The Empty Tomb Confirms The Cross Was Enough

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church.

Each week, our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ.

Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

Well, hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast.

Pastor Ryan joined as always with Pastor Tim and had a couple couple week break there, Tim.

We both took vacation.

I think last week we were in a bit of a we need to recoup and catch up from vacation uh phase.

And uh we're back today, but we are wrapping up our sermon series that we've been in for the past 17 weeks, Signs and Glory, where we have been walking through the Gospel of John.

And man, I have I have really, really enjoyed this series.

Felt like I've gotten a ton out of it each week and just learning some new things.

We've talked about it a few times, taking a more macro approach than the the micro approach we're used to when we do our summer series.

Um, but man, it's helped.

I think you talked about it on Sunday again.

It's helped us kind of place the story, the big picture that you kind of miss going so granular sometimes.

And it's been it's been fun.

Um and today we're going to to recap the past three weeks uh of sermon series or sermons that we've done.

And and I think even here we're gonna catch something that you often miss as you kind of just walk through it.

I um and here they are um in order, it's remain finished and risen, but it is actually encapsulates our uh coming to the Lord.

Um remain would be the end, finished would be number one, and then he is risen.

Um I think when we we look to the cross, one of the things that uh um we move on to the resurrection really quick, but we don't focus on what the cross actually means and what he actually did for us there.

Um because Paul says, Well, you're you know, if Christ didn't rise, then you're still in your sins.

And um and that's you know, that's powerful and that's true, so we lean over there, but we forget that Jesus suffered and died.

And uh he was he's the suffering Messiah.

And we and that suffering was for us, the payment of our sin.

And we don't even know there's emotional suffering, he had that.

There's physical suffering, he had that.

But there was this spiritual suffering going on there too that um I don't think we can there's an old song back in the eighties, worship song, you'll never know how much it cost to see your sins on that cross.

And I and I don't think I don't think we understand that.

But uh John lays it out for us, you know, he he suffered and died, he didn't just die.

Yeah.

As you walk through, you know, it it does the order gets kind of reversed, but John's telling us the sequence of events, right?

So he's kind of walking through Jesus' final days, and um Pastor Jared took the the one sermon about remain, you know, abide in me.

And and so we kind of as you move through Johnny, you started there, and then you get to the cross and it is finished, and then you get to the resurrection because he can't rise till he's dead, you know.

So it kind of works that and the and the guys who he told, you know, abide in me, they unabided.

So many of them did, yeah.

Uh okay, well, we're gone.

This is over.

Um and so it it is, it ends up almost being the reverse of what it looks like to truly come to faith and walk with Christ is you almost have to do it in reverse order.

You know, it starts with the resurrection.

I mean, you you just said what Paul said.

Christ doesn't walk out of that tomb.

Our faith is useful useless.

He said we should be pitied more than anyone.

Right.

Like how foolish it is to give up every Sunday morning and gather in church to give your money to this uh you know institution called the church.

If Jesus doesn't walk out of that tomb, what are we doing?

Right.

Why are why are we wasting all of our time?

A lot of people made a lot of claims, a lot of people died.

One got back up, right?

You know, so if he doesn't do that, you know, it's it's pointless.

And so it starts there, really, is this event in history?

Jesus walked out of the tomb.

He he didn't just make all the claims, he didn't just say it is finished, you know, because I mean again, that's a claim.

And until he gets out of the tomb, it doesn't mean much.

He said it's finished and then died.

What do we do with that?

Who's gonna finish it?

How do we know it's finished?

It's the resurrection that it's kind of the stamp of confirmation or approval on all that, that it is finished.

He is exactly who he said he is, he did exactly what he said he's gonna do, and so faith really begins back there in that moment.

Is man he's he's alive, he is risen.

And you you just mentioned, you know, a bunch of these guys he said abide in me, unabided.

Right.

And it's true.

I mean, when when he died, they went into hiding.

Yeah, I mean, they were afraid.

They they weren't you know trying to steal the body and all this stuff.

I mean, they had Roman guards posted out there and were waiting in case anybody came and said, we're gonna take this body because they knew Jesus claimed he was coming back in three days, so we got to make sure nobody's here.

No, they weren't trying to steal, they were hiding, man, they were afraid.

