SPEAKER_01: None of you out there is beyond the pale.
SPEAKER_01: None of you is so far from God that you're just in this place of cold darkness and God's forgotten about you.
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we uh thank you for the for the life uh that you live, the death that you endured, uh, the burial uh that you underwent, and the resurrection that you demonstrated.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and because of that, Lord, it's a reminder that you're the first fruit of those from among the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh for us who believe uh death is not the end, it is just the beginning to everything that we've looked forward to.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, today, let I want to sing a little bit louder like we just sang about.
SPEAKER_01: I want to sing a little bit louder.
SPEAKER_01: I want the gospel to ring and resonate out of me to the glory of God and the edification of my people.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Holy Spirit, illuminate the word today.
SPEAKER_01: Let us be reminded and reoriented as we remember all the things that Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Holy Spirit, have your way with us now.
SPEAKER_01: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat if you're if you're standing.
SPEAKER_01: Uh if you've got a Bible there at home, take it if it would.
SPEAKER_01: If you wouldn't open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you on this Easter Sunday about what Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: What Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you go to church every Sunday or you just go to church once a year and it's during Easter.
SPEAKER_01: Uh everybody engages in specific behaviors this time of year.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, depending on how you're wired up.
SPEAKER_01: Some people get a new pair of wranglers, get their boots shined, some people get a new dress, they get an Easter hat for their kids.
SPEAKER_01: Mom buys a big 38-pound ham, whatever you do.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but there's something in you that's kind of reminded and reoriented around, hey, I want to go to church on this day.
SPEAKER_01: You may think 51 other Sundays of the year, the church is full of hypocrites.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care about those people, but on that day, hey, there's something in me that kind of is drawn towards this.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to give you words for what you're being reminded of from the word this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to read the first 11 verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 as we think about what Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this, uh, 1 Corinthians 15, 1, Paul says, now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand and by which you are being saved.
SPEAKER_01: If you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.
SPEAKER_01: For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, and then he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
SPEAKER_01: Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom were still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_01: Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
SPEAKER_01: For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
SPEAKER_01: But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.
SPEAKER_01: On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
SPEAKER_01: Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.
SPEAKER_01: This is uh uh one of the greatest passages on the resurrection, and I just want to use it uh just to remind us uh what Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: And it's basically four things right out of the text.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing is this is that Easter reminds us of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Easter reminds us of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Paul begins this great chapter by saying, I want to remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received, which you in which you stand and by which you're being saved.
SPEAKER_01: Then he says, unless uh if you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.
SPEAKER_01: And it reminds us, Easter reminds us first and foremost of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to remind you of the gospel for two reasons.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, right here in the text, because many people believed in vain.
SPEAKER_01: Many people believe in vain.
SPEAKER_01: But now we say vain, we mean little to no consequence in their actual lived life.
SPEAKER_01: They said some words or they felt a feeling at vacation Bible school when they were nine or when they were 15 at youth camp or whatever, but it never really shows up.
SPEAKER_01: The truth that they professed never really gets trafficked in their life and lived out in the nitty-gritty details of their relationship.
SPEAKER_01: They're not forgiving, they're not gracious, they're not loving, they keep score, and over time they just kind of get to a point where they choke on their own hypocrisy and they're like, who am I kidding?
SPEAKER_01: I really don't believe this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't read the Bible, not because I don't believe it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's so foreign to me.
SPEAKER_01: The life that these people live looks nothing like the life that I live.
SPEAKER_01: And here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Not because the Bible isn't true, it's just that these people believed in vain.
SPEAKER_01: They might have given emotional assent to the truths of Christianity, but they did not have an experience, a transforming experience.
SPEAKER_01: As that great theologian Sting said in his autobiography, as he was talking about the fact that he's never really been born again.
SPEAKER_01: He said it like this.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the gospel does to people.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I've never had a born-again experience, and I say that with some regret.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've given lip service to the idea, but a devastating, ego-destroying, ontological epiphany I simply have not had.
SPEAKER_01: Now hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: Not all the other gibberish, but this this here's Sting, a man that's made almost a billion dollars in the music industry, and he says this.
SPEAKER_01: I say this with some regret.
SPEAKER_01: He's believed a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01: But what he's believed is just can be summed up with one word.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible uses the word vain.
SPEAKER_01: Vain.
SPEAKER_01: I want to remind you of the gospel because many people believe in vain because they don't believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, here's another reason is because our natural drift is towards forgetting.
SPEAKER_01: Our natural drift is people is towards forgetting.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like, oh, if you want to see uh what I mean, think of the last tragedy that that befell America, our country.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Uh it was 9-11.
SPEAKER_01: The Sunday after 9-11, churches were packed, and people are like, oh, this is spiritual awakening.
