I Am (Part 8) - The Resurrection and the Life

hi Matt Chandler here pastor of the village Church just want to thank you for streaming this sermon on your device I wanted to just before we get going here just lay before you a deep conviction we have that this video sermon that we've prayed really stirs up your affections for Jesus and shapes you and mold you into the image of the son would just be supplemental to your relationship with the Lord and in no way would replace the church you should be plugged into or the pastor that God has put over your life to Shepherd and care for your soul and so please enjoy the next hour or so of this message we have prayed that God would use it in a profound way in your life blessings I am the bread of life whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in Me shall not thirst I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the life is life I am the door if anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture I am The Good Shepherd the Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me I am The True Vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more food I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who believes in me shall never die well good morning Happy Easter if you have your Bibles why don't you go ahead and grab those will be in John chapter 11 if you don't have a Bible there should be a hardback black 1 somewhere around you I know this is Easter and so everyone's here even those of you maybe come a few times a year if you don't own a Bible that's our gift to you if you want a nicer one this would help us out you can have the connection central after the service we've got a lost-and-found in there you might even find the one that you left here Christmas Eve in there and and so if you want to grab those and clean it out or maybe get some Easter gifts of journals and Bibles for some of your family members sunglasses reader glasses in there anyway just glad that you are here so let's grab a Bible I want you to see that I'm not making anything up here but we're gonna just read the Bible we've been in the middle not in the middle this actually concludes a series that we've been in for the last 7 weeks on the I am statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John and what we've said is that we wanted to get our mind around not just what Jesus has done but who he is in the belief that understanding who he is would embolden and strengthen our faith in what he says he has done on our behalf and so that's what we've been doing the statement that we'll be covering today as I am the resurrection and the life it's actually the fifth of the seven statements we rework to the order so that on Easter morning a morning we're celebrating the death of death and that God's complete and utter victory over sin forever we could talk about Jesus being the resurrection and the life and so let me just lay before you the way I want to argue for the next 35 minutes and then you can decide how much you want to be dialed in here is my argument out of the text that Jesus wants to invade our present reality so however you've come into this room and I know what we've got I know some of us are very strong believers I know some of us are infants in our faith others of us are here just in case there is a god one day we want to just have this kind of on our resume so the rest of the you're not really on our ray but we know there might be a god and so we just want to have this down that no no I was there Easter of 16 and and so I know that's some of you others of you are here because you're crazy religious family member brought you or that weirdo co-worker of yours that's always reading their Bible and listening to weird music at their desk has brought you here also so I know we're all over the map today and that's okay but I want to just lay before you that however you came in I believe that Jesus wants to invade your present reality and accomplish two things he wants to kind of untangle your past and then take kind of the hope that you have in your future and pull it into the present and so that that's I think the argument we're gonna see in John chapter 11 right as we talk about Jesus being the resurrection and the life that Jesus wants to invade our present regardless of how we've come in regardless of who we are and he wants to start to untangle our past and then grab our future hope and pull it into the presence and that that that's what I think we're gonna see in this text so John 11 we're gonna start in verse 17 but while you find that let me catch you up on the narrative Jesus is close friends with this family if you've got a background in church you'll know of this family it's Mary Martha and their brother Lazarus the scriptures are clear that Jesus loves this family Mary is the one if you know your Bible again if you don't it's fine but if you've got a church background Mary's the one that wets Jesus's feet with her tears and washes his feet with her hair there's a devotion in this family a love for Jesus in this family that love is reciprocated by Christ he's a fan of this family if we could use that language and Jesus and His disciples had been doing ministry around Jerusalem people in Jerusalem tried to kill Jesus it was not Jesus's time to die and so Jesus and His disciples left Jerusalem and went out into the countryside and we're doing ministry outside of there when Lazarus gets sick and he gets bad sick and so Mary and Martha send a runner to Jesus to let Jesus know hey Lazarus is sick can you come back can you help us and so when Jesus receives this message that Lazarus is sick he says this this is not the sickness that leads to death but rather is the sickness that will glorify my father so already we've got a category that most of us don't like to talk about right the category of a sickness that brings glory to God and so Jesus hears that and then continues to minister for a couple of days instead of going to Bethany where Lazarus is dying and then we read that Lazarus dies Jesus then says hey we