Easter Sunday: A New Kind of Life

This is the test. This is the test of this.

Depending on your answer, it's answering this question. Did you go to church

in the 1980s? He is risen.

So you guys all went to church in the 80s. That's what happened. Yeah.

So I've done this. A few of you guys coming in, some people are like,

yeah, like that was your answer. It's like, that's not the answer.

You didn't go to church in the 80s. It's the answer is he is risen indeed. So he's risen indeed.

How's your Easter Easter going. I mean, it's like everybody's feeling good with

this weather, or maybe you're just like, I don't know.

We'll see how this whole church thing goes. No pressure.

I get it. I get it. The good news about Easter, though, is that it's genuinely good news.

That's really my only point I'd like to make to you this morning.

Easter is unmitigatingly, it's absolutely good news.

It's really good news that Jesus died and was resurrected three days later,

and that's why why Christians still, 2,000 years later, keep celebrating this every single year.

Every single year we're at it, we're saying he is risen. He's risen indeed.

We're doing the whole thing.

But if you aren't an insider, right? If you didn't go to church in the 80s and

you haven't been doing this for a long time, if you aren't an insider to this

whole resurrection thing, the idea of resurrection probably sounds a little strange.

Just admit that. It's a little strange that but someone came up to you this

morning and said, he is risen, you probably thought, should I be worried?

Right? Because it's a strange thing that people would die and rise again.

Like, I'll give you that. I don't blame you for thinking that maybe this is a little bit weird.

And it's especially true because in our culture, like every movie I ever seen

where somebody died and then came back to life, that was a scary movie.

That was not like, oh, it's so cool. He's back to life. That's called a zombie movie.

But I want you to assure you today that this is not that sort of a thing.

This is not this. This is the resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The fact that he died and came back to life again, it is good news.

My favorite account of Easter, and we have a couple of them because the gospels

are different accounts of Jesus's life and their different ways of telling the

story. but in Matthew, the book of Matthew chapter 28, it's my favorite account

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

of Easter. I'm just going to read it to you, right?

And we're just going to talk about why it's good news. It says this,

after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning,

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven

and approached the tomb.

And he rolled back the stone and was sitting on it.

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

And the guards were so shaken by fear of him that they became like dead men.

So the scene on Easter morning opens with a tomb, the tomb where Jesus's body has been sealed inside.

Jesus was crucified just a couple of days beforehand.

And we are waking up on Easter morning and seeing the tomb, but the tomb is under guard.

It's guarded by Roman soldiers. And that's because both the Romans and the Jewish

leaders who have at this point conspired to have Jesus killed are worried that

something fishy might happen.

Because while Jesus was alive, they remember he had made several references

to kind of dying and rising again on the third day.

So they were worried that this might happen. And so out of an abundance of caution,

they have set Roman guards outside the tomb to make sure that nothing goes on

that is going to disrupt their plans to be done with Jesus.

But something does happen. And as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary who are

just, that's like a very popular name.

If you're Irish Catholic, you know that everyone's named Mary.

My wife is Molly. She's actually Mary. Her sister is Maureen. She's actually Mary.

And then Martha is just actually Mary. That's all just, there's a lot.

It's still, it's persist to this day.

There's a lot of Marys in the Bible. So there are two of these Marys. They come up.

They're Jesus's followers. They come to the tomb. And as they come to the tomb,

there's this big earthquake.

And an angel comes down and rolls away. The stone is just sitting on top of the stone.

And the guards who are there, I mean, they are just shaken with fear. They freeze up.

They're in shock because for them, this resurrection, it's like the zombie movie, right?

I mean, it's like, ah, this doesn't seem good. Or earthquakes,

angels, people coming back to life.

It's got to be R-rated, all right? They're worried. For them,

it's shocking. And they're just completely stunned. I guess they just freeze up.

But Jesus' friends don't freeze up. Mary and Mary don't freeze up.

They realize very quickly that this is really good news.

The account goes on in verse 5.

The angel told the women, don't be afraid because I know you're looking for

Jesus who was crucified.

He's not here for he has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and and tell his disciples, he's risen from the dead and indeed

he's going ahead of you to Galilee, you'll see him there.

Listen, I've told you. So departing quickly from the tomb.

