Echos of Resurrection Power, Easter Sunday - Heaven Part 14

Happy Easter. Real life, man.

Today is just an amazing day watching heaven get in the

people I I love. My favorite part of this morning

is when we baptized Tyler Adams and then somebody who said yes

to and somebody said dunk him again.

That's what good friends are for, right?

That's awesome. Yeah.

We're not into baptizing twice, but we do for fun.

We'll store you in right here, man.

One of these days, I'm going to do a cannonball into this this

this baptistry. I'm telling you, man, it's

tempting right now. So I mean, I'm excited for what

God's been doing. I I believe for those guys get

baptized. We're so proud of you.

I believe not today. What do we got today?

Holly coming out here? How many how many 13 people get

baptized all throughout the day. So give it up for those 13

people. Come on.

She's the play by play. I'm like, OK, who, who's in and

out, you know, but man, it's super exciting and heaven just

got to these people and it's cool to watch because the

stories of people that are getting baptized, they're just,

it's not like, oh, they made a decision last minute.

There is a lifetime of inviting and God's mercy and grace and

then just seeing other people living out and make decisions.

So it's exciting. Just so personal for me as a

pastor to watch this. So excited for you guys.

I'd be a minist not to thank your crew today that heavens got

into for a long time now making this this happen.

Our church has been portable for 8 1/2 years and we're in the

middle of raising funds for first permanent space, Amen.

And we're excited about that. But with that said, we have an

amazing team that makes this place happen.

And today we have the largest serve team in real life history,

about 122 people serving today on Easter.

Come on, somebody. So thank you guys.

It has not happened on accident. And I know if you walked in,

you're like, do this every week. We've been doing this every week

for 8 1/2 years because of Jesus, Amen.

And the life changes. You just can't put a price tag

on it. It is exciting to watch and be a

part of and get to serve alongside you guys.

So thank you guys so much. Well, today we're going to dive

in and my prayer has just been that the resurrection power of

Jesus, that heaven would get into you today.

Maybe you've known Jesus for a long time and you've kind of

been going to church. But today I believe that

something's going to stir inside you.

Or maybe you got invited out and you've been to church in a long

time or maybe ever. And you're like, man, I'm not so

sure about this. And I pray that you would just

see and experience the resurrection power of God today.

You know, you think about the power of Jesus.

It really kind of echoes throughout all of eternity.

And you might have experienced some of those echoes.

Barry kind of mentioned that you, you might have the rumors

of a changed life or somebody who who just miraculously

changed because they they heard about Jesus and life changed

happened or there's something that's unexpected you couldn't

explain. And he's like, man, what's that?

And you don't really know. This is the power of Jesus.

Maybe you've heard the rumors or maybe you've seen it yourself.

I know for some of you who grew up in a family kind of like Bart

Miller that I can only imagine. And they get that dad that's

just hard and almost abusive and it's just angry And all of a

sudden they meet Jesus and their life changed forever.

Amen. You just seen it with your own

eyes. Maybe seen that marriage where

the there's an alcoholic and and there's infidelity and it's it's

just there's no way it's going to work, but Jesus Amen.

And it just comes together. These are all things I've seen

and and be a part of the story. I mean, to see people that are

walking through hard season of loss or suffering or bad

diagnosis and there's the peace of God is on their life.

Just amazing. You've experienced that.

And how about for you today, for you guys today, how do you guys

have experienced the resurrection and power of Jesus?

Will you just let me know today you've experienced that?

Come on somebody. I just believe if we're to like

just put like a microphone here and just like start a line and

say, can you just come up and just share the goodness of God's

grace in your life? I just believe we'd be here for

weeks and weeks and weeks talking about all the things

that God has done, what you even know he's done because he is so

good. Amen.

And today I just want you to get a sense of how big God is, how

much he loves us and the power of Jesus in our lives and

towards us. And you might sense there's

something out there like there's something different about these

Christians or about what who God is and this God of the Bible.

There's a lady any followed Artemis 2, by the way, Artemis

2, that's a rocket. Oh, Lord nerd alert.

Artemis 2, right? Yeah, they're going a little

farther. Apollo 13 went around the moon.

The furthest they're ever going to go.

