The Grieving Sisters

Well, listen, good morning and whether you're here in the auditorium or you're watching us over in the venue service or you're watching us Online at another location. We are so glad to have you here. My name is René I'm one of the pastors and what I want to do is I want to start with a game that we call finish This and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say a phrase and I want you to shout out or sing out The rest of the phrase and I mean whether you're here in the auditorium or you're watching in venue or anywhere else If you're sitting in front of your computer, just shout it out because we need this is a genuine quiz here All right, pop culture knowledge. Here we go. Buy me some peanuts and cracker Jack's That's good, that's very very good. All right, here's another one for the sports fans he could go Very good. All right. Now let's move into the music world right old rock and rollers How many old rock and rollers do we have here? All right. Here we go. I can't get no How about that's the way uh-huh, uh-huh Wow even in the 9 a.m. Service good. All right now into the advertising world ready plop plop fizz fizz Help by fallen and Melts in your mouth Like a good neighbor You guys are incredible All right, how about these moving into a slightly different wet realm thy word have I hid in my heart Sanctify them by the truth.

Okay. This is a pretty good illustration here This is why We need the series we are starting next weekend 40 days in the word. All right, you see what I'm talking about here Here's some stats about the Bible this is fascinating did you know the Bible is the most published book in the world conservatively 500 million Bibles are published every year into 518 languages nothing else even comes close Yet fewer and fewer people are actually reading it. In fact by age 65 the average American We'll watch nine and a half years of television Consequently, we are way more influenced by pop culture as you just heard than the Bible And so we're launching this new series to try to change that I want to give you a little bit of a preview right now grab this little card out of your Bulletins and this has some details on the reverse side. Look at the bottom there. There are actually five components To this series. Do you see those bullet points at the bottom of the card? There are weekly Messages covering things like how do I read the Bible for myself? and Have it actually makes sense, right? And and what's the big picture of the Bible and how do I really grow to love the Bible weekly messages? And those are detailed there on the back of the car - we're also gonna have a weekly Memory verse that we all memorize together about the Bible next weekend We're actually going to have a very beautiful bookmark that we designed here in-house that all of you get for free and it's gonna Have all the memory verses right on that bookmark and then small groups Rick Warren from Saddleback Church has done a great job on video sessions I actually brought a whole suitcase full of small group DVDs to a camp I was speaking at up in Oregon this summer and Spent the whole week just looking at all of these small group DVDs to try to find the very best one for our purposes And we settled on this Rick Warren six video sessions are all about how to really have a good rich personal Devotional time in the Bible.

They're very good and the small groups are going to study these We got groups all over the county and beyond so sign up today And you could win the Santa Cruz experience as you heard earlier and then next this is a first for us video daily Devotions here's what this is all about we have some of the best teachers in the country like Rick Warren and Chris Brown and Nick Voichkic and Ray Johnston and Francis Chan and many many others and what they've done is each one of them has put together a different five to ten minute video daily devotion that they're gonna lead you through and you can sign up to get these Texted or emailed to you every day at 40 days in the word calm now They're free you have to set up an account with a password and a login, but they're absolutely free I've already signed up for mine You can just choose your start date to get these 40 daily devotions and I actually get him texted to me at 7 a.m. Every morning, and then I watch him while I eat my oatmeal just for five to ten minutes It's a great way to get your day started fifth service projects We want to be doers of the word and not hearers only right and so you can get ideas It's serve the bay org serve the base coming up and also there's an insert about serve the bay day Right there in your bulletins today, so we've got all the components All we need is you.

And to get you motivated to join up for this You know this weekend is the one year anniversary of the passing away of Great ministry partner and friend of mine and a beloved friend of Twin Lakes Church Bishop Sherwood Carthon he passed away exactly one year ago This weekend suddenly of a heart attack how many of you remember Sherwood when he spoke here spoken at our family camps man Camps here in big church as well. What a powerful speaker. Well. I want to show you something the last Service that Sherwood ever spoke at in his life Was at his home church Bayside in South Sacramento And he had no idea that this would be the last sermon he ever preached and you know what his topic was He spoke about the importance of knowing the Bible and getting the Bible into your life And here's how he wrapped up that sermon watch the screen the word has to be in you and we've got to get an army of believers a body of people who have memorized scripture who have meditated on scripture till it becomes part of who they are so then when you go through situations You won't be looking for a word. You'll have a word. I can't get a witness in here See see see if we had been in the word we'd realize that Isaiah 26:3 says I'll keep you in perfect peace they whose mind is stayed on me We know that in Nehemiah 8:10 says the joy of the Lord is our strength We know that Psalms 34:19 says many of the flicks of the righteous But the Lord delivered him out of them all we know that Psalms 30:5 says his anger isn't but for a moment But his favor lasts for a lifetime Weeping may endure through the night, but joy is coming in the morning if we win the word We know that.

