If you have a copy
of the scripture, 2 Peter chapter 1 is where
we're going to be today. I've chose as my
text some verses that will help us to see that there
is, in the Resurrection story, power to overcome
gloominess and despair. Taking that as my
subject matter today, the power to overcome
gloominess and despair, and what I'm really
trying to say is that we have an answer
to this common situation and dilemma that we face. What to do when you feel stuck? What do you do when
you feel stuck? Peter tells us beginning in the
12th verse of his first chapter of his Second Epistle he
says, "for this reason, I will not be negligent
to remind you always of these things, though you know
and are established in truth. Yes, I think it is right, as
long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding
you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent,
just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover, I will be careful
to ensure that you always have a reminder of these
things after my decease. For we did not follow
cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were
eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the
Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him
from the Excellent Glory-- "this is My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased." And we heard this voice which
came from heaven when we were with Him on the Holy mountain. And so we have the
prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to
heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until
the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;
knowing this first, that no prophecy is of private
interpretation or scripture, for prophecy never came
by the will of man, but holy men of
God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." If in faith you're excited about
learning more about the power to overcome gloominess
and despair, and you're grateful
for God's word, could you just let Heaven
know just for a quick minute. There is such strength in the
public reading of scripture. And we have a lot of
work to do if we're to recognize that
we have the tools that we need to deal with
the feeling of being stuck. I got stuck recently. I pulled my vehicle too far into
some snow and had to get help. Now, the frustrating
thing about it was I had-- my friend Eric had
told me that he always keeps a chain in his truck,
so if he sees someone who's stranded, he can pull them out. And I was like, man, that is me. I'm going to be
the good Samaritan that I was born to be. I bought my first truck. I really got my Montana
juices flowing now. And so I bought a chain. I was like, I'm going
to be ready for it, and I'm going to be
ready for someone. I'm just vigilant. I'm on duty all the time. I never sleep. I'm like the Coast Guard. I'm like Kevin Costner. I'm ready to jump out of the
helicopter and help somebody. And so I had this
rope sitting there with the zip ties around
it in my car all the time-- I bought it on Amazon-- ready to pull someone out. And it never happened until
I, one day, saw someone stuck. Olivia, you remember. You were with me. And we saw this person stuck. And I was like, can I help you? And he goes he goes,
nah, my friend is coming. And I'm like, I'm your friend. I am here, let me help you. I am ready for-- I've trained for
this for a long time. My friends coming, and I'll
feel bad if he gets here, and I already got helped. I'm like, well, you can call
him and tell him not to come, a brave man showed up
and pulled you out. He says, it's all right. So I drove off. Then the day comes
when I get stuck. And I realize I have a rope. And it was me that needed
saving, as it should be I suppose. I flagged down someone. He was kind enough to
get me out of there. I broke the zip ties. It was nice to get pulled
out when I felt stuck. There's a lot of different
ways you can feel stuck. You can feel like you
stalled out in your career. You can feel like,
in a relationship, you've gone as
far as you can go. There are times when we
feel like we have plateaued in our faith journey, in
our development as leaders, in our own progress in our
fitness goals, in myriad ways we can come to a place-- it's really frustrating
to feel stuck. And the gospel comes
along holding up the tools needed to
pull us out, to overcome that gloominess
that can just set in or the despair when you
stay gloomy long enough. You see, it's possible
to come to a place where you don't even
believe, you don't even dare, to believe better days can come. I think you can get discouraged
when setback after setback eventually gives you
reason to just feel gloomy. And you're reading surveys
and stories and statistics about how young
people today are just tempering their expectations-- losing graduations, losing
this sport, losing this thing, and eventually you
get enough of that, and you can just come to a
place of even just despairing of the thought of the future. Not believing things
are going to get better but going to get worse. And what we find in
the gospel, which is a diamond that
can be spun to see all the different aspects of
it shine the light, we find-- I really think God just put
on my heart from these verses that we have a
diamond to hold up that can get us through, give us
hope, give us strength, give us courage, and I love that
the most famous diamond in the world literally
is named Hope. The Hope Diamond,
a 45 carat diamond that used to belong
to King Louis XIV that now resides
in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. And it's appropriate that the
greatest diamond known to man is called Hope because
the gospel gives us a diamond called Hope
that the more we spin it, the more we see
reflecting off of it. And so what I want
to do with you today that I believe will give you
power to overcome gloominess and despair, what to
do when you feel stuck, is to hold up that
diamond called Hope and spin it in your
hand and allow the light to shine off of it. Five different sides, we could
chop it up 100 different ways, but let's just
focus on five areas. Area number one is
intellectual satisfaction. Peter tells us in this
Resurrection story, of which is the whole
scripture, the scriptures all testify to Jesus and
Jesus's whole life pointed to the cross, and the
big aha moment on the cross was, of course,
the Resurrection. And so Peter says, we find
intellectual satisfaction. That is to say, it's not
like they'll tell you, oh, you know, here's
what happened. One person eventually long,
long, long, long, long, long, after Jesus was dead
hundreds of years later said, this
happened to Jesus. He had metaphorically
resurrected or the idea of Jesus
could never die. The ideal of do
unto those as you would have them do
unto you, that message of the Resurrection
is the enduring one and that eventually over
time like all good legends, eventually there is Sasquatch
out in the woods, right? Of course there is a
Flathead Lake monster because I know a
guy who told a guy and eventually it becomes