That's tomorrow. There's a lady named Christina

Cook, and she's on Artemis 2. And she looked down at Earth

from space and she said this quote.

I'll never be insecure again. That, that that's, that's an

echo of the resurrection power God.

That's a picture of the creation of God.

You just see what God has made and you're like, wow, like how

majestic, how powerful. I mean, who has put this

together? And I'm just a small piece, this

amazing puzzle. And so today I want you to see

just some of the echoes of the resurrection power and have it

infiltrate your life today. And you're going to see one of

the first men, if not the first man in the Bible who recognized

that Jesus had resurrection power.

And it's John the Baptist and it's in John chapter one, verse

29. This is what John the Baptist

says. He's the forerunner.

He looks because the disciples are asking this guy, as he

looks, he says, behold The Who? The Lamb of God.

Yeah, that that's that's the Lamb of God who's going to take

away the sins of the world. Remember, those other disciples

were jealous that Jesus is baptizing people and his

disciples are baptizing people and all.

He's doing better than us. And John's like, dude, you don't

miss. You're missing out, man.

That is the Lamb of God who's going to sacrifice himself and

take away the sins of the world. Now I don't know what was going

through John the Baptist's mind. Those amazing scripture, Isaiah

53, seven that says he is a is a prophecy towards Jesus.

So Jesus was oppressed and afflicted, but you're going to

see that today. We're talking about the cross.

It says yeah, he did not open his mouth.

He was led like a what? There's that lamb to the

slaughter. It has a sheep before it shears

his silence. So he did not open his mouth.

John the Baptist recognized something very special about

Jesus. He recognized that Jesus was

born to die. He recognized that this lamb

that God has sent his one and only son, was going to be the

perfect permanent sacrifice for our sins.

You have to understand that in this Old Testament system,

that'd be shedding a blood for mission of sins.

They'd raise the sheep outside the temple as temple sheep and

they would just raise them with the purpose that they'd be one

day they'd be sacrificing the altar to cover people's sin and

atone for their sin. And John the Baptist recognized

that that is the Lamb of God that is being raised up to lay

his life down to take away our sin.

He's ultimately saying that this man is going to shame.

Shame. This man is going to end the

curse. This man is going to kill sin

itself and be death to sin and be made a life to God through

Jesus. Now, he probably didn't know

about the whole resurrection story, but he had an echo of the

resurrection. He had part of the power of God

in his mind. You Fast forward about three

years in the Bible and John the Baptist had predicted this and

three years later, Jesus ends up in the Passion week.

And that's what we celebrate really this Easter, Thursday

night, Jesus is in the garden. If you remember the story, Jesus

goes to the garden. He has disciples pray in groups

and he goes further in begins to pray.

Disciples fall asleep and Jesus wakes him up and Jesus begins to

pray. And during these moments of

prayer, he's contemplating what is going to happen when he goes

to the cross and it begins to sweat blood.

The Bible says that Jesus tells the Father not but my will be

done, but your will be done, because he knows when he goes to

the cross that the sin of the world is going to crush down on

him and not destroy him. But he'll be afflicted and he'll

be persecuted and he'll bleed out for our sins.

And Jesus knows what's about to happen.

Nobody has a clue what's going on.

And so Jesus gets up and he goes to the disciples.

He says the hour has come. There's a mob that goes into the

garden led by Judas, who betrays Jesus with a kiss for 30 pieces

of silver. Remember when Peter, he gets

fired up, he takes out his own security, which is his sword,

and he starts fighting and cuts off Malchus's ear and Jesus

heals his ear and he says you live by a sword.

He died by a sword. And that's the last time I see

Peter ever use a sword, by the way, because he's replaced it

now with the power of God. And so Jesus walks away from the

garden. By the way, there's a funny part

of the Bible. If you haven't seen the story,

you got to read it this time. The Bible's real.

There's actually a dude that's naked that runs away when the

mob shows up. You guys knew that before.

Come on. So that's how the Bible's real.

Like, nobody else can put that in a story.

But that guy's like, I'm out. And then the disciples, they all

scatter and Jesus goes to a false trial.

He actually ends up at Kaifa's house.

The high priest, his dad shows up as well.

It's almost, I didn't know what to do with Jesus, but they got

to get this done. And so like, hey, you know what,

let's bring him to trial from the Jews.

