Jesus Is Risen: We Are Unfinished, Called Forward

What if and I know this is gonna sound crazy. What if the resurrection of Jesus shows us a glimpse of what the real capital r real world is. What if it's not coming back from the dead? That's the strange thing. What if it's dying at all? That's weird. Can I ask you to entertain an idea, skeptics, for just a moment? What if the resurrection of Jesus sounds so wild to us because it's just our first taste of the world as it's about to become. [00:54:13] (38 seconds)  #ResurrectionIsNewReality

You can get out. That means if you're always running your mouth and then regretting it, you can learn to tame your tongue. That if you are constantly craving your next Amazon delivery, that you can truly be content in life. That if you terminated a pregnancy when you were 19, that you can be washed. That if you feel trapped inside of bitterness, you can bend those prison bars, and you can be set free too because it's the same power in you right now. [01:07:52] (44 seconds)  #PowerToBeFree

You know, in those early years, it wasn't the people who thought the resurrection was a metaphor who kept the Caesar up at night. It wasn't the people who thought Jesus was a just a ghostly apparition who made the Herods tremble. It was the people who were convinced that death was defeated and kept pressuring their just cause. They were the people who changed the world, and no amount of emperors, no number of gladiators could finish them off. They would not be deterred. What are you gonna do to us, Nero? Kill us like you killed Jesus? Bring it on. [01:10:16] (33 seconds)  #DeathDefeatedFaith

See, our adversaries are gonna keep trying to convince you and me that Jesus didn't really rise, that death is final, and they know that if they convince us of that, they can have their way with us. They'll try to scare you. They'll try to embarrass They'll try to tell you to pipe down, but we know better, don't we? We know the game has changed because of Easter. We know that Jesus isn't dead. We know that we're not done, and we know that every ending in him simply launches a new and better dawn. [01:10:52] (33 seconds)  #EasterChangedEverything

Do you remember Jose Alvarenga's fateful last four words? We have no anchor. My dear friends in Jesus Christ, we do. The hope in Jesus holds us fast. No matter the seas, no matter the storms, no matter the cynics, no matter the sarcasm, we're not done yet. [01:12:39] (34 seconds)  #HopeIsOurAnchor

Mary went to that tomb that morning looking for a corpse, and instead she found her king. She thought she was looking at a gardener, but she was coming face to face with the son of God. Mary planned to anoint her teacher, but instead, the greatest joy anybody 's ever known was poured out over her because Jesus was not finished. Not by a long shot, church. [00:51:56] (26 seconds)  #FoundTheRisenKing

That power, the power in you, don't miss this, the power in your life, the power Jesus wants to give you through the Holy Spirit right now is the same mighty strength that he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead. The same power that brought Jesus back is carrying you forward. It's the same power. And that means that if you are caught in a loop of addiction and shame, back to addiction, back to shame. If you feel like you're stuck in there, you're not. [01:07:18] (33 seconds)  #SamePowerRaisingYou

And that means that even when you walk out of that hospice room with tears in your eyes or when you do lay a loved one in the ground and somehow against all common sense and counter to everything that you've been told, you feel like you're gonna someday see that person again. God says you're right about that too. Easter is transformational. It remakes everything. It is a tiny glimpse through a portal into what will someday be the reality for all of us. [01:00:20] (34 seconds)  #EasterPromisesReunion