Fear and great joy, they ran to tell his disciples the news.

But then Jesus met them and said, greetings.

They came up, took hold of his feet and worship him. But Jesus told them, don't be afraid.

Go and tell my brothers to leave for Galilee and they will see me there.

So Mary and Mary have been met by an angel at the tomb.

And this angel shows them the place, shows them the place where Jesus was laying there.

And they see he's not there anymore. He's risen.

And the angel urges them. He urges them. He says, go and tell his disciples.

Go tell the other followers of Jesus, the people that you've been hanging out with.

He's risen from the dead, and indeed, he's going ahead of you to Galilee,

and you will see him there.

He's saying, very soon, disciples, people who are following Jesus,

you're going to see Jesus again in the flesh, and the angel makes it clear.

This is really, really good news.

Everyone needs to know right away, go and tell them. They can quit mourning.

They can quit being in despair. They can quit feeling as if everything is lost.

They can quit with their worry because Jesus is alive.

He's risen. It's good news.

And these ladies, they had to find the disciples, but as they go out,

they are experiencing, like it says here in verse 8, great fear and great joy.

Joy because their friend Jesus is alive.

Their hope is finally renewed. But fear because this is not a normal Sunday.

This is not your normal weekend routine seeing all of this.

And they're probably wondering, as we continue to wonder this morning, what does this all mean?

What is going on here? And what's going to happen now that Jesus has returned from the dead?

And as they run to tell everyone, they run right into Jesus himself.

And as they do that, they fall at his feet and they start to worship him,

which seems appropriate for someone who has just come back from the grave.

Someone who has predicted their death and then made good on that promise.

He's done everything that he needs to do to prove that he is worthy of praise and worship.

And so they bow before him, they grab his feet, they worship Jesus.

And what does Jesus say to them? him. He says, do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers. See, Jesus lifts these women up who

are just astonished that he has in fact risen from the grave.

And in the midst of their joy and their fear, he says, don't be afraid.

Says to them, joy is all that you need. Put the fear away.

This is good news. The resurrection is good news. It's good news of great joy.

But why? Because that's the big question. Why?

Well, I mean, very personally for Mary and Mary, right?

It's good news because Jesus, who they know, they've been following around for

years and years, who they love, Jesus who's been merciful and kind to them,

who paid attention to them when a lot of people probably in their life didn't care about them at all.

A friend of them, he's risen, he's risen from the dead.

They thought they'd lost him, but now he's alive.

Of course, this is a great thing for them.

The resurrection is good news for these friends, for Mary and Mary,

because, well, they knew Jesus personally.

And when you lose somebody you love, it is awesome to have them back again.

But I mean, as far as it concerns us, what's the why?

What's the so what of the resurrection? resurrection. Why does the resurrection

matter for us 2,000 years after the event?

Was Jesus that great of a guy?

What we come to see throughout the Bible, and I think this is the central message

of the Bible, is that the resurrection is good news.

It's not just for the disciples because of their personal relationship with

Jesus, but for the whole world.

Proposition of Scripture is that the death and resurrection of Jesus is good

news for the whole world. It's good news for Jesus' disciples, yes.

It's good news for the Israelites who have been waiting for their Savior,

their Messiah to come. It's good news even though for all nations.

It's good news for those who seek God and for those who have no interest in God whatsoever.

It's good news for the Romans and the religious leaders who conspired to kill Jesus.

It's good news for them. It's good news for all people, and not only all people

in that day, but for all people at all times, in all places.

The resurrection is the best news.

It's the good news because Jesus' resurrection changes everything for all people.

That's the proposition of the Bible. I know, very modest.

Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples, says it this way.

He says, all praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ, it is by his great mercy that we have been born again because God raised

Jesus Christ from the dead.

Because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, Peter says, we've been born again.

As a direct consequence of the resurrection, life, new birth,

new life is happening for Peter and for the we, which is those who would put their faith in Jesus.

Anyone who puts their faith in Jesus can have this new life.

That's the good news. That's why the resurrection continues to be good news.

Peter goes on and he explains it a little bit more.

He gives it a little bit more context, a little bit more definition of what

this new life might look like.

He says in 3 and 4, verses 3 and 4, now we live in this new life with great

expectation and we have a priceless graceless inheritance,

an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled,

beyond the reach of change and decay.