It's in the middle of the night, like straight middle of the

night. And they had this false trial

and they are questioning Jesus and they slapped Jesus across

the face to be in the mock em. And then Jesus declares that I

am. And they said, oh, you're

blaspheming. And so they accuse him of saying

he's God, which is punishable by death.

But the Jewish people cannot put Jesus to death.

They don't have the power to do that.

So they had to go to the Romans. So they drag Jesus away and they

bring him to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.

And this has got to be sometime rural in the morning, probably

7:00 in the morning on Friday. He shows that they beat down the

door Pontius Pilate. And they say, hey, we want him

to be crucified and killed. And Pontius Pilate, was he done?

And you don't have any power here.

Like, I don't see anything wrong with him.

And he starts asking Jesus, do you realize that the power to

kill you and the power to make you stay alive?

And Jesus looks at him and says, you don't have no power except

for the power I've given you. If I didn't want to be here, I

wouldn't be here, Amen. And he just say silent through

all these accusations. So.

So Pontius Pilot says, well, scourge him.

So there's 40 lashings -1 So 40 they thought would kill

somebody. So let's just do 39 just to ride

at the edge of death. And so they take the kite, 9

tails as leather whip full of glass and shards of bone and

just little pieces of rock. And they whip Jesus.

And you've maybe seen the Passion of the Christ.

And I fully believe if they would have shown what really

happened in the, in the real life, what happened to Jesus,

that movie could not have been shown in theaters.

They had to keep it R rated. But it's really beyond what you

saw in that movie. And he's stripped of his flesh.

The Bible says in Isaiah he wasn't recognizable as a man.

It's how much he was stripped of his flesh.

And they bring it back to Pontius Pilate.

At this point, they put a robe on the purple to mock that he is

a king of the Jews. They take a big crown of thorns

and they press it down his brow. And he stands before this angry

mob of people that want him dead.

And so Pontius Pilate's in this political nightmare.

And so he tells them how he can release one of your prisoners.

It's tradition. Would you want Barabbas or

Jesus? And they thought for sure he

they take Jesus, but they want Barabbas gone.

And so begin to shout, crucify Jesus, crucify him, crucify him

and crucify him. And Pontius Pilate worried that

this mob is going to erupt if he does not kill Jesus.

He washed his hands of the blood of Jesus, and he senses Jesus to

death on a cross. So the story picks up.

This is about 9:00 AM on Friday in Luke 2326.

It says that the soldiers LED Jesus away.

They see Simon of Cyrene, who was on his way in from the

country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind

Jesus. And a large number of people

followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.

And there was this group of women that had been serving

Jesus, ministering to Jesus, and now falling entitled with Jesus

as way as being really on his way to be crucified.

And they're just beyond emotion, but just staying close to Jesus.

And really all the disciples have left, but these women stay

close all the way through the cross.

Verse 32 says to the other men both criminals were also let out

with him to be executed. How many guys know that the

cross was actually made for the worst of the worst of the worst

for public execution to be put outside the town on the way in

So when people came in they knew it was like if they broke the

law in this city is publicly display of power.

This is when they came to the place called the skull which we

know is Golgotha or Calvary Hill.

They what help me out they crucified him.

The crucifixion was actually it was put together by God himself.

It was given to the Persians. When the Roman took Roman took

Persia, they perfected the art of not killing somebody, but

actually torturing somebody. And so they go to that cross,

and they would stretch his arms out, and they would nail in the

spikes into his wrist and the cross his ankles, and they would

stain him up for the whole world to see.

I just love that in the fullness of time, you can find out in

Galatians when God sent his son that God himself picked the

cross of Calvary. So without dispute, God's love

will be on display to a lost and dying world.

Amen. Wasn't like they took him out

back. They literally hung in front of

the whole world to see. So nobody can dispute the fact

that he was crucified and died. He was mocked on that cross.

I just love it that when humanity was at his worst that

God was at his best, Amen. This is what Jesus does.

He's on the cross alongside 2 criminals, 1 on the right and on

the left. And Jesus the heart of God says

Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing and

they divide it up his clothes and cast lots.

Just unfathomable grace, Amen. The depth of God's love.

