Transcription
Some of you are on the edge of giving up right now. And if we could put an X-ray to your mind, it would show you're you're pretty desperate. Don't give up. Look up. Don't give up. Look up.
The answer is not to quit. The answer is to get connected. Find God's purpose and get God's power in your life and you'll have a new resurrection in your life. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead couple millennia ago, 2,000 years ago, is available to you today.
If God can raise a dead Jesus, he can raise a dead marriage. If God can raise a dead Jesus, he can raise a dead friendship. He can raise a dead career. He can raise a dead dream. He can raise a part of your life that's just dying on the vine. That's the kind of God we serve. That is a benefit that was paid for you by Jesus Christ. Let me show you some verses. This may be a benefit you didn't know about. And if you don't know about it, you can't depend on it.
Ephesians chapter 1, the Bible says, "I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great God's power really is. how incredibly great God's power really is to help those who believe him. It is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead." Say, "Wait a minute. Whoa, time out here, Rick. You're telling me that the same power that brought Jesus back to life is available to me in my daily life." That's exactly what I'm saying. That's a benefit you may have not known about.
The resurrection of Jesus comes with a promise. Look at the next verse. By his power, God's By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead. And read this aloud with me. He will also raise. >> Oh, now we're talking. The only reason you're going to be raised from the dead and have life after death is because Jesus did it. That's the reason. If Jesus doesn't raise you from the dead, you're not getting raised from the dead. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead and he will also raise us. So you can have resurrection power in your life.
Now let me ask you a very personal question. Where do you need a resurrection in your life? I'm talking about right now. Let me phrase it another way. What's dying in your life or is dead and you know it and you need God's power to bring it back to life. Where do you need a resurrection this year? Where do you need God's resurrection power?
See, the truth is, and I'm sorry about this, but some of you are in marriages that are dying. They're going south real fast. Or maybe they already have died and you're just still living together. You need a resurrection in your marriage. The key to a long marriage, K and I have been married 42 years, is you have to learn how to fall in love over and over again. You don't fall in love just one time. You have to have resurrections in your marriage, in your life.
Some of you need a resurrection in your marriage because it's dying. Some of you need a resurrection in your career. And you think, man, I thought I'd be a whole lot further along the line than I am right now. At this stage of the game, at this point in my life, I expected to be further down the road, but I'm not. And that's disappointing. and you need a resurrection in your career.
Some of you need some resurrection in in your energy. You say, you know, I'm just tired all the time. I drag through the day. I'm fatigued all the time. I don't have any energy. It's because you're living it on your power instead of God's power. God never intended for you to go through life just on your power. You don't have enough. Human power runs out. Human love runs out. which is why there's divorce. You need supernatural love and you need supernatural power in your life to make it to the finish line.
Some of you need a resurrection of your dream. You had a dream in your past about something you've always wanted to be or always wanted to do, a talent you wanted to develop, a goal you wanted to go after, and the dreams died. Some of you need a resurrection in your health. you're not going the right direction. Some of you need a resurrection in your motivation. You know, I just, you know, just I'm just not motivated anymore. I'm just kind of putting in the time and waiting for the payday. Checking the clock. I don't I'm not motivated. Nothing motivates me anymore. You need a resurrection of motivation.
Some of you have had a split in a friendship with a dear friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or just a good friend, and there's been a rift. There's been a break, a tear, conflict. You need a resurrection in in your friendship. So, I'm just saying that in so many different areas, some of you have had your heart broken recently. And as your pastor, I'm sorry. I really am. And I pray for people in our family that have a broken heart and you need to have your heart repaired and you need you need a resurrection in that area of your life.
You see, this is the difference between human beings and God. God is God and we're not. Human beings can resuscitate. Only God can resurrect. If you know CPR, you know how to resuscitate somebody. Their heart stops. You can resuscitate them with CPR. If you're a paramedic, you've probably resuscitated hundreds of people with mouthtomouth or CPR, whatever you needed to do. Resuscitation happens when they've been dead for a minute or two or three minutes. But when you've been been dead for 3 days and buried in the ground, you don't need resuscitation. You need resurrection. And God says, I want to have that kind of power. Not resuscitation power, but resurrection power in the areas you like of your life that are dying or have already dead. They're already dead. And God has not only a purpose for your life because of the cross and the resurrection, but God has a power for your life which is bigger than the problem you're going through uh right now.
