The Power of the Resurrection: Hope for Eternity

He eats with them. So here's the thing. Jesus was somebody people saw, and they are so convinced that they saw him afterwards that the people who saw him were willing to die for what they saw, not something that they heard. Right? There's a difference. If you heard something, if you're like like brainwashed or thought of something or maybe just got this handed down to you, maybe you'd be like, okay. Yeah. I believe this because I heard this. But if you saw something and then you lied about it, you wouldn't die for that. Right? [00:40:04] (29 seconds)  #EyewitnessFaith

Your body when Jesus resurrects it, won't have any of that. It'll be fully as God created it to be. No more death, no more cancer, no more disease, no more darkness, no more mental health, no more despair, no more depression, all of that wiped clean. That's the promise of resurrection. Isn't it sound good? It sounds like something you can long for. The other thing that's really crazy is that Jesus' body, our body be like Jesus' body, is that we actually do some of things Jesus did at the resurrection. I firmly believe that the things Jesus did, where while though he was physical, people touched him, he was able to eat food, he was able to walk through walls, which I'm like, I wanna do that trick. [00:50:48] (48 seconds)  #ResurrectionTransformsBody

until they found that he had significant abdominal cancer. And he had surgery on Thursday, so I called them just to pray over him and just pray with him because he's a friend. And I was talking to him, I just remember so vividly Jesus going, you know what? This is why we believe in the resurrection. Right here. This is why, because this life is a vapor and it's later than we think. Some of us think like, hey, it's halftime, got a lot of time. Some of us think, hey, the game's just started. Some of us think, hey, it's the fourth quarter or the two minute warning, but none of us know how much time we have. We don't. [00:56:07] (47 seconds)  #LifeIsVapor

James is I thought you were dead. Like, it was just like so so there's this conversion that happens where you're just like, oh, since like, no. No. No. No. Jesus. Yep. Jesus, my brother. That's God. So consider the facts. These are things that are factual. All these people are going, nope. We saw him. We believe in him. And that has importance. The resurrection changes our history, but it doesn't just change our history, it changes our future. The resurrection is the most important event in our future, my future and your future. [00:43:40] (32 seconds)  #ResurrectionChangesHistory

And as Jesus begins to appear to them, physically speaking to him, manifesting himself, showing himself to them, they begin to believe that what happened wasn't simply that Jesus died, but that he was raised again. See here's the deal, we can have confidence in the resurrection because the tomb is empty, eyewitnesses saw the resurrected Christ and they worshiped him. We believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God because of historical fact. [00:35:18] (33 seconds)  #ConfidenceInTheResurrection

that these are people. This is this is Jill and this is Jack. So apparently, Jill, she gets her beauty sleep and eats all the right things. Jack's like burgers all day long. Right? He's just kinda like whatever happens happens. But as you're looking at these two, again, this one looks alive and this one looks dead. But let me just guess. Just gonna just put this in front of you just for a second. What if I told you both of these are dead? Jill just doesn't know it yet. Why? Because she still looks vibrant and beautiful. Jack's like, man, I am dead. Look, I'm just like falling apart and wilted. But the reality is both of them have already had their stems cut and there's just a matter of time left until both of them become dust. [00:53:05] (50 seconds)  #LooksAliveButDead

And so the time that we have left has to be focused on something and I encourage you to have your heart focused on the resurrection, your resurrection. That is the most important thing that Jesus Christ came to give you life, not just for twenty years, not just for forty years, not just for a hundred years, but for eternity. That's where your mind needs to be. That's where my mind has to be. So I invite you today to simply consider what is your hope. [00:56:55] (38 seconds)  #FocusOnYourResurrection

Which one's better? Easter or Christmas? I mean, Christmas, let's be honest, We're about a week away from Christmas music in the hallways and it gets here earlier and earlier every year. You're about to walk in a Home Depot and see a Grinch staring you right in the face. I mean, it's like everywhere. We got Christmas music, Christmas food, Christmas holidays. Christmas is such a big deal, but then you have Easter and Easter always kinda sneaks up on us. It's you know, there's the the plants start to bloom, you start to see it get a little warmer. All of a sudden, man, Easter's here. [00:31:31] (31 seconds)  #EasterTakesCenterStage

their dad is Joseph. It's not God. But they they grew up with Jesus. The bible tells us that they were ashamed of his preaching and they're like, this is weird that you're going out there saying you're God. So they actually try to take him away. Like, let's go lock you up in a safe spot somewhere for a while. Right? And Jesus is like, no, that's not I'm not doing that. So there's this tension and then later we find them like being leaders in their first church. And the reason why is because Jesus showed up to them after the after the resurrection. The bible tells us that he showed up to James first before he even shows up to the women. He shows up to James, his brother. He's just basically like, I'm back. [00:43:02] (38 seconds)  #JesusShownToJames

doubt about what God can tell what God calls you to do. There's no more lying. There's no more murder. There's no more disease. There's no more death. There will no longer be a sin nature for anybody who's in Christ. That's a amen and a hallelujah. That means all the darkness that's in your heart and your spirit, the way you think terrible about people, the way that you slander people, all that stuff is gone forever. It's a transformation. But there's also transformation of your body, which means your body doesn't fall apart anymore. If you're incorruptible, it means that you're not gonna decay. That's that idea of corruption. It's this idea of like decaying and breaking down. And as somebody who's getting older, oh my gosh. Hallelujah. [00:48:49] (44 seconds)  #NoMoreSinNature

