What Happens When You Die? | How Jesus Reframed the Afterlife—And This One, Too

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- Crossroads church, I'm Andrew Reider

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and I'm so glad you're here. Happy Father's Day.

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- My name is Andy Reider. Welcome to Crossroads.

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So glad that you're -- I normally say that part.

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So glad you're here, wherever you're joining from,

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so thankful to have you spending part of your weekend with us.

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It is Father's Day, and I'm especially glad

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to get to spend part of Father's Day

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with you, brother. Love you.

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Now, wherever you are celebrating from,

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we've got Juneteenth that we're also celebrating,

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the ongoing story of hope and dignity

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and freedom reaching everyone.

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But we're going to start off our time, actually,

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with your favorite part of church.

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What's your favorite part of church, buddy?

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- Worship.

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- Worship, yes.

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We're going to spend time singing these songs

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that are reminders about what God says is true

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about Himself and about what He says is true about you and I.

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That's what we're gonna do right now.

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- So sing along with us.

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- These next words tell the story

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of how He's brought dead things to life.

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- I love coming together in spaces like this

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because we've made hundreds of decisions to show up

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because we're looking for something,

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because we want to encounter something.

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So if you're leaning in today, I would encourage you

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to simply surrender, like these lyrics say.

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- I think one of the most powerful things that

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we can do all week is come together and come before God.

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And if you're here for the first time, man,

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I'm excited that you get to encounter this.

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And if you're here for the hundredth time,

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I believe it's because you have encountered this,

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this presence of God and the presence of one another,

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things change and it's beautiful.

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Hey, before you sit down, why don't you turn to somebody,

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and even if -- I'm going to give you, uh, just freedom,

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if they look like they are of childbearing age

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and could be a father, just go ahead and say,

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I don't even know what that looks like to be honest.

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Just graciously give and receive a happy Father's Day

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and have a seat. All right.

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- Man, I love that Robbie set us up like that

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because this next moment is all about fathers.

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I'm a father myself.

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I have a father myself. So do you.

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And so I want to just take this opportunity to say

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a special prayer and blessing over all the fathers,

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adoptive father's biological fathers,

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spiritual fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, mentors.

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If you find yourself occupying the space of fatherhood,

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I just want to invite you right now,

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close your eyes, maybe even stretch out your hands

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as a sign that you want to receive something.

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And I just want to pray a special blessing

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over all the fathers.

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Father God, You chose fatherhood as a way

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to reveal Yourself to the world,

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not because earthly fathers are perfect,

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but because when we're at our best,

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we point to You as our perfect Father.

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So we bless all the fathers that are here watching

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at all of our sites today, that we would continue

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to experience Your love, Your acceptance,

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and Your affirmation right now.

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God help us to keep showing up,

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help them to keep having hard conversations,

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to keep coaching, mentoring, serving, and sacrificing.

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Because the world needs them desperately.

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God, encourage them, give them the blessing

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of knowing that their presence makes

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a real difference in people's lives.

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God, help them to be even more patient,

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even more courageous, even more humble,

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more generous, and more faithful, just as You are to us.

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God, thank You for the gift of these men.

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They make us better and they matter,

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and we love them dearly.

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In Jesus's name, Amen.

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And you know, being a dad is one of

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the biggest gifts of my life.

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You saw my son Andrew earlier,

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but I also have two daughters, Ella and Mariah.

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And getting to watch my kids grow, learn

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and become more of who God meant them

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and intended them to be is just an amazing thing.

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And honestly, like, that's one of the things

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that I love about Crossroads too.

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This is a place where I have grown and grown up,

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a place where I've experienced more of who God has for me,

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have taken next step after next step

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to discover what God has for me.

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And I've done it alongside others.

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That is what this place exists for.

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And I actually, I heard an amazing, amazing story

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of someone who took a step forward and experienced

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more of God through the discipline of giving,

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and actually wrote it down because I didn't want

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to miss a moment of what they said.

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So let me read this to you.

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He said: Truthfully, the idea of giving financially

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has been a hard topic for me to grasp.

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I understood putting some money in a basket growing up,

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but I did not understand the idea of giving more than that.

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I just understood it to mean that I was providing money

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so the church could continue to pay the bills, etc.

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And in the small churches I grew up attending,

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that's exactly what it meant.

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However, since coming to Crossroads,

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I've seen the money goes well beyond the walls of the church.

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I've also seen the generosity that Crossroads gives

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first hand when an emergency hits a family.

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I've also seen how Crossroads puts church

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into language that I and others can understand

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that just wasn't made available at

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a, quote, traditional church.

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Now I feel like it would be reckless for me

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to be attending Crossroads

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and not be participating financially in that change.

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Crossroads has truly made an impact on our lives.

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Man, I love, love, love that story because you can --

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You can argue with lots of things, right?

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You argue with lots of things, but arguing with somebody's

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lived experience with their story is just different.

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And I love this presentation of, like,

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God calling somebody into giving sacrificially

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and financially that's not done out of guilt

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or obligation because that's not what we want,

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but out of participation and a recognition of what God's doing.

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It's like a practical act of worship that says,

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"I believe in this, and I've been changed by it,

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and I want others to experience too."

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It's just so good, so good.

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Now this person's life has been changed

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because they took a step, right? Just like we talked.

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And at Crossroads, we practice this discipline of giving

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because sometimes it's hard and God invites us to do it.

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But it's not just for the church;

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it's for us on the inside.

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And so if you're interested in that at all,

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if you've been maybe coming to Crossroads for some time,

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maybe a few months, maybe a few weeks,

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maybe longer than that, but this is starting

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to feel like your spiritual home,

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hey, I would love for you to go to Crossroads.net/give.

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This story is so powerful.

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This guy's story, it doesn't just end there.

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He's actually getting baptized.

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It's going to be amazing August 1 and 2

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here at our physical sites

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as well as online for our Anywhere Community

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you can get baptized.

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We're actually celebrating that his life

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is being turned around from the inside out,

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and maybe that's where you are, too.

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Maybe you've been coming for a little bit.

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You've been wondering about whether or not

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baptism is right for you.

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Hey, your next opportunity is right around the corner.

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August 1 and 2.

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We baptize people all over the globe.

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We were just in La Paz, Bolivia,

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baptizing 15 people there.

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We've done it in like hotel pools,

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hot tubs at homes all over, in the snow, all over.

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We will help make it happen for you, it's that important.

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For more information or to sign up,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/baptism.

