Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.
You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.
We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the
cross. Now let's join the service.
Father God, we come before you, Throne.
Lord, we gathered in your house tonight on a weeknight, Lord,
because we love you and we want to set at your feet and hear
your word. And Lord, as we come to you, we
can come boldly before your throne and we make these
petitions known. Lord, you've touched this one,
Ryan, with stage 4 cancer, Father, because you're in
control. The enemy is not in control,
Lord, but you are in control. And if he doesn't know you,
Lord, I pray for salvation. Lord, I pray for my Ryan.
I pray that you just continue to strengthen his body, Lord, and
lift him up our precious candy with cancer, Father.
I pray for her, Lord, that you she had that chemo treatment
today. Father, You go before her and
give her peace in her body. Lord, just help her through this
Time Lord, because we know that you can take us.
Yeah, though we walk through the valley of the shadow, Father, we
will fear no evil because we know that you're in control.
And Lord we pray for this one that lost their family member
today, Lord God and and they buried that today.
Father, we ask that you just move upon them because you word
says you came to heal the broken hearted Lord and I know their
families hearts are broken. Loretta's heart is broken.
Lord Jerry's children and grandchildren, they're all
broken right now Father, but I know you're able to put your
arms around them and love them through this time.
Lord. I ask for help tonight Lord, as
we bring the word to your people.
Father, just help me to say what I need to say, what you want me
to say in Jesus name, Amen. Thank you guys.
I know we're done with Easter, but I want to talk about what we
celebrate as Easter. It's a resurrection.
It's what I want to be talking about tonight is resurrection.
The resurrection changed everything.
Everything changed at the after the resurrection.
I want to go to Luke 24, start with verse 2 and then I want to
jump to 1st Corinthians 15. So give you a minute to go
there. Luke 24 to start with verse 2 it
says but they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this,
that behold, 2 men stood by them in shining garments.
Then as they were afraid, and bowed their head faces to the
earth, they said to them, Why do you seek the living among the
dead? He is not here, but is risen.
Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee,
saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of
sinful man and be crucified. And the third day rise again.
And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb
and told all these things to the 11 and to all the rest.
First Corinthians 15. Verse 1 So it's moreover,
brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you
now. This is Paul.
Luke was a disciple. What I read previously, this is
Paul's writing. Paul never met Jesus in his
ministry while Jesus was on this earth.
I know he met him later, but not while they were on their face to
face. So this is Paul's writing.
And if you remember Paul, Paul was a a zealot, for lack of a
better terms, a zealot for the religion, for the Jewish
religion, and he was ready to kill people for that.
So here's Paul's writing after his conversion.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached
to you, which also you received, in which you stand, by which
also you are saved if you hold fast at the word which I
preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
I mean, he puts it pretty clear, unless you just didn't really
believe. For I deliver to you first of
all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scripture, and then he was buried, and that He
rose again the third day according to Scripture.
And then He was seen by Cephas, which is Peter.
Then by the 12 after that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at
once, of whom the greater part remained to the present.
But some of them have fallen asleep.
In other words, some of them are passed on one more group of
scripture. Colossians 15.
I hope that's what I got here. I just got the CEO.
So verse 16 again, Peter, I mean Paul.
For if the dead did not rise, then Christ is not risen.
And if Christ is not risen, our faith is futile.
You are still in your sin. Then also those who have fallen
asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have
hope, in Christ we are of all men most pitiful.
But now Christ has risen from the dead and has become the
first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
The resurrection of Jesus. And we sang about it.
The first song you sing, we sing about the resurrection, the
empty tomb. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
is the cornerstone of our Christian faith.
Yes, the cross. Yes, it was necessary.
His blood had to be shed as our sacrifice.
But it's because of the resurrection that we know that
we have victory over death, we have victory over sin, we have
victory over the grave because of the resurrection.
That's what changed when the resurrection happened.
The resurrection provides believers us justification
before God. It provides the power of the
Holy Spirit. The resurrection provided the
promise of eternal life. Because he lives, we have hope,
purpose, and a mission. I think pastors preached on that
now a time or two about having hope, purpose, and a mission.
Now we because he lives, we have that because he rose from the
dead. The resurrection of God is of
Jesus is God's proof that Jesus's sacrifice was sufficient
for our sins. Now I want you to think about
that. We don't talk enough about the
resurrection. We talk about the cross and
that's, that's one. I mean, that's needful.
No, I don't take any, but we need to understand the
resurrection. When he came out of that grave,
it sealed, sealed everything. He was telling us that was going
to happen when he come out. That was the seal.
