SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Bolt.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: You're not normally at the row.
SPEAKER_01: We just welcome you.
SPEAKER_01: We're glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: If you come back, I probably won't be wearing a coat and tie.
SPEAKER_01: But you guys look great.
SPEAKER_01: You guys look awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_01: And it's our honor and privilege of hosting you.
SPEAKER_01: I know that every year there are men and women who come to a church, and you had many of options here in the city.
SPEAKER_01: I think we have 290 churches in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_01: But you're here.
SPEAKER_01: And you're joining with 2.6 billion people around the world who are worshiping Jesus and his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: So it's the greatest movement in world history.
SPEAKER_01: And you've kind of entered into something that started 2,000 years ago that was the resurrection of Christ that nobody saw coming.
SPEAKER_01: No one thought that this man who was seen as a criminal, who had given himself three and a half years to the miraculous power of Yahweh, God in heaven, flowing through his Son, would be crucified on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you in your lives, you've had things in your life that you've given yourself to, and in the process of that, you've been crucified.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a sunrise.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a second chance.
SPEAKER_01: Your history does not define your destiny.
SPEAKER_01: And God's got a work to do in your heart even today.
SPEAKER_01: For you that are believers, there's a work he's going to do in your life here today.
SPEAKER_01: For you that don't know Christ yet in a personal, vital, dynamic, growing way, there's a personal work that he wants to do in your life today.
SPEAKER_01: There's a story told of a young girl who wanted to figure out what was the most powerful thing in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And she thought, it must be iron.
SPEAKER_01: Iron's the hardest, most powerful thing in the world.
SPEAKER_01: So she went to iron.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Iron, are you the most powerful thing in the universe?
SPEAKER_01: And Iron said, No, you put fire on me and I melt.
SPEAKER_01: The girl thought, okay, fire.
SPEAKER_01: Fire must be the most powerful thing in the world.
SPEAKER_01: So she went to fire and said, Are you the most powerful thing in the universe?
SPEAKER_01: And fire said, No, you just pour water on me and I'm gone.
SPEAKER_01: So, oh, it must be water.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, the streams and the waterfalls and the rainfall.
SPEAKER_01: Water, surely, is the most powerful thing in all of humankind.
SPEAKER_01: And water said, No, you put me out in the sun and I just evaporate.
SPEAKER_01: I'm nothing.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Oh, she looked up.
SPEAKER_01: The blazing sun.
SPEAKER_01: She was from Colorado.
SPEAKER_01: And she saw that blazing sun and she said, Surely, the blazing sun is the most powerful thing in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And the blazing sun said, No, just a little cloud.
SPEAKER_01: Just a cloud covers me.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Okay, maybe it's a cloud.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a cloud is the most powerful thing.
SPEAKER_01: So she goes to the cloud and the cloud says, No.
SPEAKER_01: When I run into a mountain, I'm gone.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then a mountain, Pike's Peak, 14ers, Mount Everest is the most powerful thing in all the world.
SPEAKER_01: And then the mountain said, No.
SPEAKER_01: When man comes and chisels me away, I'm nothing.
SPEAKER_01: She thought, man, I should have known it.
SPEAKER_01: It's man, it's humans.
SPEAKER_01: We're the most powerful thing in all the world.
SPEAKER_01: And so she went to man and he said, Well, no.
SPEAKER_01: Death comes to us all.
SPEAKER_01: So she met death.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Death, surely you're the most powerful thing in all of humankind, in all of the universe, and all of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Death said, I have put down peasants, kings and queens, rich and poor.
SPEAKER_01: But one time, one time there was a man who came and they crucified him.
SPEAKER_01: They nailed him to a cross.
SPEAKER_01: And he expired.
SPEAKER_01: He died.
SPEAKER_01: I had him.
SPEAKER_01: I controlled him for three days.
SPEAKER_01: And I took him down.
SPEAKER_01: And I was rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: I had defeated this one.
SPEAKER_01: And then on the third day, something happened.
SPEAKER_01: And light came.
SPEAKER_01: And there was an earthquake.