like this big myth that lives larger than life. And Peter says, that's not
at all how this went down. He says, that's not at
all how it went down, and he gives us what can give us
intellectual satisfaction as we anchor our lives and our
deaths upon this story. And that's pretty much the
stakes here, baby, right? Either this is true,
and there's a heaven. Or it's not true, and you
are wasting your time. Either this is true,
and you have something to hold on to when you
say goodbye to loved ones, or it's not, and you will
never see them again. Either this is true,
and there is meaning, and there is purpose, and
every single person who has ever lived matters, or there
is just infinite blackness. You might as well just
eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And so Peter says, no, no, no
it's not just some cunningly devised fable. Whereas the message translation
puts it in verse 16, we weren't just
wishing on a star when we laid the facts
out before you regarding the powerful return of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Master, we were there for the preview. We saw it with our own eyes. Two things that I
think will give you intellectual
satisfaction-- number one is fulfilled prophecy,
and the second thing is eyewitness testimony. Fulfilled prophecy, he says,
we have the prophetic word confirmed-- that is to say God laid out
a matrix of qualifications that Jesus, to be the
Messiah, to be the Master, to be who He said
He was, would have to fulfill, leading up to, of
course, His triumphant defeat of death. That's the big one, baby, right? That one really is the
kicker, but before that, it was intricate. It was where He was to be born-- Bethlehem. It was what tribe He
was to be a part of-- Judah. It was to be the--
what grave He was to be buried in-- one that
belonged to a rich man, not His own grave. He just borrowed it. He didn't need his own. He was just using it
for the weekend, honey. It was just a temporary affair. It was like a VRBO situation,
no cleaning fee needed. He even folded the
linens before He went out which is really a nice idea
to leave your Airbnb better than you, you found it. And so we have Jesus fulfilling,
not just one, not just two, not just 10, 300 plus very
specific things fulfilled. Prophecies given, in some
cases, hundreds of years before Him like the Crucifixion. He was to die with
His hands spread out. He was to die lifted
up from the earth. He was to die with His enemies
below him gloating up at Him. I'll have you know,
those prophecies come to us in the Book of Psalms
before the method of execution called crucifixion
was even invented. So as they were being vocalized,
David must have been like, what are you even talking about? I've never heard of anybody
dying raised up in the air with their arms spread out, but
then the Assyrians come along, and they're like, you know what? Death is too good
for our enemies. We need to find a way to stretch
it out and make it last longer. Hey, if we nail them to a cross
and lift them up in the air, they could take longer to die. And so they come along
and invent something that the Romans perfect-- that to a T, pun
intended, fulfills the way that Jesus would die. But it was weird
that He got crucified because the Jews didn't
crucify, they stoned to death. So He was to be
killed by the Jews, but they would have
to lean on the Roman-- do you see what God had to
do to orchestrate this all? You see, even the fact that
Jesus gets born in Bethlehem-- his parents lived in Nazareth,
so God has to nudge old Caesar and have him issue a decree to
get Mary and Joseph scurrying off to the family of Joseph's
lineage to have Jesus there. Peter says, this is not
just a big fish story that got bigger over time. And he actually caught
a little dinky fish, and it grew into
this big monster because who's there that's
going to know the reality. Peter is saying, no, this
happened and this happened and that happened
and this happened. You can have
intellectual satisfaction because prophetic
words were confirmed, eight ball, corner
pocket is the story. It's too many coincidences for
it to not to have been planned. The second thing that
will give you confidence-- and if you're a skeptic, and if
you would say, I'm an agnostic, and I don't really
know, first of all, welcome, we're glad you're here. Thank you for coming. If you would say,
I'm an atheist, and I don't believe
there is a God, thank you for a few moments
of your attention. What gives me confidence,
let me tell you, I have not given my life
to this thing on a whim, or because it's a great
big fable like Paul Bunyan, but because, as I
have looked into it, it has given me great
confidence that gets me through the darkness of gloom,
through the darkness of doubt, through the difficulty
of sin and sadness, and I have found what,
to me, has given me stability in the most difficult
situations, what has held me like an anchor in hospital
rooms and in cemeteries and gives me hope and
confidence of not just meaning in life but life after death. And it is this-- the very, very specific
eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony. Peter almost seems offended
that his-- even in his day, people were spreading
rumors that it was just this big story
that got blown out of proportion because someone
was exaggerating the truth, and he goes, no,
it's really specific. I was there. I saw him. And Peter was not alone
in seeing Jesus and being willing to stake his name,
credibility, and reputation on it. Richard Bauckham wrote
a 570 some page tome called Jesus and
the Eyewitnesses where he shows the legitimacy of
the manner in which the Gospels present a bibliography in
keeping with history written in that day. One of the great
examples he points to is the book of Luke, which was
written by a medical doctor who is owned by a man
named Theophilus who is a very wealthy
benefactor who is wanting to give his life to Christ. But before he did
so, he wanted to make sure he wasn't wasting
his life on a whim. And so he sent a doctor
to investigate someone who knew how to
look into details and specific parts of it,
and he had him write back to Luke everything he found
traveling to all the cities, talking to all the people,
and gave it to him-- the excellent the Theophilus--
an organized account of the things that he looked
into so that Theophilus might have certainty. That's what we have
in the book of Luke. And that's why he wrote down
more details than anybody. That's why there's
so many names given. It's not just a
guy's daughter died, and Jesus raised
her from the dead. It's Jairus who ran this
synagogue in this city at this time. I talked to him. I talked to his neighbor. I talked to the girls who went
to Jairus' daughter's school when, in her 12th year of life,
she was raised from the dead. Oh, and then there's
this guy who was blind. What's his name? He's not just some guy
because when you make up stuff you go, when did this happen? A long time ago. Where did it go down? In a place far, far away. But when you say, in the
