SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you were ever asking the question, who might be the most important couple of the 21st century so far, you might think that it's Barack and Michelle.
SPEAKER_00: You might think that it's Zendaya and Tom Holland.
SPEAKER_00: But you'd be wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Who it really is is Star Lord and Gamora.
SPEAKER_00: That's who it is.
SPEAKER_00: Star Lord, also known as Peter Quill.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons that they're so important is because they're going to outlast the other ones.
SPEAKER_00: I think.
SPEAKER_00: I think in 50 years people still know exactly who this is.
SPEAKER_00: But if you've watched the most recent Guardians shows, if by the way, if you're just not a nerd and you don't know what I'm talking about, just stay with me.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get through it.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be over in a second.
SPEAKER_00: If you know about Guardians, then you know that in the past few episodes, movies, Peter has been very sad because he lost Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_00: And we see him in the holiday special.
SPEAKER_00: We see him in Guardians 3.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to move past, but he's wondering this this is part of the conflict for him, is life ever going to be good again?
SPEAKER_00: We might say that he's giving himself over to quiet resignation.
SPEAKER_00: Quiet resignation is when we stop expecting God to act.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we stopped believing, but because believing has started to hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of folks would say, hey, holidays are particularly hard.
SPEAKER_00: They're sad a little bit, we're reminded of people that we have lost.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're in a very different situation than we've been in previous holidays.
SPEAKER_00: And so depression is up.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we're in the land of blue series that churches, we're talking about a blue Christmas, there's no question, holidays are just harder for some folks.
SPEAKER_00: But recent research has found that it's really not necessarily that everybody's fallen apart.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of folks who they don't feel really particularly crushed by the holidays, but their expectations are not very high.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like the joy of Christmas has been muted.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the expectation that, hey, things are going to go great this Christmas, it just is not there.
SPEAKER_00: They might feel a little bit distant.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you might have come in tonight or you're tuning in and you're like, you don't really necessarily expect anything different from this night than any other night of the week.
SPEAKER_00: You're not anticipating much is going to be different.
SPEAKER_00: It's not really that you're particularly sad, but you just maybe your expectations aren't up.
SPEAKER_00: They're not out there.
SPEAKER_00: You pretty much feel like it's going to be normal.
SPEAKER_00: Some even report that they have during the holidays, they check out.
SPEAKER_00: They're just trying to get through it.
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to get through to January.
SPEAKER_00: They're just going through the motions.
SPEAKER_00: If that is you, I want to encourage you tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I think you're going to be encouraged by the time we end here because there's something I want to encourage, and that is maybe God can heal that expectancy, and you could begin to expect again a living, life-breathing expectancy.
SPEAKER_00: You're good with God, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: But some of us might say, nevertheless, I feel like my soul is empty.
SPEAKER_00: Quiet resignation is when we stop expecting God to act.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we stopped believing, but because believing has begun to hurt.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to attack tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Before we get to the Christmassy, Jesus-y stuff, I've got to let you know in case you don't.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, death is not just the end of life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the ceasing of a human being being able to walk around and breathe.
SPEAKER_00: Death is rather, it's a force.
SPEAKER_00: It is something that has entered the world.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's an intruder in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And it brings about not just death, just an example.
SPEAKER_00: It brings about decay and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: It's the unraveling of all that is good.
SPEAKER_00: We sometimes call it the sin disease.
SPEAKER_00: A way to conceptualize it is it's a lot like rust.
SPEAKER_00: When you see something that's rusty, the design of that thing was not designed to crumble and fall down.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's supposed to be just fine.
SPEAKER_00: But the rust is corrosive and it gets in the thing and it begins to wear away at it and ultimately turn it into something that it is not.
SPEAKER_00: That's what sin did to the world.
SPEAKER_00: When you see wars, when you see trafficking, but when you just see violence in between people and families, that's all a sign of the rust death or the hell disease, however we want to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: It is a corrosive spiritual bacteria that is in not only all of us, but in all of our world.