SPEAKER_01: And power came and he rose up.
SPEAKER_01: He rose up.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what he did?
SPEAKER_01: He took my keys away.
SPEAKER_01: And he lived again.
SPEAKER_01: With greater power than before.
SPEAKER_01: And the little girl said, Wow.
SPEAKER_01: What was his name?
SPEAKER_01: His name was Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And he rose again.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, we celebrate the greatest power of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: Now, two thousand years removed, I can say this this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the single greatest event in human history.
SPEAKER_01: Ask any great historian.
SPEAKER_01: They all concur.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Christ is still the most celebrated event in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Ask the Africans meeting today in a grass hut.
SPEAKER_01: Ask Christian prisoners at Lyman, where our team is ministering to them today.
SPEAKER_01: Ask the White House.
SPEAKER_01: Ask the Kremlin.
SPEAKER_01: Ask parliaments all over the world.
SPEAKER_01: Ask the most liberal or the most conservative.
SPEAKER_01: And they all know that the greatest power is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Christ is the kingly crown upon the derisive sign hung upon him on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, King of the Jews, their greatest fear became their worst nightmare when they found out the King of the Jews was actually the king who rules over all.
SPEAKER_01: But the greatest miracle is that the resurrection of Christ is not just an historical event, but can be a life-changing experience in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: When you believe in and become a disciple of Jesus, when you become a Jesus follower, the same Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that rose Jesus from the dead begins to live his life in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: That was a three to four thousand pound stone.
SPEAKER_01: About the weight of a car that was over the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And it was rolled away and Christ came forth.
SPEAKER_01: That four thousand-pound stone in your heart can be rolled away today through the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bibles, if you brought your Bibles, and I know some of you don't have them, so listen with me, and there's Bibles in front of you in the slot, Matthew chapter 28.
SPEAKER_01: Would you look at Matthew chapter 28 this morning?
SPEAKER_01: All of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, talk about the resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I've chosen this year Matthew 28.
SPEAKER_01: Now, for the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene, remember Mary Magdalene, Jesus cast out seven demons out of her.
SPEAKER_01: And the other Mary, which historians believe to be the mother of Jesus, Mary, came to see the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the 4,000 pound stone from the door and sat on it.
SPEAKER_01: I guess angels sit.
SPEAKER_01: His countenance was like lightning and his clothing as white as snow.
SPEAKER_01: So for you that have said, I just wish I could see an angel, think twice about that.
SPEAKER_01: And the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men.
SPEAKER_01: But the angel answered and said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified.
SPEAKER_01: He's not here.
SPEAKER_01: He's risen as he said he would.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, he said it seven times.
SPEAKER_01: Seven times in the Gospels, Jesus predicted that he would die on the cross and rise again.
SPEAKER_01: Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and indeed he is going before you into Galilee, and there you will see him.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, I have told you.
SPEAKER_01: And so they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to bring his disciples the word.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things in our life that bring us fear and joy.
SPEAKER_01: There's always this battle in our heart between fear and joy.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Mary and Mary felt.
SPEAKER_01: They felt fear and joy.
SPEAKER_01: They ran to tell Peter and the disciples about what had happened because these were the very men who denied knowing Jesus just three days before, especially Peter, who denied him three times.
SPEAKER_01: I find it interesting in our passage that it was women who came.
SPEAKER_01: And it was women when he was taken off the cross, and it was women that continued to have that faith.
SPEAKER_01: And all you women in this room, you're amazing.
SPEAKER_01: You are amazing.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the world would be like without you.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there wouldn't be a world.
SPEAKER_01: But every man in this room who's married or been married knows the value and the power of that gender, that that feminine spirituality that we need.
SPEAKER_01: We need that.
SPEAKER_01: So they had to run and tell them.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the rest of the New Testament is a testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the life, death, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: If you were following the worship this morning, what Josh and Desiree did is they kind of took you through, they took you through Good Friday.
SPEAKER_01: Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_01: They took you through the Good Friday, the blood of Christ, and then they came to the resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There was a flow to that.