SPEAKER_01: The next Sunday, back to normal.
SPEAKER_01: Because we start off great and then we just kind of drift.
SPEAKER_01: Our natural tendency is to drift.
SPEAKER_01: And the drift started a couple generations ago, and now we are seeing the bad fruit of what began a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: With my, I use myself as an example, with my grandparents' generation, the gospel was believed.
SPEAKER_01: It was just, of course, we go to church.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, those cats believed it so much.
SPEAKER_01: They went Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying let's get crazy and get back to that, but the gospel was believed.
SPEAKER_01: It was just, of course, this is what we do, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So with that generation, with my parents' generation, the gospel was assumed.
SPEAKER_01: It's just assumed.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, everybody believes this, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you're good, you're good, we're good, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to get down to the nitty-gritty details of who Jesus is and what he died on the cross and what he died for.
SPEAKER_01: So the gospel was believed by one generation, it was assumed by the next generation, my generation, we confused the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We begin to kind of mix in this stuff like the new age and self-help and pop psychology, and the gospel got the the gospel waters got a little muddied and a little murky.
SPEAKER_01: It's just confused.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to see Jesus as the blazing center of it all.
SPEAKER_01: And now my kids' generation, the gospel's lost.
SPEAKER_01: They're called post-Christian.
SPEAKER_01: We're afraid to say what's obvious is that we just lost the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We lost the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Uh a writer that I've been reading a book recently by a guy named Kevin DeYoung, he captures it really well.
SPEAKER_01: He says this, he says the only thing more difficult than finding the truth is not losing it.
SPEAKER_01: What starts out as new and precious becomes plain and old.
SPEAKER_01: What begins a thrilling discovery becomes a rote exercise.
SPEAKER_01: What provokes one generation to sacrifice and passion becomes in the next generation a case for rebellion and apathy.
SPEAKER_01: The chief theological task now facing the Western church is not to reinvent or to be relevant, but to remember.
SPEAKER_01: We must remember the old, old story.
SPEAKER_01: We must remember the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
SPEAKER_01: We must remember the truths that spark reformation, revival, and regeneration.
SPEAKER_01: And so I agree with that.
SPEAKER_01: I agree with the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I want to remind you, brothers, of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Easter reminds us first and foremost of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: This gospel, he distinguishes it from all the other false, insufficient gospels out there.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I want to remind you of the gospel, brothers, that I preached to you.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you believe, this is the thing upon which you have taken your stand.
SPEAKER_01: This gospel, you can receive it, you can stand in it, you can be saved by it.
SPEAKER_01: It's rigorous, it's nourishing to the soul, it is engaging to the mind.
SPEAKER_01: It's not some fairy tale for little kids and women, but men really outgrow it, and now I can connect with God in my deer stand just as good as I can in a church.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder how many men are driving to their deer leash right now, even though it's not deer season, to connect with God during COVID-19.
SPEAKER_01: If that was really a sustainable reality, you you would all be right there right now.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not.
SPEAKER_01: It's an excuse for people who've drifted and forgotten the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We've forgotten what this is all about.
SPEAKER_01: This reality that we were created to grow into because everything else is ill-fitting, insufficient, and never enough.
SPEAKER_01: And so Easter reminds us, first of all, of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preach to you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm never going to get tired as your pastor of reminding you of the gospel, of just coming back and saying, I'm not here to be creative.
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to, I'm not here to say things no one's ever said before.
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to bear the torch that fell flaming from the hands of faithful men and women and remind you of the gospel on this Easter Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, Easter reminds us what is most important.
SPEAKER_01: It reminds us what is most important.
SPEAKER_01: Truth and tragedy both have this capacity to kind of remind us hey, I'm not sure that that thing I thought really was important is important anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Like right now.
SPEAKER_01: Is anybody just obsessed over who's gonna win the next bachelor?
SPEAKER_01: It just kind of fades into this kind of, I don't even want to confess anybody.
SPEAKER_01: I watched that, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Is anybody really obsessed where Tua Toga Waloa is gonna go in the draft?
SPEAKER_01: Great guy, great believer, I'm not dogging on the guy.
SPEAKER_01: It's just, I don't think people are just like, oh my gosh, when is LeBron gonna get back on the court?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the thing that matters most for me.
SPEAKER_01: My life is somehow deficient because basketball has been postponed.
SPEAKER_01: Here's one of the things that it reminds us what matters in truth and tragedy.
SPEAKER_01: Tragedy also ought to remind us, hey, who are the real heroes in this world?
SPEAKER_01: Is the hero the guy that makes$25 million a year playing a football, beats his girlfriend, and abuses drugs?
SPEAKER_01: Is that really a hero?
SPEAKER_01: Or is the hero some molecular biologist who's not slept in three days, who's locked up in a lab somewhere because, quote unquote, she's on to something.