Let me show you a couple verses. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul gives a testimony of how God helps us when we think it is hopeless. Now, Paul says it like this. He tells his own story of when he was ready to kick the bucket. This is probably the greatest Christian who ever lived next to Jesus Christ. And and Paul says, "There were times when I was so depressed, I was ready just to throw in the towel." And he says this in 2 Corinthians, we were really crushed. And he says, "We were overwhelmed and we feared we would never live through it." Ever felt like that? Crushed, overwhelmed, filled with fear. He says, "We didn't think we'd live through it. We saw how powerless we were to help ourselves." And you just go, "Okay, this is not working. I do not have the power to get done what I need to get done in my life. I just don't have it. I got an energy shortage. I got energy crisis. I don't have the power to do what I need to do. And then Paul says, we realize we were powerless to help ourselves. But that was good. Huh? How in the world could you feeling crushed, overwhelmed, fearful, and powerless to help yourself? How in the world is that good? He says, "Because then we put everything into the hands of God who alone could save us for he can even raise the dead. He can even raise the dead." And he said, "And God did help us and he saved us and we expect him to do it again and again and again."
But you can go all through life totally unplugged. If you are unplugged from God's power, you will never know God's purpose. You cannot fulfill your purpose in life unless you're plugged into the power the power of the resurrection. And he says, you know, we got the point. We were ready to just cash it all in and we we were powerless, but that was good cuz then we put it all in the hands of God. And God, well, thank God you finally did it. I've been waiting for you to get to the end of your rope so I could take over. How about you let me have a try? and empowering and guiding your life.
Now, just be honest. Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Here's what the Bible says. Isaiah 40, God gives power to those who are tired and worn out. And he offers strength to the weak. You say, "Wait a minute. I'm tired. I'm worn out. I'm weak. I don't feel any power." Well, let me explain how you get that power. You get it through faith. You get it through trust. You get it through believing in the son of God who died on the cross for you and rose again to give you that power.
You can complain to God all you want. God is not moved by your complaints. You can whine all you want. God is not moved by your whining. You can gripe all you want. God is not moved by griping. But the moment you put trust in him, bam, God moves. According to your faith, it will be done unto you. God honors faith. Not griping, not whining, not all these other things. He says, "I'll give you that power." He said, "But Rick, you you just don't know what I'm facing right now." Yeah, you're right. You're right. I I I I don't I I I don't know what you're facing, but I do know Luke 18:27, which says this, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." What looks like a dead end, what looks like a death is prime time for a resurrection and a miracle. What looks like you're never going to overcome, God can overcome like that. And God can do more in 5 seconds in your life than you can do in 5 years. But you've got to trust him.
But here's the promise, and I want you to have this same promise. The promise of purpose and the promise of power. First Peter chapter 1. Second Peter chapter 1. As you get to know Jesus better, he will give you through his great power everything you need for living a truly good life. Now, you say, "Well, Rick, I I don't have everything I need." Well, then you just need to get to know Jesus better. As you get to know Jesus better, he's the source of your purpose and he's the source of your power.
Not only is it God have a great purpose for your life and God has a great power to solve your problems. God has a great place for me after I die. We learn that from the resurrection of Jesus. We learn that there is more to life than here and now. We learn that death is not the end. One day your heart is going to stop. That's going to be the end of your body, but that's not going to be the end of you. Oh, no, no, no. You were made to last forever. And God says, "I have proven that there's life after death by raising my own son. I think Jesus knows more about the afterlife than you do or I do because he's been there. And this gives us hope. Death is not the end.
And in Johnap 11, here's what Jesus said. I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life again. If you're going to come back to life after your death, it's going to be Jesus who does it. Nobody else going to do it. It's going to be Jesus. He says, "I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life." How do I know that he's telling the truth? Because he did it. Nobody else did. One of the most attested to miracles in history. Jesus spent 40 days in Jerusalem after. He didn't just say bye to your friends and go back to heaven. After he raised himself, he walked around, ate meals, talked to people, one time trained 500 people, many, many eyewitness accounts over 40 days. And he says, "I am the one. Anyone who believes in me even though he dies shall live again and he gives he is given eternal life for believing in me and shall never perish. How do you get eternal life? Not by doing good. Not by going to church. Not by promised to be perfect. Not by giving a whole lot of money to help the poor. What? He says one thing. You believe that Jesus can raise you back from the dead too. You trust him as your savior. He is the source of hope.