fifth year of this proconsul when this person was
ruling and this tax decree happened in this
city, and Bartimaeus was the man whose eyes were
healed, and Jairus is the guy-- oh, and then Jesus
gets arrested. And one of the enemies of Jesus
brought a servant with him. The servant of the
high priest, and Peter, who did not want Jesus
to go to the cross-- so this whole idea of this
as just wish fulfillment because he wanted it
to happen so bad-- Peter didn't want
it to happen at all. In fact, he attacked the servant
of the least dangerous person there who had no weapon at all. And he didn't even
get to kill him. He chopped the
guy's ear off, which I think he was
going for the neck, and that was the
best he got, right? And it wasn't just a guy's ear. It was Malchus, the
high priest's servant, at this point at this
time at this feast in this day after Jesus was in
this city, staying in Bethany, meaning you could
look into this all. Now, what gives you
even greater confidence is knowing that
all of the Gospels were written
Bauckham says, and I quote, "within living
memory" of those who were involved in the story. The last gospel to be finished
was the Gospel of John which was written
at the latest 80-90. So you have all Matthew,
Mark, and Luke and then 80-90, 60 years after Christ's
ascension to heaven, you have all these things
out, being committed, being circulated, and being relied
upon and anybody who wanted to was invited to go ahead,
travel to these cities and talk to these people,
which is why in 1 Corinthians 15, when Paul says, Jesus
Christ died according to the scriptures,
rose from the dead according to the scriptures,
and was seen by many people. First, Peter and
then James and then this person and then
this person and then the 12 and then the 500. It wasn't just a person. It was no, Mary
Magdalene saw him. She's from Magdala, go
ahead and talk to her. She ran the most popular
fabric factory in the city because Magdala was the
center for the garments that-- it was the garment
district of its day, OK? So she was like this
tailor of sorts. And Magdala, being a place where
you would go to get clothing, the Magdalene was her
nickname-- the Magdalene. So she's like, basically,
a Versace of her time. Mary Magdalene-- so you
can go talk to Mary, and Paul says, at the end,
if you have any questions, go talk to them. Most of them are still
alive, only a couple of them have died. He's inviting the skeptic to
go and talk to these people. And what I want to understand
is that for 2000 years, people have tried to
disprove and discredit the historicity of
the New Testament and the Resurrection claims
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And nobody has ever been able
to but many have been converted to faith along the way. So we can have confidence
that Jesus Christ died how? The crucifixion. If you have
questions about that, someone carried his
cross named Simon. Where was he from? Cyrene. What were his son's names? Rufus and Alexander. Get Rufus in here-- did your
dad ever carry Jesus' cross? Yeah, man, wild right? By the way, Rufus-- just throwing that out there
any expecting moms in the house. Rufus? The benefit is
Rufio, Rufio, Rufio. You're doing it, Peter. Secondly, let's keep
spinning the diamond right? Ultimate confirmation--
what do we find that can give us
hope, that can blow us through gloominess and despair? Ultimate confirmation. Peter twice said, I'm
going to die soon. First he said, I'm in
my tent, but soon I got to bounce from my tent. That's code for,
I'm going to die. The Bible refers to
this body as a tent that we live in for a season,
and then eventually we have to put off our tent. And the longer we
live in the tents, the more tattered they become. Our tents get broken
down, and then eventually, we leave our tent. Peter said, I'm leaving this
tent-- a temporary thing that I'm in my body because
you are not just your body, you are soul. And to leave your body is
not the end of the road, it's simply a bend in the road. It's to come out of a tent
and to live somewhere else. And the body,
according to this book, is buried like a seed which
is why for thousands of years God's people have not
burned bodies as though that was the end of the story. We have buried bodies
with a reverence because we believe that same
body, like Christ's body, will come out of the
grave gloriously. And so we don't bury our
dead, we plant our dead and to plant a seed is with
the expectation of hope. And we believe that when
Christ comes, that the bodies, the tents, that we lived in
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, though they decay, they shall
come forth from that grave at the command of the Lord and
our souls will once again be clothed with these
bodies, but they will not be as they are today
any more than what comes out of the ground when you
plant a seed is the exact seed. It comes out a flower. And so we come out of the
ground to live forever in a newly created heavens
and earth in a glorious body that we don't even
have the capacity to understand what capabilities
will be unlocked in that day, but we get a little
bit of a preview because in His
resurrected glorious body, Jesus could appear at random
through walls and be touched, he could eat and he could fly. All I know is that's
all I need to know. And eating and flying, it's
all I've ever really wanted. OK, so Peter on his deathbed
writes this letter and says, hey, I'm about to die soon. But before I go, I just want to
let you know we have this hope, just want to let you
know dawn is coming, just want to let you
know Jesus is Master, just want to let you
know let's do everything we can to live for him. You find out what's really in
someone's heart in a storm. I was on a flight recently. It was bumpy, wild. The pilot gets on-- we may not
make it, ladies and gentlemen, we may have to be
diverted to Great Falls. Ah, last flight of the day,
not what you want to hear. I love Great Falls. God bless you in Great Falls. I wanted to sleep in my bed. And so seven minutes
before we're about to land, pilot comes on-- winds are
crazy, there's a burst of wind up to gusts of wind up
to 50 miles an hour, we may not make it,
but we're going look for a window to drop it in. All right, a little
tighter like, kids, a little tighter
on the seat belts there. And I hear the flight attendant
talking to the other flight attendant reminding
her of brace position. She's like-- He's like
make sure you head is-- I'm like, holy jeez, right? And he's like, just make sure
your chins down because she was new, just make sure it's down. And then we come in, and
it is like a bucking bull. We're going all over,
side to side dropping. I saw new prayers in
my heart that I had not prayed in a while. And sure enough, we
get down on the ground. And everyone is--
it's one of those like, everyone's excited to
be alive prayers and landings, everyone's excited. And then we get off and get