SPEAKER_01: And she never got married because all the men that she dated were just like, you, you're married to your work, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You can't give me enough time.
SPEAKER_01: And so she's on to something.
SPEAKER_01: What if this woman goes on to discover a cure for the coronavirus four months from now?
SPEAKER_01: And the only stipulation for letting her research go is that she says, you can't charge people for this.
SPEAKER_01: Pharmaceutical companies could just cover their costs, but beyond that, it's free to the world.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she never married, she's got six cats, she drives like a 91 Volvo, and she lives in a rootie-tootie small apartment on the outskirts of Delaware somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: They said, I just submit to you today that that woman would be the hero.
SPEAKER_01: But no one will remember that Joe Burrow is going to go number one in the draft this year.
SPEAKER_01: See, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: Again, truth and tragedy have this capacity to kind of remind and reorient us around what is most important.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul does the same thing right here after he says, I want to remind you of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 3, for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received.
SPEAKER_01: And then he just lists off these things.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to just punch list a couple of them.
SPEAKER_01: He says, first of all, that Christ died for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ died for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: He never just kind of leaves it vague and unnamed, the death of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No, that Christ died.
SPEAKER_01: Because we would fill that in and consume that upon our lust.
SPEAKER_01: He says that Christ died for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: And because Christ died, not of natural causes, but for our sins, the death of Jesus is purposeful and it's personal.
SPEAKER_01: It's purposeful and it's personal.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want you to take away from that.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of where you are right now, wherever you're watching this, whatever you've done in your life, whether you did it last night or even this morning, here's what I want you to hear.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus Christ died for our sins, I want you to just hear this, just God just kind of whispering over the addiction you can't seem to break.
SPEAKER_01: Just this is simple truth.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be this way.
SPEAKER_01: Because a perfect God sacrificed his perfect Son for your sins and for my sins.
SPEAKER_01: And so your sins don't have to have power over you anymore.
SPEAKER_01: That's the great news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That's the great news on this Easter.
SPEAKER_01: This is a great reminder of, hey, these things are most important.
SPEAKER_01: These are the things you should build and bank your life and your intellect on.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, he says that he was buried.
SPEAKER_01: That he was buried.
SPEAKER_01: We kind of just skip over that, like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Burial is the confirmation that a person is actually dead.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, take one of your kids in the backyard and start digging a hole and say, lay down.
SPEAKER_01: Let me know how that goes.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: This is like uh this is like a mud fight.
SPEAKER_01: Burial is the most tangible reminder that, oh yeah, he he actually did die.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't swoon, he didn't just fall asleep, they didn't give him some kind of off-the-count, uh, uh, all the market drug where he just kind of looked like he was dead.
SPEAKER_01: People have to come up, they jump through all these mental hoops to explain what the Bible just makes obvious.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the third thing he says that matters, that he was raised on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: That the resurrection is a sign that God's accepted.
SPEAKER_01: The death of Jesus is payment in full for all of your sins.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, that he appeared.
SPEAKER_01: That he appeared.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6 says that he appeared to over 500.
SPEAKER_01: List all these people he appeared to, we'll get to that in a minute, but he says he appeared to over 500 brothers, most of whom are still alive.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what that means is these people could have come along and said, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Um when 1 Corinthians was recorded and said, Hey, uh Paul, that's not how it happened at all.
SPEAKER_01: They could have disproved it from the beginning, but they didn't.
SPEAKER_01: You think we're skeptical nowadays?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this was the age of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: These people were so skeptical, and these are the people that Paul debated in the public square, and he crushed their intellect.
SPEAKER_01: You don't think they wanted to get back at him?
SPEAKER_01: These people were alive and yet they had nothing to say.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's the truth.
SPEAKER_01: This is exactly how it happened.
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, that the Bible is reliable and authoritative.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what matters.
SPEAKER_01: These are the things that are most important.
SPEAKER_01: Notice he says in here twice, he mentions this phrase, and he says, hey, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Now, notice that the Bible doesn't say like the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: That's that would become this circular logic, like too dum-de-dumb, therefore too dum-de-dum.
SPEAKER_01: You can't uh tick tock, games like you can't question this because this just kind of makes sense because the Bible says, but no, no, the Bible's willing to put itself out there and it says it like this, in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, before it happened, the scriptures, the Bible said it was going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: Before it happened, in accordance with the scriptures means not that the Bible predicted it, though it did, but the Bible went on record as saying, this is how it's going to shake out.
SPEAKER_01: This is what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And all I had to do to discount the entire Bible was not happen that way.
SPEAKER_01: And yet it did.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it should cause you to do.
SPEAKER_01: Here's where that should engage your mind today.
