting here, and you just have belief and never doubt, we need to have breakfast together because I need to know.

But I want you to look at the textual insights to Martha.

Okay.

She thinks in a couple of ways.

One, she thinks backwards.

She said, Lord, if you'd have been here, that's looking backwards.

She said, Lord, if you just would have been here.

And then she looks upward.

Jesus right here with her.

She looks upward.

She said, if you would have asked God, he could have done this.

And then she looks forward.

She says, I know one day there will one day be a day when we rise.

She says, I know, I know, I know.

And Jesus says, Martha, at this present moment, I am here.

Right here.

At this moment.

Not behind, not above, not forward, right now.

And Martha, you see, she believes in all this doctrine.

She's a church person.

She believes all these things.

And Jesus has to say, Hold on now.

You're looking beyond, you're looking before.

Let me redirect your hope.

Because some things don't go as you thought they would go.

And Martha is telling him, this is not how I planned it.

But I want to assure you, church, they've never gone outside of God's sovereignty.

Doubt is the opposite of faith.

So when you're uncertain, when you're feeling doubt in life, I want to give you three little practical things to do.

Okay?

These would be good to write down, to keep.

When you feel that, because I'm just saying, unless you're inhuman today, you're a steel force of spirituality, you're probably gonna have some temptation with some doubt.

And here's what I would say to do.

Number one, when you feel doubt, rehearse what you know, not what you feel.

When you feel doubt, rehearse what you know, what you've been promised, what is trustworthy.

Rehearse what you know of what God has done already, how he's proven himself.

Number one, rehearse what you know, not what you feel.

Number two, wait before you write the ending.

Wait.

We get so far ahead and see all of the problem, and and and we don't take this time of waiting and soaking in whatever God's trying to do and trust, and we need to wait.

Number three, trust and obey.

Trust in God and obey the steps that He puts before you.

Because faith, hear me, church, doesn't mean that you never ask God why, but it's that you always say yes, Lord.

We never stop asking why.

We're human, but we always say yes, Lord.

Letter B.

We see an unwavering pledge of healing.

Look down at verse 24 through 27.

Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

And Jesus said to her, here it is, I am.

Right there with her, right in front of her face, I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.

And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this, Martha?

She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.

He said, I am, listen, I know what you're saying, and it's this place of belief.

And he says, go even deeper.

Right in front of you.

I am the resurrection.

He's not saying, Martha, I can resurrect Lazarus.

He's saying, I am resurrection.

He doesn't say I can give resurrection.

He says, I am.

What does Jesus know about healing that we don't know?

Well, the word resurrection here is the word anastasis.

And it means standing to life again.

Hold that.

He says, I am the standing to life again and life.

He says, life and life again.

He makes a double statement.

If you look through the book of John, it seems John's favorite word is life.

And I want to ask you an important question that I think is going to sound a little trite this morning, but how's the life of your life?

Does your life have life?

He makes this double statement.

Jesus, I am the life and the life.

Does your life have life?

Because John, all through John, John 1, he says, in him we have life.

John 3, whosoever believeth in him will have eternal life.

In John 5, he says, I am the Son who gives life.

In John 10, he says, I give eternal life.

In John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And so when Jesus said, I am life, he's talking vastly more than your physical breath from your body.

I believe that there are people today here, biologically, you're breathing, but spiritually.

Maybe on the verge of death.

Sleeping.

Need of healing.

Some years back, Heather and I were sitting on the sofa, switching through the channels and looking at trying to find something.

You live long enough you might get like that.

There's nothing good on here.

I'll spend an hour searching for something, and then it's time just to go to sleep.

Well, anyhow, we came across a show called The Walking Dead.

Don't judge me.

Okay.

All right.

It will not help your walk with Jesus Christ.

And I don't believe Jesus ever binged.

Okay?

But from nine o'clock, I'm just like, well, let's just try.

See, I don't know.

I don't know anything about it.

We'll just try it.

