Doug McMasters: I love Easter.
Doug McMasters: It's such a wonderful, wonderful day.
Doug McMasters: I love a lot of things about it.
Doug McMasters: It is a day full of brightness and color.
Doug McMasters: It's a day of celebratory songs and hymns.
Doug McMasters: It's a day which seems to assume and even draw out of us joy.
Doug McMasters: But for some people, Easter joy just seems a little bit out of reach.
Doug McMasters: The songs that we've sung together are triumphant songs.
Doug McMasters: The colors that some of you are wearing are bright and beautiful.
Doug McMasters: Hope punctuates the air.
Doug McMasters: The celebration that we had in our breakfast just in the last hour was filled with all kinds of laughter and encouragement.
Doug McMasters: It was a celebratory breakfast.
Doug McMasters: But real life, everyday life, sometimes just doesn't meet that kind of atmosphere.
Doug McMasters: And I know that some of you have come into this room with heaviness in your hearts, carrying burdens that aren't pausing for the holiday.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are dealing with medical cares that are still continuing.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are dealing with strained relationships or financial pressures which are you brought into the room this morning.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are here simply because it's Easter, it's a tradition, but you feel distant from the God that everyone else is singing about.
Doug McMasters: And some of you are here wondering if God can ever meet you in that hidden ache of your heart that only you and he know about.
Doug McMasters: Well, this morning I want to introduce us to a man who knows what it is to be in those kind of moments.
Doug McMasters: So let's take our Bible and go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: 2 Corinthians chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: And I want to introduce you to the Apostle Paul, who speaks about a situation in his life that was just as heavy as any of ours.
Doug McMasters: And you can find 2 Corinthians chapter 1 on page 1023.
Doug McMasters: The Apostle Paul, when he introduces himself to the church at Corinth in this second letter that he wrote to them, doesn't speak like a man who's got it all under control.
Doug McMasters: In fact, he says about himself in verse 8 that he was so utterly burdened that he was beyond his strength.
Doug McMasters: And he felt despairing even of life.
Doug McMasters: And the situation was so bad that he felt like he had received the sentence of death.
Doug McMasters: Now, those aren't the words of somebody who's having a bad day.
Doug McMasters: Those are the words of someone who has actually come to the end of himself.
Doug McMasters: And it's precisely there, at the end of himself, that the Apostle Paul recognizes the importance about something, the importance of something about God.
Doug McMasters: And something about God that he probably couldn't have appreciated quite so well in any other circumstance.
Doug McMasters: Because he realizes that the God that he serves is not just the God who helps the strong, he's not just the God who encourages the optimistic, he's the God who does this.
Doug McMasters: The God who raises the dead, as he says there.
Doug McMasters: And once you realize that God is the God who raises the dead, that literally changes everything.
Doug McMasters: It changes how you face your sufferings, it changes how you think about deliverance, and it shapes for you a hope that is unlike any other hope in this world.
Doug McMasters: So this morning, I'd like for us to listen.
Doug McMasters: To listen to Paul as he speaks about this, about the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And what we will be hearing this morning is not just a celebration of a past event, remembering that God raised Christ from the dead, but that he is a God who still works in human lives today.
Doug McMasters: People who feel overwhelmed, stuck, empty, even.
Doug McMasters: Because he's a God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And I want us to capture three points this morning.
Doug McMasters: That because God is the God who raises the dead, we can face overwhelming suffering.
Doug McMasters: Because God is the God who raises the dead, we can feel his delivering power even today.
Doug McMasters: And because God is a God who raises the dead, we can live with confident hope.
Doug McMasters: Those are our three points.
Doug McMasters: And I want us to begin with that first one.
Doug McMasters: Because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we can face overwhelming suffering.
Doug McMasters: Well, let's begin where Paul begins here in verse 8.
Doug McMasters: And contrary to how many of us would frame ourselves and our situations, Paul doesn't begin this letter with a success story.
Doug McMasters: He begins it with a confession.
Doug McMasters: He wants the Corinthians to understand what's been really happening to him in Asia.
Doug McMasters: And he's not like some missionaries might be doing, giving the polished version, you know, giving the praise report.
Doug McMasters: He's giving them the raw reality.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 8 again.
Doug McMasters: We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.
Doug McMasters: We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Doug McMasters: Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.
Doug McMasters: Utterly burdened.
Doug McMasters: The scale has broken.
Doug McMasters: It's so loaded down.
Doug McMasters: Beyond the strength, no capacity left to bear any more.