So Peter, I think, is making a case, and it's the case I want to make for you

this morning about why the resurrection matters.

It's a game changer. It's important. It's good news for at least three reasons.

And we see them just laid out in the end of verse three there.

The first is that now we live.

It's what we've been talking about. It's what we've already been said.

The resurrection is about new life.

It's about a new way of life that is so radical that, in fact,

it just like it's like a whole recode, a whole redefinition of what it means to be alive.

And it's really, it's the opposite of the zombie movie.

It's the opposite of it. Because when a zombie comes back to life in a movie,

they aren't really alive, they're undead, right?

Think about that. I've thought a lot about zombie movies lately.

I watched a scary movie a couple of days, still bothers me.

Anyways, I'm sorry. I don't want to get to get over it.

When a zombie comes comes back to life. They aren't really alive. They're undead.

But the new life that Peter sees coming as a consequence of the resurrection,

it's not like a half-life.

It's actually more life than the life you had before you died.

It's like a more vibrant, a more real kind of life that comes as a consequence

of the resurrection and as a consequence of faith. The resurrection is this

open invitation for everybody to die and be born again.

And I know there's lots of hangups about born again and whatever.

Like it's not the 80s anymore. We can move on.

But it's because it's about being born again into a new kind of life.

A life that is so much more full and vibrant and meaningful and real than the

life that we've been leading up to that point. Right?

It's what Jesus calls eternal life. That's what's at stake.

The kind of life that we have as a consequence of the resurrection by faith

is an eternal life, which we don't just mean like permanent.

We really just mean like it's secure. When the Bible talks about eternity,

it's not talking about just like outside of time, but it's talking about something,

a kind of life that is rooted in God himself, in the eternal.

It comes from the eternal. It comes from God. God.

This new kind of life is a life with God, which is entirely different than the

life we were living previously.

A life where it just feels like, man, we just have to depend on ourselves always.

This new kind of life that's offered at the resurrection, it is real life.

It is a life of relationship with God himself that is ongoing,

that is day to day, that is deep, and it is truly truly life-changing if we would only consider it.

He goes on, he says, because we have this new kind of life, and it is a life

with great expectation, he points out.

I think I have a little sight. Yeah, there it is, with great expectation.

See, this new kind of life, it's a life of expectation.

Or it's another way of saying it, it's a life of faith.

Most of you guys don't know me, and that's okay, but I really like this guy named Dallas Willard.

And he has something to say about this. That's an ongoing joke in my life for

the last decade, how much I love Dallas Willard. He says this about faith.

He says, there's a family of words in the New Testament that are variously translated

as belief, faith, hope, and that all have this common notion of reliance, confidence, and trust.

It is trust that puts you into contact with God so that you can draw upon his

unlimited limited, and inexhaustible resources.

To me, that's a really solid definition of faith and kind of the calling of Christians.

It's to be people who depend upon God. See, the problem with your life right

now, the life that is not like resurrection life, at least according to Bible, is that you, and I,

by the way, because I can persist in this old kind of life, I rely upon myself

for everything that I need. That's my greatest problem.

You trust in yourself to the exclusion of God.

That's the problem. To the exclusion of God. You trust your money.

You trust your power. You trust your intelligence.

You trust your job title. You trust even your relationships.

You trust your own goodness. And this is, again, you and me,

you and me, this can be our problem.

This is the not kind of life that we're called to leave behind.

Your confidence is in your competence.

I think that's the greatest issue with this old kind of life.

Your confidence comes from your competence.

But this new kind of life that is possible because of the resurrection,

it is a different kind of life.

It is a life of great expectation, a great confidence in the competence of God,

a great confidence that God is actually going to show up in your life.

And it's a totally life-changing sort of way to think about life.

It's a life of faith and hope in a God who is not just abstract,

but actually present and active in your life, because that's the That's the

metaphysical, cosmological, choose some big words, look them up later, it's okay.

It's the reality claim of the Bible that not only is this true that we can have

faith in God, but that God will actually show up in our lives,

that he wants to be seen, he wants to be known, he wants to be in relationship with you.

A life of faith and hope in God who is present in your day to day.

That's what we're called to.

And that faith, that expectation ends up changing everything.