From nine o'clock, I found ourselves to 3 a.m.

We're sitting there.

I think we can get 45 more minutes in.

It's just so intense.

But during that season, this is what a zombie is.

A zombie moves, a zombie breathes, a zombie walks, it has some functions, but life is missing.

There's no soul there.

And hear me, church body.

People come to church.

They sing in church.

They serve on teams.

They can talk, Christian talk.

Yet they're spiritually zombies.

This is not alive.

Revelations 3, 1 and 2 talks about it.

It says you look alive, but you're not.

Hello! But if the power is not, what do I have?

And we can have all kinds of great things in here this morning.

We can sing great songs.

I can preach a sermon from God.

If the power of God, working through the Holy Spirit of God in you and in me does not show up, guess what?

You're gonna leave, and it's gonna feel like another sleepy Sunday.

Another example, Paul says, he says, Christians and Corinthians will become carnal.

That word means fleshly, the lust of this world.

They know God, but they have come to enjoy acting like spiritual zombies in fulfillment of worldly pursuits.

The world has gotten them in a chokehold, and so whatever it was that they gave themselves to is being choked out, and they say, I want this more, and I'm gonna live for this more, and they become carnal Christians, which looks like Christian zombies.

Barely breathing, barely living.

There's a book that Louis Giglio wrote.

I love the title.

It's called I Am Not, but I know I am.

God is called the I am.

I am not, but I know I am.

And he poses a few of these statements and he says, Hear me, church.

I need hope.

What does God say?

I am.

What works?

I am.

What is the latest thing?

I am.

I need a fresh start.

I am.

Nothing feels real anymore.

I am.

I don't know who I can trust.

I am.

Nobody listens to me.

I am.

I can't hold on.

I am.

I don't know why I'm here.

I am.

I need a fix.

I am.

I need somebody to hold me.

I am.

And to Martha, he said, I am.

I am, Martha.

I am the resurrection and the life.

And then he says, Do you believe?

Well, that takes us to the third point.

An incredible phenomenon happens.

All the kids that grow up in church memorize this little scripture.

John 11, 35.

Anybody know it?

Right?

I know one.

I can quote.

John 11 here, starting verse 33.

Then he said, signifying by what death he would die.

The people answered, I'm in the wrong chapter.

Thank you for correcting me.

Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled.

And he said, Where have you laid him?

And they said to him, Lord, come and see.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, See how he loved him.

And some of them said, Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying?

Then Jesus again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb.

It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

We'll pause there.

Letter A, what we see is that Jesus Christ.

The word for cries here is dakreo, and it means to shed quiet tears.

It's a difference because the groaning word we'll look at in a moment, but when he weeps, it says he shed quiet tears.

But why?

Jesus shed quiet tears because his friends are hurting.

Their brother went through sickness and they hoped for a miracle and watched their brother die.

They buried him.

And now Jesus' friends were sad.

Notice he doesn't tell them, you people need to stop this.

He doesn't say stop weeping.

He doesn't say stop crying.

In Romans 12, I've found this out.

And pastoring one of the greatest ministry verses, Romans 12, 15 says, weep with those who weep.

He wept tenderly at the sight of death.

But it was not that he died.

I want you to hold on to that.

Verse 38, it goes into this word, he groaned.

So he wept quiet tears, and then verse 38, he groaned.

And it says before third three, that he groaned.

This word literally means like a horse snorting.

This is different.

It means like righteous anger with sadness.

The word is embracing, okay?

This is like a horse snorting.

Jesus hated sin.

This thing that separated us from God.

And Jesus, who is God, was God at creation, knew that this world wasn't made like this.

33 years he walked through this world and wasn't touched by the sinfulness.

He lived without sin.

But his humanity groaned.

It was not just because Lazarus died.

I want you to hear this.

It was death itself.

It was the work of a broken system.

Sin, like a bad strain of the flu, had come to all men.

And hear me, in Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis 3 before sin, there were no funeral homes in the garden.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

There was no cemeteries in the garden.

