Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] God saved my life and saved my soul. At the age of 22, I was a senior in college. I did not grow up in the church. I had no church background. I didn't know the vernacular of Christianity. I didn't know the Bible. I didn't agree with the Bible. I didn't like the Bible. I mean, and it's amazing to think about as a junior in college. So just one year before God took the blinders off of my eyes and helped me see Jesus for who he was, that just a year before that, I was standing in an argument and debate class in college debating Christians on the validity of the Bible.
[00:00:50] God can do amazing things.
[00:00:54] There's nothing else like it in the world in terms of just the proof of the existence of God and the reality of Jesus than God changing a life.
[00:01:06] And so when I came to faith in Jesus, God used all sorts of circumstances in my life and difficulties and struggles with depression and anxiety and past trauma and all of these different things to draw me to himself. And if I'm honest, at the very beginning of that process, what I really wanted was emotional relief. I just wanted to feel better. I didn't want to be depressed anymore. I didn't want to be anxious anymore. I didn't want to be, you know, all of these things. And what I didn't realize during that time was what God was leading me to was recognizing my need for the truth.
[00:01:42] So here's what I want to present to you this morning, and then I want to give you a quick encouragement before we jump into the text. What I want to present to you this morning is Christianity and the Gospel. What Pastor Matt just shared, what Zay just shared, the good news of Jesus is not an emotional crutch for people who are struggling.
[00:02:02] That's not what this is.
[00:02:04] What we're talking about, friends, is the truth.
[00:02:08] You and I, in the midst of our chaotic world and all of what's going on in the world and all the bad news and all the tragedy and all the death and all the disease and all of these things that you and I are taking in, we don't need an emotional crutch. We need the truth.
[00:02:28] You need the truth.
[00:02:30] You need to know what's true.
[00:02:32] And you don't just need to know what's true. You need to receive it.
[00:02:38] Christianity isn't just about knowing what's true. It's about receiving it, believing it, grabbing hold of it by the grace of God.
[00:02:49] That's all I want to do today. What's the truth? And then what are you going to do with it, friends?
[00:02:56] What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with the truth?
[00:02:59] So if you're a Christian in the room, this applies to you too. This is not just for those who come in this morning who are not yet Christians.
[00:03:06] What are we going to do with the truth as the truth is presented by Jesus himself? If you're a young parent, if you're a young parent, if you're not a young parent, but you are a parent, you remember, maybe you've experienced night terrors. Anybody ever experienced somebody having a night terror?
[00:03:28] A few people have. Yeah, we have night terrors. When kids have a night terror and they wake up in the middle of the night and they scream for sometimes an hour and they're inconsolable.
[00:03:41] Very few things in life remind me of my continued selfishness than a moment like that where I'm just reminded of how weak and how selfish I still am. But when I'm by the grace of God in my right mind in those moments, what I want from my child is for them to just trust me, for them to be comforted and to calm down. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ, friends, is a resounding message from the Father that for those who are in Christ, it's all going to be okay.
[00:04:07] It's all going to be okay if you're a follower of Jesus.
[00:04:12] John 14:6. That's what Jesus is doing with his disciples.
[00:04:18] Jesus is in the upper room sharing one last meal with his disciples before he goes to die through Roman crucifixion.
[00:04:29] Okay. Crucifixion in the Roman world was the most excruciating, painful, embarrassing, shameful way to die.
[00:04:37] So Jesus is on his way to be crucified. Why is Jesus going to be crucified? We see in Scripture that before he dies on the cross, he stops in a garden and he kneels in the garden to spend time praying to his Father. And as he's praying to his Father, it says that he's in anguish of soul and he's so sorrowful, the Bible says that he actually begins to sweat drops of blood. This is a physiological thing that happens when a person is at the brink of such extreme anxiety and wor that their pores on their face actually break open and blood actually begins to sweat down their face. Why is Jesus in such agony? It's not because he's about to die through Roman crucifixion, though. That's an excruciating way to die. It's because what Jesus is about to do is absorb all of the wrath of God toward sin on behalf of his people. Jesus is going to be alienated from his heavenly father for the first time in all of eternity. And it's absolutely anguishing.