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Now, all the things we do around here are designed

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to help you experience more of God in your life.

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I got one more quick one for you.

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I know many of us want to experience more

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of what God has for our marriages.

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If that's you, you know that a healthy, great marriage

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doesn't happen by accident.

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I'd actually love for you to join something

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that my wife, Rachel, and I lead,

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it's called the Marriage Community.

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So whether your marriage is thriving, struggling,

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or anywhere in between those two,

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there's a place for you to connect with other couples,

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for you to grow together and build a relationship

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that lasts in a way that fits your schedule.

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Go to crossroads.net/ marriage-community to sign up

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and join us in investing in our marriage.

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Now we're continuing in our series The Jesus Exhibit,

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looking at the seven self portraits,

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the seven I am statements and claims that Jesus made.

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Today we're looking at the claim

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I am the resurrection and the life.

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Now, whether you're convinced of those words

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or you're just curious, hey, we're so glad that you're here.

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We'd love for you to jump in with us now

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as our lead pastor, Kyle, talks about what it means

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when Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life."

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Let's start with where we are in the Bible.

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- Where are we in the Bible?

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We're in the New Testament,

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in the gospel according to John.

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This is a first hand biography of Jesus

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by one of his closest friends.

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In it, John records seven iconic I am statements

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that Jesus made, seven metaphors,

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seven self portraits of the living God.

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This week Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life."

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Here's how it goes in the book of John, chapter 11.

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Now when Jesus came, H found that Lazarus

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had already been in the tomb four days.

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Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off,

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and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary

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to console them concerning their brother.

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So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming,

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she went and met him.

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But Mary remained seated in the house.

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Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here,

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my brother would not have died.

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But even now I know that whatever You ask from God,

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God will give You."

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Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

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Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again

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in the resurrection on the last day."

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Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.

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Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

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and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

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Do you believe this?"

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- Well. Hey, everybody. Good to be with you.

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My name is Kyle, I'm our Lead Pastor here at Crossroads.

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And it is Father's Day, when I'm a dad,

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so I get to do whatever I want

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on Father's Day in my message.

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So we're going to start with a dad joke.

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Why do melons get married?

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Because they can't elope.

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That's -- that was like that was the bull's eye

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of a dad joke; you want equal laughs and groans.

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And that was, man, that was satisfying.

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We got another one.

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Why can't you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom?

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It's because the P is silent.

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That's -- some of you are like,

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"I don't know how to spell pterodactyl."

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Uh, look it up. It'll be, I would say, be funnier.

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I'm not sure if it's actually funnier.

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Anyway, happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

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The message we have today, I think,

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is a perfect one for Father's Day

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because we're talking about being with the Father,

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in other words, talking about heaven.

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There's different versions of heaven out there.

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This is why Mother's Day looks different than Father's Day.

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Because, mom heaven is very different than dad heaven.

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I'm not an expert on mom heaven,

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but when I imagine mom heaven, it would be like,

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you know, flowers in the trees, beautiful.

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It'd be quiet. No one's bothering you.

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No one's going, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" That's not happening.

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All your food shaped like origami, looks beautiful.

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You don't even want to eat it, it looks so pretty.

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That is not dad heaven at all.

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We would have trees, but not with flowers.

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They would grow Busch Light, be amazing.

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And it'd be loud, because we all have a truck with a V8 in it.

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We'd be eating slabs of smoked meat.

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It'd be incredible, very different than mom heaven.

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And when Jesus comes along and He does this thing

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where He says, "I am the resurrection of life,"

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He changes, presents a very different view of heaven

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than the people had ever considered before.

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This is a very significant story that we're looking at today.

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It comes from John 11, very, very significant.

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One, because Jesus actually

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raises a dead guy out of the grave.

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This dude Lazarus, had been dead for four days.

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Jesus walks up, calls him out.

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He comes out in his grave clothes.

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Very significant miracle.

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And number two, this thing He does,

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raising Lazarus from the dead, this claim He makes:

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I am the resurrection and the life,

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this is the thing that gets Him killed.

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Literally one chapter later, you can go

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and look at this story.

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And the Pharisees are trying to kill Him

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because of this miracle.

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And oh, by the way, also trying to kill Lazarus too.

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Bummer for Lazarus. Welcome back.

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We're going to try to kill you.

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That's this story that we're looking at, very significant.

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I've actually been to the place where many believe

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that this happened and been able to study the story

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in its context, in detail.

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This is right outside Lazarus's tomb.

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Now, when you go inside that door,

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there's these sets of stairs.

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You go down about 2 or 3 flights of stairs,

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and there's this hole in the ground

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that most people have to duck through to get into.

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I just, I can kind of walk in straight,

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which is an advantage for me.

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And when you get in there, you can see this tomb.

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Now, is that the actual tomb?

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I don't know. I really don't know.

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It might be, but if it's not that tomb,

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it's one very, very nearby.

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And that's because the location where this story happened,

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Bethany, has been studied and revered for centuries

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because of this story.

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Because this story taps into one of the deepest,

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most universal human questions that all of us have.

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One that I'm willing to bet

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whether you followed Jesus for a long time

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or whether you don't believe in God at all,

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you still have some degree of uncertainty

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and unanswered questions about.

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And that question is: what happens after I die?

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Every person who's ever lived has wondered this question,

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and that's not an accident.

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The Bible says that God actually put this question

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inside of us. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says:

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He, God, has also set eternity in the human heart.

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So we wonder, you know, what happens?

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What's heaven like? What's --

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Is there a resurrection?

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Is there stuff after this life?

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And whether you're a believer or not,

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that the popular view of heaven that circulates

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right now kind of has three points to it.

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Popular view of heaven. One, heaven is a place,

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and that place is there, not here.

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Wherever there is, however far away it is, it's there.

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It's definitely not here.

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And it's then, it's in the future.

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It's not now, it's not now.

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And as such, many Christians hold this basic view.

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They seem to believe that the goal of life

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is to someday get to the place called heaven.

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And in this story, in this moment

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that we're going to sink our teeth into,

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Jesus blows up all of that,

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completely reframes what heaven means completely.

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He makes this claim that that heaven is not a place,

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He's a person.

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That heaven is not a someday reality you're going to get to,

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but a presence that you can enjoy right now

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and right here.

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And I'm telling you, if you can get to Jesus's view

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of resurrection, Jesus's view of heaven,

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it will change everything in your life.

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Because when when you believe that heaven is a place,

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you'll do everything to try to get there someday.

