Dead Man Walking (Part 6-Palm Sunday): Death Destroyer

Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.

My name is Ross Stackhouse.

I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who

don't fit neatly into church.

Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories,

to honor their stories.

Because in every human story is God's story.

In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call

Heaven Earth Church home.

Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or

rediscovering faith.

If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org

Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.

Hello good people.

Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.

One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth

Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding

pastor Ross Stackhouse.

You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation

this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.

The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available

here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify

and on the website, which is heaven earthchurch.org Here now is

Pastor Ross Stackhouse with part six of the Dead Man Walking

series.

This is the Palm Sunday Message Death Destroyer.

Hey, good morning everyone.

Thank you, Christy.

We have some new folks today, so my name is Ross.

I'm pastor here at Heaven Earth Church.

Thanks to Adam and Emily and Brandon for sharing their gifts with

us this morning.

Hello to everyone online.

Just a few announcements.

Actually, not a few, but I'm going to do my best.

First order of business, I'll try to go to the nearest, to the

farthest away.

Today is Palm Sunday.

It marks the beginning of Holy Week when Jesus entered Jerusalem

and it was the last week of his life.

For this week, we don't have any.

If you've come from a church background.

If you don't, then you're not expecting anything anyways.

So good for you because we have nothing this week anyways.

But if you wanted to go to like what's called a Maundy Thursday

service to celebrate the last supper of Jesus Grace, UMC in Franklin

is close partner to us.

They will have those services.

And also Good Friday service is something really meaningful during

this week.

Something that I'm going to tell you, I'm going to invite you

to do right now with me.

I do this every year.

Check with your doctor first.

Make sure you can do it.

I always fast on Good Friday.

That would be really cool to know that Our church family is doing

that together.

If you get hangry, just don't be around people a lot.

All right.

But it's just a really cool way to mark that day and journey

with Jesus.

So I'll do that on Good Friday.

And then Holy Saturday.

I try to keep a candle lit throughout my house for the Holy

Saturday Saturday vigil.

And then Easter Sunday is next Sunday.

Did you know it will be.

I put this out in an email five years ago.

I got here in 2018 with nothing except my family and we just

started getting to know everyone, making partnerships in

the community.

We started hosting events at Johnson's barbecue.

In January 2019, we started meeting in my house with like five

or six people.

Easter of 2020, we were going to have our first Sunday gathering

here.

And then.

And as it happened, for everyone, like it's been.

It was like this for, for.

It was tough.

It was very tough.

But fast forward five years later, we will celebrate Easter here.

And I'm so excited to do it with you.

I.

I hope to see a lot of our folks who have been a part of our

journey.

But also it's a great time to invite someone.

If you're an.

If you're an evangelist like dad, you should be inviting 25 people.

Okay.

He invites somebody every week anyways.

But like, look, Ava and Marnie brought like an entire row in a day.

Don't look at him to make him feel awkward or anything.

But if they did that, like, come on, invite somebody.

If this is helpful to you, then it might be helpful to somebody

else.

And Easter is a great time to do that.

Okay, I'm not even done with announcements, so you better keep

giving me your attention because we got a lot of stuff going.

On Wednesday, April 23, after Easter, we have the first of our

Recovery as Possible speaker series where we're featuring local

heroes of recovery.

And Spencer Metcalf is going to be sharing with us that night.

He helped us found Recovery Church.

He'll have eight years of sobriety coming up.

He is now the director of Business development for Spark Recovery.

Maybe you don't need this meeting, but you might know somebody

who does.

Spencer's story is amazing.

He's been a huge part of our journey.

April 23, at 6:30 there's a free meal which we get as a part

of a grant for drug free Johnson County.

So that's a really cool thing that we have coming up.

All right, April 27, are you taking notes, everyone?

Oh my gosh.

We got some people are going to come to our Auto audio, visual

training.

There's so many ways to just serve and plug in and take ownership

of the church.

On Sunday mornings.

You can be a part of the hospitality team with Rachel Roebling.

You can be a part of the music team if you reach out to Emily.

One of the things we do back there, hey, look at Natalie and Ellie

right back there.