our bags and we're waiting. And then my daughter
realizes she left her AirPod on the plane. And so we have to go, is there
someone still who can go back? This amazing girl runs to get
the AirPod And she says, you'd be surprised how many AirPods
we find in those seats, and so hopefully, we
can find your daughters. And I'm like, oh,
that's disgusting. And I'm sitting there
waiting for this to happen, and I notice the flight crews
waiting too for their ride to their hotel for the night. And so I start
chatting with them, and I had talked to
them on the plane. And the pilot's standing
there, and if she's over 27, I'd be shocked. I'd guess 25. She's blonde girl, and
she's pulling her hair up into a ponytail. She's got her hat off,
and I come up to her, and I say that was
an amazing landing, great job on that landing. And she looks at me,
and her eyes get big, and she goes that sucked. It caught me off guard. It was a startling
level of honesty that I wasn't, quite
frankly, prepared for. Like, that sucked? It was just-- I was like,
oh, I felt bad back there, but to know it felt
that bad for you too? So I go, yeah, I was just glad
we didn't land in Great Falls. And she goes, I was
just glad we didn't land on the side of a mountain. I said, that was an option
at any point in the flight? Like crashed-- in the
side of a mountain? She goes, yeah, the way
they sent us coming in, you got to approach
from this side, and then you got to kick
out at the last minute to compensate for the wind. And she says, and I knew the
mountains were there even though I couldn't see them. And I'm like, I'm pleased
that they were on your radar. I knew they were there. I was trying to really
hard avoid them. I'm like, that's ideal that
you found out what was in me, you found out what was
in her, and hardship. OK, so Peter's about to die. If it was all made
up, if it was all just a joke that got
out of proportion, then this is his moment
now to let it loose. Why? He is about to be put to death
for his faith in Jesus Christ. So those who would say, well,
the disciples had gain in mind. They had position
or power, a prestige they were going to get
from being the big shot apostles of the one who
rose from the dead, then if you're about to get killed-- and how did Peter die? Historians tell us he
died by crucifixion also. Jesus was, by no means,
the only one crucified. And you're about to be
let out on your-- all you have to do is say,
it was a lie, we admit it and go on the speaking
tour for the Roman Empire admitting that Caesar is
God and Jesus is not Lord, and it was all a joke. In fact, here's
his body, produce the corpse Peter
to save your skin, which we know that's in him. He lied three times on the
night of Jesus's crucifixion to get out of even
just the flak he was getting from people out
there by the high priest's house. So if he was if he
was going to admit the truth that Jesus
was actually dead, then this is his moment. But what does he do? He not only doesn't
back down, he doubled down-- he
doubles down saying, it's fine if you put me to
death but I have one request. What is it? Could you please flip
my cross upside down and crucify me feet
up because I am unworthy to die in the exact
same manner as my Lord. Ladies and gentlemen
of the jury, I present to you in the life
of Peter ultimate confirmation that this is what he saw. This is what happened, and to
his death, he went rejoicing. And not just him. 11 of the Twelve Apostles
died martyr's deaths. They were fearful like sheep
when Jesus was knocked down, but they were as bold as lions
when he rose from the dead. And we can be too. Thirdly, let's keep
spinning that diamond. In the story, there is
emotional validation. The words of the
father are quoted, and those words are,
"Behold my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." A direct quotation from what
happened, in Peter's words, on that Holy mountain. So Peter, would have you to
know that he was not just an eyewitness to
the Resurrection, he was also eyewitness to
the transformation, one of the most emotionally charged,
power-filled moments in Jesus's life. In fact, many people
have suggested that not the Resurrection,
but the transformation was the emotional climax,
or zenith, of all three of the Synoptic Gospels-- Matthew, Mark, and Luke-- that
all tell this story of Jesus telling his homies,
hey, guys, there are some of you
present who are not going to die until you
experience the kingdom of God coming with power. Now, if you're the 12
disciples, can we just admit that's kind of a
screwed up thing for Jesus to tell them. Talk about encouraging
rivalry, right? There are some of you
present who are not going to die until you
experience the kingdom of God coming with power so
noodle on that for a while, I'll be over here. And they're like, what does he
mean and who's it going to be? And then a couple of days
later, he taps three of them-- Peter, James, and John-- and he says come with me. Come with me. And he takes them on a
hike up a high mountain. And there he is
transfigured before them. And he begins to glow. And there's clouds, lightning,
power, Old Testament saints, promise, and prophecy. It's incredible. And Moses and Elijah pull a Bill
and Ted's Excellent Adventure. They show up for some reason. And they're talking with
Jesus, and Peter's like-- and he doesn't know what
to say, so he just says, we should stay here forever. This is amazing, best
day of my entire life. And Jesus looks at him,
Moses looks at him, Elijah looks at him. And God the Father from
Heaven goes, quiet, the adults are
talking Sparky, right? And what does God
the Father then say? Behold my son. When you're in a
room with Moses, the one who gave
the law, and Elijah, the greatest of the miracle
working prophets, to a Jew, to see God single his
spotlight on Jesus, and say, not it, not it,
behold the Lamb, behold my Son, in Him I am well pleased. What was the message
that was definitely received loud and clear? Jesus is greater than religion. Jesus can do for you what
keeping the law cannot. Jesus can do for you what
human achievement cannot. And Moses and Elijah
both recognize that. They speak to Jesus about his
decease, same word Peter says, my decease is coming. They spoke to Jesus
before they all left about his decease
that was coming. The word speaks of Exodus,
the Exodus that was coming. Same phrase used
to describe what Moses did when he led the
children of Israel out of Egypt across the Red Sea
towards the promised land. This whole thing
wraps up beautifully because what it's saying
is that, through the cross, we have the ultimate Exodus. Just like Moses led them
through the Red Sea on dry land, and they did not die though
they should have died that day, Jesus can lead us through the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. And though we
should die, when we die because of Jesus's
Exodus when our Exodus comes, we will go through the
death that we face. And its walls will be right
there, and we should die, and there's an enemy army