[00:05:42] And so Jesus, knowing this is going to happen in the upper room, has every right to turn to his friends and demand they comfort him, right? If Jesus knows this is going to happen, it would make sense I would, I would do this probably like I want to be comforted in those kinds of moments. But that's not what Jesus does in John 14.
[00:06:04] In John 14, Jesus knowing this is about to happen, that he's going to take on the wrath of God for the sins of his people, that he's going to be alienated from the Father for the first time in all of eternity, the Father's going to turn. Knowing these things are going to happen, Jesus turns and comforts his disciples because that's who God is.
[00:06:22] Like the God of the Bible is the complete opposite of Greek mythology. And those false gods, those false gods demanded worship, they demanded praise, they demanded all of these kinds of things from their subjects. Because honestly, if you read those Greek gods, they seem to be very insecure beings.
[00:06:42] But that's not who the God of the Bible is. The God of the Bible is in his nature entirely self giving.
[00:06:49] And so instead of being comforted in this moment in the upper room, Jesus turns to his disciples and begins to talk about, hey, I'm going to go away, I'm going to have to go away, I'm going to have to die. And the disciples are worried and they're afraid and they're anxious. And so Jesus says, hey, don't let your hearts be troubled, friends.
[00:07:08] Believe in God, believe also in me.
[00:07:11] In my Father's house are many rooms.
[00:07:15] And if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. That's what Jesus was about to do, was go to the cross to prepare a place for his friends, that one day they and we might be with him, where he is, that we would see his glory on full display forever. That's what Jesus was going to do.
[00:07:40] And then we get to this part in the story where one of his friends named Thomas, who the church has identified as Doubting Thomas. It's what we call him now. I can relate. Doubting Thomas, maybe you can too.
[00:07:53] Thomas turns to Jesus and he says, jesus, how, how will we know the way if you're going to prepare a way for us? How will we know the way? How do we know which way to go? And this is what Jesus says in our verse today.
[00:08:09] John 14, verse 6. Jesus says, For I am the way and the truth, the life.
[00:08:19] No one comes to the Father except through me.
[00:08:26] How do we know what's true?
[00:08:29] I mean, just like generally in the world, like, how do you and I. How do you and I know what's true?
[00:08:36] We know what's true through what we call revelation, that there is a God, and that this God has made himself known to people all over the world.
[00:08:48] Psalm 19:1 says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. That means, friends, whether you're here this morning and you're a follower of Jesus or not, you can walk outside and there's something in you that says, surely this didn't just come into existence.
[00:09:09] Surely there's something behind all of this.
[00:09:13] Romans 1, 19 and 20 says, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have now been made.
[00:09:33] The beauty of creation, the dignity of people made in the image of God, our ability to both love and hate. This internal moral compass that you and I have by which we just. Instead of something about us that instinctively knows that there is a right and there is a wrong, all of these things beg the question of how did that start? How did that get there?
[00:09:53] But God's done more than just reveal himself through what he's made.
[00:09:59] God's revealed himself specially. And that's what Jesus is getting at here to his friends. And John 14:6, when he says, hey, I am the way and the truth and the life. God has revealed himself in creation. And God has especially revealed himself through a person.
[00:10:21] God's revealed himself most clearly and most fully through the person of Jesus Christ. And when we get to this particular verse, Jesus says some very specific things about himself. So if you want to know something about somebody, the best way to do it is what? What's the best way to do it? How do we know somebody most clearly? What should we do to know somebody?
[00:10:46] Yeah, you should go ask the person, right? Like, we could read about the person, we could ask other people about the person. We could do all of these kinds of things. But the best way to know somebody is just to hear from that person directly. And so that's what Jesus is doing with his friends and with us today. Hey, this is who I am. If you want to know God, you have to look at me. And if you want to know me, this is who I am. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So let's just spend a few moments breaking down each of these words. Jesus starts by saying, I am.