Ellie's ducking right now.

She doesn't want to be seen, but she's there.

They're running the show back there today.

If you want to chip in in that way and learn what's going on next

Sunday, 11:15am but then we got another thing next Sunday as

well.

Go to that one now.

Boom.

What?

Two Sundays.

Two Sundays.

Not next Sunday.

April 27th.

Thank you.

Our garden architect, Jill Bevins, from last year.

We had a great team put together our community garden last

year.

We're kicking it off again, but we're putting a new spin on community

garden.

We actually want to invite you and teach you and equip you to create

a garden at home.

Now, some of you are like, I already do that.

Good for you.

We're going to help you to create a spiritual garden and a literal

garden at home so that you, you cultivate fruit, literally, or

flowers and.

Or flowers and spiritual fruit at home that you bring back to the

community.

Because as we get deeper into the gardening season, we're going

to have a couple of distribution days throughout the

week.

One here and one off site so that we take our fruit and our produce

into the community.

If you don't have any room to garden at home, we will offer our

plot to you and you can claim a little space.

But just heads up, it's your space.

So if I see weeds growing there, I'm like, oh, look at those

cute weeds.

And I'm going to go right back inside.

All right?

Because it's your garden, it's your plot that's part of a bigger

plot.

All right?

So with that in mind, on April 27, we're going to have a, like,

sort of launching your garden workshop that Jill is going to lead

Gardening 101.

You can sign up on a paper.

Where's that paper, Emily?

Jill's got it right there.

If you go to our Planning center or our Church center app,

it's on the homepage.

So you go to Church center down on the app.

Make Heaven Earth Church your church.

There's a button.

You just click and sign up for it.

We will equip you with knowledge.

We'll equip you with supplies.

If need be, we want to help you garden at home so you grow spiritually

and as a gardener at home and then part here.

Anything else, Jill?

Sorry.

I'm gonna ask this around and you guys will see.

You can mark if you want to be on the gardening team, distribution,

team growth, and then what supplies you might need, the experience

you have, what kind of support you'll need.

We're definitely creating on giving out the seedlings at the kickoff

meeting.

And you know, however these people will provide the plants, soil,

you know, lend tools, whatever the case may be to try and empower

people to be successful.

And we would really like to incorporate flowers this year too,

so you can get flower gardens.

But as a vegetable garden, we, on these distribution days, we'd

like to, to give away flowers as well as tomatoes and spinach or

whatever else we've got.

So we really thought the discipline of growing at home and

even incorporating family kids would be a good disciplined practice

and then to bear fruit and share that with the community.

So I pass this around if anything was questioned.

Yes, thanks to Jill.

This is Jill's vision and I'm so excited for it.

So, okay, the last two.

I swear I'm done after this.

I forgot.

Youth night is tonight at 5:00.

Here some more fun times and games.

Like we played a card game called Piles last week and then they

asked this easy question about how do you reconcile scientific explanations

of the beginning of the universe is what it says in the Bible.

Easy stuff.

We're going to pick that back up tonight.

So it's, it's, it's a growing group that's exciting to be a part

of.

And then the last thing on May 2, it's a Friday night, we're having

a service and partnership night from 5:30 to 7:30.

So just mark your calendar.

Friday, May 2nd, we're gonna have several projects that you can

be a part of around our community building here, but also

some projects out in the community.

So mark your calendar.

Friday, May 2, 5:30 to 7:30.

A service and partnership night.

We did it.

Could you stand up, please?

I just would invite you to take a big deep breath in and out.

Breath is a gift.

The Holy Spirit is a gift.

Breathe in and out.

God, we ask that your Holy Spirit would be with us so we can

see things we couldn't see on our own, hear things we couldn't

hear on our own, and ultimately be a part of this incredible

mission that you've brought to us in Jesus.

It's in his name I pray.

Amen.

Okay, you can have a seat.

Unless you want to do some jumping jacks real quick.

Make sure you're with me.

All right, listen up.

Here's the real deal.

If I've ever struggled to not go over today is going to be the

worst struggle.

So don't be like, oh, man, that means Ross is going way over

today.