Now, let me just summarize this. You're never going to find ultimate hope in anything you can lose. If you want to have a hope that gets you through the toughest times of life, you must put your hope and put your trust in something that cannot be taken from you. If you put your hope in your bank account, you can lose your bank account. If you put your hope in your spouse, you can lose your spouse. If you put your hope in your health, you can lose your health. You can lose your mind. You can lo You must never put your hope in something that you could lose. If you put your hope in your good looks, you've already lost them. So that that ship sailed, friend. I'm sorry. If you put your hope in your job, it's going to let you down. If you put your hope in another person, they will disappoint you. Why? Because they're not God. You have to put your hope in something or someone that can never be taken away from you. And there's only one thing cuz you can lose everything else in life. And that is your relationship to God. Your relationship to God. What I'm saying is that hope is not a principle. Hope is not a product. Hope is not a program. Hope is not a pill. I get this pill, then I'll have all the hope I need. Hope is a person. And there's only one person that you can put that hope in. Jesus Christ. He is the hope of the world. That's why it's split in the AD and BC. That's why your birthday is dated according to this event. You need to get to know Jesus.
And since Jesus raised himself from the dead and we know that there's life after death, here's what we have. Look at the next verse. First Peter 1. Now, we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. So, we know death's not the end. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. That's you who've trusted in him. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change in the clay decay. And God in his mighty power will protect you until you receive this salvation because you are trusting him.
What does that verse say? Well, let me summarize it all in this. Once you've trusted God for salvation, it is not your job to keep yourself saved. It's the Savior's job to keep you saved. It says he will protect you. He will make sure you get to heaven. He will guard what you've given to him. When you come to Jesus and you go, God, I'm giving you my whole life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's not clean up your life and then come to Jesus. was like, "God, here's my greasy hands, my dirty hands, my filthy hands. God, just all the mess in my life. I put my hand in your hand." And God grabs your hand. You put your hand in the hand of the man who still the water. And he grabs your hand. And then as life goes on, there are going to be some moments that you don't want to hold on to God's hand. God, I'm going to a party tonight with a bunch of unbelievers. I I'd like to not be a believer for about an hour. Okay. And and I like to pull and you may want to let go of God's hand, but he's not letting go of yours. Once you have been saved, he will keep you saved. That's the hope you have.
A lot of people think, "I don't want to give my life to God because what happens if I start on it and then I kind of mess up and screw up and fail and then I'll feel really stupid and then I lose my salvation." No, you won't. That's not what the Bible says. It is safe, secure, it's paid for, it's done. It's beyond the reach of change and decay. God in his mighty power will keep you saved. It's not your power. He does a saving. He didn't He saves you. He keeps you saved. You don't save yourself.
So, what am I saying? That the Bible tells us because of the resurrection, we have hope because there's more to the story than just here and now. And we have hope because God protects your salvation and keeps it and you can't lose it. And that causes you to face the most difficult times in life with a whole new confidence.
As a pastor, I have stood at I couldn't count the number of grave sites that I've stood at in 40 years. I couldn't count the number of funerals that I've done. And so I'm a pretty good expert at knowing the difference between people who have hope and people who don't because you can see it in their eyes. I have been at the funerals of people when nobody in the family knows God. Nobody in the family has the hope of the resurrection. Nobody in the family knows the hope of heaven. And for them, they're losing this person. They're never going to see him again. And it's over. That's it. It's over. And the terror in their eyes is something you don't want to see. I've seen it over and over and over. And I compare that to people who know the Lord that when they use lose a loved one who knows the Lord, they grieve, but they're not grieving for them because they know where they're going. They're grieving for themselves because they're going to miss them. And it's a whole different kind of grief. It's a grieving with hope.
you know, the older I get, uh, and the more of my family that's in heaven, and the more of my friends that are in heaven, some great, great saints who've been in this church for over 30 years that are going on. The more of my friends and family on the other side, the more heaven becomes attractive to me. I have to be honest with you, when I was a young man, heaven didn't seem very attractive to me in the first place. No picture of it on earth is correct. I mean, the picture of heaven on earth right now that you hear, there's heaven. It's all white. There's no color in heaven. There's fog up to your feet. You walk around, everybody's in a white robe with wings playing a harp. That would be hell if that's heaven. No, thanks God. I just soon have my sunrises, sunsets, and a cool surf. That's not heaven. You can't even understand what heaven's going to be like. It's so cool. Even in a world that's broken, filled with suffering, sorrow, sadness, sickness, it's still a pretty cool place. We're enjoying it right now outside.