There was no hospitals in the garden.

There was no cancer or Alzheimer's in the garden.

Death is an intruder that wasn't a welcome guest.

And Jesus isn't crying because he lost that Lazarus died.

He wept moments before he's going to win.

It wasn't that.

Think about it.

He's about to raise Lazarus.

He knows what's going to happen.

Yet he weeps.

Why?

He didn't stand outside of Lazarus' tomb wondering, do I have the power enough to raise this man back to life?

He stood there grieving that the world had become the kind of place where tombs were necessary.

And that brought sadness.

That brought grieving.

The thing that separated this whole creation from his father God.

And it's sad.

Until letter B.

Letter B is this.

Lazarus dies and survives.

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time there is a stench.

He has been dead four days.

And Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?

Then they took away the st then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.

An old King James version of the Bible, what I grew up on.

How many of you grew up with some King James Old English?

Whithersoever thou goest, mayest thou have a great lunch today.

Amen.

In the old King James version, it said, But Lord, it stinketh.

Right?

That is the most spiritual way to say what she was feeling.

Lord, it stinketh.

You open your kid's door up this afternoon, and I think you should say, Lord, it stinketh.

Have you ever smelled something nasty and said this?

You smell something nasty, you said, It smells like something died in here.

Well, Jesus lifted his voice to Martha, it says, When Jesus lifts his voice, are your ears attentive?

It says he lifted his voice and Martha her response, but Lord, this is not what I expected.

Lord, I might get dirty.

I might get hurt.

It might be hard, people might say.

Lord, people might oppose the thing that you're telling me to do.

People might oppose me if I do that.

People in my family might think I'm crazy if I say yes to that.

If I walk in faith to this thing, Lord, I might get uncomfortable.

Lord, what about everyone else?

She says, He's been dead four days.

And it stinks.

Sometimes I think living by faith has a really honest answer.

God, I hear what you're saying.

But you know what I think?

I think it stinks.

Living by faith sometimes has a really honest answer.

Somebody gets a report back from the doctors, and you know, and they go, God, that stinks.

I lost my job.

God, that stinks.

Have you ever felt like saying, but God, it stinks?

I'm not trying to get down on Martha today.

I think she has a really honest expression.

Notice.

She calls him Lord.

Martha is struggling and she's still respectful.

She recognizes the power of God that she's close and proximity to Jesus.

Jesus spoke, yet she didn't start walking towards the stone.

The Lord spoke.

Now people do this all the time when life is hard.

You could have healed him two days ago.

She doesn't question his power, she questions his timing.

You see, faith sees possibilities, and fear smells decay.

Faith says, God, whatever it is.

Let's look at verse 41 through 44 there again.

He said to her, You would see the glory of God.

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.

And Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, Father, I thank you that you've heard me.

And I know that you always hear me, but because of the people who are standing by, I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.

Now, when he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

And he who had died came out bound hand and feet with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.

And Jesus said to them, Loose him and let him go.

We don't know if Martha ever partook in moving the stone.

It says, And they moved the stone.

But regardless, we do know this.

It says, Jesus spoke with a loud voice.

A voice, that word voice there is like one of authority.

And this is a voice that John has already taken great pains of painting throughout scripture.

He tells us in John 1 that creation obeyed this voice.

In John 6, bread even obeyed this voice.

In John 9, blind eyes obeyed this voice.

And now in John 11, even death itself is going to obey this voice.

Are you obeying this voice today?

Can you say that?

Spouses with your husbands and wives, right there?

Are you obeying this voice?

Students, today, the voice of God that's calling on your heart, are you obeying this voice?

He said, Lazarus.

Jesus called out with a loud voice, Lazarus.

He said his name.

And that's important.

You know why it's important?

Because if he just said, come forth, it would have been a scene like thriller with Michael Jackson.

Every dead life that was in the grave would have came up and said, You know, it would have been a scene.

But he said, Lazarus.

And I wish we could all be there for a second.