SPEAKER_00: And it has real consequences.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in your body.
SPEAKER_00: Your body is getting old.
SPEAKER_00: Your body gets ill.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in your relationships.
SPEAKER_00: You see it when friends can't be reconciled, when family go entire years and they don't even talk.
SPEAKER_00: When you got folks that have gone decades without communicating to people they grew up in the same house with because there's so much tension.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in systems, you see it in injustice, you see it in exploitation.
SPEAKER_00: And we even see it in our souls.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in despair and in alienation from God and alienation from one another.
SPEAKER_00: It's rust, it's spiritual rust, it's the rust disease.
SPEAKER_00: Often on Christmas, and we do this most years, we talk about the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_00: We talk about, you know, Jesus coming and being a baby in the manger.
SPEAKER_00: And I love to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We're not doing that this year.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great thing to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: We should review it frequently.
SPEAKER_00: We've done it recently, so we're not going to do it again.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a great, it's a great tee up for how the Lord, I'm gonna use this word, I'm gonna reframe it for you.
SPEAKER_00: How the Lord invaded enemy territory.
SPEAKER_00: That's really what happened.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, the sending of Jesus, it was, it was a prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: It was a prophecy fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: It was, yeah, someday Israel is going to have a new king, and it's gonna be a great king and a perfect king.
SPEAKER_00: The Messiah was really gonna come, and that messiah was really important.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really, I don't know if you know this.
SPEAKER_00: The Messiah is in some ways it's a subplot of the greater plot of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The greater plot of the Bible is, but what's somebody gonna do about the rust, the sin disease?
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to jump ahead.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just look at the sending of Jesus, the initial invasion.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to look tonight at the results of the invasion because we see Jesus as a baby and we're like, oh, that's that's neat.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna do stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight I want to see the stuff that he came to do.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna jump into John 11, 17.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know this passage.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you're familiar with it.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus has been dead for four days.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come when he could have.
SPEAKER_00: His sister, Lazarus' sisters asked for him to come.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's finally making it to them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pick up verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he told, he was told that Lazarus had already been in the grave for four days.
SPEAKER_00: So that's important that John the Apostle is pointing this out.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the in the grave four days.
SPEAKER_00: He's not mostly dead.
SPEAKER_00: He's dead.
SPEAKER_00: He's decomposing by now.
SPEAKER_00: Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary.
SPEAKER_00: It's a f so it's close to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Passover is about to happen.
SPEAKER_00: John is pointing out there's a lot of people around.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people who are going to see this now.
SPEAKER_00: The city is flooded with people.
SPEAKER_00: There's people nearby.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna see it.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a lot of witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus raises this dude, Lazarus, from the dead, it's gonna be unavoidable.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, John tells us it starts a ticking clock.
SPEAKER_00: This is the final sign that is gonna cause the Pharisees to go, we have to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the seventh and greatest, most powerful sign in the book of John.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's gone too far.
SPEAKER_00: Now everybody knows that he's claiming to do this.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to take him out, fellas.
SPEAKER_00: That's the tension that Jesus is walking into, and Jesus knows it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, when Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him.
SPEAKER_00: But Mary stayed at the house.
SPEAKER_00: Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if only you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_00: But even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told her, Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we say stuff like that, honestly, in church circles.
SPEAKER_00: If you, if you know about church circles, here's something you'll hear people say.
SPEAKER_00: They'll say stuff like, Well, hey, man, yeah, that's that's really hard.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Romans 8.28, God works everything together for the good.
SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, and it's true.
SPEAKER_00: Like we, and I need to hear that stuff sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: But it's what it's doing is saying, hey, let's kick this down the road a little bit to the place where God's gonna solve this someday.
SPEAKER_00: It's not today.
SPEAKER_00: It's sad that it's not today, but it's someday down the road.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what that's what Martha does in her mind.
