Don't Pull That String

In this sermon, Pastor Jeffrey Johnson explores the theme of resurrection, rooted in 1 Corinthians 15, and its foundational significance to Christian faith. He begins with a compelling question: how much would we give for eternal life? Drawing on both the example of baseball star Ted Williams, who had his body preserved in the hope of future revival, and the recent passing of a church member, Brother Wallace, Pastor Johnson emphasizes our universal desire to escape death. Yet, he explains, while people invest everything in worldly attempts to prolong life, they often overlook the true promise of eternal life found in Christ's resurrection.

Pastor Johnson walks through Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians, explaining how the resurrection is central to the gospel. He details the catastrophic consequences if the resurrection were denied: the Christian faith would be futile, the Bible’s integrity would collapse, and the hope of salvation would vanish. The resurrection is not just an abstract hope; it is the guarantee of forgiveness, transformation, and ultimate victory over sin and death. Using illustrations from Scripture, he emphasizes that Christ’s resurrection is both a promise and a prototype for believers’ future resurrection. The certainty of this hope, he urges, calls believers to surrender everything to God with trust and joy, just as one would trade temporary riches for eternal treasure.

As he concludes, Pastor Johnson challenges listeners, both those in the faith and those uncertain, to consider what they are willing to give up to follow Christ wholeheartedly. He recalls the words of a young church member, Molly, whose profound faith and willingness to entrust everything to God captures the heart of discipleship. In a closing call, he urges everyone to anchor their lives in the resurrection, embracing full surrender to God’s love and sovereignty as the path to everlasting life and true freedom from fear.

Transcript

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If you have your Bible turned to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, how much would you give to live forever? How much would you give if you didn't have to die, didn't have to face what Brother Wallace faced last night? She'd just live forever. How much would you give if you knew they have, or they would have, the technology in a few years to bring back the dead? And though you may die, your body could be frozen and kept safe until the time they had the technology to bring your body back to life so that you could live again? Ted Williams, who was a major league all-star baseball player, did just that in 2002. He commissioned his body to be frozen as soon as he died in the hope that he could live again, that technology would advance to bring that feeble body of his back to life, longing, scratching for life. We all want to scratch for life as long as we can and have life. How much would you give? Would you give $100? Would you give $1,000? How much would you give? I want to encourage you today, knowing that there is life after death, there is the technology available in the Holy Spirit to bring dead bodies back to life, that though Brother Wallace dies and his body will be put in the grave, that very body will one day be put back together, and the soul will be reunited to that new body, and he will live forever. Do you not understand that there is life after death and that there is a resurrection? How much would you give for that? The world would give everything for it, but they are not willing to forsake all to follow Jesus Christ in order that they may live forever. What I want to do is work through this text. I want to charge you. I want to charge myself. I want this at the very end of the sermon. Every time I preach a sermon, I will always think this question. What is the main objective of the sermon? What do I want out of the sermon? What does God want out of the sermon? How do we impress and apply and take this sermon to our hearts so there is not just an intellectual stimulation, but it is something we are leaving with a new commitment, with new faith, with new resolve. What I want out of this sermon, I will tell you up front. Usually I wait until the end to bring this out. I will tell you at the very beginning, I want all of us, if you are lost, if you are saved, I want every one of us to say I am going to give everything that I might live forever. I want you to do it willfully, joyfully. Let's read our text. Starting at verse 12 of 1 Corinthians 15. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is fruitile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ, those who have died, like Brother Wallace, have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. Now what was going on as we talked about preceding this text, the Corinthians were being influenced by some form of protonosticism that looked at the physical body as something that is evil, it's not something that's eternal. What's eternal is the soul, and it doesn't matter what happens to the body. Therefore, God wouldn't take that which is physical, which is tainted with sin. He wouldn't bring that back. The goal is to be in some form of Gnosticism, the goal is to be released from the body, not to be united to the body. Salvation is to be free from the physical, not brought back to the physical. The physical world and the physical body needs to be expunged. We need to get out of it. That's the salvation, is to be free from the body. And so they were