These people are spitting on him and mocking him.

They've ripped his beard out that they're hurling insults.

You got that sign above his head.

Here hangs the king of the Jews in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew, so

everybody know how to mock him. And then his soldiers are

crucifying him. He's struggling to breathe, had

to lift off his legs to get oxygen.

And every breath he struggles and he whispers the word Father.

Forgive them for they know not what they do to actually forgive

the very sins to take away the sins of the world, including the

mockers and the Pharisees and the soldiers that crucified him.

That's the grace of God Amen. It includes every one of our

sins past, present and future. Isaiah 53 five says, but he

being Jesus was pierced for our transgressions.

Talk about the cross. He was crushed for our

iniquities, that crushing of the weight of our sin as we pressed

out on Jesus. It says the punishment that

brought us peace was on Him, and by his wounds we were healed.

Amen. Thank you Jesus.

It's not my work that gets us there.

It's not my ability that gets me to heaven.

It's Jesus work on the cross for me because he loved me.

What kind of love has the Father bestowed on us that he would

send Jesus Mark 1533 At noon, darkness came over the whole

land until 3:00 in the afternoon.

In the At 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out with a loud

voice. Eloy, Eloy Lama Sabakthanai,

which means my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me?

You think about this moment. This is this is the darkest

moment in the history of humanity.

The skies already dark because God has made it be dark for

three hours and he's on this cross.

And the moment the Father turns his back on the Son, because

there's the Father's holy, the only thing that even goes to

heaven is holy, Amen. And God's primary attribute is

holiness. And so for us to be made free

from sin, somebody has to pay. There's a debt to be paid, a

land be sacrifice. In that moment this is what

happens. The Father turns his back.

And the Bible says in first John 22 that he's a propitiation.

He is a wrath burying sacrifice. So the wrath of God in that

moment in time for all of our sins past, present and future is

literally pushed down and poured out and pressed down on Jesus.

This is why Jesus was sweating blood in the garden, because he

knew he was going to pay for every wrong act from AB and Eve

all the way through the end of humanity.

He was going to carry on that cross.

Amen. This is what Jesus has done for

us. I love this.

When Jesus raised from the dead. Spoiler but when Jesus raised

from the dead is not just a dead man coming to life because we

talked about there's been we know at least six other dead

people have come to life up to this point before Jesus.

It's actually a dead person to sin that's coming to life.

Amen. It's not that Jesus could have

sinned, but the power of sin is now destroyed.

He just come back to life. He come back back to life

resurrected with the power of sin has no power of him to take

away the sins of the world. And John 1928 says later,

knowing that everything had been finished.

All the things are written in Scripture.

I love that you can go back in Scripture and see all the

prophecies that happened If you get a chance to read Psalm 22

and just lead into like the greatest picture of the cross

1000 years for the cross. And then Jesus said, I am

thirsty and a jar of wine vinegar was there and they

soaked in a sponge on it in it and put the sponge on the stock

of hisop plant and lifted it to Jesus lips.

And that hisop was a symbol of purification.

And it was a symbol that of cleanliness is a symbol of

completion. It it it's a symbol that is paid

in full that that Jesus has wiped away every one of our

sins. And after this happens, the very

next verse of what Jesus said when he received the drink that

Jesus said what help me out. It is it is finished.

And this word in Greek is to tell us I and what's really

amazing, if you, if you look at the word, it means this, it

means paid in full. Paid in full says Hissa Branch.

It's the last prophecy. And they said it is finished to

tell us die and the debt of our sin has received full payment.

The check is cleared, Amen. Jesus did what we could never do

for ourselves. We said it is finished.

What is he talking about? He's saying that sin is

finished, Amen. That that was that was the, that

was the beginning of the end. Like there's no more power sin

that he is rolled away to shame, Amen.

Combination is finished. The curse is broken.

It is amazing to me that that sin entered the world because of

a tree of fruit and that sin would exit the world because of

man that's hung on the tree. It's amazing to think about and

there's so many parallels. I can't even get into Abraham

and Isaac. I can't even get in the very

fact of all the pictures that that that Abraham would believe

that God could raise his son from the dead.

And it's just a few 100 meters away on Mount Moriah where Isaac

would have been sacrificed, where Jesus was sacrificed.