Most of you know that four years ago, the week after Easter, our family lost the youngest member, my youngest son, Matthew, after a lifelong battle with mental illness, died. And it was the worst day of my life and his brother and sister's life and his mom's life and everybody else in our family who loved him. Many times over the last four years, I've been asked, "H how did you handle that? How did you handle the death of a son who'd struggled his entire life with mental illness? I want you to listen very carefully because you're going to have loss in your life. I guarantee it. There is no life without loss. There is no loss without pain. There is no pain without grief. You're going to go through this in life. So, somebody who loves you as your pastor, as your spiritual coach, that's my job to help you get get ready for this kind of stuff. Listen carefully. The way you live with hope in the middle of pain is to enlarge your perspective, to change your viewpoint, to get your eyes off of what's happening right here and now. Shift your perspective, change your focus, and begin to live in light of eternity.
As I said, your life on Earth's short. You get maybe a hundred years. That's not very long compared to the trillions of years you'll spend in eternity. And so you get your eyes off the here and now and you get it on eternity and you see the hope that's there. Here's what the Bible says. Look on the screen. So we don't focus on the troubles we see right now. Instead, we look forward to what we don't see yet. For the troubles that we see now are temporary. But the joys that will come to last that will last will last forever. I mean even if you had a chronic problem your entire life it's only a hundred years or 80 or 70 nothing compared to thousands tens of thousands millions and trillions of years in eternity. And the truth is what comforts me when I think about the death of my son is not thinking about the happy moments in his past, but thinking about the holy moments he's having right now. That comforts me because my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. And because I know where he is and if he was able to talk to me, and he can't, but if he was, he'd say, "Dad, what are you worried about? This place is so cool. It's so great. It's far better than any of the sermons you preached about it. And I can't wait for you to get here." That is my hope.
We live in a society today, friends, that is filled with hopelessness. We we are in an epidemic of hopelessness and people are lacking hope and they're looking for hope and they they want to know where it is. And where is it? It's in God's word. It is in God's word. Look at this next verse. People don't know about heaven. No eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, no mind has ever imagined the wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love him. He has a purpose for your life right now. He has a power to help you solve the problems tomorrow. And he has a place for you after you die. The reason why you can't explain heaven is because your brain power isn't big enough to handle it. It would be like an ant trying to understand the internet. We live in a 3D world, but there are dimensions that we don't even know about. And if God built this world and it's all broken now from sin, how much cooler is heaven going to be?
You say, "Well, how do I get this? How do I get a new purpose in my life, God's purpose? How do I get a greater power in my life? And how do I get a greater place which becomes my ultimate hope that even when I'm going through tough going, this is not the end of the story. I have read the last chapter of the book. We win. It doesn't always look good, but I've read the last chapter. We win. Sometimes you're going through a tough time in your life and really what you're feeling is the world is coming to an end and that's the way you feel. The world is coming to an end. No, a season may be coming to an end. A moment in your life may be coming to end, but it's not the end of the world. Why? Because when the world ends, Jesus is coming back. And that's our hope.
Let's bow our heads. Because of the resurrection, we know for certain that God has a great purpose for your life, has a greater power for your problems, and has a wonderful place for you after you die. How do you get these benefits? If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's what the Bible says. So, I want the honor and the privilege of leading you in a very simple prayer. And you, it doesn't even matter the word you say. It's that you be humble. If you're humble before God and say, God, I need you. That's it.
So, just say, "Dear God," say that in your mind. "Dear God, I do not want to go through life not knowing my purpose. Thank you that my life is not an accident. Thank you that you planned me whether my parents did or not and that you've loved me every moment of my life. And so today, as much as I know how, I want to open my life to Jesus Christ who died on the cross for me and rose again so that I could have hope. Jesus Christ. I want to know God's purpose for my life and I want to spend the rest of my life learning it and fulfilling it. And Jesus Christ, I I want to put my trust in your power. I want to plug in starting today. I want to stop living on my own power and start living by your power. I know that you're greater than any problem I face. And Jesus Christ, I ask you to reserve a place for me in your heaven, in your home. I want to learn to love you and to know you, to follow you. Thank you for loving me even before I knew you. Thank you for dying for me before I even was created. that you knew I would be. And so I humbly ask you to accept me into your family that I may experience all the benefits of what you did 2,000 years ago. And I pray this prayer in Jesus name. Amen."