SPEAKER_00: She does this little, yeah, I I know that that will happen.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Martha said, he will rise when everyone else rises on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: And she's not wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it was it was Jewish theology was that there's going to be a final day, a resurrection of all the people, all the people that trusted in Christ and Yahweh, they're gonna be welcomed in their not only their spirit, but their body is gonna be reunited with their spirit, and they're gonna live forever in heaven with him, and the rust will be gone.
SPEAKER_00: And those that didn't want anything to do with God, they're gonna be scraped into the rust basket, because that's where the rust goes.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get to go into heaven, it goes with the rest of the refuse.
SPEAKER_00: So she's she's talking about that rightly, but Jesus interrupts her.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told her, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who believes in me will live even after dying.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never, ever die.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe this, Martha?
SPEAKER_00: And you can see her brain kind of like, okay, yeah, I believe it.
SPEAKER_00: She even says it, yes, Lord, I've always believed that you're the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world.
SPEAKER_00: She's trying to compute.
SPEAKER_00: I do believe that, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know what that has to do with the situation right now.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's not mostly dead.
SPEAKER_00: The hope is gone.
SPEAKER_00: If you would have come in the past four days, Jesus, there'd still be hope.
SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't be numbing right now.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be letting my expectations go.
SPEAKER_00: There is no hope now because now he's for sure dead.
SPEAKER_00: Skip down to verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: Mary comes out now.
SPEAKER_00: That's the sister.
SPEAKER_00: When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, same, she's the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if only you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_00: Now watch this, yo.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her.
SPEAKER_00: So can you imagine Mary?
SPEAKER_00: She's falling on the ground, she's crying.
SPEAKER_00: Deep anger welled up with him in him, and he was deeply troubled.
SPEAKER_00: This is not mild sadness.
SPEAKER_00: This is significant indignation is welling up within Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Some think it's because he was mad at like people's lack of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's really not what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is mad and angry at the results of death.
SPEAKER_00: And he's getting ready to, he's getting ready to take it on.
SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert.
SPEAKER_00: He's angry and mad at death.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: Where have you put him?
SPEAKER_00: He asked them.
SPEAKER_00: They told him, Lord, come and see.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: So he goes from indignation and he's seeing all of his friends, Mary, and all the rest.
SPEAKER_00: They're crying.
SPEAKER_00: They're touched by how horrible death is.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you might think he'd be like, hey guys, just you know, like in 10 minutes, it's gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna raise him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, we calm down.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: He lets it affect him.
SPEAKER_00: Even though he knows what he's going to do, Jesus is so real and so human that he himself is overcome with emotion and he begins to weep.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus wept, and the people who were standing nearby said, see how much he loved him.
SPEAKER_00: But some said, the man he healed, the man, he this man healed a blind man.
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't he have kept Lazarus from dying?
SPEAKER_00: And people often have those kinds of responses to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Some are like, Yeah, he's just he's so loving.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I love about Jesus, he's so loving.
SPEAKER_00: And others are like, Well, why isn't he solving all these problems?
SPEAKER_00: But there's another response that the apostle John, as he writes this, is trying to get after.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 40, Jesus responded, or sorry, verse 38, Jesus was still angry.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he's indignant, he's weeping, now he's still angry as he arrives at the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: A cave with a stone rolled against its entrance, roll the stone aside, Jesus told them.
SPEAKER_00: But Martha, the dead man's sister, protested, Lord, he's been dead for four days.
SPEAKER_00: There will that spell will be terrible.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus responded, Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believe?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say, believe.
SPEAKER_00: So they rolled the stone the stone aside.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, I love this because he doesn't actually even pray.
SPEAKER_00: He just talks to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for hearing me.
SPEAKER_00: You always hear me.
SPEAKER_00: But I said it out loud for the sake of these people standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Then he, Jesus shouted, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gets to do that.
SPEAKER_00: He can just command it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to plead for it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to do any special uh rituals.