And then you have someone like Thomas who, man, unless I put my finger in the holes, you know, I will not believe.

When they said Jesus is alive, the disciples are like, yeah, right, until I see him.

You know, I mean, and you go from that to after the resurrection, Peter's out in the street with the same, among the same people who crucified Jesus, nailed him to that tree, the same people that he's hiding from or has been hiding from because he was afraid of what he was going to do.

The same people that he denied knowing Jesus to not too long ago, he's now out in the streets preaching, and he looks at him all and says, You did it.

This was your fault.

You nailed him to that tree, you killed him.

It's like, well, what happened, Peter?

Only one thing could have changed that.

It's the fact that Jesus got up out of the grave and walked out and he's alive.

It changed everything.

And it's funny, it's it's always been the conviction of God that has led someone to believe in the resurrection, and now 2,000 years later, the evidence is really being laid out for it.

Um this guy, his name's Habermas, he he's got these five claims that even the skeptics have to grant, even uh some of the most popular ones, uh, about Jesus' resurrection.

I I you should look those up and and look those over.

There's five claims he makes that even the skeptics skeptics have to agree with.

And um the number one uh that always jumps out to me is that the disciples believed that they had seen him.

It doesn't matter um all these whether Joseph Josephus writes it down or or all these different things.

Um we have a historical record, not just in the Bible, that Jesus was crucified, but these guys saw him.

And it started with Mary, Mary Magdalene.

And that's where um that's where risen comes from.

Well, not even the disciples.

I mean, Luke tells us there was what over 500 people that saw them.

So it was like if you wanted to know if Jesus was alive, well, go ask Aunt Mary.

She saw them yesterday, you know.

These people, they believed it.

Habermas brings that out.

He said, 1 Corinthians 15 is a creed uh that they were saying um within a year or two of the resurrection.

This guy saw him, this guy saw them, Peter saw him, Paul saw him, the 12th Psalm, 500 psalm, go talk to them.

Right.

And um, so th that was very early that Christians started saying that thing because they they ran into people that doubted just like we do today.

And said, Well, yeah, go go talk to so-and-so.

He saw them, he was there.

Well, and um I mean you gotta wrap your head around what what that claim means, what they're really staking here, because the the religious leaders are doing everything they can to stamp this out.

I mean, they they killed Jesus to stop a movement.

The last thing they want is a risen body.

Right.

So they would do whatever they could.

I mean, rounding people up, and you even see what's the apostle Paul doing?

He's rounding up Christian.

He's rounding up Christians, people who said they believe, you know.

Nope, we're not doing that.

Yeah, and he's going, I mean, chaining them up, dragging them back to Jerusalem.

They stoned Stephen to death.

You know, I mean, that's what's happening.

So when they're saying, here's the people, it's not like today when we say, Oh, yeah, I believe.

When they stood up and said, Yeah, I saw them, you might as well just put the handcuffs on yourself.

Right.

I'm I'm I'm on my way.

That's and they were willing to stand up and say, I saw them.

I saw, man, you want to talk about a claim.

All the all the skeptics and the doubters and and the religiously, all they have to do, just show us the body.

Just show us where's it at?

And we get hung up on that.

You know, um Genesis chapter one, one is um it's is the biggest miracle in the Bible.

And we have scientific to scientific proof that it happened.

You know, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

Boom, it happened.

And that's that's the way we describe the universe now.

And everybody's trying to get out from under that, you know, the whole Big Bang theory.

It used to be something that Christians didn't support, and then suddenly, oh well, that makes sense to us now, you know, and now skeptics are like, well, wait a minute, you know, it was these different particles.

Wait, wait, there was nothing, and then there was something.

Where did the something come from?

Well, there was no no no.

You can't say particles, you can't say this, you can't say that, because there was nothing.

And uh and that question is what is nothing?

So um Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

He he raised um Peter's mother-in-law, right?

And the little girl.

Uh so raising them from the dead, raising people who had died is not a big thing to Jesus.

Uh raising himself from the dead shouldn't shock you, you know.

So people say, Well, I believe Jesus was a great teacher.

He didn't come and say he was a great teacher, he said he was a son of God.

And uh so we need to we need to focus on that.

