Tearful Youth Message About Death

Apologia Studios

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Yeah, so let's start. I had a whole thing prepared, messages ready for you guys to deliver, to talk about the defense of the faith and apologetics.

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I was ready and I got the call last night. Yeah, I'm going to move this out of the way.

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I got the call last night about what happened. And so I want to respect you and honor you and Rebecca and her memory and by changing what

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I had planned to talk about and to do, I think it's important.

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And you know, just forgive me here for a moment as I explain. I changed what

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I came to talk to you about in light of the context of God's Not Dead and this conference and the defense of the faith and apologetics.

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I want to do it in such a way as to speak to you in your grief and as you mourn in the light of the defense of the faith and apologetics and the fact that God is not dead.

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You know, there's something interesting that I think we have to all embrace and just really let it set in.

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Let it connect to your heart and mind right now. Death has the ability of focusing the mind.

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One of the things that we're really good at in our culture, Western American culture, evangelical culture even, is we're very, very good at hiding ourselves from death.

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We're very, very good at making sure we keep it, death, disease, sickness, decay, we're very, very good at keeping it away and keeping it into an isolated place, out of reach, out of view.

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We hide ourselves from death. It wasn't always that way. As a matter of fact, when the

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Reformation happened, when the light of the gospel broke into history once again, clearly communicated, death was something that everybody really embraced.

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It was part of the context of life. You saw it. You saw it around. You weren't able to get away from it like we are today.

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All the things that are around today to distract us from death, whether it's media, social media, television, movies, whatever it might be, is we find every way possible to keep death, disease, decay, really the vivid display of the fall in the world, we keep it over here in a nice, cozy, isolated place away from us because we think that that will help us, protect us in some way.

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But I actually want to suggest something different. I want to suggest that we actually embrace the realities of death like this moment actually gives to us in your grief and in your mourning because death has the powerful ability of focusing your mind.

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No more distractions. No more meaningless, cavalier speech.

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There's an old Puritan that actually came before his congregation wearing the death robe, what they used to bury people in.

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He actually came to preach a message. How would you like to come to church for that? We try to make it look as nice as possible and beautiful and inviting and this

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Puritan preacher goes up before his congregation dressed in the death robe. Kind of a different time, right?

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And he said that he came before them as a dying man speaking to dying men never sure to speak again.

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Think about that. A dying man to dying men never sure to speak again.

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I think that's really important right now. I do want to talk to you today about the defense of your faith.

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And I want to say something that I hope that you hear where it's coming from that I'm not abusing the situation or this moment but highlighting really the glory of Rebecca and those who are still in the hospital.

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I don't think there's any better way to get at the heart of the issue of apologetics than focusing in upon death.

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Is it meaningful? Does it matter? All these debates between atheists and Christians and all the theorizing and all the fights and all the piling on of evidence, all those things are important and we can engage in those things and ought to engage in those things on a regular basis.

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But you know what's amazing is that all those evidences, all those arguments, all the railing against God, all the hostility against God, really in this moment they fade away because death has the ability of focusing the mind and actually revealing to us what we really believe about life, the world, human beings.

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I've been a pastor for a very, very long time. And I've had the opportunity to speak at a lot of funerals.

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And I just want to be transparent with you guys and just be honest with you. I hate doing funerals and I hate when people ask me to do funerals.

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I've done funerals for some of my closest friends when their one -year -old, mysteriously, and still we don't understand, died.

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On a Saturday morning at 9 a .m. I got a phone call. He stopped breathing just out of nowhere.

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And I've been at the hospital bed, the death bed. I've been at the funeral grieving.

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And I've done so many different funerals. And it's really amazing. I wanted to share something with you before we start.

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The difference between how Christians experience death, handle death, walk through death, the difference between how

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Christians actually do it and unbelievers, the difference is stark.

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It's incredible. I was asked years ago while I was a hospital chaplain at a drug and alcohol rehab center,

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I was asked to do the funeral for somebody that was right before me a couple days before. Got out, went to use again and OD'd.

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I was asked to do the funeral because they didn't go to church. They weren't saved and they didn't know anybody. They knew me because I was his pastor in the hospital.

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And they asked me, would you please do the funeral? I knew he wasn't a believer.

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I knew his family, they weren't believers. And so I actually got to do a funeral for an unbelieving family of a boy, 19, 20 years old, unbelieving, didn't know

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Christ and had died. Guys, when I was in this funeral home standing before them, giving them the gospel, you should have seen the looks on their faces.

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You could cut the hopelessness in this room with a knife.

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You could feel it. It was this overwhelming despair.

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No hope, nothing, no life. It was darkness.

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It was darkness. It was darkness. And it's amazing because I've gotten to experience as a believer, as a pastor, those moments, seeing how unbelievers who reject their creator experience death and walk through it.

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And I've gotten the experience to walk in rooms like this, to be with people who know the same

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God that I do, who are children of God, who can stand in this room after losing somebody so precious and can actually sing with joy to God and know that God is there to know about the hope we have in Christ and in the gospel.

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There is no better apologetic argument to the world than the hope we have in the gospel.

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You need to embrace that. And again, I don't want to, I didn't want to abuse you.

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I don't want to abuse you today by pretending in some way that we could just move on without talking about what's happened this week.