SPEAKER_00: He just speaks and it happens.
SPEAKER_00: And the dead man came out.
SPEAKER_00: His hands and feet were bound with grave clothes, his face was wrapped in headcloth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told them, unwrap him and let him go.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking tonight about the valley of lost hopes.
SPEAKER_00: Martha had lost hope because Jesus didn't come on time.
SPEAKER_00: Mary had lost hope because Jesus didn't come on time.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever lost hope?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever decided, you know, I was hopeful that this thing would get fixed, but it didn't.
SPEAKER_00: And it feels easier to just numb myself to it.
SPEAKER_00: It feels easier to, if I believe that I get hurt, that it's not going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just going to say, well, you know, hey, yeah, in the future, yes, praise God, probably something good will happen.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow I'll I'll see it later.
SPEAKER_00: Gotta work this together for my good.
SPEAKER_00: But in the Valley of Lost Hopes, here's number one, Jesus recenters our focus.
SPEAKER_00: He recenters our focus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Martha, can you trust me that I can just decide to act, that I can just cause resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: Are you understanding?
SPEAKER_00: Because Martha's looking forward into the future, saying, Yeah, God, I Lord Jesus, I know there is a day when this will all be taken care of.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus goes, Okay, on that day, the reason that resurrection happens is because I do it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who causes everybody to be resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you think if I can do it then, does it matter if it's now?
SPEAKER_00: Can't I just do it whenever I want to do it?
SPEAKER_00: When I was a young kid, we would only open presents on Christmas Day.
SPEAKER_00: No family presents on Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_00: And then I got to be, you know, probably 11 or 12, and the parents just made a decision and they changed it.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, well, you can open one present on Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_00: And at first, I like, whoa, what?
SPEAKER_00: I thought we can't open presents, any presents.
SPEAKER_00: I thought Christmas Day was the day.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: My parents, I didn't, I didn't need it to be the day.
SPEAKER_00: They had the gift and they could give it to me whenever they wanted to.
SPEAKER_00: They could give it to me on Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_00: They could have given it me to me three weeks earlier.
SPEAKER_00: They could have given it to me three years earlier.
SPEAKER_00: All that mattered was that they had it.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever they want to give it, they can give it.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, Jesus refocuses us on him.
SPEAKER_00: When we've lost hope, he says, whoa, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I can work it together for good later, but I can do a whole lot right now.
SPEAKER_00: I can work it together for good right now.
SPEAKER_00: This Christmas, I want to stir us up where we've given up on believing God.
SPEAKER_00: Where we've given up on asking for big things, believing for big things, because Jesus has authority over every consequence of rust right now.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a heart difference.
SPEAKER_00: One heart posture says, God probably's not gonna do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: He might, and that'd be great.
SPEAKER_00: And if he does, I'm gonna praise him.
SPEAKER_00: But he's probably not gonna do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And the other heart says, Well, but God might move.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what do we got to lose?
SPEAKER_00: He might move now.
SPEAKER_00: He's the resurrection of life right now as much as he is then.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he'll just move right now.
SPEAKER_00: I've got older kids now.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that means um they're they're old enough, you know, some of them are adults, and that means they get to stay, if they happen to be living us with us at the time, they get to stay out really till whenever the heck they want to.
SPEAKER_00: And they may inform us, hey, I'm gonna be home at such and such a time.
SPEAKER_00: And when they are going to be home, we'll leave the door light on, like the kid the house light on near the door, just to make sure that they get in well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if they text us or call us and say, hey, I'm not gonna be coming home tonight, then we go turn off that house light because, oh, it's not necessary.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't know whether or not, though, they're gonna be home, I'm like, well, I'm just gonna leave it on just in case.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't say anything, but I'm gonna leave it on just in case.
SPEAKER_00: When we have a heart posture that says, well, God's probably not gonna do anything.
SPEAKER_00: What we're doing, just imagine we're turning off the light.