Doug McMasters: Despairing of life.
Doug McMasters: No way out.
Doug McMasters: No strategy, no escape, no solution.
Doug McMasters: Now, this is an important point to remember.
Doug McMasters: Paul is not a weak Christian.
Doug McMasters: He's not a brand new Christian.
Doug McMasters: He's not immature.
Doug McMasters: He's not faithless.
Doug McMasters: He's an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And he's suffering these things and saying he despaired even of life itself.
Doug McMasters: What does that tell us?
Doug McMasters: It tells us that when we deal with overwhelming circumstances, it's not an indication that we're second-class believers.
Doug McMasters: It's just the path that God brings some of his children through.
Doug McMasters: Now listen to some of the biblical statements where other people mention exactly the same thing.
Doug McMasters: Psalmist in Psalm 88 says, This darkness is my only friend.
Doug McMasters: Now that's that's a pretty hard statement.
Doug McMasters: Job sitting in ashes, his world shattered.
Doug McMasters: And he goes to his friends, and even they don't give him an explanation, they give him an accusation.
Doug McMasters: Elijah under the tree saying, It's enough.
Doug McMasters: Oh now, Lord, please take my life.
Doug McMasters: I want to die.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus in Gethsemane, my soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death.
Doug McMasters: See, the Bible doesn't treat overwhelming suffering as an embarrassment to hide, but to treat it as a reality to bring into the presence of God Himself.
Doug McMasters: And some of you are feeling like that.
Doug McMasters: Where the diagnosis has come and it's not good.
Doug McMasters: Or some of you are wondering what is the diagnosis?
Doug McMasters: When the relationships are fractured, when the job disappears, when the cares of this life gnaw away at any little sleep that you feel like you can have.
Doug McMasters: When those things happen, you're not stepping outside the normal Christian life, but you're stepping into the place where many of God's people have been and many still are with you.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are here right now.
Doug McMasters: It's Easter.
Doug McMasters: We've sung, He is risen.
Doug McMasters: You've said it yourself, He is risen indeed.
Doug McMasters: But inside your heart you're saying, I don't know if I can go any further.
Doug McMasters: I really don't have any strength left.
Doug McMasters: Paul's honest words are meant to be your honest words.
Doug McMasters: We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired even of life.
Doug McMasters: Now, why could why could Paul be this honest?
Doug McMasters: Why could he write these things to a church who are actually in this very moment questioning his apostolic credentials and are definitely questioning his apostolic competency?
Doug McMasters: Why could he speak that honestly about this?
Doug McMasters: Shouldn't he be protecting his image?
Doug McMasters: Shouldn't he be trying to tell them, hey, look, I'm I'm really am an apostle.
Doug McMasters: I I can kind of deal with life well.
Doug McMasters: Well, for Paul, his trust wasn't in his image.
Doug McMasters: Look at what he says in verse 9.
Doug McMasters: He said this so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: You see, the resurrection is what sustained Paul in the middle of all these moments.
Doug McMasters: Because he knew that death wasn't the end, and he knew that weakness wasn't going to have the final say, and he knew that defeat wasn't going to be the last word written on his record.
Doug McMasters: Because if God raised Jesus from the dead, then Paul didn't need to pretend.
Doug McMasters: Paul didn't need to hide the despair.
Doug McMasters: Because underneath, underneath of those honest comments is a deeper foundation, is this realization that he can speak with confidence.
Doug McMasters: God is a God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: Now lock this point in.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection is not just a historical event that happened in the past, it's the turning point of all scripture.
Doug McMasters: And it is for you the horizon for all of your existence.
Doug McMasters: Listen to some of the Old Testament statements that talk about God bringing life out of death.
Doug McMasters: Abraham and Sarah, where Abraham is described not just once but twice in Scripture, as good as dead.
Doug McMasters: And yet Isaac is born.
Doug McMasters: Or Israel with Pharaoh and his army behind them and the sea in front of them, stuck between a rock and the deep blue sea.
Doug McMasters: And there in the midst of that moment, God acts to deliver.
Doug McMasters: Or Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel is brought into a place where he sees nothing but a valley of tangled and dissembled bones.
Doug McMasters: And he's asked the question, can these bones live?
Doug McMasters: And the answer is yes.
Doug McMasters: Yes, they can.
Doug McMasters: And all of these in the Old Testament are whispers of a truth that God is able to bring life out of death.
Doug McMasters: He's able to bring something where there is no hope.
Doug McMasters: And these are signposts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And when we talk about Jesus being resurrected, we're not just adding another signpost there.