All right, are you guys motivated are you pumped about this? Do you believe you need to get into the word now? So let's do it Let's memorize it You know a lot of us when we were like five Memorized Bible verses and we haven't done it for 20 years and so let's get back into it again And I'm excited about this series and I'm excited right now To get into the Word of God for this morning's study grab your message notes conversations with Christ is the name of our September series and as we dig into our last one today, let me tell you how these all originated My daughter Elizabeth studied abroad at Oxford University in England for a year and I got to go over one fall and visit her and That same fall pastor Tim Keller came over to do a one-week lecture series and his lecture series Which I saw on posters all over campus was about different encounters with Jesus in the Gospel of John And I thought that is so brilliant one of these days I'm gonna go do a series based on that and this was my opportunity this September and I just Discovered that Tim Keller has released a book based on that lecture series I put the name of it in the resource section on page two of your notes down at the bottom of that page So if this series has intrigued you he goes into a lot more Scholarly detail about some of these encounters with Christ in the Gospel of John and you can check out that book and get more Information, but that was the jumping-off point for the series.

Well this morning what I want to do is I want to wrap up with this series with one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible and you could call it the case of Jesus and the grieving sisters It's in John 11 and it's the famous story of the raising of Lazarus now before we crack open our Bibles to the story. I want to ask why is this fabulous story even in the Bible What's the point to this story? What's John want us to get out of this? Well, we don't have to wonder because at the end of his gospel John says he's writing all of these encounters with Christ stories for one reason he says in John 20:31 These are written so that you may what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you may have what? Life in his name now. I want you to do something. I want you to circle the phrase You may believe just underline that or circle that in your notes and then circle the phrase you may have life and Now draw a line between them with an arrow pointing from believe to life. All right I want you to do this because I want you to know what you believe Can bring you life or Bring you death What you believe Can lead you to hope or Lead you to despair what you believe Can make you optimistic or can make you cynical merely what you believe can get you through the dark times when your senses and your experience and your Emotions and logic and maybe even all your friends are telling you everything is hopeless But what you believe Makes all the difference and So the question is what? Do you? believe.

Now before you answer too quickly when John says Believe he means more than mere mental Agreement he means to think something is really worthy of my trust To think something's worthy of my trust and before you flip your notes over. Let's define trust Mark Spurlock as most of you know also one of our pastors here He tells me he used to do a lot of rock climbing now This is not mark in this picture, but anybody else here ever done any rock climbing? Let me see a show of hands Okay, a few of you how many of you've done rock climbing like at a gym like Pacific edge or something? That's more my speed. I've done a little bit of that Well, if you've ever done this then you know what it feels like to fall a little bit and have the rope catch you There's a real confidence knowing that I need to climb the face of this thing and and I I'm gonna do a good job The best I can but but when I lose my grip I trust in the rope I'm absolutely positive that the ropes Going to hold me up that the rope is my security and that's something like the kind of trust that Jesus wants us to have in Him he's got me He'll catch me. He's holding me up. He'll bring me through. I'm throwing my full weight on him I trust in him and you see that kind of trust in this story So this morning if you feel like all your hope is gone Your hopes are dead Your confidence feels dashed You can get through it When you realize that Jesus is calling you to trust him in four ways jot this down on page two number one Jesus calls me to trust his timing To trust his timing and I think of all the four things Jesus calls us to trust sometimes This is the most difficult thing to do.

So let me tell you the story as our story opens Mary and Martha's brother Lazarus is dying and The sisters know that Jesus loves him He's he's one of Jesus's absolute best friends And so they send word to Jesus because they'd seen Jesus heal people with just a touch They'd seen Jesus heal people long distance And so in John 11:3 it says so the sisters sent word to Jesus Lord The one you love is sick Now just to kind of orient yourself geographically look at this map Jesus is way up north in Galilee right and the sisters are down south in Bethany. That's about two miles from Jerusalem That's a couple of days journey away from where Jesus Christ is. All right So look at what happens next. Look at this verse carefully now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus so When he heard that Lazarus was sick he What rush right to answer their plea Now rush to heal him or at least rush to visit his sick friend who was like in the hospital No, Jesus loved them. So What he stayed where he was two more days. I don't want you to miss this Jesus loved them So he didn't do what they were begging him to do Jesus loved them so much that when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he didn't go.