SPEAKER_00: God's probably not gonna do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But if we don't know, and we're just like, but maybe he will, we leave that light on.
SPEAKER_00: That light represents a believing heart.
SPEAKER_00: God, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're coming tonight, but I'm just telling you, I've got the light on for you.
SPEAKER_00: My faith is out there, my faith is released.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus re-centers our focus, says, yo, I can do anything and I can do it whenever I want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And number two, Jesus validates our pain.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wept, yo.
SPEAKER_00: He wept.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not just our mistakes that makes Jesus sad.
SPEAKER_00: It's all the pain that we experience as a consequence of Rust.
SPEAKER_00: See, the gospel really isn't just get over it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus entering into the dirt of our pain, and he's overcome with it.
SPEAKER_00: Even though he knows what he's gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: He's still overcome with the pain that hurts you and the pain that hurts me.
SPEAKER_00: This took me a few years to learn.
SPEAKER_00: When my wife and I were, probably more than a few, my wife and I were first together.
SPEAKER_00: Um, she would be sad or something would be wrong, and I would come along and be like, aha.
SPEAKER_00: Kens, I know what to do about this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you the answer of what you should do.
SPEAKER_00: And so I would counsel her.
SPEAKER_00: She'd be crying or sad, Kens, this is no, no, that's all this is all you have to do.
SPEAKER_00: And she would tell me again and again, I don't want you to fix it.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But then I would do it again and again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: And over the years, she slowly, patiently coached me to the degree that now it is my first intuition.
SPEAKER_00: I should just understand, Cutter, shut up and just understand.
SPEAKER_00: I still get it wrong though, from some from time to time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, He He has the power to fix it, but he will always say, I understand.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that that hurts you.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that you sometimes remember on Christmas some really great memories from when you were married.
SPEAKER_00: And it makes you really sad now because you're not.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that you're a single parent, and you really what you wanted to do was you wanted to make decisions with a partner.
SPEAKER_00: But now that partner is gone, and that's one of the effects of rust.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00: I feel that, I understand.
SPEAKER_00: He still feels the pain.
SPEAKER_00: He's still mortal.
SPEAKER_00: He still grieved with us.
SPEAKER_00: He still waits with us when I know that you did that.
SPEAKER_00: You got yourself into that.
SPEAKER_00: If you have ever been addicted and you find yourself on the on a bench.
SPEAKER_00: And you're waking up in the aftermath.
SPEAKER_00: And you're again you're suddenly grieved.
SPEAKER_00: You're overtaken with conviction.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I do that?
SPEAKER_00: He enters in with you and he's like, Yeah, I'm sad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sad for how this hurt you too.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want this to hurt you.
SPEAKER_00: I never wanted this to happen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not mad at you.
SPEAKER_00: I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: When we see somebody die, it's a part of life.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, I'm I'm sad and I wish they were here.
SPEAKER_00: Look at them like that.
SPEAKER_00: When God looks at that, he does not treat death as something too quietly.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at us and says, I am patient a little longer.
SPEAKER_00: I do not make it impatient with you.
SPEAKER_00: As far as I'm concerned, I'm coming for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming for you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is a little trailer, he's a little preview.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus stands up and says, you know what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: I just tell death to move, and it gets up and moves.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians 15, 26.
SPEAKER_00: Talking about the last day on verse verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas is the reminder that the invasion happened because Jesus came to step on the neck of a foe that you and I could not defeat.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's an invasion.
SPEAKER_00: Dude, he's coming for a fight.
SPEAKER_00: Do we understand that?
SPEAKER_00: He's not just coming there to be in swaddling clothes, he's coming for a fight, and he's gonna win, and it's gonna cost him his very life.
SPEAKER_00: Just like Jesus knows if I raise Lazarus right now, it costs me my life.
SPEAKER_00: It starts the process for me to die.