SPEAKER_01: You should ask yourself, okay, that's right there.
SPEAKER_01: That guy didn't make that up.
SPEAKER_01: If it didn't happen, then the Bible could be proven wrong, but it did.
SPEAKER_01: So what is the resurrection?
SPEAKER_01: What does the resurrection mean for me when it comes to the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the third thing that Easter reminds us of is that God reveals himself.
SPEAKER_01: That God reveals himself.
SPEAKER_01: He's listening.
SPEAKER_01: I said, after he was raised, he says in verse five, and then he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_01: Then he appeared to James, then all the apostles, and last of all, to one untimely born.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, He appeared also to me.
SPEAKER_01: See, Easter remind us reminds us that God reveals himself.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why is that a big deal?
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go looking for him.
SPEAKER_01: He's revealing himself, and he has been since the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Do you did you know that?
SPEAKER_01: One of the first things God does is give, he creates tangible proof of his existence.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you wanted to leave it a mystery, or hey, you gotta kind of meditate and you gotta go through all these ascetic practices, and then you might get up to the level of nirvana where I dwell and you can believe that I exist.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's some Eastern mysticism nonsense that puts all the responsibility on you.
SPEAKER_01: The God of the Bible, the only God who was and is and is to come, didn't do it that way.
SPEAKER_01: What he did was you don't have to have a Bible, you don't have to have ever gone to church.
SPEAKER_01: You could be sitting there right now and just thinking, I'm atheist, I'm agnostic.
SPEAKER_01: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_01: How do you believe this?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I said a few minutes ago, in accordance with the scriptures, in other words, the Bible went first and said, This is how it's gonna happen, and then it happened that way?
SPEAKER_01: In the same way.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing God does is create.
SPEAKER_01: By creating, he establishes the most tangible proof of his existence.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it like this in Genesis 1, starting in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Just stop right there.
SPEAKER_01: Not a big complex sentence, eight or nine words.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Before God created the heavens and the earth, there was a beginning, not for God, but for us.
SPEAKER_01: It's God kind of saying, Hey, let me, let me, I want you to know not just that I exist, so you can win arguments in a bar somewhere with your buddies while you're playing sports trivia on the flat screen TVs, waiting on your chicken wings to arrive.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: God says, in the beginning, I existed before I did anything, but I wanted you to know that I existed.
SPEAKER_01: So guess what I did?
SPEAKER_01: I created everything.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
SPEAKER_01: And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness, and God called the light day and the darkness night, and there was evening and there was morning the first day.
SPEAKER_01: Now you have to ask yourself, if nothing else existed to motivate you, what motivated God to create anything?
SPEAKER_01: You're smart people.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you again.
SPEAKER_01: If nothing existed for God to look at and say, you know what, I want to prove myself to you that I'm good, watch this.
SPEAKER_01: Boom, here comes a dolphin.
SPEAKER_01: Boom, duckbilled platypus.
SPEAKER_01: How about that, huh?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, not impressed, boom, ostrich.
SPEAKER_01: No, nothing existed to motivate God except God.
SPEAKER_01: And the motive of God in creation is that he wants you to know him.
SPEAKER_01: He wants not just to believe intellectually that there's a higher power out there so that you can get in a circle with other people in recovery and kind of go, hey, I need a power greater than myself to help me regain control.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: So that you could taste and see and intimately experience the God that created everything.
SPEAKER_01: This is why he does it.
SPEAKER_01: Because he wants you to know him.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to know not just that he's real, but that he's knowable and he's available.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01: That Genesis 1:1, very first verse in the Bible, later in the New Testament, the book of Romans, chapter 1, says it like this for what can be known about God is plain to them.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has shown it to them.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have to go looking for it.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have to say, God just kind of said, Hey, I want to show you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you.
SPEAKER_01: Check this out.
SPEAKER_01: For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: In the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse.
SPEAKER_01: See, what God did is God created creation.
SPEAKER_01: Everything.
SPEAKER_01: Their six-day rhythm of creation.
SPEAKER_01: God spoke, God, God said, let there be this, there was this, and God said it's good.
SPEAKER_01: God said, Let there be this, there was this, and God says it was good.
SPEAKER_01: And on the seventh day, he rested.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what humanity has done: God demonstrates his existence, his availability, his reality, and the thing that motivates him is his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I want you just to know me and live lives that glorify me.
SPEAKER_01: And what we've done is we turned our back on the sun, on the creator God, and fell in love with the shadow of what God created.
SPEAKER_01: Horrible idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh, well, you know, let's just worship and serve creation instead of the creator who is.
SPEAKER_01: Forever praised.
SPEAKER_01: We took what God intended to remind us of Him, and we consumed it upon our lust, and it just reminded of us and our civic and social responsibility to be these activists that take care of creation.