Now is that kind of a mind spinner for you because it is for me But one thing this shows me is that God knows that sometimes Delay is better than deliverance Sometimes delay is better than deliverance. Now watch what happens after Lazarus dies Jesus finally decides to go and when he gets there now, it's a two days journey, right? And he stayed where he was for two days So this is at least four days after they begged him to come down and he knows that Lazarus is dead by now And when he shows up Martha one of Lazarus's sisters comes running up and the first thing out of her mouth no greeting No, Jesus, it's good to see you come into the house No, she jumps right to an accusation and to me Martha sounds confused at least But probably a little bit angry She says Lord If you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died Now we've all said something like this to Jesus at times haven't we Lord you you had the power to act and and I know you heard my prayer. So what's the deal? And it wasn't just Martha like the whole crowd thought this it says later on the people at the funeral said this Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying Can you relate to that question You ever feel like I do not understand how this is fair God ever Look at a loved one who is just Seemingly just getting body blow after a body blow like the life of Job and you kind of go God You know, this is like not a good PR moment for you And you scratch your head and go God, what are you doing? You know what I'm saying? Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man prevented my friend from getting cancer prevented my father from dying And it especially stings when you are just waiting waiting waiting For Jesus to show up Maybe today you keep sending him messages and you're waiting to see if you're gonna get the axe in the next round of layoffs Or you're waiting on some lab tests Or you're waiting for someone you love to get better You keep praying about it, but nothing's happening or maybe you're just waiting for somebody you love to die And you know what it feels like sometimes it feels like you are driving to an urgent appointment And you're trying to get across town and you hit a red light and it never ever ever ever changes Or like you're dialing Jesus 911 and you can hear the connections made and it's ringing but it just rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and God never picks up And if you've ever felt like that, you know exactly what Martha was feeling like that why the delay Jesus And so how do you and I ever get over this Well, that's really what the story is about But it starts with the humility to admit. I just don't see all there is to see I Don't know the whole story in this story Part of what John wants us to see is that Jesus is the only one who knows the whole story Mary doesn't know Martha doesn't know what Lazarus doesn't know what the disciples don't know it only Jesus knows how it's going to turn out and that's always the case with your story in my story, too.

You know, it's kind of like imagine that your life is a book that angels are reading a hundred thousand years from now And they look at all the trials and travails you're going through and they know there's a resurrection ahead They know there's an eternity of living in the new heaven and the new earth in an incredible resurrected body And they feel like cheering through the pages from a hundred thousand years ago. Don't despair. It's gonna be alright It's gonna be better than you could ever imagine. But in the moment you don't see the rest of the story It's kind of like this I Saw this online the other day that's called zoomed in pictures I don't know if you've seen this these these are zoomed in pictures of everyday objects and they're amazing I'm gonna give you a little quiz here, too. Let me show you one of these. What do you think this is? Well, this is a banana It's a very very close-up picture of a banana slice Being separated isn't that you can kind of see that right or what about this? What do you think this picture is like volcanic rock pumice or something? Now, this is instant coffee You put this into your body this morning some of you Or what about this is the most incredible one? What about this? What do you think? This is very very close a picture of Orange juice. Can you believe that orange juice? This one is amazing to me But some of you might be able to figure out what this is shout it out if you know That's right. This is velcro. Can you see the hooks and the catches there? Isn't that interesting? What about this one? What do you think this is? This is the groove in a vinyl record Isn't that amazing? well, the point is When you are so close to something Listen when you're so close to something when you're so zoomed in You can have an accurate picture of what you're going through. Do you hear what I'm saying? You can have a totally objective Accurate picture of what is happening to you right now You can totally know the truth about what's going on to you right now, but you still Don't see the big picture and so you can't understand how it all fits in together And that's what we see here in this story. Jesus is the only one who sees the big picture so I can trust his timing But really I can only trust his timing if I believe the second thing and that's this I can trust his claims I can trust his claims. Look at this in verse 23. Jesus says to Martha Your brother will rise again and Martha answers. Well, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Martha thinks he's trying to comfort her with some Sunday school lesson and then Jesus drops the bomb He says I am The resurrection and the life He who believes in me will live even though he dies And whoever lives and believes in me will never die He's not just saying I have the power to raise Lazarus He's saying I am the power to raise Lazarus And you got to see how Jesus does this sort of thing again and again. He makes these these outrageous Claims here's just a few examples just from the gospel of John in John 5 people try to stone him to death because he claims to be God In John 8 they try to do it again when he says I am in John 10 They try again They say you're claiming to be equal with God when you say I am the father are one in John 20 Thomas calls Jesus my Lord And my God and Christ accepts that worship The point is Jesus never claimed just to be a wise religious sage You know every other founder of every other major world religion Basically said I am a prophet who has come to show you the way to God or to enlightenment But Jesus said no I am God I'm not going to show you the way I am the way For you to get to God and That's what he's saying here to Martha. I am The resurrection and the life and then to me it seems like everything stopped like probably all the people around them Just kind of got still and it was a little bit of an awkward moment as he looks at her in the eye and he says Do you believe this? And that's so Jesus because Jesus always makes it personal He's always saying things like who do you say I am? Yeah, what is that to you? You follow me? You feed my sheep. Do you? believe this and Martha says yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ The Son of God now notice and we're gonna get back to this a little bit later, but she says I believe not I understand Not I have no more questions not I'm not mad at you anymore about my brother dying but I Choose to trust you.