SPEAKER_00: And he does it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 21:4 says he will wipe away all the tears from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus comes to fight the dead ends that you and I run into.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them, we're just gonna we're gonna live with them.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them, if we would open our heart and ask and turn on the porch light, he would say, you know, you don't have to put up with that.
SPEAKER_00: If you ask me to get in that, if you ask me to fight that for you, if you ask me to slap it to the side, if you start to pray and ask me to get involved and you believe, you just never know.
SPEAKER_00: I just might.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you are familiar with the movie A Christmas Story, maybe you've watched it recently.
SPEAKER_00: There is a character named Scott Farkas.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know about Scott Farkas?
SPEAKER_00: He's pretty intimidating.
SPEAKER_00: At least he is to these little kids.
SPEAKER_00: And he's so intimidating.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've noticed this.
SPEAKER_00: He can even tell a kid, come here and give me your arm, and he's gonna put his their arm behind their back and he's gonna twist it up.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, I'll say uncle.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even have to come, and they're so afraid they did.
SPEAKER_00: Scott Farkas is a lot like Rust.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot like some of the situations that try to intimidate us and say, you know, Rust wins in this situation, just so you know.
SPEAKER_00: There's no getting past this.
SPEAKER_00: Just get over it.
SPEAKER_00: Rust is going to win.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Uncle, I'm not letting you go.
SPEAKER_00: But you know that Jesus is not intimidated at all by Rust.
SPEAKER_00: And so he lays the beat down on Rust the way Ralphie does on Scott Farkas.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't lose his control like Ralphie does, he starts swearing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he does, he's not intimidated by it, he just attacks it.
SPEAKER_00: So, what dead ends might you have?
SPEAKER_00: You might say, Well, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I used to be close to this person, and now we're we're not together, and I don't feel like there's any hope of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if it's just you, that might be true.
SPEAKER_00: But what if God gets in it?
SPEAKER_00: He can beat that rust, he can lay the beat down on it.
SPEAKER_00: You might say, you know, I really wanted to keep moving forward in my career, but maybe I'm just not smart enough.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Why don't you tap me in?
SPEAKER_00: Because I can do it.
SPEAKER_00: I can make you plenty for all that you need to manage.
SPEAKER_00: You might say, you know, my stress, I just feel like it's getting worse and worse and never better.
SPEAKER_00: And I hear that and I have compassion for that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that as long as we're on earth, there's gonna be things that are gonna try to provoke us to walk in stress.
SPEAKER_00: But as we tap Jesus in, we can believe Jesus can help me get better and better at casting my care.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not by tomorrow night, but maybe by three Christmas Eves from now, I can be way better at having a start, stout heart and casting my care on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've got a family member that, dude, you go back and forth and it's just bad, and you're persevering with this person, and you're trying.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is you're you're trying in all your own strengths.
SPEAKER_00: You want to say, Jesus, I need you to look at the death in this, and I need you to do something about it.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to kick it out.
SPEAKER_00: John wants us to know that Jesus has all authority over death, and it demands a response.
SPEAKER_00: It demands for us, even though we don't understand, like Martha, we don't understand everything, but he's asking us, will you believe tonight, right now?
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's impossible situations, and I'm not saying that God wants to solve resolve all of those for you.
SPEAKER_00: But are there some if you would flip on the porch light, then Jesus would enter in.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Jesus, I believe you can do anything you want, whenever you want, no matter what day it is, because you're just that God.
SPEAKER_00: But our expectations, do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: They're they're infected by rust.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to keep expecting.
SPEAKER_00: And it's even worse than that.
SPEAKER_00: You and I have been kissed by rust.
SPEAKER_00: Rust is not just a thing that is happening to us somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Rust, we are actually manufacturers of rust.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just being hurt by other people's sin, we're causing hurt by our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: And we too ultimately will rust away unless the rust beater comes and lays the beat down on our rust.
SPEAKER_00: No amount of rust remover.
SPEAKER_00: We can't scrub it off, we can't do enough religious stuff for it to scrub off.