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I know you're grieving. I know many of you guys are in deep mourning at this moment and I know that you're hurting.

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And I want to say something as we start. That hurt, that grief, that mourning, and we're going to get to this at the end,

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I'm going to circle right back to it. All of that is only meaningful and possible if God is not dead.

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You see, it's only with God that you get to hurt right now. It's only with God that you get to embrace the pain that you're in right now because of who he is and who he says you are.

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You see, if the world is right, if what they say is actually the way things are, if their story of the world and us is true, listen, then what happened this week just happened.

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But you see, when you embrace who Jesus Christ is and what God says about the world, you're allowed to embrace all the pain, all the grief in a meaningful way and move on.

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Move from that grief to confident assurance and hope of the glory of God.

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You have to see that right now. So I'm going to do something completely different than I had planned and I'm going to try to move through right now your grief and your pain and move that into the full assurance that we have in God.

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The Bible says in 1 Peter 3 .15, it says this, to sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, to set him apart as Lord in your heart.

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First and foremost, before we even talk about defending our faith and whether or not God is dead, the

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Bible actually says this, not just be ready to defend your faith, it says first set

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Christ, Messiah, apart as Lord in your hearts. That's the place you begin.

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That's where you fix everything. Before you get into answering questions and defending your faith, you fix yourself upon Jesus Christ and you see him as separate, holy

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Lord in your hearts. And then it says always being ready to give an apologia, a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that is in you.

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That's the basis of it all, but it starts with Jesus. It starts at the very beginning with him, focusing in upon him, setting him apart as holy before you begin the enterprise of apologetics and defending your faith.

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This all starts with Jesus. This all ends with Jesus. I'm going to go to a text that's

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I think very, very important. I want you to hear it. Please hear it. If you've heard it before, if you've read it before, come back to this and embrace every little moment here.

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I want you to think about the context of what you feel right now. I think we do something as Christians that we ought not to do is we tend to get jaded to the scriptures and we hear words like gospel.

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We hear words like heavenly father. We hear words like salvation, the cross, the resurrection, and be honest, especially if you've kids, if guys, if you grew up in a

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Christian home, you've heard your parents talking about this stuff your whole life, you've heard Jesus name, you've heard about the resurrection, church, all of this just becomes something that you maybe even become indifferent towards.

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You just jaded to it. Don't do that. You read the

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Bible sometimes and you read the Bible in some ways like it's this other worldly thing where there's no real dirt and air, wind, tears, pain, flesh.

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You read the Bible like it's some sort of disembodied, you know, existence and story. And like these were people with real hurts and real pains experiencing life the way that you are.

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And so there's a funeral happening in this text, John chapter 11, where Jesus has to go now to Lazarus who's been dead for days.

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Now you got to taste it all. You got to feel it, put your hands on it, let it be tangible.

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Everything that you feel right now, all that grief, all that mourning, all that pain, all those questions are circling around Jesus and His followers in this moment.

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Somebody that they loved dearly had died. And Jesus actually waits.

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He waits several days to make sure that they understand that Lazarus is really dead.

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There were actually superstitions that were hanging around and were kicked around in this day just regarding about like spirits when they leave the body, like how long they hang out.

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Couple days. And then there's no hope. So Jesus actually waits a while to get to Lazarus.

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And I want you to hear in chapter 11 of John verse 17.

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Now when Jesus came, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off.

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And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

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So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him. But Mary remained seated in the house.

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Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.

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Is that something that resonates? You think that, right?

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We think that. Somebody gets sick or somebody dies and we do that, don't we? We say first, like, where were you?

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Where were you? Where are you? If you had been here, they wouldn't have died.

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Jesus, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died. There would have still been hope.

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But listen. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

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Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to Him, I know that he'll rise again on the resurrection on the last day.

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She's got her theology right. She knows that at the end of time, there's going to be a final resurrection of the just and the unjust.

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God was bringing His kingdom into the world. The Messiah was going to mop up history, renew all things, bring salvation.

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And at the end of time, there was going to be a resurrection. She knows her theology, right? She's got the boxes checked.

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She could probably do what many of you guys can do right now. She could take a theological exam and check the box.

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And so Jesus, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And Jesus says, your brother will rise again.

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And she says, well, I know he's going to rise again at the resurrection on the last day. I've got my theology right. I've got it all together.

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I can answer those questions. Jesus said to her, in response to her saying that,

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I know he's going to rise at the end of time on the last day. I know that's when that's going to happen. Jesus said to her,

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I am the resurrection and the life. You're thinking about this wrong.

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It's not just then. I'm the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

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And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?

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Do you believe this? She says, yes,

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Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the son of God who is coming into the world. When she said this, she went and called her sister,

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Mary, saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling for you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.

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Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in a place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw

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Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet saying to him,

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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the

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Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

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And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see Jesus wept.

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So the Jews said, see how he loved him. Some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying?

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Here's something that I want to impress upon all of us right now. Listen, the

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Christian faith is utterly and absolutely completely distinct and unique. There is no other claim in the world, anything like this, of the one and only true and living

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God, the only God, the eternal God, from all eternity into all eternity, who took on flesh to actually walk among us in this fallen world to suffer along with us, to redeem people from their sins.

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And in the midst of all of this, God, the eternal God, the almighty God, the powerful

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God who actually weaves history together, the God who is so sovereign there isn't a maverick molecule in the entire universe, not a molecule, not a one.