denying the future resurrection, the literal physical future resurrection of the body on the last day, as if the soul just goes with the Lord, but the body forever stays in the ground, never to be resurrected. That's what they were teaching. At least some within the Church of Corinth was teaching that. But what Paul is saying in this text, if you deny the future literal bodily resurrection of the dead, of the saints, then you undermine everything about Christianity. The whole kit and kaboodle falls apart. It's a fatal error to deny the physical bodily resurrection of the dead. It's a fatal error because all of Christianity hinges upon the fact that there is the resurrection. And so he gives seven things that fall apart, seven truths that fall apart if there's no future resurrection. That is, it's kind of like the gospel has this one little thread that flows through the gospel. And if you pull that thread, if you start pulling at it, you don't just remove the future resurrection of the saints. You're going to remove the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And once you do that, everything starts tumbling down. The whole gospel falls apart. The Old and New Testament is no longer inerrant, and God Himself is a liar. Everything falls apart. And let's look at that. First of all, if you pull the string of and deny the future resurrection of the body, then you're going to deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, denying the resurrection of the dead has an immediate consequence. If there's no resurrection of the dead, then that means Christ didn't raise from the dead. This is verse 12 and 13. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there's no resurrection of the dead? But if there's no resurrection of the dead, then here's the obvious conclusion. Then not even Christ has been raised from the dead. You know, Christ, it wasn't a phantom, His physical body that was laid in the grave. That physical, tangible body, that body was the one that was resurrected to the point that they could touch the nail prints in His hands. That body rose from the dead. And if you deny that your body, so we'll get a totally different body and it's not going to be this body. No, we don't understand completely what that new body is going to look like, but this is the seed of that body. It's not just a replacement body, it's a resurrection. And if we deny the future resurrection, we're going to deny the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. And you've got to understand, once you deny that Christ rose from the dead, then everything is destroyed. Once you say Christ didn't raise from the dead, then look, verse 14 says, "Our preaching is in vain." Verse 14, this is the second consequence. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain. In other words, every gospel sermon is based upon the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if you're denying the resurrection of the dead, then all the preaching, especially the apostolic preaching is vain. Acts 33, the apostles went around preaching the gospel and it says,"With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." I mean, that's what they were preaching. That was the pinnacle of the sermon. Yes, Jesus died for our sins and buried, but here's the pinnacle, that He didn't stay in the grave, that He rose forth. And that's the victory. If there's no resurrection, there's no victory. And that's Christ is still in the grave, that means He was defeated. And if He's defeated, there's no hope. No hope is in the fact that Christ didn't stay in the grave. You see, on the road to Caesarea Philippi when the Lord Jesus was going to be transfigured, He stopped and asked the disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" And Peter says, "Some people think you're Elijah. Some people think you're John the Baptist. Some people think you're just a prophet. They think you're somebody, but no one's saying that you're the Son of God." And then Jesus looked at them and says, "Well, who do you say that I am?" And Peter says, "You're the Messiah. You're the Son of the living God." And Jesus says, "You didn't learn this in a textbook. You didn't learn this from others. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. Because you know who I am, I'm going to tell you who you are. You're no longer Simon. You're Peter. And upon this rock, I'm going to build my church, and I'm going to give you and the apostles the keys to the kingdom of heaven, which is the gospel message, by the way. I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom, and as you preach that gospel, you're going to open up the gospel, the kingdom to all who believe. And I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom in this church discipline and who you lock the kingdom to, what you mine on earth will be bound in heaven. But though you know who I am, this is the strange thing about that story. Jesus says, "Don't tell anybody." Wait a minute. They're supposed to take the keys and preach the kingdom. They're supposed to preach who Jesus is. That He's the Messiah. That He's the Son of God. But Jesus says, "Don't tell anyone yet." And why did Jesus forbid them to share the knowledge of who He was? It's because they weren't ready to use the keys to the kingdom because they didn't yet know that the Son of God had to die. They didn't really realize at that time that the Messiah would be crucified. In fact, that was the first time Jesus began to tell them of His crucifixion. And Peter rebuked them. This