behind us, but we will not die. We will pass through
death on dry land. It will not touch us. We have no reason to fear the
Valley of the Shadow of Death because our shepherd, Jesus, our
One who is greater than Moses, who is greater than
Elijah, His rod, His staff shall comfort us. And just as Moses lifted up
his arms before the waters were parted, Jesus Christ
lifted up his arms, and so death has to
part, and we will be able to follow Him
all the way through. And quite frankly,
boys and girls, once you've seen that,
the Resurrection is kind of a given, which is why
the Resurrection is-- they're pretty matter of fact about it. An angel came, earthquake,
stone parted, Jesus came out. Because he says, I saw
him on the mountain when he was glowing. I'm with him now. This is my God. He's my ride or die. Jesus was glowing on
that day, glowing. Mark, who wrote
Peter's account, said that his clothes became whiter
than any launderer on Earth can make them. I love the bizarre details
found in the Bible. Like, dang, man, how'd you
get your whites so white? Mine always come out dingy. But what's crazy
is the parallelism to what happened on Mount Sinai. Same dirt, different day
when Moses experienced the power of God, got the Ten
Commandments on the same ground where the bush burned, on
the same ground where he had been a shepherd previously. He came down the mountain
that day glowing too, but it was a reflective glow. It didn't come from Moses. It came from God's glory shining
on Moses that made him glow. Peter is saying,
on this day, Jesus glowed from the inside out. His glowing didn't
come from anybody else. It came from him. All right, so all
of that to tell you there is something
to stand on when we're feeling mopey
and gloomy and dark and despairing in those
words, "My beloved son. I'm well pleased in you." At our worst, we walk
around this world hoping for something or someone
to tell us we're enough. If I can get these grades,
get into this school, do this well in
this sport, my life can look this
impressive on Instagram. My church can be this big. I can do this well in my
career, have this big of a home, then I will be
somehow important. And we walk around hoping
for people and things and possessions and connections
to somehow make us good enough, to somehow make
us worthy of love. But that's like driving a 10
ton truck on a bridge rated only to handle two tons. We're putting the weight of
our soul onto things and people and possessions that cannot help
but crumble under us as we seek to lean upon them. But the emotional validation
that Jesus received that armed him for
ministry came not just from the amount
of transfiguration, but this was an echo
of what God said to him at his
baptism in Matthew 3, verse 17 when at 30 years of age
as an obscure carpenter known by nobody, who many people
didn't even believe could read, he gets baptized by
his cousin one day. And he comes out of the water,
and the father speaks over him, I love you. Behold hold my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. And that is what
gave him strength to turn water into wine
and to raise the dead and to heal the sick
and to feed the poor and to die on the cross
because he knew he was loved before he did anything. And if we will tap into
the emotional validation that the gospel is
willing to provide through the diamond
of hope, we will stop trying to do so we can be,
but we will be and then find the strength to do. And that is what the enemy knew. And is it any mistake that
the moment God gave him that strength to stand on,
the devil tried to get him off of it? If you turn stones to
bread, you'll really prove you're the Son of God. He was trying to get
Jesus to be a human doing and not a human being. Jesus knew, I don't have to
do anything to prove who I am. I know who I am. I'm loved by God. I'm His beloved son. I'm pleased by Him. And the enemy will
try and get you to stand on the shaky ground
of doing in order to be-- but when you remember He
doesn't love you anymore if you read the Bible,
doesn't love you anymore if you went to church 50
times last year or two. He doesn't love you anymore
if you know a hundred verses. He doesn't love you anymore
if you quit looking at porn. He doesn't love you anymore if
you can quit that addiction. He doesn't love you anymore if
you can do this or accomplish this or be that. You don't have to do any
of those things to be. You're loved by God, marred. You're loved love
by God, broken. You're loved by God, a sinner. You're loved by
God, dysfunctional. Just as you are. And when you tap into that
power of I'm just loved by God, now you can stop posturing
and pretending and faking and trying to have
it all put together. And do you see me and do I
matter and am I strong enough and am I good enough? And you can just say,
I'm loved by God. And I love you. And you can experience
that love that will infect and invade
and help and heal your broken places too. Is there anybody this
Easter who's grateful just to be loved by God? And that he has never one
time asked the question, what have you done for me lately? He's well pleased in you,
and he's not any more well pleased on you on your
big day than on your small one. I love being the pastor
of Fresh Life Church. But I am not finding
strength in my identity as the pastor of this church. I'm just standing on the
fact that I'm loved by God. And then I get to
approach serving and hopefully make a
difference as many years as God will let me. And when we can become freed
from achievement identity, and we can rest in the
security of the love of a God who sees our broken places
but loves us anyway, we will then be postured
to change the world church. Emotional validation--
the diamond spins, and we find
spiritual illumination because we still face dark
places as Jesus' people. Honest confession,
I'm a Christian, and I get anxious sometimes. Honest confession, I'm a pastor,
and I have panic attacks. And those moments come when
it just gets real dark. And my chest just
gets real tight. And I sometimes just
don't know what to do. And I sometimes have bad dreams. And I sometimes have bad days. And I sometimes have bad moods. And Peter says, good news,
you're just in a dark patch. And you need some light
to light up the dark. He said there's a day coming
when the morning stars are going to rise, and there's going
to be healing in His wings. He says, good news, I
saw the glory of Jesus. And when He comes back,
it's going to be like that. It's not going to be like
the weakness of Bethlehem. It's going to be the power and
the thunder of Niagara Falls coming forth from His face. It's going to be with the
light of fire in his eyes. It's going to be a
name on his thigh that no one knows but Him. It's going to be riding
on a white horse. The clouds are going to roll up. He's going to come like he went. He's going to come
from the clouds. He's going to come
with earthquakes. He's going to come. And all men will say and