That was what made it real and the proof that Jesus's sacrifice
was sufficient to pay for all of our sins.
When he come up out of that tomb, we can know that we know
that we know that we know that our sins have been paid because
of the resurrection. When we celebrate Easter, I'm
almost to the point I don't even like to say Easter anymore.
I don't even like it. I don't, I don't like, I don't
like Christmas either. So there you go.
I'm just one of those people. Because we don't celebrate it
like we should celebrate it. I mean, we have eggs and we have
the Bunny and blah, blah, blah. And I know the kids love it, but
we need to teach our children that it's about the resurrection
of Jesus Christ because we may pass away.
We're realizing, Bob and I are realizing a lot of our friends
are gone, are going quickly. My grandkids and great grandkids
will see stuff that I may never see.
And if they don't know, if they don't know about the
resurrection, what will they stand on?
They can't stand on the Easter Bunny, and they can't stand on a
bunch of candy and eggs. Oh, please don't take me the
wrong way, but we need to teach them.
We need to teach our children. I found this out Sunday.
We went out to lunch Sunday after after service.
And we were sitting there and there was a guy, two guys
sitting the next booth over from where we were.
And this guy was so loud and he was just like talking about the
Bible. And he kept saying, well, I
don't believe because of this and I don't believe because of
that. And I was trying to hear and
everybody else was talking, you know, I was trying to listen.
What are you saying? And, and oh, I, I just got this
feeling that it wasn't right, you know, have you ever had the
feeling that it's not quite right?
And Kaden being Kaden, wanted to go talk to him.
I said not ready, not ready, not quite ready for that.
But there was something not right and the guy was just, it
reminded me of the time. Remember when the disciples were
preaching and going about and doing their business and this
woman was following them. Oh, these are the men of God.
These are the men of these are Jesus followers.
These are followers. And they turned around and
rebuked her. That's what it reminded me of.
I got that feeling. And little Mr. Kaden wanted to
go talk to him. He's bold.
But it's going to, we're going to have to have a lot of those
bold kids and we're going to have to have a lot of those kids
that stand upon the word of God that know that they know.
We got to have a lot of those kids that know what the
difference is and well, what you think and what is what the Word
says. And I'll give you kudos.
Again, Miss Donna is a fabulous teacher.
She's teaching the kids the word of God, not just going back
there playing games with them. She's teaching them the word.
And I thank God for that. It's an awesome thing.
But they need to know that that our sins are fully forgiven and
our faith is not in vain because of the resurrection.
We can know that. We know that that's happened.
We can come boldly before the throne because of the
resurrection. Why is that?
Because Jesus is not in the tomb.
He's sitting at the right hand of the Father making
intercession for us. So because of the resurrection,
we can come boldly before the throne of God and say, Lord,
I'm, I'm coming to you again one more time.
I got this going on and that's going on and I got a friend
that's, you know, this and that and the other thing.
And we can do that, Lord, I failed again.
I failed, I messed up God. And we can come boldly before
the throne of God and say those things because of the
resurrection, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father
saying that's mine. She's a mess, but she's mine.
She'll get better. We'll teach her.
Let the Holy Ghost deal with her.
And he does. But we should not treat the
resurrection as a cold truth that we've heard so many times.
We shouldn't treat a lot of things that way.
Don't let your understanding and the presentation of the gospel
be just about the death of Jesus alone, OK?
We can talk about Jesus. Yes, He died for your sins.
OK, but he rose again, and because he rose again, we can go
to him. We can know that our sins are
forgiven because He took his blood to the throne.
The the actually it was the judgement seat and He took his
blood and applied it to the mercy seat.
When his blood was applied, it became a mercy seat for us
because of the resurrection. We can know that and we can do
that. So we should never treat the
resurrection as just some old holiday that we get to, you
know, have dress up, have fun, should not do that, should not
do that. Shouldn't our understanding and
the presentation of the gospel when we talk to people should
include, always include the resurrection?
We should never leave that out. It should.
The resurrection has changed the way we should share the gospel.
And I know y'all know all this and I know I'm just repeating
things. I'm just reminding you of stuff
that you need to know. But it's because of the
resurrection. We need to tell people that
Jesus is alive and he's no longer in the tomb.
Talk about it all year long with the same excitement as his
death. Jesus died for you.
Jesus.
Jesus rose for you. He's no longer in the tomb.
Hallelujah. The same excitement as we have
when we're talking about Easter or Christmas.
We should have that same excitement.
It's because that baby was born in a Manger and he's going to
the cross. He was.