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But when you believe that heaven is a person,

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you'll spend your life trying to get to know Him

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and spend time with Him right now.

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My hope and my prayer is that for all of us,

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we make this shift today.

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That wherever we're starting from, we make progress

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towards Jesus's view of resurrection and heaven,

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towards the offer that He makes to all of us

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to be with us today, in this moment.

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Before we go any further, let's pray together.

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God, I'm asking that You would show up,

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that You would do exactly that, that You'd be with us

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powerfully, personally, God,

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that we would feel Your presence even now. Amen.

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Now we're doing this art museum metaphor for this series,

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this seven self portraits of the Son of God

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art museum metaphor.

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And so the best way to think about this, I think,

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is that Jesus completely reframes resurrection in heaven,

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completely reframes it.

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I was talking to a guy this week I just met,

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and he told me that his hobby is collecting

00:31:11

antique folk art and then reframing it

00:31:14

because when you reframe it, it increases in value.

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And I had two thoughts. One, I was like,

00:31:18

bro, you need a new hobby. That is --

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I mean, motorcycles, hunting, like,

00:31:22

underwater basket weaving, anything sounds better

00:31:25

than what you just said your hobby is,

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you know, that was number one.

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And number two is like, oh, that's actually

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a perfect example of what Jesus does here.

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He does mess up, He does disassemble

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what you might think heaven and resurrection is,

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but when He reassembles it, when He reframes it,

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it doesn't lower the value,

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it actually increases dramatically in value,

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dramatically in value.

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Now, quick background on the story before we dig into it,

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and we're going to go through this entire story.

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Quick background, now there's characters

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that are in the story, there's Jesus,

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and there's the disciples.

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Then there's these crowds of people,

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and it's diverse crowds of people because Bethany,

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where this takes place is two miles from Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem is a cosmopolitan city.

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There's people from all different backgrounds

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and belief systems there.

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So you've got the Jews. Yes, they're in Jerusalem.

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But then you also have a lot of Hellenists.

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These are the Greek thinkers influenced

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by Greek philosophy, Greek religion

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across the Greco-Roman world at the time.

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Lots of those people are there.

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And then you have this family.

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There's Lazarus, the dead guy,

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and his two sisters, Mary and Martha.

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And this isn't like three random people

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or some random family.

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This is some of Jesus's closest friends on the entire earth.

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We don't know exactly when and where Jesus met them,

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but we can tell from the Gospels

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that when Jesus goes to Jerusalem,

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He's typically staying at their house.

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Holy week, He stays at their house.

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In fact, the last place that Jesus's head hit the pillow

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before He went to the Cross, at their house.

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Significant place, significant people to Jesus.

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Here's how the story begins. John 11:1:

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Now a man named Lazarus was sick.

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He was from Bethany,

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the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

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(This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick,

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was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord

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and wiped His feet with her hair.(

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That happens in John chapter 12, one chapter later.

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So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord,

00:33:28

the one you love is sick."

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When He heard this, Jesus said,

00:33:32

"This sickness will not end in death.

00:33:35

No, it is for God's glory

00:33:38

so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

00:33:42

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

00:33:47

So when He heard that Lazarus was sick,

00:33:49

He stayed where He was two more days.

00:33:53

It's kind of a head scratcher.

00:33:55

You're like, wait, okay, so because you love them so much,

00:33:58

you decided to make them wait.

00:34:02

I wish that my wife would read this part of the Bible.

00:34:05

She tends to get upset at me when I make her wait.

00:34:07

I'm just being like Jesus, you know?

00:34:09

I'm just showing her how much I love her.

00:34:13

I've heard -- I've heard this story talked about

00:34:15

and people say, you know, this is Jesus.

00:34:17

He kind of, He was okay with Lazarus dying.

00:34:19

He waited so that Lazarus would die,

00:34:22

so that then He could raise him from the dead

00:34:24

and have this, like, big, beautiful lesson.

00:34:26

Actually, no, that's not what happened.

00:34:29

See where Jesus was when the messenger gets to Him

00:34:31

with this news was a day's journey away from Bethany.

00:34:35

And we know, as we're about to read in just a minute,

00:34:37

that when Jesus gets to Bethany,

00:34:39

Lazarus had been dead for four days.

00:34:41

And so we can do a little bit of math.

00:34:42

We can go it took a day for the messenger to get there.

00:34:45

Jesus waits two days, He travels a day,

00:34:48

and Lazarus has been dead for four days.

00:34:51

Which means the day Lazarus died

00:34:54

is the same day the messenger left,

00:34:57

before Jesus ever got word about Lazarus,

00:35:00

he was already dead.

00:35:03

And so there is a lesson in here.

00:35:05

See, seemingly the family that was closer to Jesus

00:35:09

than arguably any other family

00:35:11

on the face of the planet at the time,

00:35:13

for them, even them, going to Jesus for help,

00:35:19

seeking His presence was not their first impulse.

00:35:24

It was their last resort.

00:35:25

And by the time they go to Him, it's already too late.

00:35:28

Lazarus is already dead.

00:35:32

Because if the story continues in verse 17:

00:35:35

On His arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus

00:35:38

had already been in the tomb for four days.

00:35:40

Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem,

00:35:44

and many Jews had come to Mary and Martha

00:35:46

to comfort them in the loss of their brother.

00:35:48

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,

00:35:50

she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.

00:35:54

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "If You had been here,

00:35:58

my brother would not have died.

00:36:01

But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask."

00:36:05

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

00:36:09

Martha answered, "I know he'll rise again

00:36:11

at the resurrection at the last day."

00:36:13

And then Jesus leans in.

00:36:16

I think He gets really close to Martha in this moment.

00:36:20

I think He might even grab her chin

00:36:21

or hold her cheeks in His hands

00:36:23

and He looks into her eyes and He says,

00:36:25

"I am the resurrection and the life.

00:36:29

The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;

00:36:33

whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

00:36:37


00:36:39

I don't know how long it takes Martha to answer,

00:36:41

but eventually she does and she says,

00:36:43

"Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Messiah,

00:36:47

the Son of God, who is to come into the world."

00:36:52

And then Jesus, He never says

00:36:54

something without doing something.

00:36:55

And so He goes to the tomb.

00:36:57

He calls out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

00:37:00

And the dead man walks out in his grave clothes,

00:37:02

says, "Unwrap him, unwrap him." Incredible.

00:37:06

But the center cut moment of the story

00:37:08

is actually what we just read.

00:37:09

It's not Lazarus walking out of the tomb.