acknowledge, Holy is the Lord. No one will be able
to deny he is God. And they will mourn
who pierced him, many. And so until that
day, Peter says the secret to
waiting for dawn is to experience incremental
sun bursts through scripture and the Holy Spirit. Scripture-- that's why
church is so important. Don't forsake the gathering
of yourselves together. That's why small groups
are so important. Get together every one
a while and be like, yeah, man, life still
sucks a little bit. For sure, need a little prayer? Uh-huh. Run down a little bit? For sure, totally. Here's the things I'm
tempted to look to right now to give me power
instead of God's love. How about you? I got some too. I got some brokenness
in my marriage. I got some difficulty. Could you pray for me? I need a little sunburst. I need a little Holy Spirit. I need a little bit of light. It's like getting a flashlight
when the power goes out. And sometimes the
power just goes out. And Peter says, in
those situations, in those moments,
what do you do? It's in verse 19. This prophetic
message, scripture, is like a piercing light
shining in a gloomy place until the dawning of a new day. What do you do while
you wait for the dawn? You turn off the dark
by relying on the spirit and listening to scripture. That's what you do. Every time you do
it, it's a little bit of light just to give you a
little bit more illumination. Psalm 119:105, "thy word
is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path." We need God's word
memorized, read. We need to prophesy
to one another, encourage one another,
pray for one another. We need to stand on
the promises of God, not on the instability
of the news, not on who we can get
elected, or this situation. There's a reason to
vote, reason to pray, reason to believe,
for godly people to end up in public places. But in the meantime,
whatever happens, no matter how dark it gets,
no matter what we face, we have God's word to guide
us through the storms, to guide us through the dark,
to give us what we need. Spiritual illumination, but
it's not just scripture. It's taking heed to scripture,
taking heed to scripture. God is not impressed by
the size of your Bible. He's really not. He's never once been up
there in Heaven humming, I like big Bibles,
and I cannot lie. Right? Oh, look at that Bible. Well, holy crap,
look at that Bible. You got the-- they got the Ten
Commandments at their church? Really like them. Bless them Gabriel. It's just not a
thing that he says. But what we do know is that
Peter says when you take heed to scripture, light bursts out. So knowing isn't enough. And many of you are
educated spiritually far beyond the level
of your obedience. You know scripture
that you're not living. You know truth that's
not changing you. And so what we have to do is
allow scripture to change us. So how it works is
you read a little bit and then God goes,
bang, that's the spot. Act on it. Cool, pickup the phone,
call, say I'm sorry. Cool, send a text message. Cool, take action. We hear. We do. We hear. We do. When we hear but
don't do, we become vaccinated to God's power
and incapable of experiencing any transformation because we
became inoculated to the truth that he gave to us
we didn't act on. So two questions--
what was the last thing God said to you in his word
and when was the last time God nudged you through his spirit? That's where we need to live. That needs to be the constant
emphasis of our life. Again, not so God will love
us, but because he does. Spiritual illumination. And then lastly, we
have in the gospel, and this is encouraging
even though it doesn't seem like it, ongoing
repetition, spin the diamond. I reached the end. What do you do? Spin it again. Spin it again. Spin it again. Spin it again. Because you're going to see
something new because now the light is going to
hit at a different angle than it did a minute ago. And you're going to see-- the mistake we would make
is think, well, I already read all the verses
in the Bible. I did the chronological Bible
in a year on YouVersion. I already read it. It's not like a
John Grisham novel. You don't just put it
away because you read it. Your life has changed, your
experience has changed, your pain has become
more pronounced. I mean, you're a totally
new version of you every seven years
at a cellular level. So why would it not be any
different at a spiritual level, for a scriptural level, as well. So when we read scripture,
we read with old scripture with new willingness to let God
speak to you, all of a sudden we see something brand new. We see something
completely different. This is my 15th year
preaching an Easter sermon at this church, but I feel
like a kid in a candy store. I feel like a child
holding a kite. I've seen stuff I've
never seen before. God is showing me things
I've never seen before. I can't wait till my 30th
year preaching an Easter sermon, if God will
let me, because there is that much and more. We never can run out of things
that God wants to show us. That's why Peter said, I will
not be negligent to remind you, remind you. He's writing to the people
who have already heard this. He goes, you need
to hear it again. Easter and church and the
gospel is not just for the lost. It's also for the found. And he said, I'm actually going
to write this down before I die to ensure that you have
a reminder because you're going to need it again. And then you're going
to need it again, and then you're going
to need it again. We can repeat as needed. Developmentally, sometimes
we see growth like this, like a ski hill. This angle which is
growing, growing, growing, just growing in
my goals, growing in my goals and my gains. And that's why we get
so disillusioned when we feel like we've
hit a wall sometimes. I thought I was going
to keep growing. I thought I'd be further along. We feel so frustrated when we're
stuck because I thought growth to be like this in my marriage. I thought growth would be
like this, and a lot of people end up divorcing, a lot of
people end up quitting jobs, a lot of people end up quitting
churches, a lot of people end up moving
across the country. I just need something new. I need a new start. But you're going to go there
with your same dysfunction. You're going to go into that
new situation, that new place, you're going to go
in with that new-- with the same old problem
inside of you, and eventually the newness of
that will wear off. And you'll be frustrated as
well and then eventually you'll end up gloomy and
just despairing because you don't understand
it's not just like this, it's like stairs. It's like stairs. That's how growth works. It's like stairs. And so to get up
stairs you're going to slam into the stair
nose from time to time. And in those times you hit
that-- wait, I'm not growing. Hey, what's the problem here? Oh, I just need something new. No, you just need to grow
up to the next level, honey, you just need to get
up to that next step. You just need to grow
to the next level. And that's why Peter in
