Life Starts Now

Happy Easter.

If you uh just arrived in the last few moments, I want to start by saying welcome, welcome to his hands.

We are a we're a place where more than anything we desire to love people to Jesus.

Not just tell people about Jesus, not just point people to Jesus.

We want to love people to Jesus.

And so if you're here today and you don't know that you are loved by the creator of this universe, more than anything, we pray that you leave today and you know that.

I want to start this morning with uh a question.

It's one I've asked a few times over the last few weeks.

Is anyone excited about being alive today?

All right, good.

I'm glad.

I'm glad.

I hope that's all of us.

And if there is anyone here that if you're honest with yourself, you'd say, not really.

I am alive, but I feel like I need more.

Then my prayer is that by the time you leave here this morning, you have that more that you need.

We are here today to celebrate life.

We're here to celebrate life because over 2,000 years ago, life conquered death through Jesus.

That is what Easter is about.

I'm so excited about this moment.

I think I've had more anticipation for this Easter than any other, and I don't know why, I've just expected God to do something really big.

And I've had some really good Easters in the past, so he's gonna have to do something big to top some of the previous Easter I've experienced.

Ten years ago, I had this amazing Easter Sunday where my family took my four-year-old nephew to church for the first time with us, and it was his first time hearing the Easter story, and whatever he was taught in the kids' area really clicked because as soon as we got in the car, he was full of joy, and he said, Happy Easter, Jesus is in prison.

And we we sort of looked at one another trying to figure out what had gone terribly wrong in the kids' area that morning.

And then finally it clicked for one of us, and we said, Oh no, no, Jesus is risen.

He's risen.

But our our nephew was convinced and he argued with us.

He said, No, no, I saw a picture and they put him in a cave and they put a big rock in front of it.

And I realized at that moment that with that understanding, everything that happened at church that that Sunday must have taken on a whole new context to him.

Right?

Because Jesus rising and coming out of the tomb, that was a prison break.

That's what that was to my nephew, and then the offering that was like bond money for Jesus.

We've got a bail, Jesus out of jail, God got in some trouble, right?

That was a good Easter.

That Easter was full of a lot of laughter.

Five years ago, top that though for me.

Five years ago, my wife and I were pregnant.

She was significantly more pregnant than I was that day.

But when you're pregnant, you are always 100% pregnant.

At the same time, though, you do come to this point where you are like super pregnant.

And you know that point because people stop asking you questions.

They stop saying things like, uh, hey, when are you expecting?

or is it a boy or a girl?

And they start making comments like, Wow, you're about to pop.

Which I'm sure is something that every woman dreams of hearing at some point in her life.

And it had gotten to that point with us.

We were two weeks away from our due date on Easter Sunday, and it was so obvious that Megan was pregnant that every time we would go out to eat somewhere, our friends or even the waiter or waitress would say, Hey, please don't go into labor here.

Wouldn't that be bad?

And we would be like, Yes, yes, it would.

And that's a total possibility.

So thank you for reminding us of that.

But on Easter Sunday, Megan just decided to embrace it.

And so she got this white t-shirt, and it was just completely plain white, but on her belly, she painted this giant Easter egg.

And she just walked around the church like, yes, I'm about to pop, a baby is about to hatch, I'm just owning this.

And that was a good day because even though Liam, our first son, was due two weeks later, we didn't know this, but 24 hours after Easter, she went into labor.

So that was a really good Easter Sunday.

I believe today is going to be an amazing Easter Sunday.

I believe today is a very important day.

I believe that for some of us in this room, today might be the most important day of our lives.

And I'm not just saying that.

I really believe in all my heart that God wants to do something powerful right now.

Will you pray with me?

Jesus, thank you so much for your love.

We don't worship the memory of you, Jesus, because you are not some historical figure that came and died.

Your life is not relegated to words on a page in history.

You are alive.

You are alive, and it is our joy to worship the God who is alive.

Thank you, Jesus, for coming for us.

And in the next moments, as we explore your word, as we just talk about you, Jesus, and think about you, Holy Spirit, we ask that you would stir our hearts, that you would move us and shake whatever needs to be shaken.