And in the resurrection, those three points that I made on uh yesterday or on Sunday was um he called Mary by name.

Mary was struggling, she was looking for she thought Jesus was dead, she was she was upset that somebody was messing with the body, you know.

That was heretical to her.

She didn't even notice the angels.

They're like, she's like, hey, I'm an angel, look at me.

And she's like, Where's the body?

Where is he?

And notice she's not there like, hey, where's Jesus?

He said he was coming back, right?

Right.

They brought spices and stuff for burial, and they want to know where's the body, like the dead one, the one that's cold and and rotting back there.

Where's that one?

And uh when he calls her name, she wakes up out of that and uh realizes.

Um, and that's that's a fantastic story.

He knows your name.

If you're listening today and you didn't believe it, you don't think God cares about you, he knows your name.

And then um Thomas, Thomas, like you said earlier, he's just struggling.

I'm I'm not gonna believe.

And he said something crazy, you know.

I'm until I stick my hand in that wound.

And uh Jesus shows up and says, All right, buddy, it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

That's right.

Put it on in there.

No, go a little deeper.

Uh you know what?

This is enough, actually.

So he shows up in in the middle of Thomas Stouts and and and says, It's okay.

He shows up for him.

He did not show up for him and say, Oh, you need stronger faith.

Yeah, you know.

He said, Stop being faithless and believe.

Just believe.

Right.

And Thomas said, My Lord my God, what a great profession.

And then Peter, who was excited about Jesus being raised from the dead, but his disloyalty and denying him three times um man, Jesus came back to restore him, and it was a rough way to go.

You know, I'm gonna go back fishing, because that's who I am.

I should have never been with Jesus in the first place.

At the last moment, you know, I deny him.

Um and then he's back on the boat just like when Jesus first called and told him to follow me.

Jesus said, Throw the nets on the one side and all that fish came in just like when he first called him.

It you brought this out when we were talking about it on the phone.

It was in the morning when the rooster crow.

And uh he was uh making them fish for breakfast on that charcoal fire that was the same fire that he was standing by um when Jesus was uh being tried and he denied him.

So everything just lines up and uh and Jesus says, Do you love me?

It wasn't, do you think you can do this better?

It wasn't you really hurt me.

It was do you love me?

And even though Peter denied him, he said, I I think Peter loved him.

I mean the whole point uh to what he was uh told Jesus was I'll never, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you.

And um but Jesus knew he loved him and uh he he came back to restore him and then gave him a a um fresh vision, a fresh mission and restored him.

And I I love that.

Uh I remember I was listening to uh uh he was a pastor when uh I was a young man in the eighties and he got caught um messing around and and uh lost his ministry and he had to go to prison and the whole thing just blew up in his face and so at an interview after he got out of prison the interviewee or interviewer said so when did you stop loving Jesus?

He said, I never stopped loving Jesus.

I love Jesus.

I loved him then.

I just got to the point where I wasn't afraid of him anymore.

And um wow, you did I had uh some spiritual enrichment there um because I love Jesus and if he ended up there loving Jesus tells me a little about Peter ending up where he ended up loving Jesus um we fear the wrong things and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, right?

So man, that's that opens up a lot, but those things about the risen Jesus kind of smacks you.

He's coming for you.

He knows your name, he knows your doubting, he knows you've fallen on your face and he's gonna restore you.

And that's what the resurrection is to me, and that's that's the draw.

But then you gotta recognize number two, which is he died on the cross for one thing, and that is to forgive you for your sins.

Yeah.

I think we we kinda even in evangelical churches today, we forget about the fact that we needed a savior.

Well you know, one let me go back to this.

Peter's one of those characters I think a lot of people in in the Bible or in the church, he's one of the characters in the Bible I think people relate to a lot.

He's just a relatable guy because we've all been there, right?

We've all I'm all in.

I don't know the man.

That's like that's just a normal Wednesday for a lot of us.

Yeah.

Um, so we feel that.

And you know, we've already talked about Jesus calls these men to abide, they unabide pretty quick, and then you just see him bringing Peter back with this invitation, come abide again.

You know, do you love me?

Peter denied him three times, and so Jesus asked three times, Peter, do you love me?

Yeah, Peter, do you love me?

Peter, do you love me?

You know, it makes him do it three times.