00:37:11

It's what Jesus says to Martha:

00:37:13

I am the resurrection and the life.

00:37:17

Do you believe this?

00:37:20

And I think the question that Jesus has for us

00:37:22

on this Father's Day, not accidentally,

00:37:24

is, do you believe this?

00:37:27

And what do you believe about it?

00:37:29

And what does it mean to you?

00:37:32

Not like on a theoretical basis,

00:37:34

but on a practical daily basis, day in, day out,

00:37:38

does your view of Jesus as the resurrection life

00:37:42

change anything?

00:37:45

What is your view about heaven and resurrection?

00:37:48

Now there are basically three views present

00:37:51

in the audience who watch this story happen then.

00:37:53

And I would argue they're more or less

00:37:55

the same that are present with us right here, right now.

00:37:59

Group number one, if you ask them what's their view

00:38:02

on heaven and resurrection, they would say nothing.

00:38:05

There is none.

00:38:07

They would say, everything that you see

00:38:08

is all that there is, and there is no such thing as afterlife.

00:38:11

There is no such thing as resurrection or heaven

00:38:13

or any of that stuff.

00:38:14

Back then, that group was called the Sadducees.

00:38:16

And it might surprise you like, man, even back then,

00:38:18

I thought everybody was religious back then.

00:38:21

No, there were groups of people who rejected this idea.

00:38:24

The Sadducees were culturally Jewish

00:38:26

but did not believe in any resurrection.

00:38:29

Today, these people are called the secularists,

00:38:31

the kind of bull's eye of this group,

00:38:33

the inner core or the atheist.

00:38:36

This viewpoint has been pushed upon us for a long time.

00:38:39

About 12 years ago, in fact, there was a book

00:38:41

that kind of took the world by storm.

00:38:43

It swept popular culture, everybody was reading it.

00:38:46

Bill gates read it, recommended it.

00:38:47

Mark Zuckerberg read it. He was recommending it.

00:38:50

It's called Sapiens.

00:38:51

It's by an Israeli military historian

00:38:54

about the history of humankind.

00:38:56

But it wasn't just factual history this guy was presenting.

00:39:00

He was presenting the underlying philosophical,

00:39:03

emotional ins of believing that all that we see

00:39:07

is all that there is.

00:39:10

In the book, he said this: In itself the universe

00:39:13

is only a meaningless hodgepodge of atoms.

00:39:17

Nothing is beautiful, sacred, or sexy,

00:39:21

but human beings make it so.

00:39:23

Any meaning that people ascribe to their lives

00:39:27

is just a delusion.

00:39:30

And I don't hear that and get upset about it.

00:39:32

I hear that and I'm grateful.

00:39:34

I'm like, thank you for articulating clearly

00:39:36

the logical conclusion of believing

00:39:39

that there is nothing but this world in this life.

00:39:41

Thank you, because you're right;

00:39:42

if we came from nothing, pure accident,

00:39:46

cosmic mistake, and we go to nothing afterwards,

00:39:51

then in the middle is also nothing.

00:39:54

Doesn't matter, doesn't matter.

00:39:56

Now, what I find fascinating is this viewpoint

00:39:58

has been around and kind of pressed and popularized

00:40:01

for the last, I don't know, 100 years or so.

00:40:04

But what's interesting is right now we're in

00:40:06

this cultural moment where the younger generations,

00:40:08

especially Gen Z, Gen Alpha, are rejecting this worldview,

00:40:13

not because there's some enlightened religious whatever.

00:40:15

It's because they just go,

00:40:16

"This doesn't match my experience,

00:40:18

because my experience is that things are meaningful.

00:40:21

My experience is that some things are beautiful

00:40:23

and some things are genuinely awful

00:40:25

on the other end of the spectrum.

00:40:26

And so you cannot convince me that

00:40:28

this is all that there is, and it's all meaningless."

00:40:30

And I just want to say, if you're in those generations

00:40:33

or you're in that spot, maybe you don't know

00:40:35

what you believe about heaven,

00:40:37

but there is something in you that rejects this.

00:40:38

You're like, that doesn't match.

00:40:40

Lean into that feeling.

00:40:43

Lean into that experience that you have.

00:40:47

God says He put eternity in your heart.

00:40:48

Follow. Follow it.

00:40:50

That's audience number one present nothing people.

00:40:52

Audience number two are the people who believe

00:40:54

in some kind of bodily resurrection and judgment,

00:40:57

like at the end of the world.

00:41:00

This was the Pharisees back then,

00:41:02

the dominant religious leaders at the time.

00:41:05

They believed that someday everybody who had ever died

00:41:08

would all be bodily resurrected all together,

00:41:12

all at once at the end of world history.

00:41:15

Each of us would then be judged individually

00:41:18

based on whether we've done good stuff or bad stuff.

00:41:20

And the people who had done the good stuff, them,

00:41:24

would go to the good place, heaven,

00:41:26

and the people who did the bad stuff, everybody else,

00:41:29

would go to the bad place, hell.

00:41:31

This was their viewpoint.

00:41:32

You might hear that and go like, "Man,

00:41:34

that kind of overlaps with a little bit of

00:41:35

my perception of the afterlife, heaven,

00:41:38

resurrection, all that stuff.

00:41:39

And then there was this third group present too.

00:41:42

These are the people who didn't believe in

00:41:43

this physical thing,

00:41:45

they believed in something more spiritual.

00:41:48

They would say something like, "You know,

00:41:49

my body is a meat suit and my soul is trapped inside of it.

00:41:54

And one day the meat suit will die

00:41:57

and my body will be free to go to the good place,

00:42:00

the spiritual realm, because the spiritual realm is good

00:42:04

and the physical realm is bad.

00:42:07

This was the Hellenists back then,

00:42:09

the Greek people walking around thinking these thoughts.

00:42:12

This is also, by the way,

00:42:13

what many Christians seem to believe,

00:42:15

that this is basically heaven.

00:42:17

My meat suit, my body bad, and one day it'll die

00:42:21

and then I'll escape the earth

00:42:23

and I'll go live in this like, disembodied spiritual state.

00:42:26

I'll live in a cloud or something.

00:42:27

This is what I thought heaven was like as a kid growing up.

00:42:30

You know, I'd hear someone talking about that

00:42:32

and I'd be like, "One day we're going to get to heaven.

00:42:34

And it'd be pearly gates and live on clouds,

00:42:36

and we'll just sing songs to Jesus all day long."