SPEAKER_01: And we didn't read in the Old Testament where it says, hey, God feeds the wild beasts that you don't even know exist.
SPEAKER_01: You think God needs your help to sustain this?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying we don't be good stewards of creation.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that we don't turn our back on the creator and fall in love with what he created without asking this question: how did this get here?
SPEAKER_01: And please leave out the tectonic plates and erosion and flawed data from Charles Darwin.
SPEAKER_01: Please, it's all been disproven.
SPEAKER_01: So you got to ask ourselves, hey, is this God really a God that reveals himself and has been from the beginning?
SPEAKER_01: Here in the text, listen to the people that God revealed himself to.
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself where I see myself on that list.
SPEAKER_01: He just lists it out there.
SPEAKER_01: He says, He says, hey, in accordance with the scriptures, verse 5, and then he appeared, and he starts with Cephas.
SPEAKER_01: Cephas, not a name you're probably familiar with.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going, hey, is that kind of what where's that guy?
SPEAKER_01: His name you're probably more familiar with is Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Peter.
SPEAKER_01: And so God reveals himself to Cephas, Peter, people who've blown it.
SPEAKER_01: People who are like, hey, I did what I said I'd never do, and I ain't got a leg to stand on.
SPEAKER_01: And God appears to him.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, one of his post-resurrection experiences, he tells people, hey, go tell my disciples and Peter.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want Peter to slink off in shame and just think, oh man, I blew it.
SPEAKER_01: I had one chance.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're out there this morning and you've just blown it, you said, I would never do that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, God, I'll never do that.
SPEAKER_01: I promise you I'll never do it.
SPEAKER_01: And you did it.
SPEAKER_01: God will reveal himself to you.
SPEAKER_01: Next on the list is the 12.
SPEAKER_01: The 12, his 12 disciples who that referring to, people who doubted it, who failed to keep their word, people who fell asleep, a couple of them in the garden, right before they came to rest, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, could you not stay awake for an hour?
SPEAKER_01: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: I thought you guys were with me.
SPEAKER_01: They doubted it.
SPEAKER_01: He appears to them.
SPEAKER_01: The 500 brothers, those who wanted to believe it, kind of like, I hope this is true.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, people in the Bible, many of them did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, that he was deity until after the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't get out of the tomb on Easter Sunday and look and kind of go, hey, hey, what'd I say?
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: How do you like me now?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: He comes to these people and just appears and says he appears to James, which is his brother.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_01: Telling people all along, hey, listen, the Son of God's gonna go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of men, but they don't worry.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna tear this temple down three days, I'm gonna raise it back up.
SPEAKER_01: And your brother just rolls his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Show off! Can you believe him?
SPEAKER_01: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: And your brother watches you be nailed to a stick on a rainy Friday by a bunch of religious goofballs.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's like, well, it was fun while it lasted.
SPEAKER_01: And then he appears to his brother.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is this is that God appears to your family members who need it.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you just stop right now and just kind of just pray and just ask the Lord, just think of somebody.
SPEAKER_01: Don't point at him like, I'm praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: Hope God reveals himself to you because you stop being mean to me.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: It's bigger than that.
SPEAKER_01: Just, just maybe in the quietness of your head and heart, you could say, hey God, would you reveal yourself?
SPEAKER_01: You appeared to people in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Would you reveal yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Would you make manifest and obvious your reality to this person?
SPEAKER_01: I've had conversations with them.
SPEAKER_01: I've tried to win debates with them, and all it's done is push them further and further away from God.
SPEAKER_01: Despite my best efforts to be consistent, I've been inconsistent in front of them, and it's caused them to doubt and to mock me in my faith.
SPEAKER_01: But if you just reveal yourself to them, that would change everything.
SPEAKER_01: After James, it says all the apostles, these followers who still have questions.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, Paul says, To me.
SPEAKER_01: To me.
SPEAKER_01: Someone who's ashamed of how he's lived.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you are watching this, but if you have shame in you for how you've lived, the Bible relates to you.
SPEAKER_01: This guy, Paul, look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and and last of all, as to one untimely born.
SPEAKER_01: Those two little phrases, untimely born is where we get our English word miscarriage or abortion.
SPEAKER_01: What Paul is saying is that, hey, uh, he refers to himself as somebody that, hey, I felt like my life was worthless.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody cared if I lived or if I died, I didn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: And people saw him, he persecuted Christians.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he did for a living, okay?
SPEAKER_01: He was the biggest adversary of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And so he persecuted or killed Christians.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, hey, I, and last of all, he appeared to me.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't just angry.
SPEAKER_01: I just felt so alienated from everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: I just took it out on them.
SPEAKER_01: And yet God appeared to me.