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This God who actually controls all things, declares the end from the beginning. This God came down, tabernacled among us, walked among us.

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You can touch him. And watch, when he comes into the world that he created and comes into the world that he actually has mastered, when he comes into the world where he controls all things and carries it along to its intended destination and he enters into the suffering of this world and he is with death, he experiences death and the pain and emotions of everyone around him, listen to what he does.

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He weeps. So you say, where are you,

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God? Where? Where? If you were here, this wouldn't happen.

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And the sovereign, the one who rules all things, whose kingdom is over all, he comes with his people and he embraces all of the pain that you and I feel.

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And here's the amazing thing. He knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. And the hope you have for Rebecca, for you, is that if you are in Christ, you will experience the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

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You have to really embrace this. Jesus goes to the tomb and he says, roll it away. And what do they say? And the

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King James, they say, he stinketh. Right? And so Jesus tells him, roll it away.

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And so when Jesus goes to the tomb, he lifts up his eyes and he prays to the father and they're all witnessing this entire thing.

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And he calls into the tomb. He says, Lazarus, come forth. Now you got to capture something in this moment is vitally important to get.

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Listen closely. He said, Lazarus didn't have the option to not cooperate.

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Lazarus is dead, stinking dead, wrapped in burial cloths. He's dead and everybody knows it.

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They know that dead men don't rise. They weren't stupid bronze age idiots that didn't know dead people can't come back to life.

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They knew that dead people couldn't come back to life. And when Jesus calls with his own voice, he says, Lazarus, come forth.

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He speaks into death and then life. Lazarus comes hopping out of the grave.

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As he comes out of the grave, it's amazing. The Bible is so honest. Man -made religious texts don't do what the

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Bible does and tell you the whole story. Says some people believed, some people didn't.

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You got to embrace something that's very, very important. People don't believe in Jesus Christ because, wow, a man rose from the dead.

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I'll follow him. Do you hear that? You can, you can have dead people rising all the time.

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It doesn't mean people are going to come to Christ and believe. It comes fundamentally down to whether or not you will come to die with Christ and rise again.

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It comes down to whether or not you will turn from sins to the living God to come to Christ as he is.

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You're coming to the one who actually conquers our greatest fear. You're coming to the person who has the power over that single thing that really ultimately controls all of us.

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Here's what we all have in common. No matter how different you are, no matter the color of your skin, no matter your background, everything we all have in common is very, very simply this.

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Ready? You're all going to die. Every one of us.

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And the glory of Jesus Christ is not that he simply comes in to make your life better, to make you a better dad, make you a better mom, make you a better teenager, to make you a happy person.

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All those things, yeah, those are benefits of the gospel. Of course, God does those things. But here is really the glory of Jesus Christ.

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Jesus Christ comes to save people from their sins, to redeem them, to bring them from death to life.

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And here's the beautiful thing about Jesus. He could conquer death and the people around him.

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He could say to a little girl, little girl arise, and she comes back to life. He speaks to one guy and his son comes back to life without Jesus even being there.

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Jesus raises people from the dead and ultimately shows who he truly is in that when he came down, took on flesh, we hate

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God so much. If he came down, we would kill him. And we did. And Jesus, after being murdered on a tree, after dying on a cross, conquered that death, displaying who he truly is in this world and over this world.

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And something about Jesus you need to embrace right now. Listen, because Jesus is not dead, because God is not dead, you can rest assured that Rebecca is not either.

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Do you see it? Jesus says, whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

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Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Here's what you got to understand about the context of our story right now, is if you have turned from your sins to Christ, you've experienced a resurrection all ready.

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And though you close your eyes, and though you shed this tent, and though you have these moments where death enters all of our experience, you need to understand if you are in Christ, you will never die.

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And that's why we can sing. And that's why we have hope, brothers and sisters.

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Understand something. Listen, this is huge. All the fights, all the debates over God's existence and the arguments and the stories and the back and forth and everything else, they get focused in upon right now in these moments of death.

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Right now. Because you see, again, if the world is the way the secularists say that it is, if the world is the way the atheists say that it is, then we have a platform we have to stand on.

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Okay, I'll buy it. I'll buy your story, Mr. Atheist. I'll buy how you say the world is.

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So there was nothing, and then there was something. There was non -living matter that somehow in some magical reconfiguration became living matter.

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Our ancestors were fish, so we have moved from fish to philosophers.

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That's our story. We're in a godless universe that doesn't care. Richard Dawkins, famous atheist, he says this, that the universe displays this.

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There is no good, there is no evil, there is only blind and pitiless indifference.

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Richard Dawkins says, well, here's our story. All of us come from highly evolved societies of bacteria.

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We are in a universe that does not care about us. Above us is only sky.

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That's it. And if we accept what the world says about us, then all we are are our bags of biological stuff bobbing along in a cosmos that does not care about us.

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What happens in this world just happens. Get over it. If you stand on the world's platform, that is in fact the truth.

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There is no meaning, there is no purpose. Human beings are just another random result of evolutionary processes like snails or dogs or ants or chickens or rocks.

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You're just stuff. Now stop. Every one of you right now in this room knows that's not true.

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You're just stuff. Every unbeliever who goes to the funeral of a loved one who's died displays fundamentally in that moment they do not really believe what they say about the world.