He was born to die for your sins, and because he died for
your sins and because he rose again, we know that.
We know that our sins are forgiven.
That's exciting. That's the same thing as we
speak to people. That's what we need to do.
The resurrection is not just a metaphor.
It is a historical reality. It's not just some story
made-up, scientifically proven. OK?
So don't be ashamed of it. Talk to people about it.
Don't be ashamed of it. Talk about it all the time, not
just on Easter. Have I said that enough?
OK, After the resurrection, Jesus proved that he was
physically alive. He approved that He was not a
hallucination. How did he do that?
He walked with the people, He talked with the people.
He cooked fish on the campfire. He ate with the people for 40
days and nights. He did that to show the people
that he's real. He was real just as real after
the resurrection in a glorified body as he was prior to the
resurrection in a fleshly body. He's still real.
That should give us a lot of hope, folks, because one of
these days we're going to put on one of those glorified bodies.
Yay. Hallelujah, but he's 40 days on
this earth specifically 1 to deepen our faith.
He did that so our faith could be deepened.
And you can read and historically find all of this
stuff. You know, he walked with the
disciples, the guys going to on the road to Emmaus.
Y'all know the story on the road to Emmaus.
And he was opening the scripture and he was talking about himself
and he he showed how he fulfilled all the laws and he
showed how he fulfilled all the prophets.
He did all of that after the resurrection correction.
And remember when the guys, I love this story because when the
guys finally figured out it's Jesus, they walked seven miles
from Bethlehem, the House of bread.
They walked back to Emmaus, but when they found out it was
Jesus, they ran back to Bethlehem to tell the people
they ran back to tell them he's alive.
I met him. I talked to him.
So there's no doubt. He, he doesn't leave doubt,
doubting Thomas, remember doubting Thomas, you know, and
other people who doubted the transfiguration, the the
transforming, you know, and he changed Thomas into a witness
Thomas who had, I don't know, guys, I'm not going to believe
it until I actually see the holes in his hands and his feet
and put my finger in the side. I'm not really going to believe
that. So he walks in a room where the
doors were locked. He appears in the room and he
appears to Thomas on that time he comes in, he says, Thomas,
touch me. There's no doubt.
There was no doubt for Thomas, none at all.
And he did after the resurrection.
The resurrection changed the way we carry out our mission.
It's mobilized. I was watching the series
Testament. I don't know if anybody watched
it or not. I looked at it, turned it off,
looked at it, turned it off. So finally I watched it.
And we are commissioned to do what?
Sit at home? Come to church?
What are we commissioned to do? Spread disciples?
Make disciples? Spread the gospel just in church
everywhere. And it's because of the
resurrection that our mission has been mobilized.
You know why? Because at that time, after the
resurrection, almost a year later, the disciples all stayed
in the little huddle and they had more disciples and they all
added together and they, it says they live together and shared
all things in common until the Lord let the enemy get a little
hot on them and they had to disburse.
Thank God they did because now we have the gospel.
They dispersed all over and started spreading the word of
God because of the resurrection. It changed the way the mission
was carried out. He commissioned the followers to
take the message of repentance and forgiveness everywhere, not
just in your holy huddle. Because He will disrupt your
holy huddle if you're not careful, He will.
Because of the resurrection, things have changed.
Because Jesus lives, our lives are changed.
I mean should be changed because of the resurrection.
Because He lives. Because of the resurrection,
believers are called to live in resurrection power.
I say that with my hands on my head.
We're called to live in that power because the same power
that was in God Jesus that brought him up out of the grave
now lives in each one of you if you're a believer.
We're called to live that resurrection power to spread the
gospel, proclaim the gospel, proclaim repentance, proclaim
forgiveness to everybody all over the place.
We are a living hope. The way we live our lives should
be a witness to others. How can you go through this
thing and not be all apart, falling apart?
And how can you go through your whatever you're going through
and not be just all upset and cry and carry on?
Because let me tell you why, Because my Lord lives in me.
He's not dead. He lives in me.
That's our witness. That's what we what we should
say. We are a living hope to people.
We have a living Savior who gives us victory over fear of
death. It is what it is.
We're all going to die eventually.
Don't be afraid of it. If you're afraid of it, maybe we
need to do a little praying. You know what I mean?
We have that power in US. The same spirit as I said that
raised Jesus from the dead lives in US, enabling us to conquer
sin. I get really aggravated.
Y'all know me by now I get really aggravated to well, I
just can't get rid of that sin. I just the spirit, the because
of the resurrection, because of the power that lives in us.