Doug McMasters: That this is some sort of emblem of life out of death, you know, an egg breaking and out comes a new life, or flowers blooming out of a out of a cold, barren ground.
Doug McMasters: No, we're not we're not talking about little symbols like that where, you know, you know, your days will get better.
Doug McMasters: They just might get a little better.
Doug McMasters: No, we're talking about a dead man that came out of a grave.
Doug McMasters: Because one day we're all going to be dead people.
Doug McMasters: And do we have a hope that we'll come out of the grave?
Doug McMasters: That's the question.
Doug McMasters: And so here, Paul is saying that as believers, well, we can face overwhelming suffering.
Doug McMasters: And we don't need to deny it, and we don't need to hide it, but we also don't need to be despairing because of it.
Doug McMasters: But we can live with a deep, steady confidence that God who raised the dead is our God.
Doug McMasters: Paul goes on to talk about this in verse 9.
Doug McMasters: He said, We felt we had received the sentence of death.
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: The verdict has been handed down.
Doug McMasters: There's no appeal, there's no reprieve, condemnation is coming.
Doug McMasters: That's how he felt.
Doug McMasters: And these overwhelming circumstances led him at the end of this verse to say this so that we wouldn't trust in ourselves, but in the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: You see, sometimes God brings us through overwhelming suffering in order to expose where we trust.
Doug McMasters: Not always, but sometimes to expose where we trust.
Doug McMasters: Because when we're strong and when we're competent, and when things are good, we can trust our health, we can trust our financial planning, we can trust our relationships, we can trust our ability to manage and to plan and to fix.
Doug McMasters: But when things get out of our control, none of those things will hold us.
Doug McMasters: Not one.
Doug McMasters: And Paul realized God had taken him into a place of life where the only thing he could trust is the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And so one of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we face these overwhelming situations is Am I trusting the Lord?
Doug McMasters: Am I going to cling harder to what I can do or what someone else might be able to do for me?
Doug McMasters: Or am I going to begin to lean my full weight on the God who raises the dead?
Doug McMasters: If you're here this morning and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you're going through circumstances that feel like utter chaos.
Doug McMasters: Like, I want to tell you this.
Doug McMasters: The universe is not random, it is not cruel, and it is not indifferent.
Doug McMasters: It is controlled by a God who holds every single particle in his hand.
Doug McMasters: And I want to tell you this: that your suffering is perhaps put into your life to awaken you to something.
Doug McMasters: That you can't control life, and you certainly can't control death or your eternity.
Doug McMasters: You see, your career can't raise the dead, and your relationships can't raise the dead, and your moral efforts can't raise the dead, and your spiritual energies and efforts can't raise the dead.
Doug McMasters: Only God can raise the dead.
Doug McMasters: And he's given proof that he's already done that.
Doug McMasters: And that can be the very source of a new life for you, even in the middle of the things that you're dealing with.
Doug McMasters: Please stay with me as we go through the rest of this because you will understand more about that as we do.
Doug McMasters: Let's look at the second point now.
Doug McMasters: Because God has raised Jesus from the dead.
Doug McMasters: Our first point said we can face overwhelming suffering.
Doug McMasters: Our second point is this: that because God is the one who raises the dead, we can trust His delivering power.
Doug McMasters: Like I said, we go through life and sometimes it feels very, very uncertain, pressing upon us in ways that stretch us beyond what we've ever, ever imagined.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are waiting on medical clarity.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are dealing with the slow ache of relationships that are held at a distance.
Doug McMasters: Some of us are navigating financial strains that just gnaw away at every decision we make.
Doug McMasters: Some are watching a child perhaps drifting away from the Lord that you raised them to love.
Doug McMasters: And you're wondering if they'll ever come back.
Doug McMasters: These are real pressures.
Doug McMasters: But we don't need to interpret them through our fear.
Doug McMasters: And we don't need to interpret them through our gnawing fatigue.
Doug McMasters: We're asked to see them from a different vantage point, to understand them through the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: You see, that is the starting point.
Doug McMasters: That is the lens through which we see our current circumstances.
Doug McMasters: Now take a look at verse 10 and see how Paul talks about that.
Doug McMasters: In verse 10, he says, We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because at the beginning of verse 10, he says, He's delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us.
Doug McMasters: What is he talking about?
Doug McMasters: He's talking about three deliverances here.
Doug McMasters: He's talking about a rescue from the greatest death.
Doug McMasters: He calls it a terrible death.