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When unbelievers go to funerals, they grieve over the loss of loved ones just like you.

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When unbelievers go to funerals, they shed tears and they experience the wounding pain that many of you guys are feeling right now which displays something.

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They don't really believe their story. They're in the image of God and they're standing over here on our platform where we know that we and Rebecca and the people still in the hospital are in the image of God and that we share the beauty and value and dignity that comes with being in the imago dei.

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Here's what we know about the world. God, who is love, has existed for all eternity,

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God prepared before the world began a plan to bring about redemption for his glory and the good of his people.

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God actually spoke and the universe leapt into existence. He said, let there be light and bang, there was light.

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He said, let there be baboons with funny butts and bang, there was.

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He said, let there be this kind of creature and that kind of creature. I mean, think about it for a moment. We live in a world with pink birds.

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We live in a world with things like giraffes. It's crazy. It's crazy.

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God is hilarious. When you look at some of the stuff that God has done, we live in a world that God speaks and it comes into existence and then

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God does something utterly and entirely unique with us and our first parents. When he creates us, he does something he doesn't do with the other ones and he breathes personally into his image the breath of life.

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And he tells his image, go into the world, take dominion, be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth, be my image in the world, bring the light of God into the world.

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That was our vocation. That was our role, our job. We have value.

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We are not just stuff, matter in a purposeless universe. We have value and dignity and meaning when we stand on God.

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Here's my argument. If you don't start with God, you become a fool. Scientifically, you have no basis to appeal to science.

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You have no basis to appeal to any uniformity in nature. You have no appeal to logic.

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You have no appeal to ethics. What just happens, happens. You cannot be angry when descendants of fish bump into each other and cause pain.

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It's not immoral. It just happens. But when you stand on the biblical

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God, when you stand on Jesus Christ, when you set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts, you have a basis for science, logic, ethics and grief.

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Every one of us in this room right now knows in the midst of your grief, you're grieving because there was something more to Rebecca than protoplasm in a purposeless universe.

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That's why you get to grieve. You also get to have hope because of the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ.

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You know, and I know, that this is not the end. Let me pray for a second.

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Pray with me. Father, I pray you continue to speak, God, through me to your people. God, open our eyes to your truth.

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Lord, give me the words to minister to the hearts and minds of your people. Help me, God, to be faithful in this moment.

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God, I pray that you please open our eyes to your truth. For those who are in this room that don't know you, truly know you.

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I pray that today you would give eyes to see, that you would grant repentance and faith, that you would bring people from death to life now.

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And I pray, God, that you would help. It's in you that our soul trusts.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Here's what's really important right now to recognize.

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As we talk about God's not dead, and you talk about defending your faith, and you talk about the moment of grief you have, listen closely.

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This is something that I want you all to embrace. My good friend, Dr. James White says this all the time.

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You should hashtag it. You should say it a lot. You should really start embracing what it means. It's this.

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Theology matters. Theology matters. Don't forget it.

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I'm going to say it again so you don't. Theology matters a lot. You see, what you believe about God has consequences in the world.

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What all of us believe about God matters. It actually shapes the way that we look at the world. You see, you believe stuff about God and it provides a lens through which you actually experience the world, and then that lens you look through actually starts to impact how you live in the world.

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Theology matters. Everybody has a worldview. You've got to understand something, that there is nobody that is neutral.

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There is what? Something I want you to learn today and take away. Get this and you will get the sum of the whole thing.

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Ready? The myth of neutrality. Go ahead and say it with me. The myth of neutrality. Nobody is neutral toward God.

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The unbeliever who rejects God is not neutral. You should not be neutral. Jesus said this.

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He said, you are either with me or you are what? Against me. You're either with me or against me.

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Jesus says in a very, very famous picture, most of you guys probably sang about it in Sunday school, so I hope you know it.

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He says, life boils down to this. Capture this, you'll get the whole thing today. Believe me, there is no neutrality.

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And Jesus says this, there are two kinds of people in the world. There are two destinations and there are two foundations.

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He says this, watch. There is a fool and there is a wise one. There is a rock and there is sand, and there is the house that makes it through the storm and there is the one that ends in desolation.

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All of life boils down to that. Your debates with unbelievers in the world today boils down to that.

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Every realm you can think of, your personal life, your family, your church, the government, whatever it might be, it all boils down to whether you will be a fool or a wise one.

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And it fundamentally comes down to this. Jesus says this, when the wind and the rain and the storm comes, it beats against, watch, both houses, the fool and the wise one.

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They both get the storm. The issues of life are going to come for believer and unbeliever alike, for the fool and the wise one.

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And Jesus says this, the person who has their house built upon the what? The what?

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The rock. They make it through the storm, where the fool who does not build their life upon the rock is on sand and their house is blown apart and they end in desolation.

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This is it. This is the summary of all apologetics. This is the summary of epistemology. How do you know anything?

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Jesus says this, you either have your house built upon the rock or you're on sinking sand. And he says that the rock is the rock of his word.

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Where are you going to build your life? Where are you going to build your grief? Where are you going to build your apologetic?

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Where are you going to build your family? Where are you going to build your church? Where are you going to build your science? Where are you going to build your literature?

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Where are you going to build your TV shows, your films? Where are you going to build your recreation, your hobbies?