No, I tried my best.

This is the most work I've ever done for a sermon because I

think it's that important.

We got questions.

When we started this Dead Man Walking series, why did Jesus die?

And who cares?

Kind of one question we got is, why is death the mechanism?

Why is blood the mechanism?

We just had a song that said bought by your blood.

I know it.

I could feel it in the room.

Some of you went with that part, right?

No, Ross, we're churchy people.

We're just joyful all the time.

We love Jesus.

Any song we sing, we just like it.

And we just sing our lungs out.

No, you don't.

You were lying.

I felt it.

So that's what we're talking about today.

We have way more to get to than we're going to get to.

So first thing I want to ask you though is this.

What would you do if you ultimately had nothing to fear in

the future?

What if you knew or trusted completely that death ultimately

has no power?

What if you believed completely that death will be destroyed

and everything will be restored?

What if you really, really trusted these things?

Would you live with more joy?

Would you be less.

Oh, go ahead, Christy.

Live with less worry.

Okay.

Others, what would you do if you ultimately had nothing to fear

in the future because you believe that death's going to be

destroyed and everything will be restored?

Right now I can feel.

Oh, go ahead, Tucker.

Interesting.

Interesting.

There's a song by.

If we were Vampires, by.

Come on, somebody help me out.

If we were vampires and death were a joke.

Jason Isbell.

Thank you.

He says maybe time running out is a gift.

That was a curveball.

I did not expect this morning.

Love it, Tucker.

God, man, I love our.

I love our students so much.

Yeah, maybe time running out as a gift.

That's Tucker's answer.

What about you?

Would you be braver?

Would you live with more courage?

Would you live with less ambition and more presence?

What if you weren't always in self preservation and self protection

mode?

What if you ultimately had nothing to fear?

I'll tell you today that the Bible's main concern.

I have good basis for this, folks.

It's been well documented that one of the most commonly occurring

Commands in the Bible, if not the most, is do not fear.

Well, why would the Bible say that?

Because the thing that human beings are plagued by the most is.

We're going to talk about that today as a part of this.

Like, why is death the mechanism?

Why is blood.

Like, why does Jesus have to die to save the world?

And what does that even mean to begin with or to end with?

There's.

We have.

As Willy Wonga says, we have so much time and so little to do.

But it's the.

If there's ever a time where the exact opposite of the reverse,

that is today.

I want to tell you that as I think about this topic, I think about

how we're pressing against our limits as we talk about this.

We are pressing against our limits.

If there's ever a time that, like, the more I dove in, folks,

I took a whole survey of the New Testament to find out, like,

everything that's said about salvation.

And I feel like I had that experience where I know less than

when I began.

It's like, dang it, I did all this searching for treasure, and

I know less than when I began.

And yet I had this experience that the first saints had.

The first saints and sinners where, like, they fell into the mystery.

Like, you fall into the ocean and just float.

And they're like, oh, my God, I know nothing.

And I know everything.

He is Lord, Lord of the universe, and he has conquered all

death and demons and evil, and I am free.

And I have no idea what that means, but God, it's awesome.

That's what I saw in the New Testament.

I told you, like, in the church, we've shrunk down salvation

to a formula that was manageable so we'd have control and

certainty.

Why?

Because what are the.

What's one thing that we're so afraid of?

Uncertainty.

We don't want mysterious human beings.

That goes against our biological code.

But one thing I saw, like, we shrunk it down going through this,

guys.

I feel like I saw the whole Starry Night painting.

We talked about that in last week's.

I feel like I'm seeing the whole thing.

I understand less of it, and yet I trust more of it.

It's possible.

Folks, I want to share with you what I found and invite you into

the mystery.

You very well might walk out today, be like, ross didn't answer

that question.

All Brandon's gonna be like, I'm never gonna ask a question again.

This guy just gave me more questions.

He.

Yep, it's probably going to happen today.

I'M not sorry.

We have to get out of the addiction to certainty.

If we want to know Jesus, we have to get more comfortable with

discomfort and mystery.

It doesn't mean we can't ask questions and pursue answers.