can't happen. And that's when Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan." And it wasn't until after Christ rose from the dead and they remembered these teachings that it dawned on them that Christ had to die and suffer and be resurrected. And it's only then were they commissioned to go into all the world and preach the gospel of the kingdom. If you don't have the resurrection, you don't have the full gospel. And without the resurrection, there's nothing to preach. Of salvation, there's no hope. And this is why the Lord says, "Sway until you know the full truth." And after you know the truth, then go and preach. But if there's no future resurrection, then this whole gospel, this whole message is useless, meaningless, powerless. So this is the second consequence of denying the future resurrection. Thirdly, if you deny the future resurrection, you're going to unravel the whole integrity of the Bible. Look at verse 15."We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ whom we did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised." You see, this is the apostolic witness. We came preaching this message. And if you say there's no resurrection, then you're saying that our preached message, our gospel, our testimony, you're saying we're liars. And listen, if the apostolic message is a lie, then the New Testament is a lie. If you deny the future resurrection of the body, you're denying the integrity of the New Testament. But not only the integrity of the New Testament, the Old Testament prophesied of the future resurrection of the body. Isaiah 26, 19, "Your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust awake and sing for joy. For your dew is the dew of light and the earth will give birth to the dead." That's amazing testimony of Isaiah. Talking about the resurrection of the saints. Daniel 12, verse 2, "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, and some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." You understand, if you're denying the resurrection, you're denying the Bible. You're saying the Bible's not true. Both the Old and New Testament. You're saying God is a liar, that He's mistaken. Fourth, if you deny the resurrection of the dead, you're unraveling your own faith. We see this in verse 16 and 17. Look with me."For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile." Your faith, verse 14, says is vain. It's empty. It's useless. You're believing a myth. Your faith doesn't do anything other than it has a certain reality that's going to save you. Your faith doesn't save you. The reality that your faith is anchored in saves you. Jesus saves you, not your faith. His resurrection saves you, not your faith. And if you take the ground and the basis of your faith away, all you have is a lie. And your faith in a lie does you no good. Long as you have faith, strong faith is nothing. It's the object of faith that is everything. So you take that object of your faith away, what do you have? Uselessness, blindness, superstition at best. You see, one, our faith is a byproduct of the resurrection. 1 Peter 1.3 says, "Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." You've been born again because Christ raised from the dead. You have faith because you've been brought out of death, spiritual death, because of the power of the resurrection. And so you take the resurrection away, then you're stuck in your depravity, you're stuck in your dead state. No power to believe. Secondly, if you take away the resurrection you have no object to believe in. Romans 10.9 says, "Because if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." You see, believing that Christ is resurrected is the central element, one of the central cardinal truths of the Gospel. This is what saves us is believing in this truth. But not only is our faith of no account useless, our whole salvation is undermined. This is the fifth thing. Look at verse 17."And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Why did Christ die? This is the glorious truth. Your sins, He didn't die because He was a sinner. He was sinless. And the wages of sin is death. That is, Christ would have never died if it wasn't for our sins being imputed and given to Him. You know, they couldn't kill Him, they couldn't stone Him, they couldn't push Him off a cliff. They tried to kill Him multiple times, but He always slipped out because the Bible says it wasn't His time. He couldn't be killed because He was sinless. He says, "No one can take my life." He says, "No one can take it. You can't kill me. You have angels that will protect me." I'm sinless and only death comes to sinners. The only way He could die is He willfully takes your sins and they get taken off your account and be transferred to His account and He dies because of your sins. We have to realize this. We are the ones responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Why did He die? Because we sinned. He had to die if He was going to represent us. He died because of us, but He rose again because of Himself. Once He died, He took our sins with Him. This is the glorious truth. I mean, we should shout for joy. We should just like, "Oh, is this really true?" We should shout for joy knowing that our sins, all of them, past, present, future, the ones I'm even committing as I preach this sermon, all our sins have been put onto Jesus and when He was put into the grave, our sins were put in the grave and then God judged them and had all wrath poured out on all the cup, every ounce of wrath, not a drop