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Are you going to build it upon the rock? Notice something very, very important. You've got to really grapple with this.

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As soon as Jesus says that in the Sermon on the Mount, he gives that whole story of the two, the wise, the foolish, the rock, the sand, desolation, and the one that makes it.

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Listen, as soon as they heard Jesus say that, they said, he speaks as one having authority.

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You capture this for a moment now. Listen, in the world today, the way that we hang authority is we go, well, it's because this guy, right?

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I'm a martial artist. Some of you guys might know this. I can kick you in the head.

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It's something I enjoy. I like it. I love to kick people in the face.

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I always have, since I've been a kid. I've loved kicking people in the face. It's something I really like to do.

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I enjoy it. I have five black belts.

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I have four. I'm a master in a combat system of Tae Kwon Do. I have a first degree black belt in a combat form of Karate.

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I was a world champion in martial arts. Some of you guys know I did stuff for the Ninja Turtles franchise. I've just done a lot with martial arts.

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I want to tell you how it works in the world of Karate. When somebody asks you, well, okay, where'd you get it?

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Like, okay, how do I know you're any good? How do I know what you say has any authority at all? Well, in the martial arts, it works like this.

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Well, because this is my instructor. This is where I learn from. This is where my system comes from. These ancient dudes here were training.

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They were like, you get these images of people like in fields in Japan, like just all day long.

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It's just like some crazy martial arts, like all day, every day, training for combat.

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And you talk about where your system came from and your master came from. And I say, well, this guy was my master. Then that guy was this guy's master.

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And this is where our system comes from. This is how old it is. Martial arts works like that. Here's my degree.

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It says Master Durbin. And then over here, this is my master. Here's who signed it. And that's how it works in martial arts.

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And you know what's funny is that's how it works in many aspects of life. When somebody says, well, how do you know that's true?

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Oh, well, you see, we've looked at this evidence and this guy found this evidence. And then this guy over here, this professor, he says this.

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Well, where did he get that? Well, he learned it over here. And then this guy says it over here. We all build it upon authorities.

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You know what's amazing about Jesus? He says this, all of life boils down to this, two foundations, sand and rock.

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And you're either going to be on the sand and a fool, or you're going to be a wise person and be on the rock.

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And he says this, the rock is my word. Which one are you on? And know what they said? They said, oh, wow, that's amazing. He speaks like he has authority.

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He's not asking anybody to corroborate it, to give him a stamp of approval. What am I getting at?

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When Jesus Christ speaks in the world, his word is self -attesting.

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It is the words of the living God. We start with God's words. We don't get to it.

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We don't stand above God to be judge of God. Much of apologetics these days, many apologists that are lovers of Jesus and are saved in Christ, I believe, actually approach the apologetics endeavor in a wrong way.

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As though we need to build all these evidences and reason to somehow maybe get to God to let him be

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God. Jesus comes into the world, he says this, you're going to be a fool or a wise one. It depends on whether or not you're on my word.

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What are you on? I want to say this, if you don't start with God, you become a fool.

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If you don't start with Jesus Christ, you can't answer for the grief that you feel right now. If you don't start with Jesus Christ, you can't have any basis for science or logic or anything at all.

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If you don't start with Jesus Christ, we end in utter and complete futility. Theology matters.

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The unbeliever is not neutral and you're not supposed to be. It's the myth of neutrality.

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Oftentimes we go to the believer today and he says this, right? He says, I don't believe in God. I believe that God's dead. There is no

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God. You know what we do as Christians oftentimes? We believe them. You ever done that?

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You ever have somebody say they're an atheist to you, I don't believe in God, and you ever believe them? You know what

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God says about the unbeliever? Romans chapter one, verses 18 and on. Listen closely. You can go to it later. Romans chapter one, it says this, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth for that which is known about God is evident within them for God has made it evident to them.

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It says God has shown it to them. Did you capture that? Watch. It says that unbelievers are suppressing the truth and unrighteousness that God has shown himself to every single person who's ever lived.

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And the text goes on in Romans chapter one and actually says this, since the beginning of the world, the whole creation is testifying to the world about God, that all of creation is shouting to the world about God.

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Every single place the unbeliever goes, it's telling them about God, every place shouting to them about God.

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So they watch this. It says that they are left unapologetus without a defense, without an apologetic.

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So get this. Well, you know what God says about unbelief? Listen. What God says about unbelief is that every single unbeliever will stand before him without a reasoned defense, without an apologetic.

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God says to Christians, be ready with a reasoned defense. The unbelievers, Romans one, don't have one.

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They profess to be wise, God says, they become fools. Their thinking is futile.

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They don't want God in their knowledge, so they switch God for idols. And God says it's futility, it's foolishness.

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They know that God exists. Do you know proof? Little bits of proof that you can show that the unbeliever really does know

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God, that his problem is not evidence and light, it is sin. Here's proof that the unbeliever is not telling himself or you the truth about what they believe about God.

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Unbelievers go to funerals. Would you capture that for a second?

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Unbelievers go to funerals to say goodbye to loved ones. They talk about love as though it were some sort of a real meaningful thing.

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Unbelievers get morally indignant when evil things happen in the world.

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But you know what's amazing? The unbeliever stands on a platform where they say this, there is no God, there is no meaning, there is no purpose, my ancestors were fish, we're just highly evolved bacteria, there is no good, there is no evil in the universe, it's just stuff, matter and motion happening in the world.