[00:11:20] That may not mean a lot to everybody in the room, and that's okay, but this is what Jesus is doing. If you go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. In the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, there's this man named Moses. Anybody heard of Moses? We've heard of Moses. Moses has this amazing encounter with the God of the universe by which Moses looks at a bush, and all of a sudden this bush just catches a flame. And out of the flame of this bush comes a voice. And the voice is the voice of God. And God tells Moses, he says, hey, I'm gonna use you, Moses. Even though you have a stutter and you can't speak very well, and you just murdered a guy, you don't really have it all together. I'm gonna use you for great things. I'm gonna use you to lead my people out of slavery and into a land that I'm promising to give them. And Moses is like, who, me? Really? He's like, I mean, I can't do it. You gotta. I gotta get Aaron. I can't. And then Moses says, hey, what am I gonna tell the leader of Egypt, Pharaoh, when I go and tell him that he's gotta let your people go? And God responds by saying this. He says, tell. Tell him I am sent you.
[00:12:20] I am is a statement about who God is. It means God is totally self existent. No beginning, no end, no, no one created God. God himself is the eternal one. He is the self existent being. He is the creator of all things. And so when Jesus uses this phrase, I am, this is one of the reasons that the Jews wanted to kill him. Jesus is identifying himself with the God of the Old Testament, that God who said I am. To Moses, Jesus is saying, that's me.
[00:12:48] And so Jesus begins by saying, I am. And then he goes on and he says, I am the way.
[00:12:55] I want you to just take a moment and think about the definite article in that statement. That's just a fancy grammatical way of saying just think about the, the. In that statement, Jesus doesn't say I am a way.
[00:13:09] He doesn't say I'm one of many ways.
[00:13:13] He doesn't say that.
[00:13:16] What, what spirituality and true religion and having a relationship with God is, is. If you can imagine a mountain, and we're all around the bottom of the mountain, and you've got Christianity and you've got Islam and you've got Buddhism and Hinduism and New Ageism and legalism and all of these kinds of isms. You've got all these beliefs around the bottom of this mountain. God is at the top. And really, no matter what path you take to get to the top will lead you to the same God. Jesus says, that's not the way it works.
[00:13:41] Not all paths lead to God.
[00:13:45] Not all ways lead to God. Jesus says, I am the way.
[00:13:52] There's no other way.
[00:13:55] The good news of the gospel is that the God at the top of that mountain came down to the bottom of the mountain in the person of Jesus and said, follow me, because it's only through me that you'll enter into a relationship with God. Jesus is not a way. Jesus is the way. Listen to what he says in John, chapter 10, verses 1 through 10. I just want to read these to you. Read these verses. He says, truly, truly, I say to you. He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep to him. The gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.
[00:14:55] This figure of speech Jesus used with them. But they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
[00:15:05] All who come before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door.
[00:15:12] If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. If you want to get into my house and enjoy, I would hope you would come into my house and enjoy life inside of my house. You have to come through the door.
[00:15:42] If you break in through the window, I don't know what I'm going to do but protect my family. You can't do that.
[00:15:50] If you come in through the back door, that's going to be awkward too.
[00:15:54] You have to come in through the front door. There's One entrance in. And Jesus says, listen, sinners, sufferers, can you imagine? This is what made the religious people, the Pharisees, so angry, is that the riffraff of society were flocking to him.
[00:16:16] And Jesus is saying, I'm the door.
[00:16:20] If you come in through me, you're going to find pasture.
[00:16:25] You're going to find life, abundant.
[00:16:30] Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control.
[00:16:37] Life abundant is found by walking through the door.
[00:16:43] And there's one door, there's one way.
[00:16:49] Will that way cost you? It'll cost you everything.
[00:16:55] Jesus says, anyone who saves their life will lose it.
[00:17:03] But anyone who loses their life for my sake will find it.
[00:17:11] So in essence, he's saying, if you want to hold on to the idea that life is all about you and that you're the God of your own life and you're the Savior of your own life and you're the Lord of your own life, then eventually, friend, you're going to lose it.
[00:17:26] But if you'll renounce yourself and follow me, come through the door, you'll find pasture.
[00:17:36] What is that? Pasture? You ever asked yourself that question? It's not just heaven, though. That's going to be amazing.
[00:17:44] That pasture, that abundant life is communion with the living God.
[00:17:50] That's what that pasture is.
[00:17:54] Life is hard. Life will continue to be hard on this side of heaven. For Christians, it is a lie that if you become a Christian, life becomes easier. That's not true.