left, poured out on Jesus in the cross. Then He took the sins and He buried every one of our sins into the grave. They're buried there and when He rose, the sins remained in the grave. They didn't come out with Him. They stayed, but He came out of the grave because He was sinless. The grave looked for sin, looked for His sin and they couldn't find sin in Him. And so the grave spit them out. So you don't belong here. He overcome death by His death because He was sinless and because He was sinless, He rose from the dead with victory, conquering the devil, sin, all powers of darkness. He comes out of the grave as the champion, our champion. And if you take the resurrection away, we don't have that no more. Hallelujah, He'll roll. The most glorious day of all of history. Don't take that one away. He rolls the victor. Our sins still are in the grave, never to be dug up again. But if He didn't raise from the dead, then we still have our sins. If He didn't come out of the grave, it proved that He was a sinner. And if He is a sinner, then we are a sinner still. And we are hopelessly lost. If He didn't come out of the grave, we had no other hope. We had another chance. That was it. That was the one and only shot we had. So if you take that away, then we're all condemned still. Then we would die and never live again. We'd be hopeless and those who have died would be hopeless. Look at verse 18. This is the sixth consequence."Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." I mean, I was there last night after our event. I got the call, go to the nursing home. I saw Brother Wallace. As Greg said, a saintly, godly man. You could tell the corpse, there was no soul there. And I was thinking about the sermon I was going to preach today when I was looking at him. It has said, "Think the Lord for the resurrection." That body, it won't stay cold and lifeless. It's the blessed hope. This is why we can say we do not weep and grieve of others who have no hope, Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4."For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left unto the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with the cry of command and with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first." What a glorious day. That day is coming. Christ is coming back and says, "The trumpet is going to sound and he's going to have a large voice." He says, "Just as he said to Lazarus, 'Rise up and he's going to say to all those who have preceded us in death, who are in the Lord, 'Rise up, Reverend Wallace.'" He's going to come up out of the grave. I mean, only if Ted Williams knew that. Only if he could have understood that, that it was free, you didn't have to buy it. That he didn't have to worry about his body being brought back and restored. Seventhly, if there's no future resurrection, then we of all people are to be most pity. That means we're wasting our lives. The King James says, "We're to be the ones that will be considered the most miserable." I mean, here's the thing about Christianity. This is not just a part of our life. You know, if I'm wrong about some investment, I'm putting a little bit of my eggs in this little basket, but I've got eggs all scattered around. I'm diversified in where I'm putting my hope in, and I'm pursuing this and pursuing that. I've got my family. I've got my career. I've got this. I've got that. And one of these may not go too well, but I've got a lot of other things. I'm hedging my bets, if you would. I've got a lot of other things to rely upon when this or that doesn't go too well. But that's not the nature of Christianity. Christianity is not something you just add to your life. That's just a part of my life. If that happens to be false, well, that's all right. I still lived a pretty good life. I still had other things. It's not the end of the world if Christianity is a lie. I put a little hope in that, but I didn't put all of my hope in that. I had a backup plan. I still did other things that I enjoyed. You don't pity me. I've got other hopes. That's not Christianity. That's not the nature of it. The reason we would be above all people most miserable and to be pitied is because that's all of our hope. That's our life. That's everything. You know, one of the things I know about true Christians, this is like when the signs and evidence of a true Christian is like, it's amazing. This is the joy of being a pastor. My whole life is about Christianity. My job is Christianity. My study is the Bible. I read books about the Bible. I talk to people. When I get with you guys, you guys, hey, can I have a meeting with you? Can we eat lunch together? I say, sure, sure. Let's get this lunch appointment and let's meet. You know what we talk about? You talk about? And I'm thinking, all you guys want to talk about is the Lord Jesus. It's like, I think that's all that I get to hear is the Lord Jesus. Like, why is that? Why is that? Why are you so fatuated with the Lord? Why is it always on your mind? Why is that the heart of your affections? Why is that the thing that you want to talk about the most? Because it's your life. It's not just a part of your life. It's a section of your life. It's everything to you. And if that's not true, then your whole life is ruined. Your whole life is off. Your whole life is a lie. If that's a lie, then your life is a lie. We don't follow Him half-heartedly. To be a Christian, it's all or nothing. It's all or nothing. We forsaken everything to follow the Lord Jesus. We have no plan B. In fact, you