SPEAKER_01: And that changed everything.
SPEAKER_01: Here's one of the things that Easter kind of reminds us of is that God appears, that God reveals himself to people.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go looking since the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And from that point forward, anybody who's ever wanted to know or think rightly about God has a tangible backdrop and a reminder scrawled on the pages of nature all around them that says, not only is there a God, but he wants you to know him.
SPEAKER_01: Lastly, Easter reminds us of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Of grace.
SPEAKER_01: If Easter is about anything, it's about grace.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is a little word that represents this big reality.
SPEAKER_01: Is that Jesus Christ left heaven, came to earth, took on humanity, fully God, fully man, lived a life that we never could, died a death on the cross that we should have died.
SPEAKER_01: And he does all this and rises from the grave to make available to you and I this life-altering reality called grace.
SPEAKER_01: If you've come to the end of your capacity and you're tired of trying, uh, then then grace is for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're sitting there on your couch today and you're just kind of thinking, you have no idea how bad I have put it in the ditch, grace is for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you grew up around in a religious family that went to church all the time and they were mean about it and they were controlling about it, and you're just saying, hey, no one's gonna control me, grace is for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're like, dude, I grew up almost in like a cult, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It was crammed down my throat.
SPEAKER_01: And when I got 17, I bolted, and I'm never doing that again.
SPEAKER_01: No one's ever gonna have control over me again.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is for you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Grace takes unworthy people and makes them worthy.
SPEAKER_01: Grace, you say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: It's right there in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: He says, verse 9, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
SPEAKER_01: But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever asked yourself, how did you come to be the person you are today?
SPEAKER_01: What explains your life?
SPEAKER_01: Paul was, people were so afraid of Paul in Acts chapter 9 when God revealed himself to him, knocked him to the ground, struck him blind.
SPEAKER_01: God also uh appeared to this other man over here and said, Hey, I want you to go, I want you to go talk to Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, No, no, no, no, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I'll take a zero, not doing that, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because people are afraid of him.
SPEAKER_01: His reputation preceded himself.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he says here in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 10, but by the grace of God I am what I am.
SPEAKER_01: How'd you come to be the person you are as you sat there in your office or on your couch, in your living room, in your bedroom, watching this?
SPEAKER_01: How'd you come to be the person you are?
SPEAKER_01: What role did grace play in the development of you becoming you?
SPEAKER_01: Paul said, Hey, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says this, but his grace towards me was not in vain.
SPEAKER_01: His grace towards me was not in vain.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember, our passage started off in the first couple verses talking about this word.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, people have believed in vain, and now it ends with this word where the same word vain where Paul says, His grace towards me was not in vain.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the grace of God acted upon me with such consequence and such conviction, I became somebody I've never been before.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to ask you, has that ever happened for you?
SPEAKER_01: Or as you sit there and you just think, this is just another reminder that I am not what the Bible talks about.
SPEAKER_01: I could never do that.
SPEAKER_01: None of us could, apart from grace.
SPEAKER_01: None of us could, apart from the fact that God, in his mercy, revealed himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to end this morning just by reminding you what the Bible says about this thing we called grace.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to wash you with the word, just by reading four passages of scripture about the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first one.
SPEAKER_01: It's from John 1, starting in verse 14, just verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and this is what you hear this word in church sometimes, the incarnation, God just took on flesh, baby Jesus in a manger.
SPEAKER_01: This is what it says.
SPEAKER_01: And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_01: And we have seen his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Glory is the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Without one, you don't need the other.
SPEAKER_01: If there is no truth, and some of you texted me after Good Friday, hey, you kind of got after us tonight, man.
SPEAKER_01: You were intense.
SPEAKER_01: If there is no truth, there's no need for grace.
SPEAKER_01: This is why the Bible says it's not a mystery, it's an invitation to experience of Jesus that he's full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, you can no longer say, I can no longer say, Well, my God's a God of love.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, he's a God of love.
SPEAKER_01: He's also a God of truth.
SPEAKER_01: Because without truth, why do you need grace?
SPEAKER_01: The truth is that we've all sinned and fallen short of God's standard.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, we're all in need of grace.
SPEAKER_01: We're all just as guilty as Paul was.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't persecute the church, but we did plenty of other things.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible just says, hey, he's full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I want you to understand about grace is that God is full of it.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 7 says this in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, our sins, big Bible word for sins, according, hear this part, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to draw your attention to two parts of that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this next phrase.
SPEAKER_01: According to the riches of his grace.
SPEAKER_01: The standard by which God relates to you and I is not the standard of our behavior.
SPEAKER_01: Because if he did, I'd be in hell right now.
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be sitting here surrounded by nice smelling lilies preaching to you about this gospel, about what Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: God does not relate to us according to our behavior.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't said differently, he doesn't give us what we deserve.