Doug McMasters: What is he speaking about there?
Doug McMasters: Well, what he's talking about is something far worse than any circumstance we might be dealing with today.
Doug McMasters: What he's talking about is the need of every one of us to receive God's salvation, to be rescued from the eternal judgment that our sins deserve.
Doug McMasters: And Paul knows here that apart from Christ, a sentence of eternal death stood over him that was more severe than any earthly threat.
Doug McMasters: And he knows that this terrible death God has already delivered him from.
Doug McMasters: He knows that he has been rescued from the righteous judgment of a holy God.
Doug McMasters: And that deliverance has come at a cost.
Doug McMasters: The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Paul says that he can trust God for present help.
Doug McMasters: Look at what he says.
Doug McMasters: And this is the logic of other places in Scripture.
Doug McMasters: Romans chapter 8.
Doug McMasters: God there did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
Doug McMasters: And how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?
Doug McMasters: Also in Romans 8, those he foreknew, he predestined, those he called, he justified, and those he justified, he will glorify.
Doug McMasters: If he's delivered us from such a great death, he will deliver us now and he will deliver us in the future.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Paul says this, not with some vague optimism, but with a resurrection certainty.
Doug McMasters: That the God who saved him from eternal death is one day going to raise him into glory.
Doug McMasters: This God who justified him will glorify him.
Doug McMasters: This God who brought Jesus to the grave for him will bring and brought him out of the grave, will one day bring his people out of the grave.
Doug McMasters: And then he says, Because of that past and that future deliverance, right now, when I'm feeling overwhelmed beyond my strength with a sentence of death facing me.
Doug McMasters: I know he will deliver us still.
Doug McMasters: God can take care of today, just like he took care of my sin debt for eternity.
Doug McMasters: Now, many of you, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
Doug McMasters: You could speak longer than I will this morning about how God has sustained you through grief, how God has provided for you when the numbers just didn't add up right, when God has taken care of you and restored relationships that you loved that were broken without any hope of reconciliation.
Doug McMasters: You can speak about these things.
Doug McMasters: And those memories that you have and those experiences that you've gone through, they're not accidents.
Doug McMasters: They're meant to be cumulative reminders of you in your present moment, that what God has done for you already, and what he's promised to do for you in eternity, he is there to help you with today.
Doug McMasters: God was loosening Paul's grip on self-reliance.
Doug McMasters: What a great gift that is.
Doug McMasters: So that he might weigh out and fully lean upon that eternal strength of God.
Doug McMasters: Because God is not limited by death at all.
Doug McMasters: If you're here this morning and you don't know Christ is your Savior, what you're going through at this moment, if you're going through difficulties and troubles, they're not your worst problem.
Doug McMasters: You may feel the weight of your life in such a way that you can't fully explain it.
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: And you may one day sense that your foundations that you hold on to are not strong enough to hold you.
Doug McMasters: And you might wonder what might happen to you that day when the strength runs out.
Doug McMasters: Who will be around me?
Doug McMasters: What will be around me?
Doug McMasters: How well have I prepared for this?
Doug McMasters: But there's one thing that you need to bring into weighty consideration.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures say it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Doug McMasters: It is no joke.
Doug McMasters: The God who created us calls us to love him with all of our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Doug McMasters: None of us passed that test.
Doug McMasters: None of us.
Doug McMasters: And Paul says that what awaits us is a terrible death.
Doug McMasters: I don't know about you, but I'm not going to have anything to bring to God that I've built that would convince him to release that sentence of a terrible death from my soul.
Doug McMasters: Not a single thing would convince him otherwise.
Doug McMasters: But I want to tell you something.
Doug McMasters: The God I'm talking about is the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: That he is the one who has raised Jesus from the dead as a declaration of the forgiveness of sins.
Doug McMasters: That his work on the cross was sufficient to say.
Doug McMasters: You don't need to clean yourself up.
Doug McMasters: You don't need to present yourself to God as if you might be acceptable to him.
Doug McMasters: You don't need to pretend that you're strong.
Doug McMasters: And you don't have to hide the fact that you've got a need before him.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures say that if you come to Christ with empty hands, with a realization of your sin, with an acknowledgement that that sin has been committed against him, and that you trust Christ alone as your Savior.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures are clear in saying that you have to all who come to him a pardon for your sin and life for your death and a security and a welcome for your condemnation and your banishment.
Doug McMasters: Because God is the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And the God who raises the dead can put spiritual life into you like you can't begin to imagine even today.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go to the third point here.
