Easter Sunday / Pastor Randy Goldenberg / FCF Church

It's the great intruder, the great interrupter. It's our enemy. It's not our friend. Now I know some of think, well, a minute, Randy, you know, the bible says that when we as followers of Christ die, our spirit goes in immediately to be with the Lord, absent from the body, second Corinthians five eight, is to be present with the lord. Yes. That's true. But it doesn't mean that death is not still this dramatic, terrible interrupter. Anybody that's ever lost a loved one or even a pet that you loved, you know death is is a monster. It's an abnormality that was never meant to be. [00:56:35] (31 seconds)  #DeathIsEnemy

In places like this that we call churches. Now here's the truth. Churches would not even exist if this day Easter did not occur. This is the only reason that you have people, 2,000,000,000 strong around the planet who gather to worship this one called Jesus. So it's a most significant thing and even though we're so diverse in many ways, we're we're so united in this one way. Now I I do know, I'm well well aware that some of us got here by unusual means. [00:46:40] (34 seconds)  #EasterBuiltTheChurch

Here's the riddle. It's a one word riddle. It's seldom talked about. We distract ourselves from it. It it's never wanted or welcome, never pleasant or enjoyable, always uncomfortable and disruptive. It's always intrusive and controlling. It's it often shows up unannounced. Let me go on. It's rationalized, legitimized, accepted as perfectly normal yet it never feels natural. It frustrates and terrifies. It's constantly avoided and secretly what? Secretly hated. [00:52:33] (32 seconds)  #DeathTheIntruder

We act like death is normal because we can't do anything about it. Well, this day we call Easter, it is literally the proclamation of the great frustrator. In fact, I have some some terms that I think of when I think of death. If I could just go to that. Just just go to that. It's the ultimate intruder. It just kinda bursts into our life whether we like it or not. It's the frustrator. It's the interrupter. It's the thief. It's the enemy. It's the stalker. It's the monster that breathes down our necks at any age, by the way, [00:53:21] (33 seconds)  #DeathIsTheThief

He sees the risen Jesus as he's on the road to Damascus to arrest more Christians, and he's never the same, never the same, becomes the greatest servant that God has ever had. How do you explain these kinds of transformations? Repeated appearance over forty days, we talked about that. Eyewitnesses 500 at once. That's compelling. We've talked about that circumstantial evidence building up change in the day of worship. Jews were strict Sabbatarians. They worshiped on Saturday. But Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday and then they started gathering on Sunday and worshiping on the first day of the week. That was taboo for Jews, but they didn't fear that because they knew Jesus was the real Christ, the real Messiah, and he was alive on Sunday. [01:07:42] (41 seconds)  #ResurrectionTransformedHistory

None of us, not one, not one of us in here has the life we really want. Now I know some of you are like, dude, don't know what your problem is, but I like my life. My life is is happening. Hear me out. I'm gonna say it again. I wanted to sink in. None of us has the life we want. Now I'm gonna prove it to you in just a minute, and at the same time, I'm gonna do something, [00:47:37] (24 seconds)  #NoneHaveTheLifeWeWant