And we pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

I said a few moments ago that Easter is a celebration of life, and that's exactly what this is today.

Most of us know the Easter story pretty well.

Jesus came and He came to this earth, He lived a perfect life, He came to show us who God really is.

To show us that God is not this angry old man in heaven looking for a chance to punish us for our mistakes, but God is a loving Father who wants to reach down and pull us out of our mess, even if it's a mess that we created for ourselves.

He lived a perfect life and then he died on the cross as a sacrifice for us.

His perfection covered our imperfection.

His body and his blood was a ransom payment for our lives.

The fundamental difference between Jesus and everything else that this world offers us in terms of faith is that we don't have this God that says, try harder, do more, and if you do well enough, maybe just maybe, I'll accept you.

We have a God that loved us so much that he looked at us and said, I know you can't do it yourselves, and you don't have to.

I'm gonna come and do it for you.

And Jesus won life for us.

He won a restored relationship with God, and he won it for me, and he won it for you.

He died a horrible death on the cross, but on the third day, in that tomb, he opened his eyes.

He unwrapped the grave clothes around his body, and he walked out.

And we say that today, and it can fall on deaf ears because we've heard it so many times.

We know the story.

But if there was any way for us to hear it for the first time, to be one of those people that first Easter Sunday, that not only heard that Jesus had risen, but that saw him, that saw him with their own eyes, we would jump for joy because that age-old question of, is there life after death, would have been answered.

For the very first time.

See, before Jesus, there wasn't much hope for that.

Even godly people that walked with God didn't know that there was life after death.

They weren't certain of that before Jesus.

Job was an incredibly godly man who lived centuries and centuries before Jesus.

And he experienced a lot of tragedy and loss in his life, as I'm sure many of us had.

And in Job 14, verse 14, he says, Can the dead live again?

Job 14:14

If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle, and I would eagerly await the release of death.

If only I knew that the dead could live again, and because of Jesus, we do know that there is life after death.

Easter is a celebration of a life that is so powerful and so strong that even death could not keep it at bay.

You could say that Jesus was obsessed with life.

Search the scriptures, he's always talking about life.

Life is a thread that runs through almost everything that Jesus teaches.

In John 14, 6, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

That's a very bold statement, but Jesus was never afraid to make bold statements.

He says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

Talking to a woman at a well and using the water in that well as this beautiful metaphor for the life that Jesus offers.

He said to her, Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again.

Anyone who drinks the water I give will never never thirst.

Not ever.

The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.

Gushing fountains of endless life.

That is the life that Jesus offers.

My favorite, John 10, 10.

Jesus puts it so simply, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Jesus says, I've come to give them life, to give you and I, and all of us, life.

And see, the life that Jesus gives us, it is something that is so much greater than normal life.

The life that Jesus gives us is something that's so powerful and so real and so full that it's missing from so many lives in this world.

And we want the life that Jesus gives.

All of us have.

Sometimes it's really painfully obvious what's missing.

There's some circumstance, there's something that we have a lack of, and so we look to that and we say, hey, if I had more of this, if only this were present in my life, then I'd be complete, then I'd be full.

But some of us have all those things that you're supposed to have to feel full.

We have all the stuff, we have the job, we have the money, and yet it still feels like something's missing.

That's a pretty constant feeling in this world, this feeling of if only.

When I was a kid, I spent a considerable amount of time playing basketball, which looking back was a little bit of wasted time because I'm five foot nine.

And being five foot nine, even if you're really good at basketball, it's still not what you would call a marketable skill.

But see, when I was a kid, I didn't think I was gonna be five foot nine.

I swore I would be six foot three.

I actually have specific memories in the sixth grade of telling my friends I'm going to be six three as if it was a known fact.

Now, I don't know why I thought I would be six foot three.

My dad is five seven.

My mom, my mom might be five five in heels, maybe.

But when you're in the sixth grade, you don't think about life in terms of genetic probability.

You dream, you hope.

And I knew I was gonna be six foot three.

So all this practice in the driveway, it was just time well invested.

I was gonna hit a big shot in a big game on TV, I was gonna be in the final four, all these great things were gonna happen.