Doug McMasters: Our first point was it's because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we can face overwhelming circumstances with confidence.
Doug McMasters: Our second point was because God raised Jesus from the dead, we can trust his deliverance.
Doug McMasters: And the last point is because God is the one who raises from the dead, we can live with confident hope.
Doug McMasters: We can live with confident hope.
Doug McMasters: Take a look again at verse 10.
Doug McMasters: He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us, and we have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again.
Doug McMasters: Hope is such a beautiful word.
Doug McMasters: It's one of the greatest gifts that God gives people to have, to live with hope.
Doug McMasters: But it's also something that feels in human existence in our lives very vulnerable.
Doug McMasters: It can feel fragile sometimes.
Doug McMasters: Our lives can be filled with uncertainty.
Doug McMasters: Hope can dissipate whenever we feel fearful or unclear.
Doug McMasters: Even believers can lose hope when their prayers don't seem to be being answered.
Doug McMasters: When the path in front of us seems very obscure.
Doug McMasters: It comes from God's character himself.
Doug McMasters: Now look at how this unfolds here.
Doug McMasters: He says, On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
Doug McMasters: That's not wishful thinking there.
Doug McMasters: That's not just simply optimism that pours out of this jolly personality.
Doug McMasters: This is not Paul trying to convince himself that things are just going to get better.
Doug McMasters: It's a settled confidence rooted in the character of God, in the activity of God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: Paul looks back, he sees God's deliverance from such a terrible death.
Doug McMasters: He looks at his present and he sees God's sustaining grace in the midst of his utter emptiness.
Doug McMasters: And he looks to the future and he sees the same God who is unchanged, who is always faithful, and who is strong.
Doug McMasters: And he anchors his future in God's character, not his circumstances.
Doug McMasters: Scripture speaks to this with a relentless confirmation to our weak hearts.
Doug McMasters: Peter had called it a living hope.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what he said in 1 Peter.
Doug McMasters: He said, God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Doug McMasters: Paul calls it the hope of glory in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 27.
Doug McMasters: He said, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Doug McMasters: The writer of Hebrews in chapter 6 and verse 19 says, We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, firm and secure.
Doug McMasters: And the early church learned this lesson well to a very young church, the Thessalonians, among whom some had died, and some of them are wondering what's happening.
Doug McMasters: Paul doesn't minimize their grief and he doesn't rush them past their sorrow, but he does tell them this since we believe that Jesus died and rose again in the same way through Jesus, God will bring those with him who have fallen asleep.
Doug McMasters: Their hope is not in the avoidance of suffering.
Doug McMasters: Their hope is in the certainty of the resurrection.
Doug McMasters: Think about it this way life is a long journey.
Doug McMasters: A journey that's full of terrain that rises and falls, that's full of weather that shifts in all kinds of ways, sometimes pleasant, sometimes very, very difficult.
Doug McMasters: And on a path that weaves and moves through that terrain and even disappears in a lot of a lot of places where you don't even know where it might be turning.
Doug McMasters: But at the very end of it is your destination at a mountaintop horizon that never ever goes out of your sight.
Doug McMasters: And so, with that fixed point in view, whatever the weather might be, or whatever the terrain might look like, or whatever, however winding the road and the pathway might turn, there's something always in front of you.
Doug McMasters: It is that certain point of final destination.
Doug McMasters: And if you can keep that in view, weather and terrain and the turns of the path are just simply little steps along the way that will bring you eventually to that destination.
Doug McMasters: This is what Paul's talking about when he says, He will yet deliver us.
Doug McMasters: He's talking about the God who raises the dead, and he's got it deep down in his soul that God will raise him from the dead.
Doug McMasters: So, this ditch of terrain, this turn of the path, this rainstorm that's pouring down on me, it's not the end of the story.
Doug McMasters: It's not the end of the story at all.
Doug McMasters: Because there's a fixed point of destination.
Doug McMasters: He whom God has predestined is the same God who will glorify his people.
Doug McMasters: That's your end.
Doug McMasters: And so keep the resurrection in front of you on these moments.
Doug McMasters: Let it give meaning to these days that are filled with difficulty.
Doug McMasters: Let it keep you moving forward even though the path is steep.
Doug McMasters: Let it steady you even though the way seems unclear.
Doug McMasters: Let it remind you even when the story seems a bit muddled at the moment.
Doug McMasters: God will take care of you.
Doug McMasters: In the middle of your waiting, he will take you and shape you and hold you and sustain you, but he will also loosen the grip of your self-trust and your love of things for the love of him.