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And then all of a sudden the unbeliever starts to walk in the world. And what do they live like? They live like a Christian. Do you see it?

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They act like there's things like good versus evil. They act like death is an enemy.

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I want to say this, listen closely. If you don't start with Jesus Christ and stand on his word, listen, death is not an enemy.

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If you don't have Jesus Christ, then death is not an enemy, it's just something that happens in this godless, purposeless universe, it doesn't matter, stop crying.

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But with Jesus Christ and standing on God's word, death is truly an enemy. It's happening in a world that God created that is good.

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Every one of us in the image of God, we know when we face death and grief and pain, we know that something is not right.

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It ought not to be so. And that feeling, that knowledge is absolutely right, something is not right in the world.

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This world is filled with sin and fall, and we know as Christians that God is summing it up, he is bringing redemption and salvation to the ends of the earth.

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I want to say this, watch this, because we have more to say later and we have a Q &A session, so I'm getting to the point here of getting to the whole story.

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Listen to this, watch this. You have a choice to make. You have a choice to make with Jesus.

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And this is the choice. You have a choice between a universe of total meaning with Jesus, a universe of total meaning with Jesus Christ, or, listen, abandon

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Christ, come and plant on the sand, and you have a universe of total meaninglessness apart from Jesus.

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I'm arguing for this. If God isn't the reference point in your life, in your apologetic, if you don't start with God's revelation, his word, to interpret your whole experience, then all you have is meaninglessness, all you have is just stuff in a purposeless universe.

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It's only with Christ that you can have any meaning at all. Standing on Christ and his word,

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I want to talk about something in light of your grief. Again, I wanted to show respect to you all and not neglecting to address your pain.

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The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 6, and this might really rub some of you the wrong way right now,

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I'm kind of doing something that's breaking the rules, by the way. I'm just going to admit that right now, there's kind of a rule, and that is that when people experience pain like you have right now, when people are going through grief like you are right now, this is not the time for the big answers.

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This is the time to grieve with you. This is the time to embrace.

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One of the things I say often is that when you go to the hospital with someone who was just in an accident or when somebody who is dying is at the hospital, it's not time to give all the answers.

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Christians love to do that. We love to try to give the right answers right away and make sure we bring comfort, because we love people. But it's actually the wrong thing to do.

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Sometimes when you get to that hospital bed, you have to just shut up. Just shut up.

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So I'm kind of breaking the rules right now by doing what I'm doing and trying to address your grief with the big answers.

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So I just want to confess that. If it was up to me right now, I would say this. We just sit here and we just grieve together.

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But I also want to provide a meaningful context for your grief. The Bible says in Isaiah 46 that God declares the end from the beginning.

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Now stop. Stop allowing things like that to just go right over your heads and to be a t -shirt.

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God declares the end from the beginning. Do you believe that? I'm going to say it again, and I want you to answer, but I don't want you to answer right away.

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God declares the end from the beginning. That fundamentally speaks to the truth in Scripture that God is the sovereign over every single detail in the world.

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Watch. The good and the bad. So I'm going to ask it again.

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The Bible says that God declares the end from the beginning. Do you believe that?

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Because that's the God that we worship. Which means watch.

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No matter what befalls you, no matter what enters into your life, no matter what you hear on a

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Wednesday in the a .m. hours, not one thing happens in this world that is purposeless.

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God is sovereign over it.

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It doesn't take him by surprise. In a fallen world, he is the sovereign who determines what does or doesn't happen in his world.

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Which is why, brothers and sisters, you can say with me,

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God causes all things to work together for good for those who love

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God, for those called according to whose purpose?

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His purpose. His purpose. So lay this down for a moment now.

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You have God who is the sovereign, who is the one who is in control of all of history, the one who actually has a purpose for all things.

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You might be asking this question right now. You might be saying in the middle of your grief, you might actually be tempted to say,

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God, how in the world can you say that you cause all things to work together for good when there is this utter and absolute mess before me right now?

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It is nothing but pain. It is nothing but pain. And here's what you need to consider.

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Is the God who says that he's sovereign over all things, who says that he's the first and last, besides him there is no

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God, that he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can stay his hand or say, what have you done?

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This is the God who entered into our own experience and touched the very dirt that we touch, experienced the death that we experience and the pain that we've experienced.

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And the early church, when Jesus was murdered and destroyed and torn open, when the early church witnessed the murder of Jesus, the bloody murder of Jesus, and then the resurrection of Jesus, when they were praying in the book of Acts, watch this, they said this, gathered in this city against your holy servant

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Jesus, and they started naming, they say, were Pontius Pilate, Herod, the peoples of Israel, the

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Gentiles, watch what they said, to do whatever your hand had predestined to occur.

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How can God, how can God say that he causes all things to work together for good?

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How can God bring good out of Rebecca? How? I want to point you to the most gruesome, violent, awful act that we've ever committed in humanity, and that was where we crucified the

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Son of God. The Bible says this, all those people,

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Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, the people of Israel, watch, all of them, different motivations, right?

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Right? Pontius Pilate, what is he? He knew Jesus shouldn't have been murdered, but what did he do?

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He delivered him over anyway. He says this, I'll wash my hands of it, it's on you. He's a coward.