Dallas Willard, he goes on, he describes what this way, this expectation will work out in your life.

He says, a life without lack, or, you know, that's his way of saying this expectant,

faithful life is known by those who have learned how to trust in God in the moment of their need.

In the moment of need. need. Not before the moment of need, not after the moment

of need when the storm has passed, but in the moment of need.

For it is in the moment of need that everything else is gone,

that you know the reality of God.

A life without lack is all about knowing the unlimited sufficiency of God in the moment of need.

When you're betrayed, abandoned, lied about, and scandalized,

when you're sick with a fatal disease, when your finances are going down the

drain, and when you see your loved one walk the doorway of hell,

that is the moment to trust and in trusting you will know God.

When you have nowhere else to turn except to God and you turn to him,

your faith of desperation will be met with the fullness of God and you will

taste the life without lack as you discover the depths of the faith of sufficiency.

See this kind of resurrection life, this life of great expectation,

this life of trust and faith, it is the life of experiencing and seeing how

God meets you in your moment of need.

It is the life of having the kind of confidence that just assumes,

that has been trained up and knows that I have a relationship,

an eternal kind of life, a new kind of life with God, where suddenly like his

resources and his care and his love are assured to me.

And if I have that kind of confidence, it changes the way I live on the day-to-day level.

See, God raised Jesus from the dead when everyone in the world had agreed that hope was lost.

That the only thing to do was just to seal up the tomb and let nature take its course.

But the resurrection is the good news that God is bigger than death.

And he's more faithful, even in the midst of our unfaithfulness.

Even when we give up on him, he continues to love us and care for us.

And we see the resurrection of Jesus is the proof that we might need,

the object of faith that we might place our faith into it, that God is powerfully

and continues to be powerfully at work in the world.

Then and now that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

what God is doing is he's demonstrating for all of us what he is like,

what he calls us to, and that is to live by faith in him, to live by intentional knowing,

reliance, and trust upon who he is for our needs on a day-to-day Because we're

assured that as the father has been faithful to Jesus,

he's going to be faithful to us.

Like this is the final point that Peter makes is that we can really be assured

of the faithfulness of God.

He says this, we have a priceless inheritance, an inheritance that is kept in

heaven for you, pure and undefiled beyond the reach of change and decay.

See, this new life, this with God life that is made possible by the resurrection.

It's good news, it's great news, it's amazing news, because it means that now

we have the assured promises of God, the kind of things that we could take to the bank.

We can be so confident in them because we know that God is with us,

that he's for us, that he's going to watch over us, and that he will never fail

us, even when things are difficult. He doesn't abandon us.

And this assurance demonstrated by Christ is gonna change everything.

When Jesus like met Mary and Mary, he said, don't be afraid.

Go and tell my brothers, leave for Galilee and they will see me there.

See, this is a pretty interesting little statement. And we see this kind of

this form repeated throughout the gospels.

Jesus did not generally before this Jesus talked to his disciples and called them brothers.

It's significant that at this point in time, now that the resurrection has happened,

and now that we have this priceless inheritance that Jesus looks to those who

follow him and he just says, you know what? You're my brothers.

Before we had this relationship where I was the teacher, I was the rabbi,

and you were the student. didn't.

It was not, it was, that's the word I'm looking for.

It was not in equilibrium. It was not, it's not an equal relationship.

But now as these, as these, as these disciples go and worship at Jesus's feet,

as Mary and Mary go and worship at Jesus's feet, he says, don't be afraid.

He lifts them up. They're worshiping. And of course it'd be,

be appropriate and good for them to worship. He's, he's God in the flesh.

He, but he lifts them up. He says, don't be afraid. And he, he with all kind

of kindness says, go and tell my brothers, go and tell my brothers to go and meet me in Galilee.

Those who trust in Jesus are now brothers and sisters.

What we can be assured of in the resurrection is that as a consequence of what

Jesus has done, we now are adopted into the family.

And as people who are part of the family, brothers and sisters,

we have a claim on this inheritance.

Inheritance, the same power and love and grace that brought Jesus back from

the dead, we can partake in it.

Those who partake in the resurrection are brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.

They share the family fortune just like Jesus did.

A little bit later in 1 Peter, Peter explains it this way.

He says this, for you know, God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life

that you you inherited from your ancestors.