Yeah, and and I've I've always wondered, man.

I wonder on that third one if the rooster just crows, you know.

Yeah, that would have been something.

Scripture doesn't tell us I wish it did, so I'm curious.

I don't care how many times that happens to us and we just don't recognize it.

You know, God is lining things up the way they used to be or the way it was before, yeah, and we don't get it.

Um but man, Peter, you talk about taking the lumps, man.

He is he did.

I would love for if that rooster crowed, you know, what a reminder.

Uh, because every morning, imagine this.

I mean, you didn't just like forget to pick your kids up from school, right?

Or you didn't forget to pick up milk on the way home.

Absolutely.

You denied the savior of the world in a rooster crow's.

Right.

Every morning.

What's the first thing you think of?

Yeah.

Man, I suck.

I denied my Lord.

I have to, I have to lean your way.

I think maybe when he said, I love you that third time, that rooster probably crowed.

Just so Jesus can I called it unstitching that denial, you know, um tearing it apart so that um it can be w reworked.

Yeah.

Uh, we need that sometimes when we're being restored, and the Lord wants to do that, yeah.

Do that uh for us uh so that we can go on and remain in him.

So it starts like we're saying with this event here, right?

The resurrection.

But the resurrection's only possible because of the cross, right?

And and Jesus had to go, he had to die.

And I I think if you talk to a lot of a lot of people, at least in our American culture and probably even within the American church, um the the cross seems unnecessary.

Like we all would probably acknowledge, like, yeah, I mean I've I've done some wrong in my life.

If you want to call that sin, sure.

Yeah, but I don't know if someone needed to be murdered over it.

Right.

You know, like I stole a pen from work, you know.

I I I fibbed about where I was over the weekend, you know, because I didn't want to get, you know, my wife to be upset that I was really just out golfing um when I said I'd be at home cleaning the garage, you know, like but did someone need to die for that?

And so we think generally, man, we're we're pretty good people.

And I think because of that, we think that generally we're pretty good.

The cross almost seems overkill.

Um and so we don't really understand why did why did Jesus have to die?

W what was so bad about me and my sin that I caused like may maybe there's some people he needed to die for, sure.

Right.

But I don't know if he needed to die for me.

I just don't think I'm that bad.

It's a it's a quandary.

It's um what is the word I'm looking for?

Um it's both forward and back, because you'll say, Okay, I'm not a bad guy.

You know, I didn't divorce my wife and leave my kids and you know, and we get along pretty good and you know, I'm paying my bills and and I don't lie a lot.

I might I might bet a little bit on the game or you know, what you guys think is wrong, but I don't think it's wrong.

Um but you know, I'm not a murderer.

And uh maybe you had to die for a murderer, but should you die for a murderer?

But I mean, I don't even understand why you die why are you dying for murderers?

Right.

And uh so and and it's the whole um thing that we're gonna teach in uh discipleship pathway, the holiness of God.

God is holy, he wants you to be with him for all of eternity, and he is not coming to your level.

You gotta go up to him, so you have to be holy too.

So your sins have to be taken care of.

They have to you gotta be wrapped in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that's why um the resurrection always leads back to the cross, because the resurrection means that now we can be sealed and we can be saved in the name of Jesus Christ, not because of just the resurrection, but because he died for our sins on the cross.

The debt had to be paid.

Yeah, it's it's it's a connection that people don't want to make the connection.

And what and what does scripture teach us?

There is no one righteous, no, not one.

The wages of sin is death.

Right.

So we we think I'm a pretty good person, and God says there's no one righteous.

No one.

And what you've earned because of your sin, what however petty and small you think it is, is death.

Right.

That's what you've earned.

Not life, death.

And so, because I love you, I made a way.

But the only way someone had to die.

Blood had to be shed.

Scripture teaches without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.

And we think, gosh, I just don't get it.

I don't think it was that bad.

And the problem is, man, we just have such a low view of sin.

That's what it is.

We don't see how wicked and depraved sin is.

I mean, God hates it, he utterly hates it.

It is contemptible, it is filthy, it is everything that he is against.

He is holy, he is righteous, and he wants us to be with him.

And so in this sinful fallen state that we find ourselves, well, it's never gonna match.