this letter says in verse 5, but also for this very reason
of repeating and the gospel and spin the diamond,
give all diligence, add to your faith,
virtue, to virtue now to knowledge to knowledge,
self-control to self-control, perseverance to
perseverance, godliness to godliness,
brotherly kindness, and the brotherly
kindness, love. When I asked God what to
tell the people this Easter, I feel like the
strongest impression he gave me to tell you is
beware of false finish lines. There is a tendency
in the human heart to single out some
achievement, accomplishment, or date on the calendar,
and if I can just get that, I'm going to be OK. This pandemic,
that's the problem. If we can just get through
that, it's going to be fine. If we can just get
through high school. If I can just get on this
team, if I can just get a 4.0, if I can just get
into GW University, if I can just get
into medical school, if I can just get into grad
school, if I could just-- if I could just-- if I could
just-- if I could just-- if I could just--
if I could just-- if my kids could get into a
good school, if my kids could-- we single out a spot on the
calendar or some accomplishment that we will then be OK. We get to that, and
we're disillusioned because there is no
date on the finish line that is an actual finish line
until we stand before Jesus Christ face to face. And until that day, we
just get to keep growing, trusting, believing, loving. That's really what I'm
trying to tell you. Ongoing repetition,
the power of the gospel is you just get to
keep growing with God and doing and growing with God
and accomplishing and growing God and loving. And there is only one
finish line that matters. It's when we see him. It's when we're with him. It's in heaven. What I'm trying to say
is if you're not dead, God's not done. There's more in store
for those who love him. And the best is yet to come. The last thing Peter says,
and we're done with this. It's to tell us how
we got our Bible. Verse 21-- it wasn't the will
of man that gave us the Bible, even though Peter said, I know
I wrote it, but it wasn't me. But we, holy men
and women too, wrote and spoke as we were
moved by the Holy Spirit. How do we have a Bible? How across a period of
1,600 years in three different languages do
40 different authors work together without
knowing each other to give us a book that gives us
one theme, one story, and one arc-- Jesus from beginning to end. It's the Holy Spirit's
fault. It wasn't them. Peter says, it wasn't me. I know I wrote this, but I was-- I was, to use the
actual Greek words, a stuck ship moved
by the Holy Spirit. A stuck ship at Easter time. How crazy is it that these weeks
of this Easter 2021 the world has been dominated by a
stuck ship at Easter time? One of the largest ships in
the world the Ever Given, how large is it? Taller than the
Empire State Building, visible from the International
Space Station, 20,000-- give me that first photo-- 20,000 shipping containers is
the max load that Ever Given can carry. Trying to make its way
across the Suez Canal, 105 mile long waterway that
cuts through Egypt connecting Europe to Asia
completed in 1869, bypassing the need for
ships to sail all the way around Africa-- it's an incredible achievement. I love canals by the way. I love the Panama
Canal most of all. It has my heart, but I've been
having a fling with the Suez Canal lately. And it's pretty cool. The locks of the
Panama Canal I like even better because it's a
staircase, but the sea level passage-- entirely sea level passage-- of the Suez Canal is impressive. It was built by a Frenchman. And it's just incredible. To this day, $9
billion of commerce flows through the Suez
Canal every single day. The tune of $400 million an
hour, 19,000 ships per year, on average 105 ships
per day will go through, and this gomer crashes
the sucker right into the edge of it, meaning
no one else can go through for a week. And so what happens
in the Red Sea? Well, you have a massive
traffic jam of 400 of the largest ships in
the world loaded down with things that need
to go into our cars and into our Walmart's
sitting there not being able to go anywhere. And the revenue being lost
and the ripple effects and the dominoes of supply
chain headaches, they say will take months to sort out. But the biggest dilemma
was, how do we actually get the Ever Given off
the everloving shore that it is now beached upon? Because when a ship that
big is stuck, you guys, you do not get out and push. You know what I'm saying? Imagine pushing the
Empire State Building. I mean, just good
luck with that. There were some
theories being done of, could we send a helicopter in
to unload 500 of the shipping containers? We get 500 of them
off, and how long will that take one after
the other to fly them off? Eventually it will
become buoyant enough with that weight taken
away for it to float away. They had 10 tugboats attached
to it pulling and pushing. They had every
excavator in the area trying to dig it out to let
more water in and get that-- nothing was working. Some suggested
the solution would be to take out tons and
tons and tons of fuel, so it will ride
lighter in the water. Where do you put that fuel? There's nothing in the area to
receive that amount of fuel. This had never happened before. And anything that would be
able to get there to do this is stuck, can't get in there. And the answer came in
the night sky on Palm Sunday when the moon showed up. And this is how the
Ever Given was freed. God took care of it. He sent the first
supermoon of 2021. We will get 12 to 13 full
moons on an average year, only six of them supermoons
where the moon comes near. This was the first. Nicknamed by the
Native Americans the Worm Moon because the
first full moon of the year, accompanied by the
thawing of the ground, would be the first
time under moonlight they would see earthworms, or
nightcrawlers, begin to move. So the name has stuck. And when the worm
moon showed up, well, you probably see
where this is going. The moon affects the tides. The tides affects the water
level, particularly important in a sea level canal. And the water in this 105
miles of the Suez Canal rose by 18 inches. And now what could
not have been done by 10 tugboats and
helicopters and excavators was simple and easy
as the Ever Given was able to just
ride out and sail out the day after Palm Sunday. What's the point? The point is, Peter says,
how do we get a Bible? How do we have this story? How do we go all the way
to the end of our lives rejoicing and having joy in
our master who is coming? How do we deal with the
setbacks and the gloominess and the cynicism and the
cancel culture and the just one more thing, and I
don't really know how I'm going to make it because
the hits just keep coming? He says the answer
is in the sky. The answer is in the Heavens. It's not about us doing. It's not about us achieving. It's not about us performing. We can get out and push
all we want, church, it's not going to