We're going to do it today.

We're going to ask questions and pursue answers at Youth Night

tonight.

But if we're waiting for all the certainty to fall into the ocean

of faith, we will never, ever get there.

And that's why many of you quit church, because you got sick

of the certainty that was shoved down your throat.

And you should have quit it.

You should have.

So this.

This is going to be a disaster today.

Good luck, Ross.

Good thing the Holy Spirit's with us, right?

All right, here's what we got to do real quick.

First, I'll tell you the map of the sermon.

I'm going to put up the link to the sermon and the link to the

preparation documents on Church Center.

It'll be on the homepage so you can dive in more.

This is 11 pages here.

We're not getting to it.

It'll be okay.

It'll be okay, Ross.

So first of all, some.

Let's talk about the one thing I'll try to give you a little bit

of.

I don't even like this.

I don't even like this because it doesn't do any of this justice.

Jesus frees us from our greatest fear and restores the world

by dethroning and defeating the enemy that humankind created.

Death.

If I had to try my darndest to sum up what the New Testament has

to say, that's it.

This is the sense in which he dies for our sins.

God's beautiful creation has become what it is as a result of

generations of human free choice.

And so if anyone should make great sacrifices to free the world

and restore it, it should be humankind who does it.

Kind of like you made your bed, now you lie in it, right?

It's humans who are writing bad check after bad check.

There are insufficient funds in the bank accounts of our hearts,

and yet we keep on writing.

The truth is that humans are now powerless to restore what has

been lost.

We need a power and glory so much better than ourselves.

Isn't it wonderful that Jesus comes along to be that?

God comes along like it's a jubilee year.

If you don't know what that is in the Old Testament, it's this old

instruction.

God gave people that about every 49, 50 years, you free every

one of their debts.

If you've got a debt forgiven, if you're enslaved to somebody nearby

because you owe him a debt.

Release the slave, reset the entire society.

Jesus comes along.

It's a big old fat jubilee year.

It's what he announces in Luke 4.

He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news

to the poor, recovery of sight, to the blind, release of the

captives and let the oppressed go free to proclaim the year of the

Lord's favor.

That is the jubilee year.

God comes along and says, I've decided to release every one of their

debts and the charges related to all those bad checks and fraud.

Dad.

Dad hasn't.

He's not a fraud guy.

But I just love my father.

It's good news and I want to tell him about it.

I've come to set people free from prisons they didn't choose.

And also the prisons they built themselves brick by brick.

I have come to heal.

I have come to be oppressed with them and to liberate them.

I have decided to do this because it's who I am.

That's the one thing for today.

That's not a one thing, is it?

Jesus comes to free us.

I told you.

The same word for forgiveness and release in the New Testament

is the same Greek word.

He is releasing us from these powers that are destroying the world.

He comes to take on this great enemy, death, that we've created.

The entire New Testament create treats death like it's a person,

like it's an enemy.

I've told you, Star wars has done a better job.

Or Lord of the Rings.

Anyone like Lord of the Rings?

I'm sorry, I keep referencing it.

Anyone have no idea.

Like they've never seen it and they're never going to see it.

Okay?

Just trust me on this.

There's this amazing scene where this guy named Gandalf fights

this thing called a Bullrog.

Just go YouTube it later.

You don't even have to see any of the movies.

But there's.

It's epic, isn't it, Natalie?

And he.

What is he?

Charles is mouthing it right back there.

He's got all his friends, Gandalf, have passed this chasm and

this bull Rog, this big ancient demon is chasing them.

And the friends go on and he turns around and he looks this bullrog

in the face.

It's huge and fiery.

It looks like Satan and a freaking demon.

It's crazy.

And he takes his staff and goes boom.

And says, what?

Come on, louder.

People who know it.

And he.

He.

You think he beats it and then this bull rock falls down deep, deep,

deep.

And he's got this fiery lasso and he gets Gandalf by the leg and

drags Gandalf down with him and he fights him and he comes back

as Gandalf the White.

Sorry, spoiler alert.

If you didn't see it by now, it's been out for a little while.

Jesus is like that.