We're never gonna be able to be with him because we would immediately taint his holiness just by being in his presence.

You know, like we he can't be around it, he's so holy.

And so he said, Here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna send my son, and he's gonna die on the cross to pay for that sin.

And then I'm gonna wrap you, robe you in his righteousness so you can come and you can be with me where I am.

Let me uh uh jump onto uh doctrinal segue here.

And be if you're if you're new to Christianity, then you're you're probably gonna be like, well, what about Abraham?

Didn't he go to heaven?

What about David, King David?

Didn't he go to heaven?

Actually, the truth is that none of them went to heaven.

They went to a place called the place of the dead.

Nobody was allowed in the presence of God.

Uh humans were not allowed in the presence of God unless Jesus rose from the dead.

So um we have we need to understand that uh the place of the dead was separated.

Um those uh who had faith were on the paradise side, and those uh who died uh went to Hades, which was the other side, and there's a gulf between them.

And even today, uh Christians who die uh because of the resurrections go straight to the presence of the Lord, uh, but lost people who don't believe in Jesus die, they go to Hades, they don't go to the uh lake of fire, what Revelation calls hell, until the great white throne of judgment.

So I wanted to straighten you out in that mind.

What happened on those three days when Jesus was dead is why he went to paradise, he went to the pit and preached to these uh angels and preached to the dead, and then he took all those in paradise David, Abraham, uh Daniel, all those guys, he took them on to heaven because he had finally paid that price and then rose again and had the the keys uh to heaven.

So when you think about um what happened when Jesus died and and rose again before he came out of the tomb, he was working.

He wasn't resting.

Like, man, after all this guy's done, he probably could have used a three-day break.

You know, listen, I've I've been out, I've done a lot, I've been through a lot, I was just murdered.

Right.

Three-day break sounds pretty good.

And it's like, nah, sorry, you got some stuff you gotta do, even while you're dead.

Right.

I remember one time I had a a student in youth group when I was the youth pastor, he was reading through scripture.

I I want to say that's in first or second Peter.

Peter talks about uh Jesus going and preaching to the dead.

But I had this student in youth group who read that verse and he starts texting me and goes, What is going on?

Yeah, and I had to tell him just that.

Man, listen, all those people who believed, yeah, even though they believed in God and you know, by faith, Abraham, you know, God declared him righteous, all this stuff, they could not go into the presence of God until Jesus paid the price to cover the sin and went.

And so when he dies, he goes and preaches to them and he says, Hey guys, everything you were talking about, everything you were looking forward to, it was me.

Here I am, let's go.

What a party.

What a party, man.

Hebrews 11 kind of you know looks towards that.

You know, um, they they all waited, they waited, they had faith, they were looking forward to something.

And then you have this moment where Jesus shows up and says, I'm what you were looking forward to.

It was me.

Yeah.

And us uh being born after the resurrection, you know, we um we it's just so much more simpler for us.

You know, John 14, we covered it.

He said, Um, I'm gonna go to to a place and prepare it for you.

I'm gonna make it all nice.

Um uh Ryan thinks it's an apartment building.

I don't think that.

I think it's I don't think it's a mansion.

I don't know where the King James building.

But you got them in the suburbs.

No, no, no, no, no.

I think I think it's like a lodge.

Have you ever been to like a big campground or or a park that has this huge lodge and they've got that the big area where everybody comes in and you just kind of all together?

You got your own room and everything, but there's the place that you go and eat and everybody's together, and and you know, a big f circular fire in the middle, and you're all hanging out and singing songs and guitars are playing.

Uh, that might not be your scene.

But that's that's the way I think about it.

Um, in my father's house, there are many rooms.

And uh he he said this.

I told a lady this week, uh, I said, Jesus said, When it's your time, he's gonna come back for you.

If you've confessed him as your Lord and Savior, he's not gonna give up on you.

He's gonna be standing in your room waiting for you to cross over that threshold, and he's gonna take you to heaven.

He's made that promise to everyone who believes.

So those are the two things.

Um, that first of all, the resurrection, second of all, um Jesus had to die, he had to die for us, and third, uh, he called us uh to abide in him so that we will bear much fruit.

That's that's the point.

He wants more people to be with him, and that's one of the reason uh Christianity gets a bad rap because everybody's called.