SPEAKER_01: There was a purpose to that.
SPEAKER_01: And if you were here with us on Friday, we ended with an earthquake.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: We ended with an earthquake.
SPEAKER_01: Because the earthquake represents a new, listen everybody, it represents a new paradigm shift in world history.
SPEAKER_01: From that earthquake on, everything changes.
SPEAKER_01: Everything changes.
SPEAKER_01: To such a degree that the Apostle Paul, who would later get saved, on his road to Tarsus, in Acts chapter 9, and at the road, we're going through the book of Acts right now.
SPEAKER_01: We just started it.
SPEAKER_01: Join us on Sundays as we teach verse by verse through the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, it's going to be up on the screen, what he said.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to note that he says, first of all, because Paul, the theologian, the great theologian of the church, is going to make reference to the fact that the resurrection is the first, the last, and the foremost doctrine of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_01: For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and then that he rose again on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he precedes those that had died as the first fruits of the resurrection in eternity.
SPEAKER_01: For since by man came death.
SPEAKER_01: Death rules over every man and woman.
SPEAKER_01: By man also came the resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_01: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
SPEAKER_01: Then comes the end.
SPEAKER_01: When he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, he's coming back, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what he says, all enemies under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when he puts an end to all rule, every ruler in the globe, all rulers in the fourth dimension, all demonic satanic powers, all of them, and all authority and power, for he must reign, because he's reigning at the right hand of the Father right now, till he has put all enemies under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: So he's at work.
SPEAKER_01: He's at work across the globe, church, wherein we see churches being planted, men and women coming to salvation in Christ by the millions daily.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you look at the entertainment industry in America, in Hollywood and Atlanta, and some of New York, some of the major places, we go, oh, it's so dark.
SPEAKER_01: It is.
SPEAKER_01: But every place has darkness.
SPEAKER_01: But when you see how many influencers are getting saved and coming to Christ, I've never seen it in my lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: How many athletes, how many influencers, and even how many politicians are coming to Christ, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: God is on the move.
SPEAKER_01: He's putting his enemies under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: The last enemy, though, that will be destroyed is death.
SPEAKER_01: For he has put all things under his feet, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death.
SPEAKER_01: Even death is swallowed up in victory.
SPEAKER_01: O death, where is your sting?
SPEAKER_01: O Hades, where is your victory?
SPEAKER_01: The sting of death is sin.
SPEAKER_01: And the strength of sin is the law.
SPEAKER_01: Another way to look at that is the strength of sin is religion.
SPEAKER_01: But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus died on the cross to take away the sting.
SPEAKER_01: The sting of fear.
SPEAKER_01: It's the sting of fear.
SPEAKER_01: We all struggle with the sting of fear.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you here this morning struggle with the sting of the fear of death.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you had cancer.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have been through debilitating diseases.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are battling right now to keep your courage in the midst of sickness, in the midst of struggle and battles that you're going on in your relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe in your marriage, maybe in your singleness.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's an addiction.
SPEAKER_01: There's a sting of death on all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to bring victory over the sting of death.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just talking about physical death, he's talking about the death of a soul.
SPEAKER_01: That's what grips our hearts today is that we want to experience the resurrection power of Jesus not just as an historical event, which it was.
SPEAKER_01: There's more evidence for the resurrection of Christ than that Julius Caesar ever ruled in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't matter unless it goes from the head into our heart.
SPEAKER_01: This is where Christ is best.
SPEAKER_01: He rolls away stones right here.
SPEAKER_01: He inaugurated with that first fruit on that first Easter, on that first resurrection day.
SPEAKER_01: He rolled away a 4,000-pound stone.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you feel like you're carrying a 4,000-pound stone.
SPEAKER_01: And it's causing anxiety and panic and fear and depression.
SPEAKER_01: You can't sleep at night.
SPEAKER_01: You have to take sedatives to sleep.
SPEAKER_01: You numb yourself with alcohol, you numb yourself with drugs, you numb yourself with sex.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ came to bring victory from the sting of any death that is now enclosed by a stone.