It's just amazing to me like what God has put together.

He says it is finished. Very next version would have

been almost the same breath. Jesus called out a loud voice,

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

When he said this, he breathed his last.

There's another version of the gospel where he says he moaned

loudly and he gave up his last breath.

This is how Jesus died on the cross and this earthquake

happened and the earth shook. Creation itself has been

groaning for the resurrection and power of Jesus replied back

with the earth shaking. And then the temple, there's a

big curtain, it's taller than this building.

It's 60 foot high, it's 3 foot thick.

And it separates the the holy of holies from the rest of the

temple. And the only person who can go

back there is a perfectly righteous person which limits it

down very quickly. And it's the high priest.

Once a year they tie a rope around his waist and he'd go in.

And if he had any sin in his heart, in his life at all, he

just dropped dead in the moment in the presence of God.

And what happened when Jesus died on the cross?

And he said it is finished and he gave up his ghost.

The temple curtain was torn from top to bottom, straight down the

middle. And I believe, and I mean this

is speculation, so I'll give it to that.

Bodies believe as Jesus on that cross.

And Jesus fulfilled every part of these prophecies and he made

away, He took away sin that the Father took the top of the curve

and he is tore in half because the presence of God is no longer

contained for perfect people that can show up in his

presence. But now because Jesus made a

way, he took imperfect people and gave him this righteousness

so that the presence and power and provision of God can go out

to all humanity. That's what the Father did.

That's Easter, baby. That's the power of God.

That's a resurrection of Christ. That's what we celebrate every

single Sunday. Verse 24, on the first day of

the week, this is Sunday, very, very early in the morning, the

women took the spices they prepared and went to the tomb.

They couldn't go on Saturday. It was a Sabbath.

But as soon as they could, they win.

And the NBA give this morning to the sunrise a little bit.

My first hour, my first 830 crew was like, yeah, 10:00 is like,

no, I pulled in this parking lot and the sun was coming up and I

was like, man, he is risen. Amen.

I'm pretty sure those women, women were there before the sun

rose that day. It's fast.

They get there. They found the stone rolled away

from the tomb. When they entered, they found

the body, Did not find the body, Lord Jesus.

And when they were wondering what is going on, they couldn't

fathom, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like

lightning stood beside them. These are angels and in their

fright the women bow down their faces to the ground.

But the men said to them, look at this, Why do you look for the

living among the dead? He is not here.

He has risen. Amen.

They had no idea what's going on.

They were, they were wondering like what is still to make sense

to them. And this Angel, look at the next

word. Remember how he told you This

Angel is actually going to quote Jesus.

This is in red letters. The Angel is going to quote what

Jesus already said to them years ago and in their ministry.

He's going to say the Son of Man.

There's a quote must be delivered over the hands of

sinners crucified and on the third day be raised again in the

they said they remembered. Know what's really cool about

this story is that Jesus already planted the echoes of the

resurrection in them before it ever happened.

They, they already knew Jesus already predicted his death

three times. He had told him he was going to

raise him dead 3 different times.

And of course in, in hindsight 2020, we know this, but in their

time they're like, huh, this is unfathomable.

Like they would be crucified like, and they've forgotten.

And the Angel reminds them that this is part of God's plan.

I don't know about you, but have you experienced the echoes of

the resurrection power in your life?

Have you seen that around you? Because you might be like, this

world doesn't make a lot of sense and it is kind of crazy.

The world has just lost its mind, right?

But Jesus, you see this around you like as a pastor, you see

some interesting things. And I've seen a lot of power of

God. And just recently, just about

two weeks ago, there was a man I met with and he, he was an

alcoholic for years. He'd watch some of his family

pass away. He lost his way.

He just turned to the bottle, lost about everything he had in

life. Matter of fact, he's that guy we

talked about a few weeks ago that I went at 3:00 in the

morning at Belton Police station because he needed a pastor and a

chaplain to show up. But I'm not a chaplain of the

Police Department. Thinks a great calling.

It's just not mine. Takes a lot of time and energy

and don't have it. Some of y'all could do it.

Amen. But I showed up down there and

just got to encourage this guy a little bit.