And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value.

It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless lamb of God.

God chose him as your ransom long before the world began.

But now in these last days, he has been revealed for your sake.

Through Christ, you've come to trust in God and you've placed your faith and

hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.

What Peter sees really clearly is that because of the resurrection,

because of what God did in raising Christ from the dead, he's proving to us

that we can have this new kind of life.

A new life is on offer at the resurrection.

That's why it remains good news. And it is a life of faith and trust in God

where we are going to see our maker and be be assured,

be assured of his goodness and its assurance that Jesus died for.

Jesus died and rose again to assure us that that new life is possible by faith.

And I mean, it's crazy because we think about this verse and just like Jesus does the work for us.

That's the thing is we think about this question, how would we make God happy?

How do we make God happy? How do we be a a good person?

I think culturally, we continue to be obsessed with that question.

I think it's nothing new. Everyone has always wanted to do this.

How do you live a good life? How do you be a good person?

And the biblical answer is to that, is that you understand what Jesus has done.

He's paid a ransom to save you from the empty life that you inherited from your ancestors. ancestors.

And that ransom is his precious blood.

He coming as a sinless, spotless lamb to save.

See, God chose him, like Peter goes on to say, God chose him as your ransom

long before the world began.

But now in these last days, he's been revealed for your sake.

And through Christ, you've come to trust in God.

The good news of the resurrection is this, is that Jesus has done and everything that you need.

And that really to have this new life, it's as simple as trust.

It's as simple as faith. It's as simple as a confidence that Jesus has paid

the price for anything that could separate you from God and that his power and

his grace and his love and his relationship is going to continue on into this new kind of life.

And worship team is going to come up here right now. It's a confidence that

he's done everything that's needed.

And like Peter said, and we'll go back to 1 Peter 1.3, he said,

it's by his great mercy that this is true.

It's by his great mercy that we've been born again because God raised Jesus

Christ from the dead. I think I've got a, yeah, there it is.

It's by his great mercy that we've been born again because of the resurrection.

I think the question is though, right? The question is though,

do you really need mercy?

Like, do you really need forgiveness? Do you really need this new kind of life?

Like, isn't your life fine?

Isn't your life good?

And I think the problem with mercy, the problem with coming to Jesus,

the thing that keeps us from Jesus is that,

I mean, to accept mercy, to come and have something from God,

have forgiveness of sin from God, have a new life that comes as a gift by faith in God,

we have to take a place that sort of feels humiliating, sort of feels beneath us. This is how it feels.

Because, again, because this is, if my, the empty life, right,

the empty life that I've inherited from my ancestors is this life of self-reliance,

where, you know, I'm smart enough.

I can compete. Pete, I can live in this place where houses are a million dollars,

which is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a house. Sorry.

I can keep up in my career and I'm impressive enough and I'm smart enough and I'm competent enough.

Why would I need mercy? Why do I need help? I've always helped myself.

I'm really good at helping myself. I'm better than most of the people I know.

Aren't I great? Right? To put yourself in a position where you need mercy,

to put yourself in a position where you need forgiveness, to put yourself in

a position where you need to have faith and where you need to move on from the

kind of life that you have is to look at your life and just say,

it's really not that great. And most of us think our life is pretty good.

Maybe we think we're pretty good. Maybe you think we're pretty great. Do you need mercy?

Do you need to take that place of humiliation?

Do you need to take that place of, not humiliation really, but humility?

And I guess here's the thing, like Peter said here before, like he calls the

life that we have, the life without faith, an empty life.

Like the life that we have without faith in Peter's mind is like the zombie life.

It's like life that's not really life.

At least what scripture is is pointing us out to, is that there is something

that is really life on offer in Jesus Christ.

And it comes through accepting this mercy, accepting his forgiveness,

and putting our hope not in ourselves,

but in Jesus who raised Christ, in God who raised Christ from the dead,

putting our faith in God.

And that is good news.

The resurrection makes it clear that God's mercy, see, this kind of emptying

ourselves, opening ourselves up, trusting in God, taking this place of humility, it's good news.

It's a free gift. It's on offer to all people simply by faith.

And so we're going to worship the Lord for a second.

Maybe that's something you do. Maybe it's not. But I just want you to think

about that for a second. I just want you to think about what's on offer.