SPEAKER_01: He's good at rolling away stones.
SPEAKER_01: And he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: But our passage says that Jesus died for sin.
SPEAKER_01: So what is sin?
SPEAKER_01: We think of sin as like stealing something or murder or adultery or something like that, and that's definitely sinful.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not what Jesus is talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did not come to clean up moral behavior.
SPEAKER_01: Other religious leaders have, but that's not why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, that's not what he came for.
SPEAKER_01: To be just a moral teacher.
SPEAKER_01: So sin is an ancient archery word.
SPEAKER_01: It was used by judges in ancient times when the archer would fire an arrow at a target.
SPEAKER_01: The judge, who hopefully wasn't standing too close to the target, would shout out, sin one, sin two, sin three.
SPEAKER_01: And it represented the distance from the bullseye.
SPEAKER_01: It represented the distance from the bullseye.
SPEAKER_01: So no sighting scopes back then.
SPEAKER_01: Firing, hit that bullseye, they would miss slightly, or maybe they would hit the target, but a sin word, the word sin one, sin two, sin three, represented how far off they were from the bullseye.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the biblical term sin means missing the mark.
SPEAKER_01: It means missing the bullseye.
SPEAKER_01: It means missing perfection.
SPEAKER_01: Changes everything, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of us in this room has sinned.
SPEAKER_01: We've missed perfection.
SPEAKER_01: You're not perfect in the way you think toward other people.
SPEAKER_01: You're not perfect in your attitudes.
SPEAKER_01: We all have sinned.
SPEAKER_01: And so the purpose of the cross was to forgive us.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ would take on sin upon himself at the cross, but not stay dormant, not stay dead with the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_01: He broke out with the resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can experience if we give ourselves to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That same power is available to us.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus, trying to help the Jews, religious Jews, to understand what he came for, gave one of the greatest sermons of all time.
SPEAKER_01: It's called the Sermon on the Mount, and it's found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
SPEAKER_01: No need to turn there.
SPEAKER_01: Listen closely.
SPEAKER_01: In the Sermon on the Mount, by all speechwriters, all historians, considered the greatest speech ever given, he makes a contrast.
SPEAKER_01: He has this one point where he's making a contrast to the religious people about what he's all about, in contrast to what they are all about.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's outward moral behavior.
SPEAKER_01: And whatever that whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But I say to you that whoever is angry, With his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.
SPEAKER_01: You see the shift?
SPEAKER_01: From outward moral behavior to a heart attitude.
SPEAKER_01: He says again, you have heard that it was said of those of old, you shall not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_01: But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her, listen, in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.
SPEAKER_01: But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is shifting from moral religious behavior, outward behavior, to the inward work of the heart where we find sin.
SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus is unique.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did not come to this earth to be a religious leader, and to the extent that we see him as a religious leader, we miss the point of his life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came not as a religious leader, but as a revolutionary.
SPEAKER_01: He came to be a revolutionary leader of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: That if people would give and surrender their hearts to him, he would transform them.
SPEAKER_01: Not just their hour behavior, but the internal heart relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's radical.
SPEAKER_01: For the Jew, it's in having and following the Torah that we're supposedly able to find peace with Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: For a Muslim, it is finding Allah through the five pillars.
SPEAKER_01: For the Hindu, it is moksha through the paths of yogas.
SPEAKER_01: For the Buddhist, it is finding nirvana through the five-fold path.
SPEAKER_01: And for many in the West, their religion is secular humanism.
SPEAKER_01: For the secular humanists, it is seeking happiness through science and social justice.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, through the Sermon on the Mount and everything that he preached, turned the idea that somehow by doing something, you can change your heart to I will do something that will change your heart.
SPEAKER_01: So I used to, as many of you know, Liz and I were missionaries in Japan, and we we would share with Japanese all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the ways, one of the descriptions we had was that we had a little drawing that we would do on a piece of paper, and it showed the arrows and had at the bottom, it had man, and it had God, holy God, and sinful man.