If you are saved, you have the power to defeat sin in your
life. Is it easy?
Didn't say it was, but you can do it.
You can defeat that sin in your life.
We can conquer sin in our own lives and we can live in
victory. You can do it.
We have the boldness to be witnesses because of the
resurrection. We can proclaim the good news
with confidence. I love the word confidence.
I like walking in confidence. You know, a confident person,
you know, and you just go. They get it all together because
of the resurrection. Some of us have it all together.
Some of y'all got it all together.
Not so much. Yeah, but we could walk in
confidence with our story that we tell about Jesus.
The resurrection is not something.
Well, let's see. The resurrection is not just
about going to heaven. Let me say that sometime later,
sometime later in the future, we're going to go to heaven.
The resurrection is not just about that.
It's about living in newness of life right now.
Right now we're supposed to be living in newness of life
because of the resurrection. It isn't just a doctrine that we
believe, but it's a truth that should change our behavior.
Because of the resurrection. We know that it's the truth that
Jesus is alive, and because of that, our behavior should
change. Our behavior should be
different. Romans six suggested we're
called to die to the flesh and live in a new resurrected life.
That's what the resurrection is all about.
We die to the flesh and we're supposed to be living in a new
resurrected life. Our bodies are not resurrected.
Our bodies have not been transformed, but the spirit
inside of us has been because of the resurrection.
We're supposed to live a resurrected life full of power,
full of truth, full of boldness, full of confidence.
Because of the resurrection, it changed everything because
before Jesus had his 12 and then he had the people that he fed
and he had the people that he healed and they were there.
And then after the after the resurrection, the disciples
still stayed into their little holy huddles until the enemy,
the Lord, let the enemy get so hot that they had to disperse.
That's what they do in their Commission.
That's what He told them to do, go out and share the gospel.
It's what he told them to do. Now the resurrection demands a
response. Are we living a resurrected life
in boldness? Are we closet believers?
I know closet believers. You probably know a bunch of
them too. But we're not supposed to be
closet believers. We're supposed to be out there
sharing the gospel, not whispering and whimpering the
gospel of Jesus. I'm a Christian.
Don't tell the body. My God, my God.
That's right, sis. If you're ashamed of me, I'll be
ashamed of you. Our lives must reflect the
resurrection by our concern for others.
We should have a broken heart for people who are dying and
going to hell. Not just people who are sick,
but people who are dying. We should have that broken heart
and we should be able to endure our own hardships with hope and
faith because of the resurrection.
People are watching you. How you going through that?
Because of the resurrection? I've got hope and I've got faith
and I know God's in control. I'm going to say this.
It's not anywhere here, but I just feel like I need to say it.
During the time of tribulation, the enemy is not in control.
Satan is never in control unless you give him power to control.
God is in control. I felt like I needed to say that
because of the resurrection, I got just a little bit more and
I'm we'll be done. Two more sets of scripture I
want to share with you. The first of all, I want to say
this, one of the reasons the disciples were crushed by
Jesus's crucifixion. Remember, they went hid, they
just locked themselves in the room and they were scared to go
out and was afraid because they didn't hold on to the promises
that he had already given them. We read when I started, he had
already told you what was going to happen, the Angel said.
Don't you remember? He told you, but he had to
suffer at the hands of the evil, wicked people, sinful people.
But on the third day he was going to rise.
That just baffles me when I read that story, because those women
were going, they're not expecting him to be gone.
They were expecting him to still be in there.
They brought stuff to finish the Mary, the burial they bought
brought stuff to finish the burial, and they were shocked
when the tomb was open. How much like that are we?
So and so got healed. Oh praise God.
Oh, that's exciting. That should get normal to us.
And I believe one day it's going to one day it's going to be
normal for us. I've laid hands on a lot of
folks, prayed for a lot, a lot of people to be healed.
And not to scare you, but a lot of those people died anyway
because God's in control. It's not Linda that's in
control. It's God that's in control
almost to the point I was afraid to pray for anybody for a long
time when I was pastor. And I'm going, I don't know if I
want to party for you or not. You know, you sure you want me
to lay hands on you, But God is in control.
It's not me, it's God. And we have to understand that
the God that lives in us because of the resurrection Scripture.
Back to the Scripture, Linda, John, 20 and 29, says Jesus said
to them, to him, rather, Thomas, because you have seen me, you
have believed. Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have believed. That's us.
We are blessed people because we believe.
We didn't see him, we didn't walk with him, we didn't talk
with him. We believe without seeing
because we have the Holy Spirit. We have God the Holy Spirit
drawing us, unctioning us, showing us, giving us
revelation, knowledge. Romans 8 and 24 says for we were
saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope.