He doesn't just die to do a transaction for you.

He comes to fight that bull rug for you and free you and teach

you.

You have nothing to fear, because I am with you.

I will fight the enemy, even the enemies you have created.

I will free you from the prisons that you've been placed in,

that you did not earn.

And I'll also free you from the prison that you built, brick

by brick.

I hold the keys of death and Hades in my hand.

As Revelation says.

That's the sermon in a nutshell.

Wait, we're almost out of time already.

Shoot.

Maybe I should just quit.

Listen really quick.

Here's what we're going to do.

Going to give you a little context of why all this stuff about

blood.

We're going to do that in about three minutes.

It's real fast.

We're going to the Old Testament, three minutes.

The suffering servant in one minute.

And then we're going to get to this stuff about death in about five.

So I need 10 minutes.

I'm going to do this.

We're going to crush it right now.

Let's go.

Marnie, you ready?

Okay, let's go.

There's a lot about death in the Bible.

There's two context things like why, if you read the Bible and

you read the New Testament, you're like, there's all this stuff

about blood and sacrificing animals.

It's hard for us to understand.

In a thousand years, we'll be like, why was everyone carrying around

a small computer and all the time and just had their face buried

in it?

Well, we read back to their time and it's like, hey, Bill, what

are you doing today?

I'm going to go to the temple and sacrifice.

Go.

Oh, yeah, me too.

I'm going at 3:00.

Maybe I'll see you.

That's how it was.

And they didn't have to ask questions about why Bill was sacrificing

a goat.

Everybody did it.

So there was this idea that here's from a book called Leviticus,

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, third book in the Bible.

It's in the Torah.

It's called.

It's a Hebrew word that means instruction.

If it is the Entire Israelite community that has done something

wrong unintentionally, and the deed escapes the assembly's notice,

but they've done something that shouldn't be done in violations

of the Lord's command, becoming guilty, guilty of sin.

Once that sin, they begin and becomes known.

The assembly must present a bull from the herd as purification

offering.

Whoop.

They will bring it before the meeting tent.

The community elders will press their hands on the bull's head

before the Lord and then slaughter it before the Lord.

Did I tell you the Bible's weird?

Weird, right?

Hey, in a thousand years, they'll be like, all these people

were carrying around small commuters and computers and just

staring at it.

They'd be with people and just staring at it.

Weird.

The anointed priest will take some of the bull's blood into the

meeting tent.

The priest will dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle it seven

times before the Lord toward the inner curtain.

What in the world is going on?

We got.

There's no time.

We need 14 Sundays in a row, then another 14.

Here's the only thing that I can tell you first.

In the ancient view, not just Israelites, Jews, blood was seen

as weirdly, paradoxically, as unclean.

So if you touched it, you were, like, unclean.

But also it was unclean because it was so sacred and holy

blood was the life force within a thing.

So at a purifying kind of power.

So that's the context.

Point number one.

Number two, with these sacrifices, you see two things at

work, accountability and atonement.

If it was working well, not all religion works well, right?

But if it was working right, if you sacrificed an animal, it would

be a sobering experience.

It could remind you, like, there are consequences for what we

do.

It could be a sobering experience, really sobering for the

poor animal.

But hopefully for you also, like, hey, even the deeds that you

think go unnoticed, there are consequences.

You may think nobody else saw them, God saw them.

And the harm you may think is not happening.

It might.

So there was an accountability aspect to this system, but also there

was an atoning aspect for it.

They believed that in.

So, like, on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, still celebrated

by our Jewish brothers and sisters to this day, it was a day

of atonement, where in some way you were doing something with

God in your community to make up for all the.

All these bad choices you had made.

That's in the background, that's in the context.

We did it.

I think that was three minutes, was It.

I don't know.

Listen, here's the second point.

It gets mixed together all the time.

Sorry, if you're falling asleep, hang with me.

It gets mixed together all the time.

There's this other thing that has to do with blood of animals,

but it's not the same thing.

It's called Passover.

Have you heard of it?

On Jesus's last supper, he's eating a Passover meal.

The blood there is not the same as the blood here.

It gets mixed together and the church always has.