Doug McMasters: And the day will come in the future when he will bring you into his presence, and there for eternity, those things will never ever be able to even be once compared to the sufferings that you're enduring now.
Doug McMasters: So great are they.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are feeling as though you've got a sucking chest wound, and there never seems to be any spiritual breath that can hold deeply in those lungs.
Doug McMasters: You're always gasping for the next breath of life.
Doug McMasters: So draining and troubling are the difficulties.
Doug McMasters: But the scriptures here say that those moments are not the end of the end of the book.
Doug McMasters: They're simply a part of the page you're on right now.
Doug McMasters: And the God who raised Jesus from the dead will one day raise you.
Doug McMasters: And he will present you to himself as a spotless bride without blemish or any such thing.
Doug McMasters: Your spiritual dryness will be swept up by an eternal enthusiasm and glory and worship before God.
Doug McMasters: And some of you are discouraged by your own failures.
Doug McMasters: And it's easy to do that.
Doug McMasters: But the scriptures tell us that God, who is already forgiven, restores, but he will make you fully whole, completely in his presence, blameless and without fault and with great joy, I think Jude says at the end of his letter.
Doug McMasters: The resurrection means you have a destination.
Doug McMasters: Your sanctification, your troubles, your hardships, it's all going to come to that final point.
Doug McMasters: And if you're not a believer this morning in Jesus Christ and you know that what you're dealing with are simply trying to match your troubles with your own abilities or circumstances or relationships.
Doug McMasters: I want to tell you something.
Doug McMasters: The Christian life is not something we manufacture, it's something we discover.
Doug McMasters: And we often discover it most in the moments where we feel at the very bottom of ourselves.
Doug McMasters: Just like Paul's talking about here.
Doug McMasters: He's telling the truth.
Doug McMasters: That he was dealing with things that were so overwhelming he felt like he had the sentence of death already passed down on him.
Doug McMasters: It's over.
Doug McMasters: But he also says, God raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And God took us through that.
Doug McMasters: And it wasn't because we added something or just needed a little extra help.
Doug McMasters: You see, without God, everything will eventually collapse.
Doug McMasters: Everything.
Doug McMasters: Without God, you have no eternal hope.
Doug McMasters: You die then what?
Doug McMasters: Well, there's an answer to that question.
Doug McMasters: The answer is God raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And with that hope, you recognize that death is the doorway into new life.
Doug McMasters: God who raises the dead is here today.
Doug McMasters: He is speaking his word today.
Doug McMasters: He's among his people today.
Doug McMasters: And his invitation is to you today.
Doug McMasters: Look to Jesus Christ and live.
Doug McMasters: And live.
Doug McMasters: And find a hope that will anchor not only your present, but your soul in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: A God who's raised the dead, who can steady you in suffering, He can deliver you in your waiting, and He will give you a home in your eternity.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for this glorious truth.
Doug McMasters: This one declared through an inexperienced person, Paul, who told us with honesty and humility and transparency, not pretending it didn't hurt, and not minimizing the weight of his troubles, even describing he felt like if it was up to him, he was finished.
Doug McMasters: But who also said he wasn't finished.
Doug McMasters: Because he wasn't trusting himself.
Doug McMasters: He couldn't.
Doug McMasters: There was nothing there to trust.
Doug McMasters: But he could raise, he could trust the one who raised Jesus from the dead.
Doug McMasters: And Father, I pray that we might live with that same confident hope.
Doug McMasters: Not the kind of fragile hopefulness that's tied to circumstances, but with an eternal hopefulness that's anchored in the risen Savior.
Doug McMasters: A hope that steadies us in the middle of our sufferings, who strengthens, that strengthens us through all of our waiting, and who assures us that you are a God who's already delivered us and you will carry us home.
Doug McMasters: So, Father, I pray for those who perhaps have been hiding their real condition, who've been afraid to be honest and to say, I really don't have a hope, that they would bring themselves into the light instead of hiding it.
Doug McMasters: I pray, Father, for those who have held tightly to their own ability, their own wisdom, their own understanding, their own financial care, their own relationships.
Doug McMasters: Father, you'd loosen their group grip on those weak, fragile foundations that can't raise the dead.
Doug McMasters: Father, I pray for those who would be receiving, perhaps today, for the very first time, the life of the risen Savior Himself, who offers eternal life to those who come with empty hands.
Doug McMasters: Father, may we all trust and depend on and worship you, the God who raises the dead.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: Amen.