Everybody has an opportunity, and whatever they whatever they do with that is up to them.

And there's a lot of people who get an opportunity that you don't want to go and I don't want them to go.

There's there's been some terrible people who have confessed Jesus as their Savior and Lord before they died.

And um but our God says, for God so loved this world that he gave his only begotten son.

That's right.

And whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

That's how much he loves us.

Uh when I was we were preaching this series and I was preaching about um the w water into wine and how that didn't move the needle on Jesus' mission.

It just what difference does it make that these people got wine and they weren't embarrassed?

Big deal.

It mattered to Mary who Jesus loved.

And that that stopped Jesus in his tracks.

He tried to talk her out of it.

He said, We don't need to do this.

And uh she looked at the servants, do whatever he tells you to do.

And um Jesus turned water into wine.

Why?

Because John was gonna use it one day to if he would have done a different miracle, John would have used that.

But he did it because he loved his mom, and his mom wanted it.

That's the kind of love we're talking about here, right?

You know?

Uh this isn't about the mission, this is has nothing to do with uh my time and what I'm doing here, but I'll do it because I love you.

And that's that's the kind of God we serve.

And sometimes we forget that because we when we talk about abiding, we get to the abiding has there's a lot of obedience in abiding with Jesus, and we think that we're being obedient to kind of pay our way to heaven, and that is not it at all.

We we we can't get that messed up.

When we teach the Ministry 101 class, I go through the Romans road, and but I use Ephesians 2 8 and 9 in my I always say, well, Ephesus was in Rome, so I'm sure there was a Roman road in Ephesus.

Count Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

It's for by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

And it's so important that when you get started in your Christian life that you grab a hold of the fact that you can't do anything for a gift.

You are saved because God's grace, and that's it.

The only reason um we obey him afterwards is because we love him and what he's done for us.

We we we do those things out of gratitude.

Now I've been I I think I'm gonna do a book uh of with all my dad's old preaching material.

I've got a big filing cabinet full of his stuff.

So I've I've been getting them out and um he typed them all out, you know.

Um he didn't type them out in the margins.

It was edge to edge.

He wouldn't waste a piece of paper.

And on a typewriter.

On a typewriter, right.

And uh so uh I got all these sermons and uh they called them uh the old cowboy preachers.

So I'm I'm gonna put a book together, Cowboy Sermons from a cowboy preacher, and reference him and all that.

But I showed it to you the other day.

Um he had one I was working on, and it was um how do you bear fruit?

And it's and it just like the scripture said, just like Jared taught, you have to abide in Jesus.

And oh well, that means that's heavy.

That means I gotta do this and I gotta do that.

And it's no, no, no, no.

He is the vine and you are the branches, you stay connected to Jesus and you bear fruit.

Because that's what a vine does.

It's this this is not a it's not a big deal.

If you abide in Jesus, if you stay attached to the root, then you automatically bear fruit.

Well, and it's the root that supports the tree, it's the root that sucks up the nutrients, right?

Like right, just stay connected, right?

Stay connected.

It's not about doing all this work, right?

You just stay connected.

And I I make that point in in my book, When Heaven Marvels, is none of this is about earning your way, you know, it's about living out this this life because of what God has done.

I abide in him.

These are the natural outflows of that then, right?

You know, and the life heaven marvels at are the people who continue to abide.

And this is what it looks like, you know.

Um I've not to get us off track or go back, but this was interesting.

I looked up the physical dimensions of heaven when you're talking about your lodge over there, and I was like, well, how many people could that fit?

What kind of lodge are we talking about?

So heaven describes the the new Jerusalem, right?

This new city that's gonna come down, and it's right around 1,500 miles cubed.

1,500 miles wide by 1,500 miles long by 1,500 miles tall.

If you're tricky, it's a Borg ship, is what it is.

Which means its base covers roughly 2.25 million square miles, which is nearly half the surface area of the continuous uh United States.

So Maine to Florida and west of Colorado.

That's what we're talking about.

Big.

But it also is 1,500 uh miles high.

It's going 1,500 miles into the sky.

So we're talking 3.37 billion cubic miles.

So on the surface, single level surface, it says you can fit roughly a hundred billion people.