need to head to Bethany his disciples go didn't they just try to kill us there Jesus says yes we're going back to Bethany for our brother Lazarus has fallen asleep the disciples who and this should always encourage you are really slow to understand say well yeah he's been sick he should be resting to which jesus replied no no he's dead laughter I can imagine a sigh I don't know he's dead so we're gonna go so that you might see the glory of God and the disciples still are like look we'll die with you and they follow Jesus to what they think is their impending death and from there we pick up the story John chapter 11 starting in verse 17 now when Jesus came he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days Bethany was near Jerusalem about two miles off and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother so when Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went and met him but Mary remained seated in the house now don't make too much of that although this is a weird role reversal for these sisters it's Jewish custom in the first century that upon the death of a family member there would be a thirty day period of mourning in which you just sat in the house right and so what's happened here is jesus is coming word has reached to the sisters that Jesus is coming and Martha all right who's normally the rule-follower right I don't know if you have sisters you've ever been been around a couple of sisters there's usually a rule follower and a not rule follower right and and Martha's normally the rule follower if you'll remember later in the scriptures its Mary that's at the feet of Jesus and Martha frantically doing what she thought she was supposed to do based on the rules but throw all that out the window because Martha the rule follower ain't following rules today right she runs out to meet Jesus and Mary who's usually the wild one stays there and obeys the rules right and so Martha gets to Jesus and here's what she says it's a question that's a legitimate question Martha said to Jesus Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died verse 22 but even now I know that whatever you ask from God God will give you and jesus said to her your brother will rise again and Martha said to him I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day verse 25 jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life there's our iron statement whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die do you believe this and she said to him yes Lord I believe that you are the Christ the Son of God who is coming into the world now I think it's important to note here as we're talking about Jesus invading our present and kind of untangling our past and bringing the hope of the future into the present that everything Martha does here is correct it's just not complete all right everything she does here is correct it's just not complete and so we'll start with this Martha does three things as she gets to Jesus one she immediately brings up the past it's the first thing out of her mouth it's a legitimate question if you had been here my brother would not now that may or may not be true right if you would have come he would have lived that this is the first thing out of her mouth and listen it's easy for us to read the Bible backwards it's really different to put yourself in this space and so let me kind of unpack the space for you you don't have to be expert in first-century history or anything like that to just stop for a second and imagine what it would have been like for two sisters to try to nurse their dying brother to hell health while waiting on Jesus to get there only to see Jesus no-show all right there's no icy unit there's no electricity there's no they're trying to keep their brother alive I don't know if you've been around death death is always ugly dignity always goes out the window there's a gasping for air a trying to breathe it becomes laborious and then feels like it's impossible that gets replaced with a gurgle until you die Mary Martha had watched their brother and we don't know what kind of illness this is we get no indication no indication that he's an old man or anus oh so you got a man who is losing his life to sickness and two sisters who try to keep him alive until Jesus can get there and Jesus no-shows and he dies Martha looking to the past says if you would have been here he would have lived now there's nothing wrong with looking to the past in fact repeatedly throughout the Scriptures were commanded for there to be remembrance in us to remember God's faithfulness to remember those times God has been good and gracious to even remember those valleys in which God has led us through those valleys and so although Martha is doing what is correct to remember she's not doing it in a way that it that I would call it being complete and and so let me lay this before you I know what we're doing here and so let me just there are some of you this is a real your past is a real kind of hang up on the the truth of who God is and the truth of who Christ is it's a difficult question I never want to shy away from the question how can God be loving and me have experienced what I experienced in my past for many of us there's this thing behind us that defined us it's become a type of identity for us and we can't reconcile a loving God with what's behind us one we can't reconcile that he would love us because of what we've done and we certainly can't reconcile him being loving when we consider what has occurred to us and so if there's any kind of abuse in your background there's any kind of neglect in your background if there's any type of other darkness in your background the question has to be in there where were you if you're good where were you if you're kind where were you if you are for me and not against me where were you and this is a question that Martha is asking if you had been here my brother would not have died now the reason we missed that so often is because if you're a church person you know how this story ends right but but in this moment