Listen believing this won't keep death from knocking at your door But it makes all the difference when you have to walk through the door. I Will never forget a tragic memorial service that I had to officiate at when I was a pastor up at South Tahoe There'd been a party of some college-age kids and at one point late in the party they decided it would be fun to hold the girls by the ankles and swing them out over the balcony and Of course, somebody slipped and a girl plummeted to her death tragic tragic They didn't know any pastors in town. Somebody knew me and I got involved in the service and And it was at one of the funeral homes there and I preached from John 11 and I talked about how We can prepare for the inevitable whether it's accidental or through a disease We're all going to die and so that we can know who we're walking through deaths door with and that's gonna make a big difference And I finished the service and afterwards a young man rushed To the front of the auditorium like literally everybody had just gotten up to walk out the door They hadn't even moved a step and this young man who was a friend of hers maybe 22 years old ran up to the front And he shouted out at me and said that's BS Only he didn't use the initials And everybody just stopped and looked and he repeated that shout He said because no matter what you believe we all die and it doesn't make any difference And then everybody said swivel to me like what's the pastor gonna say now And I mean, you know think of the pain he was going through right, but I said, you know I want to invite you to do something right now with me I said I have to go get into my car right in the parking lot and I am driving right now two miles down the road to Barton Memorial Hospital and There I'm gonna visit two people. I know who are dying. They won't last through the end of the week and one is an older man who is the father of my friend Pasquale pena and unfortunately Pasquale's dad never Thought about God much in his life. He's never prepared for this moment And so when you walk into his room, he's gripping the rails of his hospital bed tightly Literally white knuckling his way into eternity like somebody riding a roller coaster and he's so panicked that he can't even put together two words Articulately in a sentence you walk in and he just looks at you and and sounds like this Just just absolutely panicked I Said then I'm gonna walk about two doors down the hall and I'm gonna walk into the room of my friend Merle Nagy and Merle was the owner of the bowling alley there in South Tahoe and two years before she was diagnosed with cancer She found Christ at our church and she fell in love with him and she loves Jesus so much and knows him so personally that she's actually Decided to be getting into the presence of her friend Jesus a little sooner than she thought she would and I said when you walk into her room, it's like it's Perfumed with peace And And she has such serenity And she just blesses and prays for everybody who visits her to the point where you come to Comfort Merle and then you don't want to leave the hospital room of this dying woman because it's such a blessing And I said I'm begging you to give me 60 minutes and come with me for the next hour To the hospital and visit these two people and if when we leave you still think it doesn't make a difference what you believe Then I will take back everything I just said And then everybody swiveled and looked at him, what's he gonna say? And he looked at me and dismissively waved his hand and he said no No, I won't go and he marched down the aisle and you could hear his tires peeling out as he left. I Hope he thought a little bit more about what I said, I never saw him again But what about you Do you Know what a difference it makes what you believe do you trust his timing? do you trust his claims and then a really important thing to trust is to really trust his heart the Trust to trust the heart of Jesus Christ.