00:42:40

And they would say this as I had just sung

00:42:41

a song to Jesus, played by some lady

00:42:44

ironically named Martha on a pipe organ.

00:42:46

And it bored me to death.

00:42:48

And I was like, "If that's heaven, no thank you.

00:42:51

You know, like, I'll take my odds with the other place

00:42:53

because I know I'm not going to like that.

00:42:55

I'm bad at sitting still. I don't like these songs."

00:42:57

And if you've ever had a moment like that too,

00:42:59

you're like, man, I've struggled to connect with

00:43:01

what church seems to tell me heaven is like,

00:43:03

I have good news for you.

00:43:04

That view of heaven, this disembodied, spiritual,

00:43:08

weird thing, that's not Jesus.

00:43:10

That's Plato, literally, Greek philosophy.

00:43:14

Plato is the one who started picking at this idea

00:43:17

that the physical is is super bad

00:43:18

and the spiritual is getting there,

00:43:20

you escape this prison.

00:43:21

That's Hellenistic thinking.

00:43:24

That's Greek thinking.

00:43:25

It actually developed in the first heresy

00:43:27

that the church ever had to deal with and fight

00:43:30

called Gnosticism.

00:43:31

Even, even in the New Testament, proto Gnosticism,

00:43:35

the beginning of it was taking root in people.

00:43:37

You can look in the writings of John and Paul,

00:43:39

and they would emphasize, for instance,

00:43:41

that Jesus came in a physical body.

00:43:44

It's because this kind of Gnostic thinking was saying,

00:43:46

well, the physical is bad.

00:43:47

And so Jesus as God, He can't be good

00:43:50

and inhabit a bad physical thing.

00:43:52

And so He actually wasn't physical.

00:43:54

He was like a hologram.

00:43:56

He was like a ghost who looked real.

00:43:57

You know, He wasn't really crucified.

00:44:00

He didn't really die.

00:44:01

He just kind of appeared that way.

00:44:04

And the gospel writers go, no, no, no, no.

00:44:07

That does not match at all, at all what God says,

00:44:11

at all what Jesus said about heaven and resurrection at all.

00:44:16

Now to all three audiences, wherever you find

00:44:19

yourself across that spectrum today,

00:44:20

maybe a little bit in all the camps, I don't know.

00:44:22

To all three of the audiences, Jesus says,

00:44:25

"I am the resurrection and the life.

00:44:28


00:44:32

And in that statement,

00:44:33

reframes all three viewpoints about heaven.

00:44:39

Us Ranson's, we've been watching a lot of World Cup,

00:44:41

like probably too much World Cup,

00:44:42

like bingeing, gorging on the World Cup.

00:44:45

I don't care who's playing, Uzbekistan, I'm in.

00:44:48

Great Curacao. Amazing.

00:44:51

Their goalie was was a beast last night.

00:44:52

15 saves. Amazing. I love it.

00:44:55

I love watching all the games.

00:44:57

But my favorite part of the World Cup

00:44:58

actually isn't the matches on the field.

00:45:01

It's the fans in the stands. Have you seen this?

00:45:04

These people from other countries are coming to America

00:45:06

and they are like just living their best life.

00:45:10

I read this article on ESPN. It blew my mind.

00:45:13

Scotland fans drink Boston dry

00:45:16

as local bars run out of beer.

00:45:19

Wow. They drank triple the amount of beer

00:45:24

sold on Saint Patrick's Day.

00:45:26

When you outdrink the Irish by a factor of three

00:45:29

like you deserve a gold medal and a new liver.

00:45:32

Like that's -- that's amazing to me.

00:45:36

It's not just the Scottish, people from

00:45:37

all over the world are coming to America

00:45:40

and absolutely loving it.

00:45:42

Have you seen clips kind of like these.

00:45:45

- Amazing. - First bite, man.

00:45:47

- Bob came all the way from Japan.

00:45:50

It's his first time trying Texas barbecue.

00:45:52

- I'm excited. - Let's do it.

00:45:54

- Oh my God. How big is that?

00:45:57

- Hey, first bite. First bite.

00:46:00

- That's your first bite of Texas barbecue.

00:46:02

What do you think?

00:46:05

- Amazing. Like not hard.

00:46:09

Texture is tender. Umai means delicious.

00:46:12

- Try macaroni. - Oh, good, good, good.

00:46:20

- His mind is blown. He's like, what?

00:46:23

It's not just the food,

00:46:24

they're also loving the size of our cars. Check this out.

00:46:29

- I bloody love driving in America.

00:46:33

This is -- It's such a pleasure.

00:46:35

It is such an absolute pleasure.

00:46:38

We've had to change our car purely because we needed to,

00:46:41

the old car had a service, but we got this Jeep Wagoneer.

00:46:46

It's massive. It is huge.

00:46:49

The air conditioning is amazing.

00:46:50

The screen is amazing.

00:46:51

I'm even getting cold air blowing up my bottom.

00:46:56

I love being in America. I love American cars.

00:46:59

I love American roads

00:47:00

and we are having the best time of our lives.

00:47:09

- In my house we call that the vented seats BC,

00:47:11

it's like AC and then there's BC,

00:47:13

butt conditioning comes out of your seat.

00:47:15

You take that if you want it.

00:47:16

Not just the cars, by the way.

00:47:17

This might be my favorite one, the size of our drinks.

00:47:20

Watch this.

00:47:23

- What?

00:47:25

I ask a medium size. That's medium.

00:47:27

A medium. Madonna.

00:47:30

My entire family can drink from here for one month.

00:47:33

So this is a medium size?

00:47:34

- Yeah. - Madonna Santa.

00:47:36

- In Texas everything is bigger.

00:47:37

- But also why you have to pay more for a bigger size

00:47:41

if I have the free refill?

00:47:42

- Because you can take it out

00:47:44

and just have it for the entire day.

00:47:46

- But there is no sense, you have the free refill.

00:47:48

You know how many calories is this?

00:47:50

- How many? - I don't know.

00:47:51

At least two plate of pasta.

00:47:56

The sugar, it's good. For sure it's good.

00:47:58

Right, take it.

00:48:00

No. No! - Pick it up!

00:48:10

- Oh! It's beautiful.

00:48:12

They found heaven on earth.

00:48:15

They didn't know their version of heaven is America.

00:48:18

Everything is awesome and huge. It's great.

00:48:21

I want you to think right now about your version of heaven.

00:48:26

What would it look like?

00:48:27

Maybe there'd be Texas barbecue.