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Herod's sick. The Gentiles, they just kill people, right?

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That's what they do. Crosses, kill them, they're good at it. The people of Israel, who rejected

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Jesus, he exposed them constantly. They all had different motivations, they all wanted to kill

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Jesus, and when they did, what did the church say? They delivered Jesus over to do whatever your hand had predestined to occur.

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God allowed the murder of Jesus, the death of Jesus, for your salvation.

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That's God's sovereignty over sin, and I want to say something as we go into our Q &A in a moment.

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Before my session later in the afternoon, I want to address three things.

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If you're thinking right now about your grief, I want to give you three things to stand on, and listen, if you have checked out in any way, or you're in a lot of pain right now,

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I just want to ask you to listen closely to these three things. One, often when

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I would be in this hospital years ago, I would sit in front of people, it was awful.

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I didn't expect it, I didn't ask for this, it was something that God threw me into. I sat in front of the most awful things every day of my life.

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I didn't expect it, I didn't see it coming, I thought I was strong. I did. I actually, people would say to me, my elder would say to me, and others would say to me at church, they'd say,

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Jeff, how are you doing? Because you see some messy things at a hospital on a regular basis, how are you doing?

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I used to say things like, I'm fine, I can disconnect, I can go home and leave it at the hospital, and I thought that was true, and there was a certain point after like years of this,

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I remember I went through this spell for about three months where I couldn't stop crying. Like I just couldn't stop crying, there was so much pain, and so much misery, and so much suffering, so many awful stories

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I had to listen to day in and day out, that at a certain point it just kind of broke me, hearing about all this sin and all this evil in this world just wrecked me, and I couldn't stop crying.

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And the first thing is, is people would come to me and they would say, Pastor Jeff, how could you say that God is who

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He says He is when this just happened to me, and I did this, and all these things happened, this death happened, now they're in front of me, and they're saying this, they're saying, how can you say that God is when this happened to me?

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And the first thing I want to suggest to all of us, as I always told them, was this, it is only with this

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God that you get to call any of that evil, or hurtful, painful.

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Listen, what are you standing on? Are you standing on the rock of God's Word, or are you going to stand on the sinking sands of autonomous human reason?

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Because listen, if God isn't who He says He is, then whatever pain you feel is meaningless.

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It's a world that doesn't care about you, it's a universe that didn't have you in mind. Descendants of bacteria have no meaningful answer for their pain.

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What I would often tell people is this, and I want to suggest to you right now, watch, it's only if you stand on Jesus Christ that you get to embrace all the pain that you're feeling right now.

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Without Him, it's meaningless. So what often people do is, if pain comes into their life, hurt comes into their life, and what they want to say is this, well

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God must not be there. And they try to run. God can't be there, it hurts too much.

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And they try to get away from it. But the truth is, is the farther you flee from God and your reasoning over these things, the farther away from any meaning you have.

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It is only with Jesus Christ that you get to experience all the pain in these moments. Because if the world is as He says that it is, then all of the pain you feel right now is legitimate, it's real.

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You can embrace suffering in the world only if you're in the image of God. Only if sin is real and actually has affected this world.

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That's the first thing. Only when you stand on God and His revelation can you have any meaning at all in your pain.

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The second thing I want you to think about is this, and this is where it gets crazy.

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And I don't think there's any way for us to tap this out. And I don't even think there's a way for me to finally explain it to you.

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Because I'm still trying to comprehend it. We can apprehend it, we can talk about it because it's there, it makes sense, but it's incomprehensible.

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With God as your foundation, you have a reason to complain about death. But the next thing that is just absolutely stunning and incomprehensible is the fact that, watch, the

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God that we've offended, the God that we've rebelled against, the God that we actually fall short of His glory, the

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God that we sin against in word and in deed and in thought every single day, that God entered into the world of rebels to purchase them, to redeem them, to bring forgiveness, which means this, that Jesus actually had a long time on this earth.

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It means this, that Jesus experienced the pain that you've experienced.

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Jesus, watch, He says this to somebody. They say, I want to follow you, Jesus. And Jesus says, foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the

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Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Do you know what that means? It's a very sophisticated and erudite way of saying this.

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Watch, I'm homeless, you still want to follow me? Jesus had to feed multitudes of people with multiplying loaves and fish.

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Why? Because there was no money in the ministry account. They didn't have beautiful churches like this. They didn't have all that you have right before you right now.

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Jesus did the miracle, don't forget, because there was no money. Don't forget that Judas, somebody closest to Him in ministry with Him, was betraying

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Him and stealing money from the ministry account. So in the ministry, He was being stolen from.

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In the ministry, they didn't have enough money to support their followers. That's why He feeds the multitudes with a miracle.

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Jesus experienced what you've experienced. He went to a trial where people lied about Him.

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You might say, where is God with all this gossip about me? Where is God with all this pain and backstabbing?

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Jesus went to a trial, God and the flesh, where they lied about Him, couldn't keep their testimonies together.

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Jesus actually had people abuse Him and whip Him and cut Him and hurt

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Him, steal from Him, abuse Him, leave Him. Those closest to Him abandoned

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Him. Jesus was actually in scenarios where He was at the bedside of dead family members.

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Jesus experienced all of that. The glory of Jesus Christ is not just that with Him as a foundation, you have a basis for science and logic and reason and grief and all those things.