There's this new life, this relationship with God that's on offer this morning

and every morning for the last 2,000 years, because it's what God has bought

for us, this new kind of life.

So we're going to worship together, and I'm not quite done talking,

but I'm almost done talking, so get ready.

If you're probably thinking, oh, he's going to do an altar call.

Music.

Oh, that's the worst. It's all right. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.

Because here's the thing. I think that what the resurrection does is it actually

makes us ask a lot of questions.

Questions that we're given answers to.

We're offered a way to think about and imagine the world in a different kind

of way. A life where God could be present.

But then, of course, it makes us, as skeptical people, which is what we are.

We're too smart for our own good. I'm too dumb for my own good,

but that's just a personal problem.

No, I never met a self-deprecating joke I didn't like.

Maybe you're sitting here thinking and you're thinking as somebody who maybe

you haven't like followed Jesus or maybe you are following Jesus and you're

asking yourself, but what about all these Christians that I know, right?

Because you're telling me there's this new kind of life, a life of hope and

faith that it comes through trusting in Jesus.

And I look at all these people's lives around me who are Christians.

They say they have faith and I don't get it. I don't see the difference.

What's different about that life and the way that I'm living?

Thing. And I've got to tell you something.

Maybe, maybe very little.

Which is just, I'm talking to the Christians for a second, like a little bit of a challenge here.

Maybe a long time ago, or not that long ago, you did this thing where you said,

I'm going to trust in Jesus.

I'm going to trust in God. I'm going to trust his power. I'm going to place my life in his hands.

I'm going to do this thing called faith, where I just raise my hand.

I say, okay, I'm going to follow you, Jesus. Now, here's the question.

Are you persisting in living by faith if you're a Christian?

Could you say that the kind of life that you're living is one where you are

trying to intentionally rely upon God for all your needs?

Can I just say if the answer is no, can I invite you back into the thing that

you were invited into the first time when you trusted in Jesus?

Because the problem in Scripture in the Old Testament, the problem in Scripture

in the New Testament is that people say they want to follow God,

they want to trust in God, but we have idols in our hearts.

We worship false gods, we worship false things, we trust in things that can't

deliver on their promise, right?

And that's the persistent problem of Christians. It continues to plague us.

I am plagued by this problem 100%. But when I walk by faith,

when I set myself up, and I spend time in this relationship,

this kind of interactive relationship with God, and I seek him and I start to

arrange my life as if he were real.

I start to arrange my life and start to live as if he were real,

I have this experience of meeting him in those moments of need.

But if I set my life up so that I'm saying, so it's like, I started with self-dependence,

and then I became a Christian, and then I'm self-dependent, but I sprinkle some

Jesus in, I don't think I'm walking into the kind of life.

Don't get me wrong. I think, like, if you trust in Jesus, you just say,

okay, Jesus, like, I'm gonna trust you that you're gonna save me.

I'm gonna go to heaven when I die. Great.

Like, I'm not asking you to question your salvation, but I am saying you are

leaving so much on the table and you're going to get sick of this if you aren't

actually walking by faith and living by faith.

So if you're here this morning, can I just remind you that the resurrection is for you too.

The life of walking with Jesus and being with Jesus is for you.

The life of seeing his spirit like working out and him meeting you in your day

to day when you're struggling and when you're fighting with your spouse and

when your uncle uncle dies,

like Jesus is meeting you there in the time of need, or when you're broke,

or when you're just like lost, or confused, or you want to kill yourself.

Being a good Christian isn't about avoiding those things. Being a Christian,

not a good Christian, being a Christian is meeting Jesus Christ who's faithful

in the middle of those things,

and knowing that you have a God who, though you're allowed to go through difficult

things, he always walks with you in the midst of them.

And if we would open our eyes and have that faith and trust and persist in him,

we would see how good he is.

So yeah, if you're here skeptical, you're saying, what about all these Christians?

You're right, you're right. Christians should walk by faith.

Christian, walk by faith. But what about you?

Maybe you don't know Jesus. maybe you haven't done that.

I'm not going to say, I'm not going to push you. And I'm just,

I'm not going to say, Hey, make this decision about Jesus.

Because I, truth be told, there was probably a time in my life where I came

to resolve to walk this path. Right.