Watch what happens next. This is really fascinating It says now Mary the other sister runs up to Jesus and guess what she says Verse 32 watch this when Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him She fell at his feet and said does this look familiar Lord if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died same exact question as Martha Totally different response It says when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled Where have you laid him? He asked come and see Lord. They replied and then shortest verse in the Bible Jesus wept Now I want you to just look at that verse just for a minute just look at those two words Does that not make you love Jesus? more and more To think that God came down to earth and he he he wept and he's not He's not weeping for Lazarus. He's weeping for Mary and he's weeping with Mary Jesus wept he did not look at Mary and say come on buck up You know, come on get over it Come on. There's no crying in Christianity, you know And this is so important to see because somehow we can get the idea sometimes that good Christians Don't cry right because we've got hope we don't grieve. No, we don't grieve as those who have no hope But they're still grieving and mourning Involved right I've experienced this and so did Jesus. In fact, let me just talk to the guys here Because guys we in our culture can still get the idea that the good men have to be Steely and we can get the funniest ideas about what it means to be a real man In fact, I saw this this week. I saw a website somebody sent me a link to it's called Chuck Norris facts Have you seen this? And these are all jokes about Chuck Norris and they they sort of show you our cultures idea of any ideal man I here's just a few of them. If at first you don't succeed you're not Chuck Norris Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table because he only recognizes the element of surprise Chuck Norris was an only child eventually Chuck Norris can blow bubbles with beef jerky. I love that. It's my favorite one. I think I'm gonna get it Chuck Norris once kicked a horse in the chin. Its descendants are known today as giraffes One more Chuck Norris only uses a stunt double during crying scenes It's so easy to get the idea real men don't cry but Jesus wept the ultimate man and This shows me it's okay to cry. It shows me that when I do cry I got the biggest shoulders in the universe to lean on Jesus's shoulders and another thing it shows me about his heart, you know when people are in despair They need one of two things what somebody called the ministry of truth or the ministry of tears, right? Martha needed the ministry of truth because her despair was rooted in Lies and and forgetting her hope and so Jesus had to kind of grab her by the shoulders and say I am here And I am the resurrection. I am the life She needed the ministry of truth and sometimes we need that but Mary needed the ministry of tears And so Jesus doesn't even say a word to her. He just weeps with her.

Now the art is knowing when who needs what right? But Jesus knows and this is one of the things I love about Christ that shows me He's the Son of God because he's such a wonderful Counselor and then watch what happens next in John 11 talk about showing his heart almost nobody ever talks about this next verse And I don't know why verse 38 Jesus once more deeply moved Came to the tomb and I want you to look at those words deeply moved Tim Keller says no English translation really gets this phrase right because it contains a Greek word that means to bellow with anger and somehow no English translator feels like they've got the license to actually translate this accurately But Jesus is absolutely furious now Bellowing with rage in in Greek the word is related to when a horse snorts in anger and This is Jesus acting like this We never see him really displayed this way ever anybody ever see that movie the greatest story ever told can I see a show on so anybody ever do you remember this just kind of a Memory tickler it would start Max Munn side out and he was the famous Swedish actor And this is how he looks through the whole movie his expression never changes just these Liquid blue eyes and and no smile or anger. It's like Jesus on Prozac through the whole movie and In this scene he looks at Martha and he delivers the line like this your brother will rise No passion no energy Contrast that with the image of Jesus as a rearing snorting horse full of passion here. He's roaring. He's approaching a tomb No He's raging against what? You know what I think he's raging against death Because it was never meant to be this way because God didn't create a world full of cancer and sorrow and Alzheimer's and sickness and death God didn't make that world and Jesus knows the only way to fix that world the only way to for him to bring Lazarus out of the grave is To put himself in the grave To drink a cup that he would rather not drink and I think that's why he's roaring and shaking with anger with tears streaming down his cheeks because his beloved creation has been broken by sin and he's gonna have to die to Destroy it and then that shows me a lot about his heart And why I love my Savior and when I trust his heart, that's when finally I can trust his power His power look here it all wraps up Jesus finally arrives at the tomb and over Martha's protest and I think it's kind of funny that Martha The the obsessive cleaner, you know is going Jesus. You can't open the tomb. It smells by now and it's disgusting and But over her protests that the grave smells despite all the grief and confusion and all the friends and followers Verse 41 says Jesus looked up after they took away the stone and said father. I thank you that you heard me I know that you always hear me but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me and When he had said this Jesus called and a loud voice Lazarus Come out And the dead man came out His hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face and Jesus said to them Take off the grave clothes and let him go and now they finally understood Why he waited.