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The glory of Jesus Christ is you have the one and only true and living God who enters into His own creation that's rebelling against Him to chase the rebels, and along the way,

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He suffers in every way that you do. This is the third thing I want to bring to your attention right now, is this.

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With this sovereign God who loves sinners, standing on His revelation about the way things are, you also have somebody who sympathizes with you.

01:00:00

This is the last thing I want you to think about. You might have had a couple moments since Wednesday where you've said things like, why?

01:00:15

Or, where are you? You might actually be tempted, you might be tempted to say to God, you are so far off and you can't understand this.

01:00:35

You might feel like there's this pain within you that you can't even bring to God because He wouldn't get it because He's God.

01:00:44

But here's the truth about the Christian message. With God as the foundation, you have a basis for your grief.

01:00:53

You know the one who is sovereign over the pain and the sin, and entered into it and experienced everything.

01:01:00

And here's the final thing, Jesus tasted everything that you've tasted.

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Name something. Think about it. People say, I was raped.

01:01:15

I was raped and I was tortured. I sat in front of girls who were raped and tortured.

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One girl who was in front of me being treated for all kinds of STDs, who just days before she was sitting in front of me, she was kidnapped on the street, brought to a crack house, chained to a bed, and abused for four days straight at a drug house.

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And she's in front of me. You might be tempted to say what she said. How could

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God understand my pain? Okay, well here's how.

01:01:58

Jesus, who you sinned against, who was perfect, who is love incarnate, he came in to rescue sinners.

01:02:10

And along the way, there were people that actually took him, tied him up, took him places that they ought not to have taken him, and did things to his body that should have never been done.

01:02:28

Jesus meets the victim in their pain. Because all the while, they're sinners and he's not, and they're the rebel and he's not.

01:02:37

He entered into our suffering to embrace all that we embrace. The sovereign actually experienced physical abuse and torture and pain.

01:02:48

He meets you in it. And let me tell you something, while God determines the end from the beginning and is sovereign over whether you will die or whether you will not, don't ever forget

01:02:58

Psalm 139 says this, all of our days are written in his book before there was even one of him. You believe that?

01:03:05

Do you believe it? Here is the truth. Jesus was sovereign over every experience that happened in the

01:03:13

New Testament, but watch this. He walked in it. He grieved with believers who lost loved ones.

01:03:21

He went to funerals where people were wailing and crying and hurting because of the pain and he was sovereign over it.

01:03:28

He knows your pain. And the glory of Christ is that when you stand on him, you're on the rock and you have the

01:03:36

God who controls all things that came in to save the sinners from their sins and experienced all of our pain and he sympathizes with you and me right now in our pain.

01:03:46

If you run from God, you're running away from the one that gives you a basis for your pain and you're also running away from the one who sympathizes with your grief.

01:03:59

You see, here's something that's important. The gospel, the good news is not simply about Christians going to heaven one day.

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I want to say this, when we talk about the gospel in terms of Jesus will save you and punch your ticket so you go to heaven one day, we're talking about it in the way that they didn't.

01:04:22

For the biblical authors, watch. It's about peace with God and reconciliation with God today.

01:04:31

Jesus is the Messiah. He is God in the flesh. He was righteous and blameless. He died for sinners and he rose from the dead and he commands men and women everywhere to repent and to believe, to come and die and rise again.

01:04:47

He says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate, and he starts naming everyone, father, mother, brother, sister, wife, he says, and even your own life, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

01:04:58

He says, you must take up your cross and follow me. That meant do the death march, come to die.

01:05:04

And here's my question to you. Now that death has focused your mind, where are you at with him?

01:05:22

Where are you at? I'm not asking you if you prayed a magic prayer. I don't care.

01:05:32

People say, oh, I prayed that prayer when I was six. Don't care. Don't care.

01:05:38

Doesn't mean anything unless it was true faith and you have truly trusted in Christ and are trusting in Christ.

01:05:47

And if you've truly come to be joined to him in his death and resurrection, let me ask you this question.

01:05:52

Have you died and risen again through faith in Jesus Christ? Have you come to do the death march to follow

01:05:58

Jesus Christ? Are you trusting in Jesus Christ right now? Have you been joined to him in his death and resurrection?

01:06:04

Because if you have, if you've turned from sin to believe in Jesus Christ, then Jesus says this, whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

01:06:15

Never die. Eternal life begins now when you believe in Christ.

01:06:21

And so here's the call of the gospel is repent and believe the gospel. Come to Christ for life.

01:06:27

Come to Christ for the foundation of all truth and meaning. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

01:06:34

No man comes to the father but by me. Come to Christ for life. Let's pray. Father, bless what went out.

01:06:42

Help God us to see you now and experience your presence in life now.

01:06:56

God, I just pray right now that this moment would not be wasted.

01:07:07

For everyone in this room, young and old, I just pray that as you sovereignly brought us together for this moment, as every single person in this room has been brought here by you,

01:07:22

I just pray that it's not wasted. God, I pray with all my heart for your mercy and grace in the lives of everyone that's in this room.

01:07:30

I just pray that you'd open people's eyes to you. And I pray right now for those who are grieving and mourning,

01:07:37

I pray that you would meet them in their pain and give them joy. In Jesus' name, amen.