nobody knows how this ends people are wailing there's morning there's sackcloth and ashes Mary's still sitting in the house where she's been for days refuses to come out even for Jesus and then from there she moves right in right from that where were you Jesus - to what I'll just call a religious platitude all right and and what I'm what we see in Martha's presence present State and you might think that I'm being too hard on her I don't think I am I'll I'll show you a little bit later why but verse 22 she says this so she goes where were you if you'd have been here this wouldn't have happened you could have kept him from dying period but verse 23 even now I know that whatever you ask from God God will give you now I'm gonna argue that this is a spiritual platitude that this is what she knows she's supposed to say but deep down inside doesn't believe it alright this is a type of weaksauce inch deep bumper-sticker theology that is not really emboldened her faith but rather become just something she knows she's supposed to say so just so we can all feel safe together how many of you have found there are seasons where you you just got kind of spiritual platitudes you've got these sentences that you'll just say and and the depth of those and the reality of those and really nestled in your heart right I mean you see any time you see a bumper sticker that's what that is if you're driving past a car and says the bread of life never gets stale that's what I'm talking about right it's this oh that's cute it happens all the time on Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest where these little kind of spiritualize memes right that they're there it's true there's nothing non true about it nothing untrue about it but but it's not that the person has embraced it or really submitted to the truth but rather that sounds good let me say it this happens all the time and this is where Martha finds herself she she says where were you had you been here my brother would not have died but I know I know that whatever you ask from God God will give to you and then Jesus says your brother will rise and then what's Martha's response Martha's responses to head deep into the future right so let's look at her response in verse 24 Martha said to him I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day now here we've got Martha looking back on her past all right if you would have been here in about an inch deep of spiritual platitudes all right but I know on into I know years and years and years from now on the last day he'll rise deep into her future that that's where her hope lies now remember what we're talking about we're saying that Jesus being the resurrection and the life means that the past is gonna start to be untangled and the hope of our future is gonna be brought into began to seep into the present however we've walked in this room today well Jesus is going to do that with a bold difficult statement the statement is difficult because it removes any notion that he might just merely be a good moral teacher all right it's sentences like the one we're about to read where Jesus presents himself as the solution to a problem that eradicate or removes from any of us the ability to say he was a great teacher right because he's not claiming to be a great teacher he's not even teaching a lesson he's saying no I'm the su lucien to the problem so let's look at that in verse 25 she says I know he'll raise he will rise on the last day Jesus steps in no no jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die now that's a problem if you want to just say Jesus is a good teacher because Jesus didn't pull her aside and say one day God is going to accomplish these things and it that he doesn't do that he submits himself as the solution no no no Martha I am the resurrection and the life the resurrection and life isn't some future event it's here now available to you to all Jesus is saying I am the solution to this problem of broken pasts shallow platted religious platitudes and a future hope that's tens of thousands of years away he says I am the resurrection that all who believe in me will not die not the eternal death even though they die they will live and then he goes on to say that not only is he the resurrection but that he is the life and so we talked about this quite a bit in the IM series the I am serious kind of drives this point that Jesus when he invites us to follow him is inviting us into life the type of life that can only be experienced by those who are in Christ and and so I that might sound offensive to you if you're not a believer I'm not saying that you can't enjoy a thousand pleasures of God's good common grace what I mean by that is anything pleasurable and good has been given to all mankind to be enjoyed but the Christian can enjoy them in ways that the non-christian cannot so the the easiest way to talk about this is food right you can be a sadistic narcissistic wicked human being and love a good steak and glass wine correct you do not have to be a Christian to appreciate good food is that right that's completely right all right a murderous violent thug could deeply enjoy a beautiful meal and yet it is those who believe in a creator god that not only enjoy the meal for what it is good flavors sustenance but then gets a sense of the God who provided and the God who in his creativity gives them not just mush to sustain them but flavours to delight them that's what the Christian gets that the non-christian doesn't and you could substitute food with any other pleasure that man can experience there's a deeper reality available for the believer than there is for the non-believer and if you're not a believer I'm not saying that you can't enjoy sex and marriage and food and and your dog and whatever else right I'm just saying there's a deeper deeper level of pleasure available to the believer because he knows who's behind it all she knows who's behind it all this is what Jesus means when he says I am the life and and he's making this declaration that it's here available now right