can't be a Christian if you have plan B. So if this is a lie, then our whole life is a scam. This whole thing is a mess. This whole, everything we're doing here is a scam. Every dollar you put in the offer plate, you got scammed. Every prayer you prayed was just a big lie. All the tears you prayed and repentance useless. But let me end this sermon by telling you a reason why we know it's not a lie. Why we know that Jesus rose from the dead. Yes, if you take that away, it undermines God. It undermines apostolic teaching. It undermines the Scriptures, the gospel, faith, hope, and our purpose. It undermines everything. But let me give you in conclusion why we can be certain we're not to be most pitied. One, because of the veracity of the Scriptures themselves. Paul builds his arguments. Yes, he says, "I've seen them." There's 500 people saw them, the Apostle saw them. But he builds everything on the foundation of Scriptures. In verse 3, it says, "For I delivered to you as first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried and that he raged on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." It's the fact that the Scriptures is the foundation that tells us that Christ died and rose again. And the Scriptures are infallible. The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 3, 16, "All Scriptures are inspired of God or breathed out by God." John 10, 35, Jesus says, "The Scriptures," looking at the Old Testament, He says, "The Scriptures cannot be broken. I come to fulfill every last jot and tittle, because the Scriptures cannot be in error. They cannot be broken." Matthew 5, 18, "For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth passes, not one jot or one tittle shall no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Every ounce of the Old Testament has been fulfilled and will be fulfilled. The Scriptures cannot be broken. And why is the Scriptures reliable? Because God is reliable. The Bible is the Word of God. That is, the Bible is as authoritative and without error and trustworthy as God is authoritative without error and inspired without trustworthy. Numbers 23, 19, it says, "God is not a man that he should lie or a son a man that he should change his mind. He has said, and he will not do it, will he not do it, or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?" Titus 1, 2, God who never lies. Hebrews 6, 8, it is impossible for God to lie. 2 Timothy 3, 2, 13, "If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself." You can lie, I can lie. We've lied, we've been mistaken. Sometimes we lie out of purpose. Sometimes we lie because we're in error. We don't mean to. But God, being all wise and all-knowing, never makes a mistake. And being all-powerful, he cannot deny himself. For God to lie, God had to cease to be. If God lied one time, his own self-existence would disobey. He would crumble in on himself like a black hole. God cannot deny himself. He cannot be any other thing than holy and pure and truthful. Thus we can trust the Bible. We can trust God. This means that we can be certain that our sins are forgiven. Christ died because of our sins being imputed to him, as I've already said. How do I know that I'm forgiven? How do I have peace and how can I rest at night? How can I have all this guilt and this shame and this disgrace? How can I live with myself? How am I ever going to have peace with God and have a clean conscience? We can because Christ rose from the dead. He conquered death. He conquered our sins. We don't have to live in fear of God and the fear of the Day of Judgment any longer, for there is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because Christ rose from the dead, we too have hope. We have hope. I know we don't think about this much, at least I don't. You know, we all know to be absent from the body, to be present with the Lord. But the full salvation is the redemption of our bodies. We'll see later in 1 Corinthians 15, God didn't make for our souls to be unembodied. It's almost like being naked. Something's just not right. We desire to have our body. God's made us that way. And we can be certain there is a future day where the saints will come up out of the grave, resurrected from the dead. Now here's my last closing word, and this is where I bring things back to where I started and told you upfront what I wanted out of this sermon. And I want you to really seriously contemplate this. Ted Williams spent a lot of money, made an endowment so that he could hopefully, one day, be restored to life with this vain empty hope that somehow technology would catch up and bring his dead. And then if they did happen, he would still be an old man. If all we had was this life, then we would be most pitied. Ted Williams is to be the one who is to be pitied. If you're here and you don't know the Lord, and I know there are some of you who do not know the Lord, you think to yourself, I want my life. I want to do my thing my way. I want to have fun. I want to I want to sit and do it without any consequences. I just want my life. Do you not know that your body is going to be in the grave soon? The worms are going to eat your body and you're going to you're going to go. You brought nothing in this world. You will take nothing out of it. The Bible says if you seek to live for this world, you're going to lose everything. You're going to lose everything. Everything is going to be gone. It doesn't matter if you're rich. It doesn't matter. If you're famous, it doesn't matter. You get all your life's