[00:18:11] So the pasture that Jesus is talking about, the abundant life that Jesus is talking about is relationship with the God who made you.
[00:18:20] And he says, I'm the way.
[00:18:23] How do we know Jesus is the way? It's because of what he follows. He's the truth.
[00:18:29] That's how we know Jesus is the way, because he's the truth.
[00:18:36] Again, not a truth, not a form of truth, but Jesus is the truth. John 1:14 says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. This is speaking of Jesus glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[00:18:56] For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ during Jesus trial, right before he dies on the cross in John 18:37,38, Pilate says to him, so are you a king?
[00:19:13] And Jesus answered, you say that I'm a king. For this purpose, I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.
[00:19:21] Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
[00:19:25] Pilate said to him, and this is the question of our age and culture. What is truth.
[00:19:32] That question, over 2,000 years, hasn't changed, but continues to permeate like a cancer through our culture and our lives.
[00:19:41] What is truth?
[00:19:47] We live in what some cultural analysts call negative world.
[00:19:52] Up is down, right is left, left is right. Morality doesn't exist. Everything is relative.
[00:19:59] What you should be able to do, what I should be able to do is whatever we feel, that's who we really are, is what we feel.
[00:20:06] This is the ocean by which you and I swim. And Jesus is saying, hey, if you want sanity, if you want truth, truth is found in me.
[00:20:16] I AM Truth.
[00:20:18] Matthew 5:7, the Sermon on the Mount. We get a short biography of the person of Jesus. Jesus is saying, this is who I am, displayed in the Sermon on the Mount.
[00:20:29] Jesus word is truth. We know Jesus through His Word, and he himself is truth personified.
[00:20:40] Jesus says, I am the way. And we know that he is the way, friends, because he is the truth. So if you want to see the world rightly, to see God rightly, to see yourself rightly, to see others rightly, you must look no further than the person of Jesus and His Word.
[00:20:59] Jesus is.
[00:21:00] He is the truth.
[00:21:02] And then finally, we know that he's the way to God because He is the truth of God. And because he is the life of God.
[00:21:12] He is the way, the truth and the life. I want to read another story to you from John 11.
[00:21:20] It's the story of a man named Lazarus again, before Jesus dies on the cross.
[00:21:28] He's still in the middle of his ministry. And it says now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus, which is one of his friends, had already been in the tomb for four days. So Lazarus had died.
[00:21:38] Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, those are Lazarus sisters, to comfort them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But. But Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again.
[00:22:05] Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection. On the last day, Jesus said to her, here's another I am statement. I am the resurrection and the life.
[00:22:16] Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
[00:22:26] Do you believe this is what Jesus says? Jesus proceeds to weep at the tomb of his friend, even knowing that he was going to raise him from the dead, which says a lot about the character of God.
[00:22:38] And then through a loud, triumphant, strong, compassionate, powerful voice says, lazarus, come out. And at the voice of Jesus, that dead man arises.
[00:22:51] And here's the reality, friends, for those of us who are in Christ by faith, you and I were once like that.
[00:22:58] Ephesians chapter two says, for you were dead in your sins and transgressions, spiritually dead and separated from God, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work, and the sons of disobedience, by whom you all once lived, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children under wrath. That's who you and I were. But what does the text go on to say? But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive.
[00:23:32] It's by the strong and powerful voice of Jesus alone that a spiritually dead person is brought to life. Because he's not just the way though he is. He's not just the truth. He is the life.
[00:23:48] He's the resurrection and the life. And he says, whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
[00:24:03] Jesus is the way to the Father. He is the truth of the Father, and he is the life.
[00:24:10] And no one, friends, comes to the Father except through Jesus.
[00:24:16] So I want to close by, just giving kind of two encouragements, and then I'm going to pray and the band will come up and I'll give kind of a final word. Okay? But first I want to speak to those in the room, my friends in the room, who are not yet Christians, and hear me speak this way again. I did not grow up in the church. I wasn't familiar with any of these kinds of things. For 22 years, I lived a life far from God, alienated from God, grew up in a pagan household in many respects.
[00:24:48] And so I want to. I want to speak to you for just a moment. You've been presented with the truth.