The Passover story has to do with the Israelites being freed from

the evil and slavery of Egypt.

So in this story, it's really kind of scary and not exciting and

it'll make you kind of squirm a bit.

Moses called together all Israel elders and said to them, go

pick out one of the flock for your families and slaughter the Passover

lamb.

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood that is in the bowl,

and touch the beam above the door and the two doorposts with the

blood in the bowl.

None of you should go out the door of your morning or until the

morning, because the Lord's going to strike down the Egyptians.

Ugh.

Bible's weird.

Did I tell you?

When he sees that blood he'll pass over that door.

He won't let the destroyer into your houses to strike you down.

You should observe this ritual as a regulation for all time for

your children.

The Passover blood is about escaping from slavery and evil and

death.

It's not atonement.

Those are the two context things.

You see, when people thought about Jesus's death in the New Testament,

we had to do that quick.

So when you see blood in the New Testament, the people in Jesus's

time were thinking about these things.

And yet.

Okay, I'm so glad we're done with this part.

It's so, so, so much more.

So much more.

You know how I know this guy named Amos.

He's a prophet.

This is God from the voice of Amos.

I hate.

I reject your festivals.

I don't enjoy your joyous assemblies.

If you bring me your entirely burned offerings and gifts of food,

I won't be pleased.

I won't even look at your offerings of well fed animals.

Take the noise away from your songs.

I won't listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like.

Are you with me?

But let justice roll down like in righteousness, like in.

God wants something more.

Not blood of animals, not just Passover.

God wants justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like

an ever flowing stream.

So it's bigger than those systems of old.

It doesn't erase them.

And that's why this.

We can't shriek down salvation folks.

If you just make it that Jesus is some sacrifice for our sins so

we can go to heaven and not hell.

We have missed the mark big, big time.

Let me show you instead this like big time.

Back to Gandalf.

Let's see if you're still with me.

What does Gandalf say when he slams that staff down?

Come on.

He doesn't say it like that.

He puts it down.

What does he say?

Jesus is like Gandalf saying, to death and evil and the sinfulness

of humankind no more you shall not pass no more.

Hebrews2.9 says it this way.

However, we do see the one who is made lower in order than the angels

for a little while.

It's Jesus.

He's the one who is now crowned with glory and honor because

of the suffering of his death.

He suffered death so that he could taste death for everyone through

God's grace.

Moving on.

Therefore, since the children shared in flesh and blood, he also

shared the same things in the same way.

He did this to destroy the one who holds the power over death, the

devil, by dying.

I'm not making this up.

It's like Jesus was fighting a bull rug when he died.

He took on death to face this enemy that is destroying us.

He tasted death to destroy it.

Yes.

Look, it's just like something that the Bible makes clear that.

Here's the mystery, folks.

We're pressing up against our limitations.

Do you feel confused right now?

Yeah, yeah.

It's because we're pressing up against our limits.

This is a mystery.

The Bible says Jesus in his death was doing something for us

we could not do on our own.

If you know nothing else but that, that's good enough.

At the end of the day, we're going to have to trust that I can

sit up here and explain all day.

I can show you all the research.

We could stay here until 2:00.

We can't because we have a birthday party at home today.

Good for you.

Because I would be tempted to do it, but even then I could give

you all the stuff and you'd still be like, hold on, can we go

back?

I'm confused.

The Bible's main testimony is that Jesus has done something for

us that we could not do on our own.

He is the power and glory greater than us that we need to be

saved.

That's basically the thing.

But the new like, why is death the mechanism?

Ultimately?

Because death has entered this world as an enemy that wasn't supposed

to be here.

The Bible says that like over and again.

It's a.

It's an enemy that we created by our choices.

So if anybody should be making great sacrifices to destroy this

enemy, it should be humankind.

And yet humankind can't do it.

And so Jesus sacrifices himself for us to destroy this enemy.

Someone's at my front door.

Come on, Ring.

Not right now.

I don't have time.

I don't have time for this.

Look, he shared the same things we did.

This is what Philippians and Colossians.

All this stuff is about these hymns.

Like he.