this isn't something that you're gonna I'm standing right here this is the invasion of the present I'm here right now and then he's going to consummate or fulfill or show out that he's the resurrection and the life just a few verses down let's look at this starting in verse 38 there's this interaction with Mary it's not that it's not important it's just for times sake we're gonna skip down to verse 38 then Jesus deeply moved again came to the tomb it was a cave and a stone lay against it and Jesus said take away the stone and Martha the sister of the dead man said to him Lord by this time there will be an odor for he has been dead for four days so this is my Easter present to you when you get a chance a little bit later look this text up in the King James Version of the Bible and I'm not making this up it says the word stinketh there so I'm not you can check it don't do it now I know you got devices don't do it now later it really says it will stinketh which I just thought that's awesome right so no time for that there will be an odor free has been dead for four days verse forty such a beautiful verse jesus said to her did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God what does it take to see the glory of God belief now earlier when I said that she was giving kind of religious platitudes right well I know whatever you ask for God will do okay move the stone uh stinketh take that stone away Jesus you had your shot had you been here this wouldn't happen but man we're four days in this is that there's some first century writings that say that the Jews believed that the spirit might hover around the body for a few days and so the I think one of the significance of one of the pieces of significance about it being the fourth day is that no superstition could leak its way into this story like he's dead dead would be a good way to see this which is why I think it refers to him as the dead man here in a second he's dead dead for days Martha who earlier said whatever you ask can happen move the stone oh you sure you sure about that and then again Jesus is tenderness towards doubt I always want to highlight it well what does he say does he rebuked her does he go you know what you just ruined it trying to do something nice for you and this is what like that's not what he does but I mean again I know we're gay little bit this is a significant moment did I not tell you if you would just believe you would see the glory of God what stunning as this story continues when we have evidence that she didn't believe right so let's keep reading so they took away the stone and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said father I thank you that you have heard me I knew that you always hear me but I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you have sent me when he had said these things he cried out with a loud voice Lazarus come out the man who had died came out his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped in a cloth and Jesus said to them unbind him and let him go now I want to kind of complete the picture now of the past being untangled and the future hope being pulled or seeping into the present in this invasion of Christ in our present if if we can think not on the side of the resurrection of Lazarus but on the front side of the death of Lazarus you have two sisters that watched their brother struggle to breathe we watched two sisters watch their vibrant brother wither away and die from some illness it's a sudden illness it came out of nowhere I'm not a doctor but but if you are a doctor you can have some conversations if a sudden illness falls on you and it kills you within a couple of weeks it's more than likely violent a lot of vomit high fever a lot of writhing a lot of agony a lot of his sisters saw this up close all the while looking out the window and trying to figure out where's Jesus runners already returned did you tell him yeah I told him he said this isn't the sin sickness that leads to death that's what he said and then he started teaching again he arrives he groans the fever grows he vomits he can't keep fluid down he starts to struggle to breathe these are sights and smells but the sister saw and then Jesus walks into town and he says move the stone Martha protests it's gonna stink if the stones moved so here's what I mean by unraveling the past untangling the past so for all that the sisters saw for all of their tears and I have to imagine there were many in that house looking out the window waiting for Jesus to show up what do you think happens when Lazarus hops out of the tomb what happens to all of those memories what happens to all of that sadness what happens to all of that heartbreak when Lazarus comes out of the tomb does it not vanish the moment Lazarus pops out like all the sorrow all the laws all the heartbroken is all the doubt all the fear all the accusations against Christ and whether or not he actually cares and whether or not he actually loves and whether or not he actually is who he says he is vanishes when Lazarus still wrapped in grave clothes hops out of the tomb alive resurrected from the dead and where had Martha and Mary's hopes been in a future resurrection that was on the last day but Jesus brought the hope of the future in to the present and so now in the present with Martha and Mary the past is being untangled and the present hope is entering in to their present into this new reality that's only possible because Jesus is the resurrection and the life but here's the big question for us because if we're honest we got our own doubts this morning and some of us our doubts are tied to our past it's just the truth a it's tied to one of two versions of the past it's tied to the past and that we just can't believe that God would actually love us we've been guilty of some things our understanding of the Christian faith is that God's really got a thing for good people he loves good folk but but people like Ozzy it's just not for us you know we didn't grow up with Ned Flanders as a dad we didn't you know we our