dreams. You're to be pitied. Who's to be pitied to this world? Not Christians, not poor, despised little Christians are not to be pitied. Who is to be pitied? Is the rich, famous, wealthy that do not know the Lord? That's all they have is this life. This is all they have. And where they're in the grave, that's it. Until the they wake up in hell, wake up under the wrath of God. No more pleasures, no more of this world. Everything's gone. Never to be retrieved. Those who give up this life in this life, those who forsake all, I mean give up all, they gain everything. You gain everything. It's amazing. But Molly, who we just baptized last week, Molly O'Connor, I think she's about 10 years old, precious little saint, I got to examine her, ask her about her faith. And what I'd asked her is what I asked a lot of young Christians. I asked her, Molly, would you give up everything to be a Christian? Would you give up everything? It's like Jesus when he met the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler says, Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, okay, this is what you must do. Sell everything you have, all your riches. I know you're rich. Sell it all, give to the poor, then come follow me. And the rich young ruler contemplated the cost of discipleship, and the rich young ruler left away sad. Have you ever been there? I've been there. And I've witnessed enough people and I see them contemplating the cost of Christianity, the cost of discipleship, and I've watched many people. I've seen it in the counseling room, in my office. I've seen probably 15 cases to 20 cases where I'm hurting the cost out, and I'm watching them contemplate, do I want to give up sin? Do I want to forsake sin and follow the Lord, or do I want to go after sin? And they're truly in their mind weighing the decision. And I've watched them hang their head, leaving the office, and I'm weeping for them because I know they're being so foolish and blind. They have no clue what of the cost that they're making. Do you understand that you're going to lose everything for just 10 minutes of pleasure? Do you not see how insane you are? But they're so blind, they're so enslaved to the sin, they don't even see how enslaved they are, do they? And it breaks my heart. Can you not just see that you're going to die and go to hell? What kind of trait is this? And so sometimes as we think about the cost of discipleship, and as we think about forsaking all to follow the Lord, we think of it from the lids of the rich young rulers like,"Oh, I just don't know if I can give up. That's expensive." We start weighing, we feel like, "Oh, I'm going to have to give up this and give up that." And I look to Molly and I said, "Do you understand you're going to have to give up your parents?" And I knew that was going to be a hard one. I knew that one's going to be tough to ask a little girl,"Are you willing to forsake your mother and father?" I mean, don't ask that to little kids. That's not fair, but I did. And Molly's answer was the best answer I've ever heard. In fact, I'm still contemplating it. She said this, "I know God is good and He's loving, and He would only do what was good and loving to my parents so I can trust Him with my parents." So yes, I can give my parents to God. That is someone going from the rich young ruler who doesn't want to do it and hesitant to the man who found the treasure in the field and for joy. So all that he had is like, "Oh yeah, I'll give Mom and Dad up. I'll give my sister up. I'll give my house up. I'll give my business up. I'll give my wealth up. I'll give my life up. I'll give my reputation up. I'll give up everything. Yeah, you're kidding me. Sure, I'll give up everything. Do you not know what I'm getting? Life! Christ! Righteousness! Forgiveness! I'm getting everything in this trade. Sure, I'll give up life to get eternal life." So I want you to end. So some of you, let's make some application for us so that you don't leave thinking, "Okay, that was good for salvation." You are Christians. We do what I do. You pick up your life back. You give it to the Lord. But you've got a little business and you worry about your business. You've got a marriage. You worry about your marriage. You've got children. You worry about your children. And you begin to worry. You begin to worry. And that's you taking control back over your life. You want to be in control. God says, "Listen, just give it to me." And let me ask you this. Would you rather be in control of your life, your business, your marriage, the things you care about? Or would you rather know that there's a loving God who's all wise that has your best interest in mind and His glory in mind to say,"I've got this. I have your health. So that might mean I might die. I might lose my business. Yeah, you may. But you're going to be resurrected. You're going to get everything. You can trust Him with everything you have because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the good news. That's why the resurrection is vital. Let's pray. Lord, we see such good news in Your Word, such truth, so precious truth. Lord, we can live off this truth. Every word we can live off. We can meditate on it and just find such good food in it. It nourishes our soul, increases our faith, puts joy in our heart and faith in our heart as well. Lord, we bless Your name. We bless the name of Jesus for taking our sins and dying for us. And we thank You, Jesus, that You rose from the dead. We stand in Your victory and we worship You for it. Amen. Amen.