00:48:29

I don't know, maybe driving a Jeep Wagoneer.

00:48:31

Think about what it would look like.

00:48:33

Would there be mountains in your heaven?

00:48:36

Big, tall, beautiful mountains.

00:48:37

Maybe water. Maybe a lake.

00:48:40

Maybe you're a beach person.

00:48:41

Crystal clear Caribbean water.

00:48:44

Imagine your heaven, construct it

00:48:45

in your imagination right now.

00:48:47

What would your heaven be like?

00:48:50

Mine would definitely have the Swiss Alps,

00:48:51

and then it would have like the Maui beaches

00:48:53

and be a little bit of Ohio woods in there

00:48:55

because I'm a country boy, I love the woods. Right?

00:48:57

That's my heaven.

00:48:59

For sure we'd be drinking Busch Light

00:49:00

and eating smoked meat. It'd be awesome.

00:49:02

That's my heaven.

00:49:03

Think about what yours would look like.

00:49:05

Think about what you would look like,

00:49:07

now make it ten times better

00:49:08

than you just imagined in your head.

00:49:09

I don't know, like, how do you do that?

00:49:11

I don't know. Make it ten times better.

00:49:13

Make the mountains bigger.

00:49:14

Make the beaches bigger, make your house your mansion.

00:49:16

You got a mansion in heaven, make it that even bigger.

00:49:18

Okay. Imagine the whole thing.

00:49:20

Now, whatever you're picturing,

00:49:23

if you're imagining a place,

00:49:24

you're not imagining Jesus's version of heaven.

00:49:29

Because the thing that Jesus does

00:49:30

that reframes everything when He says,

00:49:32

"I am the resurrection and the life is,"

00:49:35

He says, eternity. Heaven is not about a place;

00:49:39

it's about a person.

00:49:41

It's not about a someday there;

00:49:43

it's about a me right here with you right now in this moment.

00:49:48

See, this is Jesus's massive reframing

00:49:50

of resurrection from a place to a person.

00:49:55

And it changes our questions.

00:49:56

Not how do I get there someday?

00:49:59

How do I enjoy His presence today?

00:50:02

Entirely different question.

00:50:06

John 17:3 Jesus says: "This is eternal life,

00:50:11

that they know You, the only true God,

00:50:15

and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

00:50:18

He's not saying, I am like heaven.

00:50:21

I'm like resurrection.

00:50:22

I'm like eternal life.

00:50:24

He says, "Knowing me, being with Me,

00:50:26

being in my presence is, is, is heaven."

00:50:31

We used to read this story and I would think,

00:50:33

man, there's one clear loser in this story: Lazarus.

00:50:39

You know, sucks to be Lazarus.

00:50:41

You're in heaven. Everything is awesome.

00:50:42

You die, you go to heaven, you got your mansion.

00:50:44

You got your Busch Light tree in the backyard.

00:50:46

It's great. You're loving it.

00:50:48

And then Jesus comes and drags you out of heaven

00:50:50

back to earth.

00:50:51

You got to walk out in your grave clothes

00:50:53

in front of everybody. Embarrassing, right?

00:50:55

You're like, stinks for Lazarus.

00:50:57

And then I realized, no, actually,

00:50:58

I've got my mindset completely flipped.

00:51:00

I'm not thinking about this Jesus's way.

00:51:02

If you think about it Jesus's way,

00:51:04

Lazarus wasn't taken from heaven back to earth,

00:51:06

Lazarus was raised out of the grave

00:51:09

and brought back into the presence of heaven Himself.

00:51:14

So you and I have to get this right.

00:51:16

We have to see this how Jesus sees it.

00:51:20

Heaven is being in the presence of God.

00:51:23

And I'll say on Father's Day,

00:51:25

heaven is being in the presence of your Father,

00:51:30

of your Father. That's when you're resurrected.

00:51:32

That's when you experience new life. No place else.

00:51:36

At Crossroads we've seen thousands and thousands

00:51:38

of people, me included, my wife included,

00:51:40

who have met Jesus, walked into His presence

00:51:42

and had our lives forever changed, who have been,

00:51:45

in a word, resurrected now.

00:51:46

People like Jesse.

00:51:51

- Growing up, I was raised in a Baptist church.

00:51:54

I understood God, I understood what He meant,

00:51:56

but I never felt it.

00:51:58

I haven't spoken out about not believing in God.

00:52:01

I had a speech impediment,

00:52:02

most people couldn't understand me

00:52:04

until I was about 7 or 8 years old.

00:52:07

I always felt behind. I always felt different.

00:52:10

That little boy just wanted to fit in.

00:52:12

I wanted to be a part of something

00:52:14

that I never felt I was a part of.

00:52:17

You know, I was a big frat type partier, drinker

00:52:21

and fell into the wrong crowd.

00:52:23

Cocaine was introduced in my life,

00:52:25

started as fun, started as a scene,

00:52:28

and then as time went on, it consumed me

00:52:31

and took everything away from me.

00:52:33

I've had five roommates. Two of them are dead.

00:52:37

One's in jail.

00:52:39

You do unimaginable things

00:52:42

that you never thought you were possible

00:52:43

of doing in addiction.

00:52:45

I was morally defeated. I was broken.

00:52:49

I failed as a son. Failed as a father.

00:52:55

Failed as a husband. Lost my job.

00:52:59

I couldn't decide if my kids were better off

00:53:04

with an addict as a father or no father at all.

00:53:08

I had called my dealer.

00:53:10

I'm sure I lied to my wife to get out of the house.

00:53:14

As I was coming up to Crossroads Oakley to meet my dealer,

00:53:18

and the sign read: Thursday night baptisms;

00:53:20

You have a seat there.

00:53:22

I walked into Crossroads, had never been there.

00:53:25

You know, I watched people get baptized,

00:53:27

come out of that water and have grace and forgiveness

00:53:33

that I just didn't have for myself anymore.

00:53:36

I started a recovery program.

00:53:39

My sponsor had told me, said, "When you get in the car,

00:53:41

you turn the car on and you start talking to God,

00:53:44

and you don't stop talking to God

00:53:45

until you get to wherever you need to be,

00:53:48

because you'll never turn to call your dealer

00:53:53

when you're in the middle of a conversation with God."

00:53:55

And it was what I needed at that time.

00:53:58

After I got clean, I hadn't been myself in so long

00:54:01

I didn't even know who I was.