Every summer I'd I'd go home and come back to school, and I'd see some friend of mine that I hadn't seen for two months, and he would have had a six-inch growth spurt, and I kept waiting for my summer, and it never happened.

I just grew like a centimeter at a time, and then it all stopped in the tenth grade.

Oh, if only I had that height, that's what I used to think.

I had a friend in high school that was six five, and he did not play basketball, and that really bothered me.

I mean, it it it it really bothered me because I wanted to look at him and scream, why?

Why don't you play?

Do you know how easy basketball is at six foot five?

I don't, because I'm not even close to that, but you're so much closer to the goal.

You should just do this.

And he's a great guy now, he's been very successful, he works in a cubicle, and six foot five inch people are not made for cubicles.

My size people are made for cubicles.

And as mad as I was at him for not playing, I'm more mad at God because I wanted to say, God, why did he get the extra eight inches?

I I would have used it.

I would have used it for so much good for myself, God, if you had just given that to me.

Because, guys, I'm not saying this out of pride, so take this the right way.

Had I been 6'5, I kid you not, I I could have been like a walk-on at a really, really small college.

Okay?

I mean, the stories that I would have, if only I had that height.

If only.

If we're not careful, those two words can dominate our lives.

If only.

If only I had more money, if only I weighed less, if only I had a better job, if only I'd gotten that promotion, if only I was married, if only the person I was married to was a different person.

If only, if only, if only.

Jesus recognized and confirmed that that longing in our hearts that makes us say, if only, that part of us that is always searching for something more, Jesus showed us that we're not crazy when we have those thoughts.

It's just that Jesus, being God, knew exactly what the real if only is.

And Jesus actually tells us that that that thing that's missing from life, that thing that makes us go, if only, that thing in life that we're always searching for, it just so happens to be life itself.

Jesus tells us that what's missing from life is life.

Why else would Jesus offer life time and time again?

What good is it to offer life to people who have life?

Why would Jesus go to alive people and say, I've come to give you life?

Real life.

It's as if Jesus doesn't think that we're really alive, or better yet, it's as if Jesus means something very different when he says life.

It's the kind of life that he's talking about.

It's so much greater than the kind of life that this world offers us that Jesus wouldn't even call what we call life life.

He would call it existence.

Existence is motion without meaning.

It's waking up in the morning with a lot of things to do, but no real reason to do them.

Existence is having to manufacture the energy to make it through the day.

It's having someone ask you, How are you?

and you smile and say, Yeah, I'm doing great.

But deep down inside, you're you're barely hanging on.

Existing is getting by.

It's hanging on, it's holding on, it's surviving.

And we were not created to exist.

We were created to live.

And Jesus came to this earth.

And he came to this earth to make a move in our lives, to move us from existence to life, to add meaning to the motion.

And because of the fact that Jesus gives us life, we can move from existing to really living.

And when that happens, everything changes.

A few months ago, this young woman, that's an awesome part of our family here at his hands, named Courtney, got baptized.

And I had never met Courtney before.

She's getting baptized, and she talked a little bit about what God had done in her heart to lead her to that moment, and she said this, and it just blew me away, it knocked me back.

She said that when Jesus came into her life, he awakened the deepest part of her soul.

And she came to life for the first time.

I heard that, and my first thought was, Oh, we gotta talk to her, we gotta find out more about her story.

We need to give her a chance to elaborate on what that means for her.

So Courtney came in and shared her story with us, and it was really funny actually.

She was talking about Jesus and talking about everything he had done in her heart, and she didn't realize it, but she was quoting scripture left and right.

She's a relatively new follower of Jesus, and she's talking about him.

And I stopped her at one point and I said, Do you realize that you're just quoting the Bible?

She said, No, not at all.

It's the Holy Spirit.

And it was a great testament to the fact that what God had done in her was real.

Courtney's story is a story of moving from existing to living.

And so I'd like to take a moment and share a little bit of her story with you.

This is Courtney.

Have a look.

You feel a hundred pounds heavier every day.

There's not really anything to look forward to when you're living your life just for yourself and not for our Lord.

Um it's empty, and you feel like you're just existing, not living, but there's nothing you can do to get to that point.

No matter what you try.

You feel this void in your heart.

Um, and I tried to fill it doing drugs.