background is not compatible with what it means to be a Christian and and yet what we see in the scripture so often is that it seems that the Lord has a special delight in pulling from the fringes of darkness well we'll end up being his brightest lights and and so some of our doubts are wrapped up in our past if it's not that kind of past it can be the kind of fat-ass where this really dark moment happened to us this really horrible thing and we just can't reconcile that God is good and this actually happened to us and where was he would be kind of similar question to martha's where were you had you been here this wouldn't have happened and and so we wrestle in that space and yet when Jesus says I am the resurrection and the life when when he dies on the cross and he's risen from the dead what we have before us is the opportunity for the past to begin to be untangled as the future hope begins to seep into our lives but some of us it's not our past that causes doubt it's our present and here's what I mean by that by our present I mean that like Martha we've got a lot of kind of spiritual religious platitudes we're about in each and inch-deep a type of weaksauce Bible Belt Christianity that knows nothing of commitment to Christ and only of right answers around faith right there's no real commitment to Christ there's no real desire to follow him again I said it earlier I'll say it again I know that some of you are here just in case there is a God some of you are here just in case and lord knows if God takes attendance it's on this weekend right this is kind of his weekend so this especially this is the weekend he's gonna check in and so and you didn't do that hey you didn't do that Saturday night thing he didn't rise on Saturday night you ain't going out Saturday night service Sunday morning that's what I read I know the Bible says heroes Sunday morning I'm going on Sunday morning that's when rolls gonna be taken in you're here not because you believe or you're committed but rather he might be real and so you're here now that won't stop you from identifying as an evangelical that won't stop you from even posting from time to time spiritual platitudes on your Facebook wall or defining yourself as a Christian despite the fact there's no submission to the Lord no desire to follow after him no desire to do life with his people no care understanding of how he's organized and designed our world to work and the mission he's given you no no just religious platitudes just bumper-sticker theology and and some of us our doubts are around our future and here's what I mean by our future the reason to doubt that Jesus is the resurrection and the life is to believe that you're on the cusp of solving everything that you think is wrong right so some of us we have doubts that Jesus is the resurrection in the life because we're really close to getting it all like we want it right we've just got this little thing in our marriage to work out we've just got this little thing financially to work through we just got this little thing with one of our kids got a little mouth on him we just got to solve that once we get all that solved we've got the money we want the house we want the relationships we want and then if no one moves life's gonna be awesome now you can giggle of that but you'd be surprised at how many people if they were honest with themselves really believe I don't need the resurrection in life because I'm almost there I've almost got it just so close just a couple of more things to go my way and then I'm there no let me just in in all humility try to lay this before you my guess is if you can be honest with yourself you've been on and off that cusp for maybe over a decade and you have not been able to quite get there and once you got there somebody moved right and so for some of us it's our past for some of us it's our present for others of us it's our future and then not not to mention the glaring question of how do we know this is no one-off right how do we know that this isn't a a one-off how do we know how do we watch the resurrection of Lazarus and think that that has much if anything to do with us at all right I mean sure we might be able to see ourselves in in Mary and Martha we might be able to kind of um pull from this story kind of some moral principles to apply to our lives but if we're gonna really believe that Christ is the resurrection and the life and that to believe in him is not die but lift and that eternal life starts now in the present not when we die how can we be confident that this Lazarus resurrection wasn't a one-off well I'm glad you asked that question because what we're celebrating here this morning is not the resurrection of Lazarus who would die again but rather celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ that shows us reveals to us as Christians that death is dead and sin is defeated forever and that our past is now being ironed out and the hope of the future has been pulled into the present and we're seeing this and feeling this and the greatest evidence we have is the Spirit of God working among us like let me give you illustrations when people get in our baptistry and they share what their life's been like without Christ and one of my favorite parts of the village is the stories we hear so when people get into this water in front of 1400 strangers talk about their addiction talk about their depravity talk about horrific shameful things that they've given themselves over to and in a moment what was meant to be shame and guilt becomes a trophy of God's grace that's the past starting to get untangle it's not that there's not issues to work through going forward but in that moment when we testify Christ has changed my heart God has redeemed my past now all the sudden the past is starting to get untangled and then as we begin to follow Christ in the here and now the hope of the future starts to seep into our present it's not wrong to have hope for the future I can tell you this when I read first Corinthians 15 about what a resurrected bodies like