You ever have one of the oh, that's why Forehead slapping moments in your life Like maybe you prayed and prayed and waited waited for something You didn't get the answer you wanted about a job or about a relationship or something and then years maybe later you go Oh, that's why anybody ever have one of those. Oh, that's why moments in your life You know what? The Bible says one day you'll have an oh, that's why moment about everything What's the oh, that's why moment here Well one commentator I read mentioned that in those days They believed that for three days the soul hovered around the body waiting to re-enter And so if Jesus had come earlier people probably would have argued that he didn't even perform a miracle just a resuscitation And that's why they had to wait as My friend Ray Johnston says Jesus knows resurrections work best in graveyards Resurrections work best in graveyards God's plan sometimes is to do something far beyond what we can possibly Envision yeah, you could have come earlier and save Mary and Martha a lot of pain. Absolutely He could have prevented a funeral he could have healed Lazarus, but then they would not have realized He's the Lord of life. You know what we we in our Perspective our our hope is we always want to see Jesus as healer and I believe he's still the healer But sometimes Jesus wants to be seen as more than a healer. He wants to be seen as the resurrector And resurrections only work in graveyards.

So listen Maybe you've been waiting for a long time for situations to change in your life And the delay has been going on forever You've dialed Jesus 9 1 1 a thousand times and it feels like nobody's ever picked up Mary and Martha knew all about that they knew what it was like to watch their brother Weaken and fail and they couldn't do anything to stop it and then the Lord didn't show up and then when he did show up It was too late Only it wasn't too late Do you remember that verse Jesus loved them So he stayed where he was Because sometimes what he has in mind is something so far Beyond our thoughts and our dreams and our hopes and experience that we don't even know we can ask for it And he delivers it right on time So don't despair if you've run into something that you haven't planned for Don't quit Because something didn't turn out the way you'd hoped Don't throw in the towel because now your face was something that you didn't think would happen or should happen or even could happen Because Jesus says to you. I am the direction and the life Do you believe this? Can you say with Martha yes Lord, I believe not I understand Not I have no more questions now But I believe I trust You that's the big question. Do I trust him? You know, some of us have trust issues, but trust issues are rooted in the fact that people in our lives have broken our hearts Jesus is not one of those people Can you place your full trust in him what you believe makes all the difference.

We started with a Sherwood Carthon video sure would died as I said just a year ago I really miss him and I've lost a few other friends in that year Roger Williams from Mount Herman two weeks ago But you know what? I know That I will see Sherwood again, I know I will see Roger and my other loved ones who've passed on again You know how I know because I trust Jesus I Want to show you One clip it's an audio clip from a Sermon that Sherwood preached on John 11. Listen to this about the hope that we have in Christ Most of us in this room have someone who's passed on And when they died as a believer you've got to realize That you will see them again If Christ comes while we yet live they'll meet him first If we die we'll meet him first But you got to understand something He's the God of resurrection and until the day you die if there's something in your life that needs to be brought back to life He's the God that's going to do it You're not gonna do it with strategy and tactics. You're not gonna do it with just great thinking positive energy It's not gonna happen It's gonna happen because you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ Amen.

Let's pray. Would you close your eyes with me? With our heads bowed let me just ask you is there some area where you're having a hard time trusting Jesus Where you're maybe saying Lord why the delay I Want to give you a chance just a moment right now just to let this Kind of simmer a little bit give you a chance to hear him say to you I'm the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this? And can you say to him? Yes, Lord, I trust you Right now we're going to Send things over to the venue service for those who are watching in venue Lily Jones is going to play here in the auditorium Trent Smith is going to play Just a verse or two from a familiar song so that just to give you a chance to meditate on this And to do some business with Jesus and say to him Lord I trust you or maybe you want to say Lord I want to get there, but I'm not there yet. I believe Help my unbelief Spend some time talking with the Lord right now Oh Great is our faith Oh There is no shadow of turning with thee Thou changes not by compassion They fail as Forever Great is thy faithfulness Great is thy faithfulness Morning by morning new mercies I see All I have needed Great is Lord thank you for all the ways you've shown yourself faithful help us to trust you more and more each day Some for the first time now are saying I don't understand at all But what I see in Jesus that I like And so I choose to place my trust in him now in Jesus name Amen.