I would smoke, I did pills for a while.

I tried to fill it with love from other people.

I tried to fill it with drinking and excessive partying, anything to numb what was missing, but nothing was filling it, nothing was working.

There was nothing I could do to get rid of it.

And I knew there had to be something more.

About a year and a half ago, one of my friends invited me to church, and I just for the first time I didn't have like this resistance in me.

Wasn't like a brick wall, and I decided, okay.

I didn't quite feel God yet.

It was just, I guess, a stepping stone in the right direction.

And so at that point, I started um pursuing him more, and I started feeling the Holy Spirit moving through me.

And um that's when my life really started to make a change.

The second you even get the slightest feel of the Holy Spirit moving through you, you realize that that's exactly what it's been.

And sorry.

And you want it, and you want more of it, and um and the more you pursue the relationship, is the more I think you feel Him moving through you.

And um, it it invigorates you.

It's not something you can you can just find in church or just by saying, I I believe in God.

It's it's literally feeling somebody pick you up out of the slump that you've been in and raise you in ways that you didn't, I mean, I I don't even know how to describe that.

I mean it's just it's like the weight of the world slowly starts to sink away, and he's there for you.

The world is heavy and it's hard, and I think like I said, you're just existing through it.

You're not even living, you're not experiencing all that he has for you.

And suddenly when you feel him, it's like this fog has been lifted.

You can see, you feel alive, it's you know, the things you experienced before are still, I mean, like the hardships, those aren't obviously gonna go away.

There's they're still there, but it's a piece that transcends all that.

And it just brings you to life, and you're able to cope with things that you really couldn't cope with before, and the happiness that you experience is I don't even know how to describe it, because before when you were happy, you really, I mean, now you know it's not even happiness, it's just a heightened existence, and for a bliss blissful moment you got to experience something that you had no idea was there all the time.

I'm just excited to live life for the for what feels like the first time in 23 years.

Courtney's life, used to be an if-only life.

She was searching for something, and she searched in many different places, and nothing satisfied.

I'm sure many of us have that story, but see, Courtney, she traded in her if-onlies for the only.

For Jesus.

Because he is the only source of life.

And that's not just my opinion, he's the only one that defeated death.

So we we want to know how to live.

But life can't begin unless death is defeated.

Because if death is victorious, then life is just a charade.

If death wins, then life doesn't really matter.

We can't really come alive until death is defeated, and the only, the only person that defeated death is Jesus Christ.

And when we trade in our if-onlies for the only, we come to life.

This world lies to us.

We've all we've all been lied to.

It breaks my heart to know that there are millions of people on this earth that really believe that the ultimate end for their life is death.

Because that is what this world teaches.

Not in those words necessarily, but this world tells us that life is just a road to death.

And so, what does this world offer us?

It offers us a better road to death.

Maybe a longer road, right?

If you eat right, you work out enough, you do all the right things, maybe you'll have a longer road to death, but death is still the destination.

It offers us a smoother, more comfortable road to death.

And if we have enough money and if we have enough of the stuff and we live in the right place and we get to do something we enjoy, then that's great.

Our road is smooth, it's comfortable, but death is still the destination.

This world offers us distraction after distraction and take our eyes off the destination that we're heading to.

And get us to focus on something else for a moment.

But even if we're looking to the side of the road, death is still the destination.

And the greatest myth, the greatest lie that this world gives us is that death wins.

Death does not defeat life.

Death defeats existence, yes.

And if existence is all we have, then death will win.

But if we have life, if we have the life that Jesus offers, life wins.

Jesus said this in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

I tell you the truth.

Those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life, they will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death to life.

So Jesus tells us, with me, you don't go from life to death.

With me, you go from life to life.

Death is in your rear view mirror.

Life is what's ahead of you.

You have a life that leads to life because that is how real and how powerful and how full the life that Jesus offers us is.

It's just up.

That's right.

You can clap for that.

See, for us, it's all just about are we gonna settle for existence?

Or are we gonna take the life that Jesus is giving us?

This world tells us that the best life is a life where you live like you're gonna die.

Live like you're dying, live as if today is your last day, but Jesus says, no, no, no, live as if you know there never will be a last day.