But now you start stacking those, and it says we're talking upwards, I mean, over one quintillion people can fit inside this city.

So this is this lodge you're talking about.

Yeah, it's a pretty impressive lodge, man.

Yeah.

It's gonna be it's gonna be exciting.

Now, uh back in the day, um, I used to preach this when I was about your age, Ryan.

So that was back before TV, I think.

And um and cell phones and there was about there was about almost seven billion.

Now we're over seven billion, but almost seven billion people in the world.

And they said you can stack all seven billion people uh within the confines of the city of Atlanta.

Just stack them right next to each other.

So and you look at the the United States, is there gonna be enough room?

There's gonna be plenty of room.

So in my father's house are many rooms.

Right.

So it it's gonna be it's you know, heaven is he paid the price so we could be there.

That's right.

And that's how much he loves you.

If you're ever wondering.

And um but he's always there to call your name.

He's always there to meet you in your doubts, and he's always there to restore you when you've been disloyal.

I know I used to I used to struggle with it so bad.

I would come to church and raise my hands and pray with people, and then I would go out for dinner after church and be embarrassed to to thank God for my food.

You know, and it's like, oh God, how disloyal is that?

You know, here I am, this one person when nobody can see me, and then when I'm out in front of everybody, you know, I'm embarrassed.

I'm in I'm in just as embarrassed as Peter was.

And you know, the Lord never brought me any judgment on that.

He just said, Stop being faithless and believe.

And uh and then he gave me a a brand new mission, and here we are, a fresh win.

And uh we're trying to teach you guys the same thing.

We want to equip you for this walk with Christ.

We don't want you floundering out there trying to figure out the trying to work hard and and um No, no, no, no.

We want you to live with Jesus and learn to love him as well as a forgiven sinner can.

That's right.

And that's how you get um focused on what he wants you to do, and that's how you get the mission that he wants to give you.

There's gonna be some times when you fall flat on your face and the rooster's gonna crow and you're gonna say, Oh me, Jesus, I'm so sorry.

And he's gonna show up and say, But do you love me?

And uh so what a great what a this has been a great summer.

This has really been good.

I like to man, I'm I'm almost sold on taking these big chunks and not getting stuck in the in the uh what you call it granular and uh but you know, when you study the Bible long enough, you you're like, well that word that word means this, and that changes the whole complexity of the situation.

And you kind of get stuck there sometimes.

But being able to see uh Mary, Thomas, and Peter all in the context of the resurrection was just really precious for me.

Yeah.

And I I do, I think you kind of miss some of that when you get down in there too deep.

Um and and this this big macro view has has helped us.

And then, you know, we got this podcast.

We can come come on here and we can talk about some of that.

It's almost cheating.

We get to dig in, dig into the weeds on the podcast a little bit, and you get to talk about the surface area of heaven, which is gonna be just mind-blowing.

And Jesus said, Man, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can even conceive what God has prepared for those who love him.

It's better.

It's more.

And that's what we want to do, man.

We want to help you discover more.

That pathway that we have coming out um this fall.

We're gonna start talking about that, teaching you this stuff.

Uh, there's a whole lesson just on heaven and what heaven's gonna be and what it looks like.

And and we're gonna try to give you a little bit of a glimpse into what God's preparing.

And we want you to be excited about those things.

Man, there's more.

There's more.

There's more.

Will you pray for us?

Oh, you think I beat you?

Oh, you got me.

Father, I we I want to thank you for heaven.

Thank you for making a place that you prepared for me.

And Lord, I I pray that every one of the Christians who's listened to this today, I pray that they'll just thank you right now.

Lord, thank you from heaven.

Thank you for saving me, making a place for me.

Lord, we don't uh we get so focused on what's going on down here that we forget that our future is bought and paid for.

Um I just want to thank you for that.

It's like winning a cruise that includes the flight, and uh just everything's taken care of.

And Lord, we're we're here serving you because we love you, not because we have to.

You took care of everything, and we love you, and we're gonna serve you out of gratefulness, and we're gonna abide in you so that you can use us to bear more fruit, so they can abide in you, and fill up those rooms in heaven in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast.

We'd love to hear from you.

Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at a freshwind.org.

If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321.

We're so grateful for your support.

Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast.

Be blessed and have a great week.