See, listen. When I was a kid, when I was young, I was like, I'll never die and I feel great. I've always man, I'm just like I just bounced back. Like, you just do whatever you wanted. Like, you could literally like eat a pizza at midnight and just be like, I feel great the next day. You go run, play basketball, nothing happens. The other day, this is just kind of just a snapshot of my life, I hurt my back pouring ice into a cup. No lies detected here. I literally was like pouring ice into my son's cup, getting his lunch ready. I was like felt like I got shot by a sniper. I was like, ow. What happened? [00:49:33] (33 seconds)  #MortalityStrikesUnexpectedly

And because of Adam's decision, every single person in this room and all history was a sinner except for Jesus. Jesus came as a better version of Adam, one who never sinned, one who followed God perfectly. And because of his death, we can switch teams from team Adam to team Jesus. That's basically what happens at salvation. We're saying, I don't wanna follow my patterns of what I've received as a human. I'm gonna follow what God is offering me in Jesus. I'm gonna switch allegiances from myself and from my history to a future with Jesus Christ. That's what salvation ultimately is, is putting your confidence in the fact that Jesus died on a cross and wiped your debt clean from Adam and from your own sinful life and you can have a new start with Jesus Christ. [00:45:36] (49 seconds)  #SwitchTeamsToJesus

So here's what I invite you to do. If you are a Christian today, if you're already a follower of Jesus, but your heart's not been connected to the resurrection, you may you you've got all the things I kind of covered, those bases, but the resurrection, your hope for the next life is not center stage in your life. It's not fueling you. It's not driving you. I encourage you to make that right today. And here's what I want to put in front of you today also. I know that today, some of us in this room, man, you're you're maybe curious about Jesus, maybe you've been coming for the last year. Maybe you came here for the first time today. But you know that you're near Jesus, but you do not know him. One of the greatest dangers is to be near to Jesus in a church, to know Christians, to know your bible, but not have your heart firmly in his hand. [00:57:50] (58 seconds)  #KnowJesusNotJustNear

See, that's the reality about all of our life. Everybody has an expiration date. Man, we may feel vibrant. We may feel like we've got it figured out. We may feel like life is absolutely cooking, but we don't know how long we have, but the end is coming for every single person in this room and every single person that's watching me right now. That's just a fact. A lot of us don't like to believe it. Now we take all the supplements, we put all the facial creams on, we try our best to hit the gym, but someday we will look like this and not like this. And it's later than you think. That's one of the things that's so fascinating to me. I think a lot of us think like, oh, I have time. I'll have time when I graduate high school to take God seriously. I'll have time when I graduate college to take God seriously. I'll have time when our kids, you know, are here and they're wanting to go to church. I'll have time there to get serious. I'll have time when I'm older, when I actually have those kids out of like youth sports and then they're like doing the thing where they're going to college and kinda leaving the house, then I'll have time. But here's the deal, [00:53:56] (71 seconds)  #DontDelayFaith

we all have a limited amount of time and we have no idea what that expiration date really is. We don't. We don't at all. I was reminded about that by my friend Jay. So Jay is a guy that I worked alongside of. We were both leaders at Brentwood Baptist where I came from before I came here. Jay was selected to be the next pastor at Brentwood. Some of you guys had the blessing of being underneath Mike Glenn's teaching, you know, old white guy, really, like white hair, funny guy. You guys know him? He's come here and preached a couple times. Mike's like a a mentor, friend, a father figure in my life. I love Mike. And, Mike retired, Jay became the next pastor at Brentwood. And about a month ago, found out that Jay has stage four cancer, not just a one type, but two. And he's only a couple years older than me. So he's like three or four years older than me. He's got five kids. You think he's the prime of life, healthy, never gone to the doctor. He's one of those people who never goes to the doctor [00:55:06] (61 seconds)  #LifeCanChangeInAHeartbeat

Like, if you nobody wants to die for a lie that they made up. So here you find all these early church leaders dying gruesome, bloody, painful deaths, refusing to change their mind because they're like, listen, you can kill me, but guess what? I know the guy who beat death and I'd rather be on his side than yours. That's the claim of the early church. But not only that, they also worshiped Jesus. You know, we ask yourself a question. What would it take for a first century Jew [00:40:34] (32 seconds)  #MartyrsWitnessToResurrection

And so on the first day of the week, on Sunday, the women come to prepare Jesus' body for burial. He's already been buried, but his body wasn't prepared with the final preparations necessary for burial. So they go there and to their surprise, they see that the tomb is completely empty. And so they go back and they tell the disciples, they're like, hey, listen, the body is gone. At that point, still again, they're not thinking, hey, we we don't really [00:34:07] (26 seconds)  #WomenWitnessedEmptyTomb

And I beg you, don't walk out this of this room, don't walk out these doors without making things right with God. So here's my invitation to you. Give your life to Jesus. Choose the resurrection. So if you've not done that, I wanna give you a chance to do it. Right now, as everybody's eyes are closed, everybody's looking at their own life, I just invite you to just make a decision to give your life to Jesus. And the way you do that is by telling him, [00:58:48] (36 seconds)  #ChooseTheResurrection