00:54:03

You start feeling voids in your heart

00:54:07

with other things external from you,

00:54:09

relationships and working out, becoming a workaholic.

00:54:12

Anything to prove that you're better than what you were.

00:54:15

It took time for that relationship to grow with God.

00:54:17

I didn't even get baptized for a few years.

00:54:20

I had gone on a mission trip to New Orleans,

00:54:22

and I remember at the end of it,

00:54:24

everybody was getting baptized,

00:54:25

and I didn't think I was good enough for it yet.

00:54:29

It wasn't until a couple years later,

00:54:31

Chuck was speaking, and by the end of it he had said,

00:54:34

"If this doesn't give you a reason,

00:54:36

there is no other reason."

00:54:38

And I got baptized that day without a plan.

00:54:40

When I stepped out of the water,

00:54:42

I felt like I had hoped for the first time.

00:54:44

Like I wasn't necessarily the person that I had left behind.

00:54:48

God's given me everything, gave my life back,

00:54:50

gave my children their father back.

00:54:53

I have respect for myself.

00:54:54

I have custody of my two kids and my stepson.

00:54:58

I'm a business partner with my father,

00:55:01

and my son gets to work with me now, he's 20.

00:55:04

I have everything I need.

00:55:06

- What does God call you?

00:55:07

- God says I'm worthy.

00:55:09

God says stand up. He calls me His son.

00:55:22

- What he said there at the end is the key.

00:55:25

How do you hear what God might say to you?

00:55:28

Well, you get in His presence, that's how.

00:55:31

You get up close to Him.

00:55:33

And when you get close to Him, even here, even now,

00:55:36

in your life, He will resurrect you.

00:55:40

This is the answer to the question you might have

00:55:42

of like, okay, so the presence of God

00:55:44

is better than a place called heaven.

00:55:46

I don't know, I imagined a pretty great heaven, Kyle.

00:55:48

It was pretty awesome.

00:55:49

Maybe it was better than yours.

00:55:50

Maybe I'm better at this than you are,

00:55:52

I don't know, pretty awesome.

00:55:53

Why in the world would I rather have the presence of Jesus

00:55:56

than go to this incredible place?

00:55:57

And the answer is, what we just heard in that story.

00:55:59

It's because the thing you want the most,

00:56:02

the thing you've spent your entire life searching for

00:56:05

and you will continue to search for until you find it

00:56:08

is the love and approval of the Father. That's it.

00:56:13

And if you have a place as incredible

00:56:16

as you can possibly imagine,

00:56:18

but there's not the presence of the Father

00:56:20

loving you and telling you who you are,

00:56:22

you still won't have what you really want.

00:56:23

You won't. It's not heaven.

00:56:26

Jesus said in John 14, if you've seen me,

00:56:27

you've seen the Father.

00:56:29

He is the Father come to be with you

00:56:32

and to encourage you and to love you

00:56:34

and affirm you and tell you who you are.

00:56:36

That's a job only a dad can do.

00:56:38

That's a job of a father.

00:56:40

In fact, fathers in here right now,

00:56:42

dads in here right now, this is the thing

00:56:44

that God has called you to as a father.

00:56:47

The job of a father is not earn enough money

00:56:50

to buy a big enough house to take care of needs.

00:56:53

Those needs, finding the place, establishing the place,

00:56:56

making it as awesome as possible, that doesn't matter

00:56:59

if they don't have your presence,

00:57:01

if they don't have your affirmation.

00:57:05

You know what your kids need from you

00:57:06

is they need to hear that they belong.

00:57:08

Because when they hear that they belong,

00:57:10

they won't go chasing after affirmation,

00:57:13

chasing after belonging, compromising their character,

00:57:16

looking for things in the wrong places.

00:57:17

They won't do that because they'll know

00:57:19

they belong to you and they'll know who they are.

00:57:21

And I get it, dads, I get it.

00:57:23

As a dad, I spend so much time feeling like

00:57:26

I'm probably screwing this up. You know?

00:57:28

I come home from work and I have this imagination

00:57:30

of what it's going to be like, and I'm going to sit down.

00:57:33

It's going to be awesome.

00:57:34

The other night we played Phase Ten as a family.

00:57:37

Don't ever do this. It's a terrible idea.

00:57:39

But I was like, this is going to be great.

00:57:41

We're going to have game night.

00:57:42

I'm going to be the present dad, focused with my family.

00:57:45

And what happened? I got stuck on phase six

00:57:46

and I got really mad and grumpy.

00:57:49

And they're all like, what's wrong with dad?

00:57:51

I'm like, I'm enjoying being with you.

00:57:53

I'm doing this wrong, right?

00:57:56

I get it, dads, I get it.

00:57:57

You show up from work,

00:57:58

you want to have these great moments,

00:58:00

but your temper is short, your patience run out,

00:58:02

and you just feel like I'm probably doing this wrong.

00:58:04

I get it.

00:58:06

If you feel that way, I just want to remind you

00:58:08

of something, maybe you don't know this.

00:58:10

Maybe it's new news.

00:58:12

You know that God doesn't do accidents.

00:58:15

You know that God wasn't surprised

00:58:18

that you were the father of your kids.

00:58:20

He wasn't like, "Oh, oops, that happened."

00:58:24

He's not surprised.

00:58:26

Psalm 139 says He knows every day of your life

00:58:28

before one of them came to be.

00:58:30

He knows every word on your tongue,

00:58:32

angry and impatient, otherwise,

00:58:33

He knows it before it leaves your mouth.

00:58:37

He knows all of human history,

00:58:38

everybody who had ever lived

00:58:40

before one of us ever came to be.

00:58:42

That's what Psalm 139 says.

00:58:43

That's what the Bible says.

00:58:45

And so God, in His infinite, perfect wisdom,

00:58:50

He looked across all of the billions upon billions of men

00:58:54

who he would ever create, who would ever live,

00:58:57

and He said you were the perfect dad for your kids.

00:59:01

Not an accident, not a mistake, not a mistake.

00:59:03

I'm telling you, on this Father's Day,

00:59:05

you can give them a gift, you can just affirm them

00:59:07

as they give you whatever it is, hope it's great.

00:59:09

Hope you like it. I don't know.

00:59:10

It's kind of hit and miss sometimes, you know what I mean?

00:59:12

But you can give them a gift.

00:59:14

You can sit them down and just say,

00:59:15

hey, I want you to know how much I love you.

00:59:18

I want you to know how proud I am.

00:59:19

I want you to know I'm always in your corner, no matter.