Just plant some seeds. But this man over time he came

clean and end up here at our church.

And a few weeks ago I sat down with him at the Hope Center and

connect the dots. I was like, you're the guy, like

you're the guy that I met with at 3:00 in the morning.

He's like, huh, You know, I was like, it was me, man.

You don't Remember Me, but you, it was me.

He's like, I didn't remember you, but that was crazy.

I said, how in the world did you come out of alcohol and

addiction and have come back to God?

What in the world happened to you?

He said, look, man, I used to go to church all every Sunday.

I used to teach Sunday school class.

I know the Bible was this out by these guys.

I lost my way, but God never gave up on me.

It is the resurrection power of Jesus in his life once again,

Amen. There's a part of him that God

never get on. There's a Holy Spirit inside

him, convicted him of a sin and he just woke up and said I'm

done. Doesn't mean it's perfect, Amen.

But he's living a different path.

What's crazy about it is he now serves on our dream team.

This is a second Sunday serving on our team.

Isn't that crazy? Teaching the Bible, teaching the

Bible. I, I was talking to him and he

would finish every verse I would say.

And I was killing some hard ones out.

Like I'm like, nobody's going to know this verse.

You know, I'm in Revelation 5, I'm back in Psalms.

I mean, I'm over the place. Like there's no way.

And he's pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

He just lost his way. But God never gave up on him.

A few months ago, I was with a man and he was deciding if he

should file for a divorce and he and his wife had been cheating

on him and just high infidelity, all sorts of stuff, a lot of

situational things that happened and he's broken.

He loves his wife, but he's like, I cannot continue in this.

I said, look, I can't give you direction of what to do, but

I'll pray for God's wisdom on you to make the decision that

the Holy Spirit make it very clear to you what to next.

And so he show up to his wife with divorce papers and said,

hey, I'm I'm out. And she was shocked, absolutely

shocked that he was leaving. And she said, if I have made a

huge mistake, I'm done cheating. Like I can't live in a story

relationship and he had some mandates come on somebody side,

side projects gone. But in God's grace because the

resurrection power of Jesus in his life, because the only way

to ever forgive somebody this level, he brings her back in and

accepts her and forgives her and is rebuilding their marriage.

Amen. That's the power of Jesus and

it's only Jesus can do that. There's no other glory that can

be given as God has forgiven us, so we forgive others.

It's the grace of God on display.

I remember I was 15 years old. I got invited to church by some

friends of mine. It's funny as a guy I met the

first gather I think it was. Maybe it's this one.

Graduate high school in 2003 together.

And, but anyway, I ran some friends.

I became a drum major and, and band my sophomore year and I, I

started hanging with some different friends and there was

something different about them. And at the time I, I didn't know

what it was, but it's like, man, the way they care about people,

the way they care themselves when they treat people, it's

just so foreign to me. Like I, I'd never seen anything

like it. And they invited me out to

church and, and you got to understand, like I, I had never

really been, I'd never been to church to go to church.

I've been to church to, to go to a couple funerals, couple random

weddings. I, I had never heard somebody

preach a message. I I I had never seen a single

person in my life ever pray. I'd never seen anybody pray.

The only time I heard the name of Jesus was put between 2F

words. It's Lou.

The only time it was just fill in the blank Jesus, fill in the

blank. That was it.

I had no idea. I didn't know the Bible and I'd

show up this Wednesday night at a church and somebody was

sharing what I found out later is the Romans wrote.

I started hearing about the good news that Jesus that God sold

the world. They'd give us only son who

would believe in him shall not perish without eternal life.

I'm like this is making a lot of sense that when I was yet

stranded Christ died for me, but God shows left toward me even

though I was yet sinners. Christ died for me and that he

the newest sin became sin for us that we become the righteousness

of God in this verse out of Romans 10/9, which I didn't know

what Romans was. I didn't know there was awesome

these little other books in the I had no idea.

And it reads if you can fetch them out the Lord Jesus and

believe your heart that God raised and dead, you'll be saved

and you start making way too much sense.

So in the back of this youth room, there's this old choir

room. I got on my knees and I prayed

and I accepted the resurrection power of Jesus to forgive my

sins in the fall of 2000. Amen.