[00:24:57] Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And so I just want to pose this question for you, friends, what will you do with that?
[00:25:09] Pastor friend of mine used to say all the time, and I found this to be incredibly helpful, that Christians are haunted by doubt and non Christians are haunted by belief.
[00:25:21] It's true.
[00:25:23] I was always haunted by the question, as a non Christian person of, gosh, what if it's true.
[00:25:31] What if it's true?
[00:25:33] What if Jesus really is who he said he was?
[00:25:37] What if today, as you and I sit here all dressed up and nice, enjoying food and one another and smiles and hugs and all of these things, that there really is a person named Jesus who is fully God and fully man alive today? Like, what if he really is alive right now in heaven at the right hand of the Father, ruling and reigning over all of the cosmos? What if there really is a Jesus one day who will come back?
[00:26:07] It won't be mistaken. When he comes back, the sky will split. Jesus won't ride in humble and gentle on a donkey as he did the first time. He's going to ride in triumphant as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords on a white horse.
[00:26:23] And he's going to ride in to wage war against all evil and evildoers once for all. There will be no more oppression. There will be no more abuse. There will be no more scandal. There will be no more adultery.
[00:26:38] There will be no more abandonment.
[00:26:41] He will eradicate the world of all evil and all disease once for all.
[00:26:49] What if it's true?
[00:26:51] What are you going to do with it?
[00:26:55] The invitation for you is to all who did receive him, who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God.
[00:27:11] You must first believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
[00:27:17] You must first believe that God is good and holy and that you're a sinner and that you can't do anything to make yourself right with that good and holy God.
[00:27:29] You must believe that God in love sent his only begotten son, Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, to live a perfect life and perfect obedience to God the Father went to a cross and died, paying the penalty for the sins of his people and then resurrected on the third day. You must believe that.
[00:27:50] But the Bible says even the demons believe those things and shudder as a result of them.
[00:27:56] So it's not enough to just believe that these things happened.
[00:28:03] You must receive him and praise God. He doesn't say that. You have to clean up your life. You have to do better. You have to try harder. You have to be a better person. He doesn't say that.
[00:28:15] Jesus says, for anyone who receives me, I will give them the right to be children of God, forgiven of your sins, Heaven as your future God as your father, Jesus as your brother, Holy Spirit as your helper, I'll give them the right to become children of God. When I talk to folks, I used to have a friend who is A part of. Can't say denomination, but a religion that claims Christ but believes some things that are outside of Christian orthodoxy. And he and I got into a conversation one day over the phone by which he said, brad, do you know you're going to go to heaven for sure? And I said, yes.
[00:28:58] And he said, that's pretty arrogant.
[00:29:01] It's like, all right, let me explain to you why I can so definitively and confidently say yes, okay? Because I'm not the one inviting myself to the party.
[00:29:13] I'm not going to get to the gates of heaven and say, God, look at all the things I did and look at how awesome I was and look at how great I did, and that wouldn't get me in. He's right.
[00:29:23] Like, if that's the basis of my hope, that's not gonna get me in. Jesus is the one who's invited me to the party.
[00:29:28] And so when I. When I enter into glory, my only boast will be, I'm only here because of him, because of what he did for me. His righteousness, his perfection, his death, his resurrection. His victory is mine by grace, and it's available to all who receive Him. Have you received Him?
[00:29:50] If you've never received Him, I want you to receive him today, please.
[00:29:56] Not because he needs you, not because I need you, but because you need him.
[00:30:02] Receive him and become a child of God. And if you do receive him, you should get baptized.
[00:30:10] If you've never been baptized, you should get baptized. And we'll talk to you more about that in just a moment. I want to give three final thoughts for Christians, because Easter sometimes can be this thing where we, you know, everything is about evangelizing those who are not yet Christians. And we want to do that, but we don't want to leave without the Christians in the room being encouraged. As to what the Resurrection means for you and I today, three things.
[00:30:32] What does the Resurrection mean for the Christian in the room today? Number one. The Resurrection means that there is meaning in your suffering because Jesus is alive.
[00:30:45] No ounce or iota or second of suffering in your life or in mine is meaningless and purposeless.