SPEAKER_01: He relates to us according to the riches of his grace.
SPEAKER_01: And the riches, hear that word, riches of his grace.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the book of Romans, where sin did abound, grace did abound all the more.
SPEAKER_01: God is so rich in grace, he has more grace than you have sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so you've got to just come to the point.
SPEAKER_01: You can't disqualify yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You can't just say, but look, I did this, and then I did this and then I did this.
SPEAKER_01: This God who's been speaking to you since the creation of the entire world, everything you see, he just nods and kind of goes, Yep, I know, I know, I know, I know, and I got more grace than you got sin.
SPEAKER_01: I got more good than you got bad.
SPEAKER_01: You go, well, how do you know that?
SPEAKER_01: The next part of the verse, look at it.
SPEAKER_01: He says, according to the riches of his grace, hear this part, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, before God ever created you, before he ever offered you grace, he had all wisdom and insight.
SPEAKER_01: He knows everything you've ever done.
SPEAKER_01: The thing you're most ashamed of this morning, God is most ready to forgive and just lavish grace on you.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, I mean, I've never told anybody.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to tell God.
SPEAKER_01: He already knows.
SPEAKER_01: Because he has all wisdom and insight.
SPEAKER_01: With all wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to add to his wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to say, hey, I know you were probably busy checking on really important people, but did you see that that one Friday night I kind of snuck out and my parents don't know?
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_01: And I relate to you according to the riches of my grace in all wisdom and insight.
SPEAKER_01: He gave you grace, knowing full well everything you would ever do.
SPEAKER_01: This is the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what about grace?
SPEAKER_01: First of all, God's full of it.
SPEAKER_01: Second, he relates to you out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16 says this let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the third thing God says about grace.
SPEAKER_01: Come to me because of it.
SPEAKER_01: When you mess up, don't slink off somewhere and write about it on some anonymous post, on some social media platform that no one reads anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Don't text your friends on your burner phone your parents don't know about.
SPEAKER_01: God says, Come to me.
SPEAKER_01: If you really believe that I'm rich in mercy and grace, that I got more of that, that I got more good than you got bad, then why would you not come to me?
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, hear this.
SPEAKER_01: This is Acts chapter 20, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Same guy, Paul.
SPEAKER_01: The same guy that persecuted and killed Christians.
SPEAKER_01: That everyone was deathly afraid of because his reputation preceded himself.
SPEAKER_01: He was like Pig Pen in the peanuts cartoon strip.
SPEAKER_01: There was just a cloud of destruction that went before him.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone was afraid of him.
SPEAKER_01: No one wanted to be around him.
SPEAKER_01: No one liked him.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Man, my life was a miscarriage, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It didn't matter if I lived or died, so therefore, in my mind, it didn't matter if you lived or died.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the power of grace.
SPEAKER_01: He's nearing the end of his life.
SPEAKER_01: And he writes these words in Acts chapter 20, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: But I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself.
SPEAKER_01: If only I may finish my course, and the ministry that I've received from the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That I may finish my course and the ministry that I've received from the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What is the ministry that this violence breathing out marauder has received for the Lord Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: What did grace say?
SPEAKER_01: All right, here's what you gotta do the rest of your life, Paul.
SPEAKER_01: This is not penance, this is possibility.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God told him to do the rest of your life, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Paul's bracing for impact.
SPEAKER_01: He's blind for three days in Acts 9, and this guy comes to him, lays hands on him, and prays because it's not just the Apostle Paul's that God uses, it's the little quiet portion no one knows about that God says, Hey, go pray for this guy.
SPEAKER_01: And your prayer is gonna open his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: And then Paul's bracing for impact.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what have I got to do?
SPEAKER_01: You can have my house, you can have my camels, you can have my donkeys, you can have all my books, you can have everything.
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you trying to pay me back here?
SPEAKER_01: This is this is you can't pay me back.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want you to do the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: So, what does God tell us about grace?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, I'm full of grace, I'm full of it.
SPEAKER_01: I relate to you out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Come to me because of it.
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, he says this tell people about it.
SPEAKER_01: Tell people about it.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a lunch conversation today.
SPEAKER_01: What do you want the people that you're fixing to eat lunch with to understand about the grace of God?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want them to understand?
SPEAKER_01: He says, hey, hey, mom and dad, hey, hey kids.
SPEAKER_01: I know you might, oh my kid's five.
SPEAKER_01: You don't think your kid's five years old, up in his room destroying stuff that you never know about?
SPEAKER_01: And if he just understood grace, would he just come to you and go, you won't believe it, mom?
SPEAKER_01: You said don't jump on the bed, I jumped on the bed, and I don't jump on the bed, I jumped like Spider-Man on the front of my dresser, and that bad boy tips over, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_01: That big thud you heard, that wasn't thunder, that was me, and I think it's broke.