Because with me there won't be a last day.

That's what Jesus says to us, and he's telling us the truth.

What would happen if every person in this room said, I will not exist another day, I will live.

Life starts now.

What would happen if every single one of us said, I'm never gonna settle for existing?

I don't have to hold on, I don't have to get by, I don't have to hang in there, I can live because I have Jesus.

What would happen in our families?

What would happen in this community?

What would happen in our schools, in our in our nation, if we all decided to take the life that Jesus won for us because he already won it, it's done.

And with Jesus, we don't have to exist, we get to live.

Life is not something that is being ripped from us, it's not something that we have to squeeze every little last drop out of because it's running out.

With Jesus, life is a torrential downpour.

With Jesus, life is a fire so intense that it cannot be extinguished.

And that life, that life inside of Jesus that would and could not die, that is a life that will live inside of us if we have him.

Romans chapter 8, verse 11.

Romans 8:11

Stands to reason, doesn't it?

That if the alive and present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself.

When God lives and breathes in you, and he does, as surely he did in Jesus, you are delivered from that dead life.

With his spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's.

Motion without meaning.

You were not created for that dead life.

You were not created and put onto this earth to be searching for the next if only.

You were created to know and to intimately know the only, the only God, the only source of life.

And I believe that today, for many of us, life starts now.

And it's so simple.

It's a confession in our hearts that Jesus is God, that he defeated death.

It's a hope that we place in him where we say, I'm not looking for another if only.

I trade it all in for thee only.

And when we do that, when we confess who he is, and when we put our trust in him, we trade in existence for life.

And this world may offer us a long, smooth, comfortable road to death.

But I don't know about you, I'd I'd trade that in for a short, bumpy ride to life any day of the week.

I want to live.

This is a moment where we come to life.

This is a moment where we decide that we're gonna live.

Some of us in this room, we've experienced the life that Jesus gives, but maybe this world has hit us back a little bit.

And we're a little jaded, and we don't feel as alive as we once felt.

It's time for us right now to reclaim the life that Jesus gives, to say no to existence, to never settle for existence because we have life when we have Jesus.

Some of us today we've we've never had Jesus.

We know that.

And if we're honest with ourselves, we'd say, yeah, it feels like I'm just existing.

And I've got to muster up the strength to get by no more.

No more.

You don't have to.

He has one life for you.

The question is, will you take it?

Will you?

Life starts now.

Life starts in this moment, in this place.

I want to ask a question that I asked a few moments ago.

Is anyone excited about being alive today?

Is anyone ready to start living like we've never lived before?

To reject existence and put it all on life.

Don't hold back.

If you want to live, if you want to trade in that dead life for the same life that was inside of Jesus, the same life that conquered death, it's yours.

It's just a choice.

Take it now.

Don't wait another moment.

Why go another day?

Why go another hour or another second existing when you have life waiting for you?

Does anyone want to come to life today?

Just saw someone in the back stand.

Praise God.

He is alive.

That's right.

He is alive.

That's right.

You can stand if you want to stand.

I tell you what, let's stand up for life.

Let's live this life that Jesus offers.

Life starts now.

Life starts here.

Because he is alive.

Pray with me.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Thank you so much, God, that you're alive.

We don't worship a dead God.

We don't worship the memory of a God that came and died.

We worship a God that came and died and death lost.

Jesus, you tasted death, but you didn't like the way it tasted.

So you sent it back.

And you did it not for yourself, but for us.

Lord God, we stand with one another.

We stand with this community because we want to see a community come to life.

We will not tolerate watching people exist when life is at their fingertips, Jesus.

So give us the strength to pour out your life to this community, to pour out your life to the people we love, to pour out your life to everyone we come in contact with.

Lord, we stand together for life for you, Jesus.

And we love you.

But not even as much as you love us.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you for winning life for us.

As we worship you just a moment longer, we want to enjoy life with you.

And Lord, for the people in this room that have made a choice right now, a choice right now to start living.

And they felt you stir in their hearts, and they know you're real.

We pray that they would thrive today.

That their motion would have new meaning.

And that they would know that they don't stand alone, that we stand together.

We love you, Jesus.

Amen.