SPEAKER_01: And the way I explained religion was these arrows from man trying to reach God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Hindus trying to do, trying to reach God, the Muslim trying to reach God, the Jew trying to reach God by their own efforts.
SPEAKER_01: And the next diagram, I showed all those arrows going up, but then I showed an arrow coming down with a cross, right across, joining the two.
SPEAKER_01: It's not what we do, it's what he did.
SPEAKER_01: It's not what we believe, it's what he believes about you.
SPEAKER_01: And when you put your faith in Christ, everything he did for you becomes retroactive and his righteousness flows in you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Romans says.
SPEAKER_01: You get the righteousness of God by putting your faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: See how radical that is?
SPEAKER_01: It's not your efforts, it's his effort.
SPEAKER_01: It's not your power, it's his power.
SPEAKER_01: It's not your ability to live a moral life, it's the fact that he lived a perfect life and he now hands it to you if you'll follow him.
SPEAKER_01: That was radical.
SPEAKER_01: Still is.
SPEAKER_01: And listen, this is important.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just that he died on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: There have been religious leaders throughout history, I could name three right off the top, that said they were God or divine and died.
SPEAKER_01: This wasn't that radical in even the Middle East at that time that a man, this this carpenter, this miracle worker, said he was God.
SPEAKER_01: It's what happened on the third day that's unique and never been replicated, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I know of men and women in this church who have considered suicide.
SPEAKER_01: I've done many a funeral for men and women and even young people that have committed suicide.
SPEAKER_01: Sin rules our hearts unless something happens.
SPEAKER_01: Mother Teresa once said of the state of our nation: the greatest disease in the West is not TB or leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: It is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for.
SPEAKER_01: America is the loneliest nation in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And some of us here are very, very lonely.
SPEAKER_01: I think loneliness is the big struggle.
SPEAKER_01: We having been all over the world, and especially in very communal nations like Latin America and parts of Asia where the family's really tight, and it's a really close-knit communities.
SPEAKER_01: You come back to America, it's very independent.
SPEAKER_01: We're very affluent, we can do whatever we want.
SPEAKER_01: So loneliness becomes a battle for us in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And I think about the rainstorms, and I think about the snowstorms that characterize the front range.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody know about that?
SPEAKER_01: And then this morning we get, I get in the car and I'm driving here, and I live in Black Forest, and so I'm I'm going south and then I'm going west.
SPEAKER_01: And when I'm going west, I'm just staring at Pike's Peak.
SPEAKER_01: And it reminds me of the majesty of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: That I can look at those mountains, that landscape of beauty, the majestic rocky mountains in the midst of snowstorms and in the midst of rainstorms, and might I say, in the midst of hailstorms, do you have your insurance up to date?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus died for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: He can be the pike's peak of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: He can come with the majesty of the rainstorms that you're living in, the snowstorms that you're living in, and the hailstones that are just smashing your heart, with the majestic mountains of the resurrection of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit coming to live in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: The same power that rose Jesus from the dead can live in us.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe.
SPEAKER_01: According to the working of his mighty power, that power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.
SPEAKER_01: And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The point of Easter is that the same dynamic power that rose Jesus from the dead can live in you.
SPEAKER_01: The life, death, and resurrection Jesus did, it's unique to human history.
SPEAKER_01: But your acceptance of it, you putting your faith in it, makes it yours.
SPEAKER_01: It becomes your experience.
SPEAKER_01: It's not something on a page in a Bible or a history book.
SPEAKER_01: It becomes the experience of a transformed heart.
SPEAKER_01: All of us need a transformed heart.
SPEAKER_01: We're born into sin, we're born into loneliness, we're born into depression, we're born into pain.
SPEAKER_01: I've had panic attacks.
SPEAKER_01: All of the road people know.
SPEAKER_01: I talk about it from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: I've had anxiety attacks, I've had panic attacks.
SPEAKER_01: I know what that's like.
SPEAKER_01: And without the power, the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit, I don't know how I would do.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just make sure we're clear here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about some pie in the sky, everything, all your problems just go away, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the power of God that is the majestic mountains like we see in the Rocky Mountains, a landscape of the heart in the midst of hail storms and rainstorms and snowstorms of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, Christ comes in the midst of the debris of this world and gives you hope.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection is about hope.