SPEAKER_01: What would be a graceful response to that be?
SPEAKER_01: After you stop beating him, of course.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: This is grace.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: Easter comes along and says, Oh, by the way, I want you to remind you of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be reminded of what's important because I don't want you to flitter your life away on frivolous, frothy nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, it also reminds us that God reveals himself.
SPEAKER_01: God reveals himself.
SPEAKER_01: None of you out there is beyond the pale.
SPEAKER_01: None of you is so far from God that you're just in this place of cold darkness and God's forgotten about you.
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
SPEAKER_01: How do you know that?
SPEAKER_01: Because of grace.
SPEAKER_01: And it's available to you.
SPEAKER_01: If Easter is about anything, it's about grace.
SPEAKER_01: That God lived the life we never could, and he died the death that I should, and you should have died for your sins.
SPEAKER_01: But because he died for our sins, grace is available to you.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Take a minute, think about what you've heard this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We'd like to teach the Bible and then give you some soul space to think about it.
SPEAKER_01: So some questions come up on your screen.
SPEAKER_01: You can talk about these around lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Or you can just, dad, you can just, because you're the spiritual leader of your home, you can just say, hey, here's what I want you guys to understand about grace.
SPEAKER_01: But let's just take a moment and think about what the word of God has said to us today.
SPEAKER_01: Let me voice a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of ornamentation and augmentation gets glammed on to the gospel this time of year.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of sentiment, not much principle.
SPEAKER_01: But today, Lord, we just saw in your word what Easter reminds us of.
SPEAKER_01: It reminds us of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We have lost the gospel in America.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to reclaim the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't need to be reinvented.
SPEAKER_01: It just needs to be discovered.
SPEAKER_01: Easter reminds us of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It reminds us of what matters, what's most important.
SPEAKER_01: So, God, today I pray for the 13-year-old girl who's just kind of getting to that age where it's kind of like, hey, this is important.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta be doing this, you gotta have a boyfriend.
SPEAKER_01: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, just reveal to her what's most important.
SPEAKER_01: What's most important for a 13-year-old girl that she live from the inside out, not from the outside in.
SPEAKER_01: Remind us to God that you're a God of revelation and you reveal yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You have been since day one, and you will continue to.
SPEAKER_01: So we're without excuse.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, God, just remind us of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Remind us of grace today.
SPEAKER_01: Grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to live upright in moral lives.
SPEAKER_01: People who've been immoral for a long time can be moral again because of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we're thankful for that.
SPEAKER_01: But most of all, we're thankful for you.
SPEAKER_01: Your well-lived life and your well-died death.
SPEAKER_01: We're humble today.
SPEAKER_01: So, Holy Spirit, just brood over us while we think a little bit in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we're humble today that grace is greater than all of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: And grace is not a process, it's a person.
SPEAKER_01: It's a crucified, risen, sovereign king of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I so want you to know me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna create everything and it's gonna redound to my glory.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn your back on me and fall in love with the shadow of what I created.
SPEAKER_01: This is just here to testify about me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be like the Pharisees who searched the scriptures because they testify of me and yet they refuse to come to me to have life.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray for anyone watching today who's never come to you for life, that today you would reveal yourself to them.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, God, they would stop, they would not settle for having a third hand experience with you based on someone else's secondhand representation of you.
SPEAKER_01: Well, my family, fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_01: Your family's not God.
SPEAKER_01: Do not give your family the power to misrepresent God to you.
SPEAKER_01: God, that's why we open the Bible here every Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Because we trust you to represent yourself and to reveal yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that Easter reminds us that you're a God of revelation.
SPEAKER_01: You're rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_01: And your mercy is based on prior knowledge of the absolute worst about us, and you remain unquenchable in your desire to know us, pursue us, bless us, forgive us, and lavish upon us grace upon grace.
SPEAKER_01: That is humbling and it's compelling.
SPEAKER_01: And so for that we say thank you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us again this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Know that our prayers are with you.
SPEAKER_01: We anticipate being with you as soon as humanly possible.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna continue to abide by the guidelines.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but when the first chance we get, let's come together and let's celebrate.
SPEAKER_01: For right now, if you would stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: I want to speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Grab the person who's not getting out of their seat and make them stand up right now.
SPEAKER_01: Uh hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus rose from the dead is what the Bible calls the first fruits of those from among the dead.
SPEAKER_01: The law of first fruits means there's going to be more fruit.
SPEAKER_01: That means you can be changed.
SPEAKER_01: You can live differently.
SPEAKER_01: You can be different.
SPEAKER_01: Not just because of grace, but because of a God of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Come to this God.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.