A four-day dead Lazarus wrapped in grave clothes comes out.

What a nap! Grave clothes falling off him.

What's all the fuss about, guys?

Well, notice the next words that Jesus gives.

This is for us, church.

His next words were loose him and let him go.

He shared his voice, and there was a man who needed spiritual life.

That was Lazarus.

And Jesus spoke to him and he gave resurrection life.

But you know what?

Others were there to help remove the hang-ups.

Others were there to serve.

We're all here one way or the other, church, to help loose grave clothes.

Now you may be the one, and spiritually, on the inside, you're covered up in grave clothes.

And that's not out of judgment.

This is belief, doubt, belief, doubt, roller coaster of Christianity, whatever you want to call it, it just happens.

And maybe today you need to release grave clothes in some way.

But maybe you're supposed to be a friend today.

Right here in church.

You say, I'm a friend, and God has put somebody on your heart.

You need to come help unravel.

Man, God wants to give new life, but man, it says help loose it.

Help them walk in freedom.

Help them see in the blinders.

You're here today to help loose some grave clothes.

You're not here without purpose.

But you can come in and you can miss it.

I believe somebody today needs resurrection.

You've been settling for something for a long time.

You've been looking at it.

Jesus is in front of you, and he's saying, I'm right here.

I'm right here.

And I'm telling you, I put the path in front of, I'm here.

And maybe you need a friend here.

Remove the clothes, get it off your eyes, your ears.

Listen.

Listen.

There's so much more for you.

What are you settling for?

Don't live a dead spiritual life.

If this ain't exciting, then you're not getting it.

People talk about a fanatical Christian.

If you're not a fanatic, what are you?

If you came in here off the streets and you heard we're talking about, you'd have to think they're fanatics.

They're singing up there to somebody I've never seen.

What is this if it's not fanatical?

So I don't know what God is doing in your heart, but somebody today probably needs prayed with.

I'm sure somebody needs encouraged.

You got words, don't hold them hostage.

Somebody needs your words.

They need loosing.

I want to invite you and ask you, church, don't be spectators of God's miracles.

Be a part of his mission.

And join this church body today.

In that see.

Siri.

My phone's struggling.

Hey, smile.

My phone doesn't need encouragement.

You can do this.

You can come back to life.

My phone doesn't even need motivation from me.

You know what my phone needs?

Doesn't need counseling.

It needs life.

It needs to charge into the power cord and come back to life.

Some today you may be sitting here and you're struggling with the question, what do I need in my life?

And I don't know if somebody suggested to you, maybe it needs a stone of remembrance today as a place of new life.

I've heard youth pastors in camps talk, they down talk on the word rededication.

Man, rededicate if you need to rededicate.

And if you need to rededicate next Sunday, come next Sunday and rededicate.

Because you know what?

Sometimes by Tuesday, I'd have lost myself.

Rededicate.

Have new life.

What you can't do is act like everything is okay because I gotta shake hands and glory to God, I gotta look just right.

And we're all a mess.

We all need help.

Will you be honest and start pulling back the layers of things?

You need life.

Maybe today you're here.

Maybe you come in like TJ Webster came in last week.

You never experienced new life through Jesus Christ.

In a moment, we're gonna have an invitation.

And I want to invite you like TJ, like Landry, like many of you.

Jesus Christ came to give you resurrected life.

And I don't know what path you've been on, but he can give you a life filled with purpose, filled with passion, filled with something to live for.

He can take all of your sins, and his blood will cover them.

He'll give you new life.

Do anything today, but stay still.

Do anything today, but be okay with being spiritually where I'm at.

I don't know what your next step is, but I'm gonna ask you this morning to be honest with yourself and the Lord.

I'm gonna ask you to stand to your feet.

We're gonna have a moment of invitation.

Just before we do, I want to share this.

If you can, just in a prayerful spirit, bow your heads.

My fear is Christians sometimes will put off and we'll put off and we'll put off.

And