SPEAKER_01: It's about the hope of the living Jesus that changes your heart and your mind, and you begin to see some of these problems in our life are good.
SPEAKER_01: They're actually part of your calling.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the greatest, most powerful, most unique leaders I've been around who are Christians have been through some of the hardest things.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they took that difficulty, they took that stone and they let Christ roll it away, but they remember the stone.
SPEAKER_01: Becoming a Christian does not give you amnesia.
SPEAKER_01: Coming to Christ is putting Christ in the middle of our issues and asking for his power to come and set us free.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christ, of him who raised Jesus from the dead, is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you.
SPEAKER_01: So this spirit comes, and I love that it says, in your mortal bodies.
SPEAKER_01: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_01: But we really learned this during COVID, and I experienced something that made this passage really come alive.
SPEAKER_01: So we were having a conference here, and it was the John Bevere, if anybody knows who John Bever is, he was about to be the next speaker, and I wanted to hear John really bad, but I suddenly felt all those symptoms of COVID coming over me.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And it was exhaustion, chills, um, headache, all that.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm feeling it.
SPEAKER_01: So I go, so I said to Liz, I gotta go home, I gotta go home, I think I've got COVID.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, okay, so we go home, and somebody had told us about this uh company that comes to your house and does an IV.
SPEAKER_01: I said, call those guys.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what their name is, but just call them.
SPEAKER_01: So they came over, this nurse comes in, she's really nice, and she says, I'm gonna give you the vitamin cocktail.
SPEAKER_01: And so she injects this syringe with vitamin cocktail and just pumps it into my bloodstream.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, I was the bionic man in 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_01: It was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01: I went right into the bloodstream, man, and I was healed and never got it again.
SPEAKER_01: I just got COVID like three weeks ago, first time I've ever had it, and I actually had it for four days.
SPEAKER_01: But I never had.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was like I was riding on a cloud for at least 24 hours because of that injection.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why do I tell that story?
SPEAKER_01: I tell it because this is what the scriptures say.
SPEAKER_01: And the spirit, and if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead, is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies of his spirit who lives in you.
SPEAKER_01: So the power of the resurrection actually affects you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I've said to these young men and women that are single the best-looking women and the most handsome men are found in the church, not the bar.
SPEAKER_01: Those beer commercials, that's not reality.
SPEAKER_01: This is reality.
SPEAKER_01: Because the power of God working in our life makes you beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's flowing from your heart, and guess what?
SPEAKER_01: Even as age comes, and it will come, take it from me.
SPEAKER_01: God can still be transforming you your whole life from the inside out.
SPEAKER_01: Even as the mortal body and the mortal man and the mortal woman is feeling the effects of age, the power of God still works today.
SPEAKER_01: So come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.
SPEAKER_01: I will remove from your heart of stone, even a 4,000-pound stone, and give you a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one who believes in me will live.
SPEAKER_01: The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
SPEAKER_01: So for the unbeliever, you live once, but you die twice.
SPEAKER_01: For the believer, you die once, but you live twice.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the resurrection story today.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Come to Jesus, believe in him, and rise up.
SPEAKER_01: Rise up.
SPEAKER_01: Rise from the debris, rise from the anxiety, rise from the power of the devil, and come to the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: Rise up.
SPEAKER_01: Rise up to new life.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got their story.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well man, nobody's as bad as me.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, they are.
SPEAKER_01: And this church is full of really bad people who are only good because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't care.
SPEAKER_01: We don't care what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: We don't care where you've slept.
SPEAKER_01: We don't care who you hang out with.
SPEAKER_01: What we care about is the revolutionary power of the resurrected Christ being experienced in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen overnight.
SPEAKER_01: When I got saved at the University of Georgia, I didn't change overnight.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't sprout angel wings.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't look like some saint.
SPEAKER_01: But something happened.