[00:30:53] First Peter, 4, 13. Rejoice.
[00:30:57] Remember, Peter was crucified upside down.
[00:31:01] Rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, that you rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. The Christian life, by and large, is you and I sharing in the sufferings of Jesus so that by the power of His Spirit, we might become more like Jesus, so that on the day of resurrection, we can rejoice in glory.
[00:31:32] As one older pastor who's in the fourth quarter of his life, I heard say this a couple of weeks ago, he said, in heaven, you and I are going to recognize each other because we're going to have bodies, we're going to have resurrected bodies.
[00:31:46] And he said, it's going to be like, I can look at any of you. I can look at Mason. I'm just looking at you, Mason, for a second. I'm going to be able to look at Mason on that day.
[00:31:55] And all of the suffering that that brother experienced on this side of heaven, he and I will be able to look at and say, oh, that was. Why look at you now, Mason.
[00:32:06] See Mason for who he really is for the first time.
[00:32:10] And if you can imagine that glory from that one on one interaction magnified by an innumerable amount of God's people from all time, that's an amazing weight of glory that gives perspective to our suffering today.
[00:32:28] The resurrection of Jesus means that none of our suffering is meaningless, but all wonderfully purposeful. The second thing that it means is it means that you and I today have power for obedience.
[00:32:43] The law of God by the person of the Holy Spirit has been written on our hearts. And God has given us the Holy Spirit as a permanent and forever down payment of our inheritance to come. And so Acts 1:8. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That's not just about evangelism, though. It is.
[00:33:06] But it's about all of the Christian life. How do you and I live the Christian life? By resurrection power.
[00:33:12] Temptation is so hard. I get it.
[00:33:17] There are moments in my life when I'm sinning and I'm confronted with this choice.
[00:33:25] Brad, you can stop or you can keep doing it. And I regret to inform you that more often than I care to admit, I choose the latter.
[00:33:36] Sin is hard. Temptation is hard. But you and I, friends, have power by the Holy Spirit.
[00:33:44] He really has given us a way and a means out of any and every temptation by the person of the Holy Spirit.
[00:33:54] And because Christ has been raised victorious over sin, you and I now, through his resurrection and by the person and power of the Holy Spirit, have power to resist temptation and to walk in new lives, resurrected lives. And then the final thing, and then I'm going to pray, is because of the resurrection of Jesus, you and I have courage in the face of death.
[00:34:17] There is nothing more scary on this side of heaven than death.
[00:34:22] We should all admit it.
[00:34:24] We don't like to think about it. We don't like to talk about it. We like to pretend that it doesn't exist. People are actually working now to try to reverse death.
[00:34:34] It's not going to happen.
[00:34:37] They are going to die. Unless Christ comes back. You and I are going to die.
[00:34:45] It shouldn't be a taboo thing for us to talk about this, because here's the hope that you and I have on this side of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You and I can stare death in the face and say, as the Apostle Paul said, o death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The grave has been overcome. The grave has been defeated. The last enemy to be defeated by God is the enemy of death. It's been defeated. And when Christ rides back on his white horse, ready to rule and reign over his established kingdom on the new heavens and new earth, death will have its final blow.
[00:35:17] So you and I can face death with courage.
[00:35:22] We don't have to live our lives as followers of Jesus, just trying not to die.
[00:35:27] That's not the way you and I are called to live.
[00:35:29] Preserve yourself. Protect yourself. Don't do anything hard. Don't do anything risky.
[00:35:35] Don't do any of that. Just try to live as long as you can, eat all the kale in the world and do the, you know, whatever like. We don't have to live that way because we can have courage in the face of death. Christ has defeated it.
[00:35:51] I'm going to leave you with this verse. 1 Thessalonians 4, 4, 18.
[00:35:56] Paul writes this letter to a church grieving the death of some of its members.
[00:36:02] For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
[00:36:12] That's what happens to Christians who die in Christ.
[00:36:17] We fall asleep. For this. We declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. He is risen.
[00:36:51] He is risen indeed. And because he is risen indeed, you and I have no fear in death. We have power for obedience. And we have meaning in our suffering on this side of heaven. Amen. Let's pray.