But really, if I were to focus back on my life, like pull out the lens a little

bit from that moment of decision.

I think a moment of decision is important because it's a, it's a time of commitment

where I'm just going to say, no, I'm really going to keep doing this thing.

But if I, if I were to to pull back the lens, I would say, what I see is not

just I decided one day to follow Jesus.

What I see is that before I decided to follow Jesus, I started to see God pursuing me.

I started to see moments in time where, though I was not looking for God,

he was looking for me and he showed up in my life.

And so my only question for you is, if you're not a follower of Jesus is,

could you just ask yourself this question this week as you go forward?

Is this God who raised Jesus from the dead, is he really real?

And if he's really real, could you just start to have some talks with him as

if he were really real, then just ask yourself this question.

Say, Lord, if you're really real, would you show up? Because you say you're real and you show up.

That when we trust and have faith in you, that you actually show up and we can interact with you.

Could you just ask yourself that question this week as you go out and just say,

okay, Lord, if it's real.

Music.

Then show it to me. Would you be open enough to the good news to consider that?

And what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to pray for you.

And even if you're a Christian, you want to like, I want this faith to be kicking

in high gear again. I want to know and meet with God.

Okay, I'm going to pray for all of us because here's the thing.

It is not because of an emotional decision that we follow Jesus.

It is not because of just like an act of will that we follow Jesus.

It's because we become convinced that he's so faithful and he's so good and

we can't stop seeing it everywhere.

And so when Jesus talks about faith, he talks about having blinders falling

off of our eyes and our ears being unstuffed and our hearts being soft to see

it. And so that's my prayer.

Can we pray that together for all of you guys?

Holy Spirit sent by Jesus Jesus Christ.

Lord God, you love us. You've proclaimed your care for us. You call us to faith and trust in you.

But Lord, we need something from you. We know you've given us everything.

Lord, you've taken away sin. We're thankful for that, God.

And yet we struggle with unbelief and we struggle with unfaithfulness.

And so God, we come to you in the place of humility.

Lord, I ask on behalf of myself and on behalf of these people here,

would you show up to us this week?

Lord, if we're Christians, if we've been following you, would you renew our faith?

Lord, would you put us into the kind of positions where we have to depend upon

you and find you faithful yet again so that we might take our little flame and grow it all the more.

We might have more passion and hope in you, Lord.

Lord, bring resurrection life to us, the kind of life that you describe.

And Lord, if we don't know you, Jesus, if we are just asking this question,

well, maybe, I don't know, but you've got to prove it to me.

Lord God, would you prove it? Lord, would you prove it to those who are sitting

here, Lord, who are struggling with depression?

Lord, would you prove it to those who are sitting here struggling with doubts?

Would you prove it, Lord, to those who are sitting and struggling even with

their desires and like they don't know how to deal with their inner lives, Lord.

But would you prove your faithfulness and your goodness and your calling,

the fact that you wanna interact with us and you love us, Lord,

and that you've paid the price for all our sin for those who have been hurt by the church,

and by people who said,

that they were coming in the name of love, but we were used and abused and hurt because of that.

Music.

Lord, would you restore our faith? Would you give us faith, Lord?

Would you teach us to look unto you and to hear the good news that you're kind

and good, Lord? Be with us this week.

Go out before us. Move in power among us, Lord.

The same power that brought Jesus Christ back from the dead, Lord.

Would you pour it out upon us? Yes, Christians and non-Christians,

Lord, would you give evidence to the fact that you're real so that we might

say, yes, Lord, I want to follow you. I want to walk by faith.

I want to walk into this new life. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.

Oh, I am really going to keep praying. I'm going to spend some time seeking the Lord.

And if you want to join us in seeking the Lord on Thursday night,

we're going to worship and pray together.

So the thing is, God shows up, God shows up. And if you need somebody to talk

to, if you're stuck in doubt or stuck in hurt, like trey at i90church.com.

That's my email address.

I would love to just sit and talk with you. This is not, a decision to follow

Christ is not a willpower decision.

It's just recognizing his goodness. I would love to help you see his goodness

and his faithfulness. If you're stuck on something, I would love, that's what pastors do.

Pastors are supposed to do that. We're supposed to help you guys do that.

So reach out to me. Let's worship the Lord together.