SPEAKER_01: It was just the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly I knew I knew Jesus, even though I grew up in a very, very Christian home, but I didn't really know him.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you come out of a religious background, but you don't know him.
SPEAKER_01: You're not in love with him.
SPEAKER_01: But in a little chapel right across the street from my dorm, right off the campus there at Georgia, at 1 a.m., after doing some stuff that I shouldn't have done, I knelt down in this stained glass window church and I gave myself to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Charlton Hesson didn't walk in the room looking like Moses.
SPEAKER_01: But something transpired that I didn't fully understand.
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
SPEAKER_01: How about you this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Have you given your heart to Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Have you fully surrendered to Him?
SPEAKER_01: He wants you, He loves you.
SPEAKER_01: He's not asking for your Corvette.
SPEAKER_01: He's not asking for your girlfriend or your boyfriend.
SPEAKER_01: He's not asking for anything.
SPEAKER_01: He wants your heart.
SPEAKER_01: That's his home.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to what I'm going to say next, really important.
SPEAKER_01: Your tomb, the things that you're living in, and they're just so hard, can become your womb.
SPEAKER_01: The tomb can become the womb of new birth.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls it being born again.
SPEAKER_01: Born again.
SPEAKER_01: So he can take our tomb, and he's done it with all of us that know Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We've all had a tomb.
SPEAKER_01: He creates a womb, and in the very fabric of the darkness of where we're at, he rolls that stone away over your heart.
SPEAKER_01: His light begins to shine.
SPEAKER_01: You ask his spirit to come in, he does, and you begin the journey of being transformed.
SPEAKER_01: It's just the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Just the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: If that's you today, I want you to rise up.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to rise up and know Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to know Christ today, would you stand up?
SPEAKER_01: Just stand right where you're at, and I'm gonna pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Just stand up.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to rise up with the resurrection power of Christ, amen, amen.
SPEAKER_01: Rise up, amen.
SPEAKER_01: Rise up and know Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Who's ready?
SPEAKER_01: Rise up.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, rise up.
SPEAKER_01: Rise him up.
SPEAKER_01: Put your faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Not up to you.
SPEAKER_01: It's up to him.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I don't have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: But he has everything that I need, and I want to be a Jesus follower.
SPEAKER_01: Who else in this room would say, look, I've been a follower of Jesus, but I don't know that I've been a disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Where I've really given him those strongholds in my life that hinder the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: And today you're saying, I want to break off those dark areas of my life, and I want to be a real disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to let his resurrection power of the Holy Spirit live in me.
SPEAKER_01: Would you stand up?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Would you stand up?
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: So you know, it it you know, we've said it before.
SPEAKER_01: You know this.
SPEAKER_01: If you're married, you know this is true.
SPEAKER_01: That going to the ceremony in front of the Justice of Peace, or I guess you can do this in Colorado, your best friend or a pastor, and you get married.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's not like this, it's just like, oh, you're married, I do, I do, yes, yes, like that, does not make a marriage.
SPEAKER_01: It's only the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: So we're always in this life deciding new beginnings.
SPEAKER_01: So for all of us, it's new beginnings this resurrection day 2026.
SPEAKER_01: So I want all of you to come up that are standing.
SPEAKER_01: Would you just come up to the front and just line the stage?
SPEAKER_01: Just come up.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Come on up.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Father God, right now, you know what's happening in the hearts of these beautiful men and women created in the image of God, who are coming and taking the necessary steps to becoming a full, wholehearted Jesus follower, a disciple of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Would you bless them, Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Would you place within them this insatiable desire to read God's Word, the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: This insatiable desire to love people and to serve people and to worship you.
SPEAKER_01: Give them a desire for prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Give them a desire to know you truly from the inside out, heart to heart.
SPEAKER_01: Because we know, Lord, that this is the business you're in, and that is transforming hearts by healing the brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, take the pain, take the struggles, take the battlegrounds of the heart right now.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, would you do something even today?
SPEAKER_01: Even today, would they experience your presence and power like they never have before?
SPEAKER_01: I ask this, God, that you would do that in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you guys.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about The Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's theroad.org.