I'm hopeful for that thing I'm hopeful to not get sore sleeping right I'm hopeful to to not be able to get sick to not grow weary to not write I'm looking forward to that that that's a part of my inheritance that's on the way but aspects of that future hope are being realized in my life and in the life of Christians and greater and greater ways as we seek after and follow him that he slowly transforms us that he gives us new affections that things we used to love now we don't love it all and things we never thought we could love we now are crazy about that's all the work of the Holy Spirit of God taking the hope of the future and beginning to fill it into our now I have found that many a men and women feel like life is hollow and thin and usually when someone thinks their life is hollow and then they're making one of two errors they're looking back on their past and going oh I wish something would have gone different back here or they're looking towards their future and going today really stinks but but man in the future if I could just line these things up if I could just work a little bit harder if I could just get these things to go my way then finally then when you're stuck in the past or stuck in the future you hollow out the now you thin out the now and what Jesus tells Martha is no no I am the way I am the resurrection and the life now believe in me now you will not die believe in me now and you will live and so really the offer on the table for you and for me this morning is to believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and to believe that that's how simple it is to believe that begins to untangle the past and bring the hope of our future in to the present in a way that shows that Christ is invading our present regardless of how we've come in let me just close with this in John chapter 20 starting in verse 24 the Bible tells us this now Thomas one of the twelve called the twin was not with them when Jesus came so the other disciples told him we have seen the Lord now Lucinda listen to Thomas but he said to them here's his list unless I see in his hands the mark of these nails and placed my finger into the mark of those nails and placed my hand into his side I will never believe so Thomas has a checklist here's what I need to believe I'm gonna not only need to see him but just in case I'm gonna need to see the nails and then I'm gonna need to put my hands into those scars and then I'm gonna need to take a hand and I'm gonna need to touch that scar where they drove the spear up under his ribcage and punctured his heart and then I love this look what happens next eight days later his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them and although the doors were locked Jesus came and stood among them and said peace be with you now that sentence is necessary right the doors locked the disciples are just hanging out and all of a sudden Jesus is in the circle hey guys peace be with you and then he immediately makes eye contact with Thomas right peace be with you no explanation then he said to Thomas hey Thomas it doesn't read hey Thomas and right on the screen um put your finger here see my hands and put out your hand hey place it into my side do not disbelieve but believe and Thomas answered him my Lord and my god and jesus said to him have you believed because you have seen me blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed we are brothers and sisters a group of men and women who have not physically seen Jesus and yet the testimony of so many of our lives is that everything has changed because of him so if you're a Christian let me just lay before you a quick exercise before I pray for us where would you be if Christ had not saved you if I think about my bloodline if I think about Chandler men over the last hundred years and think about where I am today with no knock against my daddy or my daddy's daddy they did the best they could with where they were everything about my life has changed from how I view my marriage and pursue my wife to how I see my children and engage with them to um how I spend my money to what I think about friends and their place in my life to to how hard I work to what everything's been shaped and molded by the way for the better as future hope has been pulled into the present because I believed that the tomb is empty and if you're hung up on your past I'm trying to tell you that if your sinfulness was too much for Jesus he would still be in the grave but because he is not you believing your sin has more power than his resurrection is hogwash because he's shown that it's been paid in full or he'd be dead if you still owed he'd still be dead he's not which means he paid it all that that's been paid so what's available to you right now is the resurrection and the life Christ himself let's pray father I thank you for these men and women before honest we are Lazarus we are dead in our trespasses and sins yes we can see ourselves in Martha but we are Lazarus many of us dead in our trespasses and sins a Holy Spirit of God pray that you would wake us up that you would call to us for those really stuck in their past father I just pray that that you would begin to untangle that and redeem that and and that they might be able to trust you in this moment with either their sin or their sorrow and father I pray that you would woo out of weaksauce religious platitude so many that know something about you but don't really know you then I pray for those who feel like they're on the cusp of getting it all together that they would see that for the lie that it is and that we might hear shortly respond by trusting you as Lord and Savior of giving our hearts fully to you help us we need you it's for your beautiful name I pray amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

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Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, I Am, 2016

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Length: 42min 47sec (2567 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 30 2016