It's the grace of God. And I started realizing that

wasn't really the first time that the grace of God has tried

to get into my family's life. So Fast forward, we're looking

forward to look back. So in 2020, my grandpa passed

away. My grandpa's name was Jack

Petrie. My oldest son, my first born son

is named after my grandpa. I looked up to my grandpa.

He was a stoic man. He was a strong man.

He kept the family together. He's like that glue, you know,

that puts everything together. And he was born on Thanksgiving

and he died on Thanksgiving, 99 years apart.

He's just one of those guys. I mean, he just trapped a crowd

of people. And so he didn't, he everybody's

kind of Catholic around him. So they didn't know what to do

because he wasn't. So they said, Hey, Sean can do

the funeral because like he didn't fit between anything.

So we'll do like a graveside. And so I, I doing this funeral

and it's the first time that I got to share the gospel with

really most of my family outside of my mom and my sister and my

my immediate family, nobody else in my family had ever seen me

preach been preached like 15 years.

So I had the honor of doing this funeral.

And the only thing they wanted this funeral.

And this is going to tell you a little bit about my history,

about my family, because you're going to be like, I can't

believe you wrote this, but just this is what happened.

The only thing they wanted to happen at the funeral was a poem

that my grandpa wrote and he wrote here, here likes Jack.

If he did his best, all will be at peace.

He'll be at rest. But but if Jack didn't do so

well, old Saint Pete, he's going to send him straight to hell.

Isn't that crazy? I mean, imagine delivering that

message, you know, like, thanks for the set up.

You know, I like I'll well, who knows, There's always a way to

the Gospel, by the way, Amen. I mean, you can take anything to

the gospel. So I was like, OK, well, this,

this will be bad. I was like, I don't, I don't, I

really don't know where my, my grandpa's spiritual condition

was, right. But I was like, you know, my

dad, my grandpa was a very sarcastic person, as you say.

You read it and say, you know what?

But there's a lot of truth about Jesus.

And I started sharing the gospel at my family's funeral and I'm

getting this like, you know, like the people don't want to

hear that. You know, I'm like, I don't

care. You told me to preach here.

I'm preaching, you know, like I'm going to share it like or

love or hate it, it's going to happen.

And so welcome to last name Peter.

I guess this is going to happen. And so I, I, I show up, we do

it. The funeral is like 15 minute

thing Max. And we go out to my grandpa's

house and, and, you know, in the estate, it was a, here's all the

personal items are kind of down to that point of like they're

going to just, you know, basically pass all items to all

the kids. He had six kids.

And I show up to the house and, you know, the kids have been

over already, his kids, my dad and all his brothers, sisters.

And they kind of like went through everything, which is

great. You know, they get all figured

out and there's a lot of arbitrary items still left and

people trying to figure stuff out.

And I get down in the basement and on my grandpa's workbench,

my dad picks up what would be at this point I know is a World War

2 issued Bible to my grandpa. My dad picks it up and he goes,

well, nobody's going to want this anyway.

And he pitches it to me. And I thought, how in the world

that all of you walk through this house, every single one of

my cousins, all of my uncles and aunts, all these people, and you

passed up the greatest treasure in this house.

How in the world did you do that?

How can we see the same thing but have different levels of

faith? Like how in the world do you not

realize that this is the greatest gift you ever could

have given anybody? Was this Bible that fact that's

really cool about this Bible is actually 1942 edition of

Gideon's This is the Gideon starting passing out Bibles

before World War 2 to the American armed forces in the

front of the Bible. There's actually a letter from

FDR to all of the soldiers that go out that fight.

My my grandpa, he was too skinny to be airborne.

So he's last in line. All his friends joined the

Airborne and they told me to skinny be like $1.25, you know,

and they said, hey, you're going to be a Marine.

And so he went to the Marine table and I got stationed at

Camp Elia Elliot out in California.

And some lady, I have no idea who this is, Miss N Gibbons gave

this Bible to my grandpa. It's called a pocket Bible.

And you would literally carry it in the pocket of your military

uniform. And my grandpa would go out to

storm the the sands of Saipan to fight the Japanese with this

Bible. Less than an inch of his heart.

Pretty cool. Amen.

Greatest treasure that my grandpa left behind was Jesus.