He emptied himself and became obedient.

Obedient to the point of death on a cross.

Why?

So that he could come be.

He would become a human with us and suffer not just for us, but

with us.

And take on this enemy that we just keep getting struck down by.

And he destroys this.

This.

This enemy.

That's how Hebrews says it.

Look here.

He did it so that there would be this transferring of allegiances

note.

So that death won't rule us anymore, but grace will rule.

So instead of being like ruled by the forces of death and evil and

sin, we're now transferred over to the rule of grace.

That God's love rules everything.

The power of God's love is stronger than the power of death.

We have nothing to fear.

That's why Paul.

Hey, I told you Romans 5, it's all about that.

While we were.

Someone at my door again.

While we were still weak at the right moment, Christ died for

the ungodly people.

He didn't do it to just say like, hey, Joanna, here.

Here's a golden ticket to heaven.

Just believe in me.

I died like a lamb for your sins.

You're atoned for.

Go to heaven.

No, no, it's so much bigger.

Like Gandalf fighting that Bullrog, saying, no, death, evil,

sin, you shall not pass.

I'm freeing my people, freeing them.

Death will be destroyed.

While we were weak, Christ came and said, I'm going to free

them.

But God shows his love for us.

You want a mystery?

God shows his love for us.

Because while we were still participating, we were like having

our time in Vegas, participating in the powers of sin.

We were on the.

We went to the dark side.

We do it like every day.

I'm gonna go have my party time in Vegas.

Because no, we're made to participate in the kingdom of light

and glory.

While we were over Here, participating in the dark side, having

a good time.

Jesus said, I love them so much and I want to liberate them.

But here's the mystery, huh?

But God's mad at us, too.

That's weird.

Well, it's funny.

We don't want God.

I said it recently.

We don't want God to have any rage.

Any of you have any rage lately about how things are in the

world?

Anyone had any rage lately?

I heard of a group that's somewhere out there in the ether

that one of the adjectives to describe their group is raging.

Raging is machine is.

I listen to rage against machine all the time.

PT they help me feel like I think.

But we're like, no, God.

You can't have any rage.

God's got rage about what has gone wrong, and yet what does he

choose to act on?

That's what Romans 5 is about.

Romans 6 also is about this.

It's about this new rule.

Like God says, I don't want my wrath even to rule.

I'm not going to let my rage rule the day.

But I'll tell you this.

Death certainly isn't ruling anymore.

The power of sin isn't ruling anymore.

Grace rules now.

Love rules.

Romans 6 is all about that.

It's about a change of allegiance, a change of power.

Today we celebrate that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Some of the powers of the day were like, look at this schmuck.

This poor idiot from Nazareth is riding in here on a donkey and

people are hailing the king.

Look at these idiots.

And that's how Jesus does business, guys.

What we think of as power, he thinks of as stupidity.

And it is.

He didn't come to do war with the king of Jerusalem.

He couldn't care less about that guy.

He came to do war with death and evil and sin.

He came in there to start a rebellion.

Do you want to be a part of it?

Every time you choose love through love of God, you're part

of a rebellion every time.

Lastly, I can't believe it's happening right now.

I'm truly to the end of this thing.

I've skipped over, like, 98% of what's in this document.

Exciting.

Listen, if you want to know, like, this stuff is in here, guys.

It's everywhere.

Look.

Revelation.

Oh, no.

I didn't get the right verse.

Shoot.

He says in Revelation 1:8 that, behold, I hold the keys to

Revelation 1:8

death in the underworld.

Jesus is like, I've destroyed this enemy and now I rule.

I have the keys to let you out of your prison.

Step out, step out.

Paul.

First Corinthians 15.

The Evangelical Church talked about Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul

and Ms.

Paul.

Paul says it everywhere.

This is cosmic salvation.

It's galactic.

It's a war against the kingdom of light and glory.

Like war against evil, death, darkness.

Paul sees it this way.

It's like when Christ died, he laid death in death's grave.

Jesus and death went to the tomb and only one guy came out.

Jesus and death went to the tomb and only one guy came out.

It wasn't death.