SPEAKER_00: Only Jesus can enter into a rusted heart and make it alive again.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means when we ask Jesus to forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the greatest and most important thing to invite Jesus in.
SPEAKER_00: It's to roll away the stone of our heart, even though it might stink in there and everyone like, I don't want Jesus to look at this or talk about this or touch this.
SPEAKER_00: No, we gotta take action, we gotta decide.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go ahead and trust that God knows what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we ask God to heal not only our believer, our our expectation muscle, but heal us.
SPEAKER_00: And just like just like Lazarus, Jesus will interrupt.
SPEAKER_00: He will get in because he's that powerful.
SPEAKER_00: So tonight, I want us to ask on Christmas Eve again, Jesus, would you come forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: And don't only forgive me because I need you to forgive me, I need you to beat my rust enemy that I cannot beat, the one you invaded earth in order to take care of.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to forgive me, but I need even more than that.
SPEAKER_00: I need a heart that wants to draw near to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: I need to want him himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to ask for tonight.
SPEAKER_00: So, what I want to do, almost all bow our heads.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray for two things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray first for every situation that you you just wonder tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if God would enter into that situation.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if the one who has all authority over death and all of its results would enter into my pain.
SPEAKER_00: And you can give them one, you can give them 17, you can give them however many you want.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, come into those.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna pray for our hearts themselves that are infected by rust.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna ask Jesus, some of us perhaps for the very first time, forgive me and come in.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive me of my rust and come in.
SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads right now.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you knew what it would cost you.
SPEAKER_00: When you decided to go ahead and bring life to Lazarus, you knew it sealed your death.
SPEAKER_00: And tonight, you want to bring life to us, even though it cost you a death.
SPEAKER_00: We're so thankful for it, God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we thank you that we don't serve a dead God, we serve a living God who is alive right now, who is as powerful today as he will be however many days or eons from now.
SPEAKER_00: God, here's our one or two or three or fifteen situations that we feel like have been corrupted.
SPEAKER_00: They've been hit, they've been poisoned.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, would you just jump into any one of them or as many of them as you want and rebuke death on our behalf?
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's instant, whether it takes a few months, whether it takes a few years, God, we're we're tired of not believing.
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna turn the porch light on and believe.
SPEAKER_00: Would you come into those situations and God move?
SPEAKER_00: We ask for forgiveness for disbelief.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for forgiveness for hardening our heart and trying to protect our own hearts.
SPEAKER_00: God, in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: We believe.
SPEAKER_00: Help our doubt, but we believe with all that we've got.
SPEAKER_00: Would you enter in?
SPEAKER_00: And God, now we want to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Enter into our rusted hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We want to give you what is rightfully yours, and that is our souls.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we need your forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you paid the penalty for our sin, buying, purchasing our forgiveness, and we thank you that you freely give it as freely as you raised Lazarus from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: God, would you forgive us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you also give us a heart for you?
SPEAKER_00: And anytime for the rest of our lives, as we are slow to believe, convict us again, bring us around again, and give us a heart that is imperfect, but quick to believe and focus not on the problem, but of the one who has all authority and power.
SPEAKER_00: If you just prayed that prayer with me, I want you to do something really bold.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to raise your hand on the count of three just to let Jesus know that you are here.
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I trust you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I invite you to save my sin-filled heart, my rust-filled heart.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray for everyone who is watching, listening online.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for their spaces where they feel forgotten about, where they feel alone.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for the places where they're in conflict.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you lead them to the right people.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that some, some they've never had good community.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking in Jesus' name, lead them to good community.
SPEAKER_00: Even though it's scary, even though sometimes isolating is easier.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I'm I see the rust and I'm asking you to enter into it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you to get it, get them out of it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you to keep them from the plots that would take them down and take them out.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you so much in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it.
SPEAKER_00: Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel.
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out.
SPEAKER_00: Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out our other podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at Bible Leadership.com.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.