For why does one steal hope for what he sees?
We're saved in hope and we haven't seen.
We haven't seen what they saw yet.
We believe and we know Steven. One of the characters in that
little series that I watched from the it's mostly about
Steven. One of the things that stood out
to me was he had never seen Jesus face to face.
He was there and it wasn't until after actually the Pentecost
that when the day of Pentecost came that he really was one of
those groups that got some Remember there was 3500 people
got saved that day. He was one of them.
He had never walked with Jesus face to way face and talked with
Jesus face to face on his earthly ministry.
Yet, Stephen, listen to this was the first disciple to be
martyred for his belief in Jesus.
He was one of the 1st and he had never seen Jesus walk on this
earth. And he stood boldly and he's
preached the gospel in the synagogue to the people, so much
so that they grabbed him, carried him out and stoned him
to death. He was a young boy, young kid.
That's why I said at the beginning that our the next
generation and I don't know which one that would be after
me. There's a lot of generations
after me, but the kids coming up today, your grandbaby, we don't
know what she's going to see. We need to be teaching them, not
playing with them. We need to be teaching the word
of God. They need to know.
They need to understand. I've got one more thing to read
you and I'll be done. Not scripture.
So y'all can just chillax for a second.
It's a not a poem but it was something I heard.
It's by Elizabeth Amani Amani Amani.
Now imagine watching your hope die on Friday and heaven stays
silent. On Saturday, the day after the
crucifixion, Jerusalem wakes up, but everything feels different.
Yesterday, outside the city walls, Jesus was crucified,
executed like a criminal. The man who healed the sick,
raised the dead and preached about the Kingdom of God was
buried in a borrowed tomb, a heavy stone rolled into place,
Roman guards posted outside. From every visible angle, the
story looked finished. Then come Saturday, no miracles,
no angels, no crowd, just silence.
Disciples were hiding. Fear was had replaced their
boldness. Among them was Peter, still
haunted by the denying of Jesus three times.
Mary Magdalene, who had been delivered from demons, was also
there. The disciples had seen the sick
and lame, healed and dead, raised back to life.
This doesn't just seem like the death of a man, it seems like
the death of a future. The religious leaders remember
that Jesus said what Jesus said and went to Pilate in the tomb
was sealed and guards were posted and they were making the
sure the sure of the story stayed buried.
While the earth sits in silence. Heaven is not inactive.
The cross had already done its work.
Sin had been paid for. Death had been challenged.
The quiet of Saturday was not defeat.
It's the pause before victory. I feel like that's where we're
at now. Seems awful quiet sometimes.
God, where are you? But it's the pause before
victory. Saturday teaches the truth we
don't like. Sometimes God works in silence.
Not every miracle comes immediately.
Sometimes there's a space between the promise and the
fulfillment, between Friday's pain and Sunday's breakthrough.
Sometimes the greatest miracles are preparing in quiet.
Saturday looked like the end, but no one realized Sunday was
already on its way. If you are in a Saturday moment,
you can trust that the resurrection breakthrough may be
closer than it looks. That good that Saturday.
I never thought about that Saturday before he died.
And you get up and you think, where's Jesus?
And it's quiet and it's sad and it's scary.
I kind of feel like that. Maybe that's where we're at in
our walk with the Lord. Sometimes I we talk about it,
Bob and I talk about the times that people would run the aisles
and shout and holler and get healed, slain in the spirit.
And now it just seems to be quiet.
Anybody else see that? Just quiet and we go, God, where
are you? What, what's where?
Where are you what? Why aren't we seeing these
people healed? Why aren't we seeing these
people delivered from demons and delivered from alcohol and
delivered from whatever they get delivered from need deliverance
from. It just seems occasionally we
see people sometimes, but it's a rare thing.
Y'all with me? But the resurrection changed
everything. Now we're not waiting on the
resurrection, cause the resurrection's already happened.
Our job is to move forward and keep preaching in the boldness
and the confidence and live that life that we're supposed to be
living for people. But we can now proclaim not just
the resurrection, but he's coming.
He's coming back for you and me and everybody that's ready.
Amen. Amen.
That's all. I'm done.
Y'all. Let's stand and go to the Lord
in prayer. Thanks for listening to the
Cross Power Church podcast. May you know that true hope,
peace, and salvation can only be found in Jesus.
If you're near Campbell, TX, we would love for you to join us in
person. You can find service times at
crosspowerchurch.com.