make a difference. That things not going to budge. But I'm telling you
when God in the heavens shows up and comes
near, and that is what he has done in
the person of Jesus, His Holy Spirit can
blow upon us and give us strength to do what we
can't do on our own. We can [INAUDIBLE] as
we're carried along. We can ride as
we're carried along. We can run as we're
carried along. We can do what we can
never do on our own. Come on this Easter,
I wonder if you are aware that in
the Heavens there is an everlasting sign
of God's love to us. It's called the moon. And the moon does not
have any light to give. The moon, like Moses,
shines the light of another. And if we will hang
up our cap of trying to be the sun, of trying
to be the chief executive, of trying to be a dad who
has a plan for the family, of trying to be a husband
holding this family together, of trying to be that single
parent who everything's on you, if you will
hang up your sun cap and pick up your
moon cap, and realize you're just a beloved son. But God's glory wants
to shine on you. His light wants
to illuminate you. He has power to give you. He gives it to the weak. He gives it to the poor. He gives it to the needy. He gives it to the hungry. And if we will realize I am
weak, but you are strong, we can rise up. We can run with
wings like an eagle. Come on. We can run and not grow weary. We can walk in our faith. Church, that's what
we're going to do. We're going to ride because
God's Holy Spirit is breathing out upon us. Even now. So, dad, we love you. We love being your kids. And we renounce every
other achievement, title, accomplishment as being
enough to fill our souls up. We can stand at the tomb of
Jesus Christ, which is empty, and be reminded it
is a space that holds nothing that says everything. Because he lives, we live. We have a living hope. And we have your spirit to
rely on and our weakness. If here today in the presence
of God you would say, I really needed this. I need a trust in God. I need new breath in my lungs. I'm a Christian,
but I need strength. I'm a Christian,
but I need help. Can I just ask every single
person raise your hand up so God can see your hand
and pour out some new power upon you, pour out some
new anointing oil upon you, pour out some new energy upon
you, some new zeal upon you. Thank you, Jesus, for
what you're doing. Thank you Jesus for
what you're imparting to us here in this moment now. Every single person
who feels like they're distant from this moment
because they're watching online, I pray right now you would
invade their living room, invade their vehicle, invade-- invade their bike ride
going down the bike path on the PCH in Huntington Beach. Speak to them now, show them
your smile is upon them now. We're your beloved children. You're well pleased in us. You can put your hands down. If you're here
today, and you need to give your life to
Jesus, watching in Bozeman, listening in Salt Lake City
or in Portland, Oregon, or in Lancaster, and you need
to receive Jesus as your Savior, today's the day
and now's the time. With heads bowed
and eyes closed, let me tell you this last thing. I spoke this week
to a friend who has been working in a COVID
unit in the East Coast. And he has watched dozens and
dozens and dozens of people take their last breath and die. And I asked him, I
said, what observations do you have watching
such mortality? And he said the biggest
thing I've taken away is how much more pain medication
is requested and needed to bring people
to a level of calm to die who have told me in
conversations at their bedside that they don't have faith,
and they do not believe. And how much less
medicine I need to give to people
who have told me they're believers
in Jesus Christ. He said it is simply
staggering to me. I said, what is it
like to watch someone who's told you
they're an atheist or doesn't know God die? And he said, the only word
I can describe is anger. To watch a person
without hope to die is to watch an angry
person leave this world. I said to my friend,
what are they angry at? And he said, that's just
it, it's so bizarre. They are angry most times at
God, who they have told me they don't believe in. You don't need to
die with anger. And you don't need
to die without hope. Jesus loves you and will
save you if you call on him. It's the only hope because
we all leave this world, but we only leave with
hope if we trust Jesus. He is the Resurrection
and the life. He is the Lord and God. If, in this moment,
you would like to surrender your
soul to Christ's care as your shepherd, the
shepherd of your good days, the shepherd of your bad days,
I'm going to pray a prayer. And if you would repeat
it after me out loud, I believe God will hear you
and come into your heart and this confession will
lead to your salvation. I'm going ask the church
family to pray with us, no one praying alone. We're praying with you together. We're watching-- we're with
you watching on YouTube. We're with you on Facebook. Say this, dear God-- Dear God-- --save me-- --save me-- --a sinner. --a sinner. I can come to you-- I can come to you-- --no other way-- --no other way-- --than on my knees. --than on my knees. I need you. I need you. Thank you for new life. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. I give you mine. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. Head still bowed,
eyes still closed, if you just gave
your life to Jesus, I'm going to count to three. And when I get to three, I
want you to raise your hand up in the air, your
way of saying, I raised the white
flag of surrender. I give my heart, my
soul, my life this day to Jesus Christ, who
loved me and died for me and rose from the dead. When I get to three,
shoot it up triumphantly. This is your
rededication to God. This is your commitment
of your salivation to-- that God has given to you. One, two, three. Shoot your hands up. Shoot your hands up. All across the
church, God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. All right, thank you so
much for watching this. I cannot even tell you how much
I felt God speaking to you as I was writing this message. He was speaking to me so much. And I just pray this
week that you act out on some of these things
you've been learning, whether it's you need
to be more consistent about your quiet times,
letting God give you lighter. You need to more and more anchor
yourself from just the reality that Jesus loves you. But I pray that, this
week, it would just be a turning point for you,
a brand new line in the sand. A here and then there
kind of moment for you as you walk out of
this revelation, you walk out of
this Easter story. And you keep
spinning that diamond around, the hope that's yours. Thank you for logging on. Thank you for
watching this message. Thank you so much
for your generosity and continue to
give and to allow us to continue to
preach these messages and send them around the world. It's making a difference. It's a joy to partner with you. Thanks for being a part
of this happy Easter. God bless you.