The whole Bible's view of salvation is like that.

Jesus is the first crop of a new harvest.

So when you garden with us this year and you see that first

shoot out of the ground, think of Jesus as the first in a new creation

that he says you can be a part of too.

Paul says it this way, each event will happen in the right order.

Christ, the first crop of the harvest, then those who belong to

Christ at his coming, and then the end when Christ hands over the

kingdom to God and the Father.

When he brings every form, do you see how cosmic this is?

When he brings every form of rule, every authority and power to

an end.

Why?

Because God rules.

This is not small, shrunk down salvation.

It's big time.

Look at that.

J.K.

rowling admitted she built the entire Harry Potter series off the

Christian narrative.

That's why this, this right here is on the grave of Harry's parents.

Why does Harry go out there and fight Voldemort like he does?

He's fighting death here, he gets killed and then he comes back

to life.

And Voldemort's oh, sorry, spoiler alert.

This one's also been out for a while.

So if you haven't seen it, Voldemort ultimately dies because

he's death in a person.

And Harry dies with him.

But Harry rises because death is the last enemy to be brought to

an end.

This is the gospel.

Jesus is a death destroyer.

That's who Jesus is.

He's a death destroyer.

And that's why there's this big hymn at the end of First Corinthians

that one day when everything is finished.

Because it's not yet we're in the kingdom of heaven here now.

Not yet.

One day we're going to sing this song where death is swallowed

up.

It's a quote from Isaiah 25.

All along the prophets knew it too.

Like man, one day death is going to be swallowed up.

Justice is going to roll down like waters.

Righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

Everything's going to be restored because God's going to swallow

up death and make new life here on this earth.

The knowledge of the Lord's glory will cover the earth as surely

as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk.

One day we will sing this song.

O Death, where is your victory?

Death, where's your sting?

I literally just finished the sermon.

Boom.

Let's go.

I actually just have one more thing to tell you and then there's

a question for you.

Who cares?

Who cares about any of this?

Why does it matter?

It goes back to this.

What would you do if you ultimately had nothing to fear in

your future?

What if you knew or trusted completely that death ultimately

has no power?

If you believe completely that death will be destroyed and everything

will be restored?

What would you do?

Jesus Invitation is clear.

Stop fearing and become a death destroyer with me.

Be a part of the kingdom of light and glory right here, right

now.

Don't participate in the kingdom of death.

Don't participate in the way of self preservation that all humans

are in the business of doing.

Why are we all so darn ambitious, so greedy?

We're trying to protect ourselves.

Look, our ego.

Our ego is a wonderful, beautiful thing that helped us to

survive, but we can't keep hanging on to it.

We're not meant to just survive.

We're meant to thrive.

Jesus is like, hey, I'm giving you power over that bull rug too.

I'm putting the staff in your hand so you can slam it on the ground

and say, what was it again?

Come on.

Better than that.

Jesus is saying, get up in the morning and say you shall not pass,

not today.

And then when you get around your neighbors, advocate for them,

walk with them and say, not here, not here, not here.

Because I belong to the King.

I belong to the King.

King and death, destroyer.

Jesus, it's 1050, so I can't ask you what's stirring in you.

So let's pray.

God, help us to know this mystery not in our minds, but in

our hearts.

We've pressed up against the limits of our knowledge and so help

us not to get this by our knowledge, but by spirit.

Help us to know the mystery of how you freed us and help us to walk

with you in new life, in a new creation for your glory and for the

glory of all things.

In Jesus name, Amen.

Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven

Heaven Earth Church.

Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:30am

Eastern Time, either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland,

Indiana, or online at YouTube Live.

That'[email protected] heavenerthchurch the audio podcast

is always available at Apple Podcast and on Spotify.

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by going to Apple Podcasts and or Spotify and leaving a five star

rating and your review.

Instructions on how to do just that and links are in the show notes.

You can always find out more by going to the church website.

Heaven Earth Church.

We want to thank you for spending time with us today.

My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church,

and you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact,

your faith story may just be beginning.

If you want more information about our church or you're interested

in the next step, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org otherwise

we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth

Church podcast.