She had no idea. This lady had no idea.

By the way, she had this Bible 80 years ago, whatever that'd be

83 years ago. I don't know, I'm doing math

wrong here or something. 84 something, right?

She had no idea that I'll be holding this on the stage and

sharing about the resurrection power of Jesus through this

Bible on Easter Sunday to a large group of people.

Amen. He had no idea how the ripples

of an echo of just like gift given in secret and private

would make it across the Pacific Ocean and back to the United

States end up here in Belden, Missouri to declare the

resurrection power of Jesus. My point, I forgot, right?

My point is this is that God had been trying to get a hold of my

family for a long time. You've been trying to hold my

family a long time to get into Jesus.

And it takes one person to listen to the Holy Spirit and

say yes to God to change your family legacy.

And for me, I got this Bible and it will be the greatest

treasure. I don't keep a lot of things in

my safe at home, but I keep this in my safe.

I don't bring this out and share it very often because it's so

personal to me. And I think how in the world and

two people see the same thing and once you trash another's you

treasure. Most people take this Bible and

they say nobody wants it. Oh, put it in the shelf.

Oh, get rid of it. Donate that to Goodwill.

Any Bibles will show up to my office that people don't want.

And I always look at the beginning.

It's always given by somebody that thought maybe God could

change their life, but we're too stubborn to listen.

That's like, man, what if God could get into US?

Amen. Like what if he started saying

yes to Jesus? It's like maybe I start

recognizing that God's been trying to get a hold of your

life for way longer than you know it.

There's a man that stood out there between the gatherings.

You got a Bible in 1966 from somebody in his family and he

got that Bible and he read that Bible and he stopped following

God not because the Bible. He just did his own thing.

He found that Bible just recently.

It's been Sinner since 1966. He told me, you know, Sean, I

made a huge mistake because God's been trying to get a hold

of my life this entire time. And maybe today's God has been

trying to hold yours. Amen.

So Father would come before you. God, we asked that the echoes of

the resurrection God would be powerful today.

God, they would speak to us today.

That's Jesus followers. We'd be the kind of people that

are writing names in other people's Bibles that the gospel

will go out to a lost and dying world.

That wouldn't stop at our address.

God forgive us. God, we've made it about us.

God, we were so grateful for the cross.

We're so grateful the resurrection power of Jesus.

I'll pray for one more group, people in the house.

That's those of you that recognize today, can you say yes

to Jesus today? You need to say yes to the

resurrection power of Jesus for the very first time.

Do you recognize that God has been trying to get a hold of

your life for a very long time and somebody by the grace of

God, has invited you or shared on Facebook or whatever, and

you're here today not by accident, because the grace of

God, and you may be sensing something today, I'm going to

tell you something. That's the Holy Spirit that's

drawing you to himself. The Bible says that Jesus will

be lifted up. He'll draw all people to

himself. And the Holy Spirit is calling

on you to try to shape you and pull you today.

If you just surrender and say Jesus, I believe in you.

They dine across my sins, He will save you, making you.

The Bible says the day is the day is salvation.

If you could change a fool like me 26 years ago, he can change

you. He is faithful.

And so today if you need Jesus, not make it weird or call you

out, but if you need Jesus, we just raise your hand, hide this

place and you say I need Jesus. That's our relationship of

Christ today. I hope of Christ today I see

hands all across the room me to say I need surrender my life

today I'm the resurrection power of Christ today I'm going to be

dead in my sin today. I'm the resurrection of life

today. I knew what Jesus did on the

cross of my life today. Well if that's you believe

through a prayer. The prayer does not save you.

It is truly your belief and your heart towards Christ.

You say father God thank you so much for loving me enough to

send Jesus to down across 2000 years ago God it was my sin that

held him there. It was me that held the nails.

God, I know you've paid because you love for me.

You've paid every sin in my life, past, present and future.

God, I'm no longer living for myself.

God, I ask for your Holy Spirit to come my life.

God, thank you for giving my sins.

God, I surrender my life to you just like these people who are

baptized because of what you did.

I know you're doing it in my life right now.

God, the resurrect part of me. God, I'm a dead man coming to

life today and I pray this in Jesus name and the church said

Amen. Come on, give some glory to God

today. Amen.

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