00:59:21

You can just just tell them that.

00:59:23

You don't have to write a poem to them or whatever.

00:59:25

Just, just be a normal person.

00:59:26

Tell them what they mean to you.

00:59:28

It will mean the world to them, mean the world to them.

00:59:32

It's nothing, nothing, nothing can replace

00:59:34

the presence of a father.

00:59:37

And you have a Father who loves you.

00:59:39

And the thing that He wants the most

00:59:41

is to get closer and closer and closer to you.

00:59:44

He wants you to live every day in His presence.

00:59:48

You go to the end of the Bible,

00:59:50

Revelation 21, there's this incredible picture

00:59:52

of heaven coming out of the sky, coming to earth.

00:59:54

And it says that what's going to happen is

00:59:56

the Father is going to wipe every tear from every eye.

01:00:01

As a dad, when my kids were younger,

01:00:03

they would skin their knee and they'd run up to me crying,

01:00:05

"Oh, my knee!"

01:00:06

And you're like a little bit of Tylenol,

01:00:08

BandAid, you'd be fine."

01:00:09

But they're crying, right? What happens?

01:00:11

They climb into your lap and I would take my thumb

01:00:14

and I would wipe the tear from their eyes.

01:00:16

When you do that, wipe a tear from an eye,

01:00:18

it is an intimate, close nose to nose moment.

01:00:22

This is what the Father says he wants to do for you.

01:00:24

He wants to be this close to you.

01:00:29

I think the gift that He would want on Father's Day

01:00:31

is the same as any good father would want:

01:00:33

time with their kids.

01:00:35

And so before we run out, we go to our Father's Day thing,

01:00:38

we're gonna do a little bit of a prayer experience right now.

01:00:40

All of us just stay where you are,

01:00:42

and I hope you experience the presence of God right now.

01:00:46

I think that's what He wants.

01:00:48

Go ahead and close your eyes.

01:00:52

James 4:8 says: Draw near to God

01:00:55

and He will draw near to you.

01:01:00

I want you to imagine the Father sitting down next to you,

01:01:05

putting His arm around you,

01:01:09

drawing close to you.

01:01:14

I want you to take your hand

01:01:16

and just put it over your heart, right on your chest.

01:01:22

Now press hard against your heart. Press hard.

01:01:29

1 Corinthians 3:16 says: Do you not know that

01:01:33

you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

01:01:41

As close as your hand is to your heart,

01:01:44

as close as your hand is to your body,

01:01:46

God is closer. He's more present with you.

01:01:51

He's more personal with you.

01:01:54

He says He makes His home inside of you

01:01:57

if you believe in Him.

01:02:02

Take a minute and just ask Him

01:02:06

to feel His presence in your life right now.

01:02:14

Tell Him you want to draw close to Him.

01:02:21

Now take your hand and put it on your shoulder.

01:02:23

Kind of the same spot where if you were wearing

01:02:25

a heavy backpack,

01:02:26

the strap would be cutting into your shoulder.

01:02:29

Just put your hand there and press down.

01:02:32

Just press down.

01:02:35

It can feel like you're doing life on your own,

01:02:40

like there's no one else to carry the burdens.

01:02:44

But that's not true.

01:02:46

The resurrection Himself says He came to give you life,

01:02:50

He came to help you.

01:02:53

Hebrews 4:16 says: Let us then with confidence

01:02:57

draw near to the throne of grace,

01:03:00

that we may receive mercy

01:03:02

and find grace to help in time of need.

01:03:07

Tell God what you've been carrying that's heavy.

01:03:13

Tell Him the burden that you have in your life right now.

01:03:19

And ask Him to help, to be present with you carrying it.

01:03:28

A good Father, what they do

01:03:30

is they take the load on themselves.

01:03:32

And that's what He does.

01:03:36

I want you take your hands and just hold them

01:03:38

out in front of you like you're receiving a gift.

01:03:42

Psalm 16:11 says:

01:03:44

In Your presence there is fullness of joy,

01:03:47

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

01:03:51

Do you know it's okay to ask your dad for joy?

01:03:57

Why don't you just ask Him, whatever would be joyful,

01:03:59

just ask him for joy in your day, even today.

01:04:02

Maybe you're going out of here

01:04:04

and you're not expecting joy.

01:04:06

Ask Him to change that, to experience the joy

01:04:12

of His presence with you today and throughout your week.

01:04:19

Let me pray for you. God, thank you so much

01:04:20

for being the Father who doesn't live far away,

01:04:27

the Father who doesn't say,

01:04:28

someday you'll get to be in my presence.

01:04:30

Someday you'll get to move into my neighborhood.

01:04:33

But you're the God who moved into ours.

01:04:37

Would you be the resurrection present today,

01:04:40

heaven present today with each of us,

01:04:42

that we may experience the unparalleled joy

01:04:47

of the life that You offer. Amen.

01:04:52

Happy Father's Day.

01:04:54

- Hey, in the craziness and the chaos of your life,

01:04:57

I hope that you're reminded now that God is with you.

01:05:00

He says He's the life and the resurrection.

01:05:03

That's not just for someone else, somewhere far off

01:05:06

or sometime far off or in heaven.

01:05:07

That is God who is near you, who is with you right now.

01:05:11

And He wants you to be reminded of how close you are to Him,

01:05:15

that He has new life and new resurrection available for you.

01:05:18

And new life always looks like growth

01:05:20

and resurrection always involves reconnection

01:05:23

both with God and with others.

01:05:24

So just want to let you know you were designed

01:05:26

to be growing alongside others.

01:05:28

I just want to challenge you.

01:05:29

If you want to grow and experience more

01:05:31

of what God has for you,

01:05:32

man, we want to help make that happen and encourage you.

01:05:36

You're not going to go to a new place,

01:05:38

and you're not going to grow to a new place

01:05:40

if you just stay put.

01:05:41

So I would love for you to go to

01:05:42

Crossroads.net/ Anywhereconnectcard,

01:05:48

or scan the QR code on your screen.

01:05:50

And that's going to take you to just a brief form

01:05:52

that's going to let you sort of select,

01:05:53

hey, what is the way I want to experience

01:05:55

more of God in my life right now?

01:05:58

And then literally myself or a handful of people

01:06:00

on my small team will reach out to you

01:06:02

to help you find your custom recommendation

01:06:05

of how you can go to a new place

01:06:06

and continue to grow with God.

01:06:09

Hey, we'd love for Crossroads to be a place

01:06:11

where you continue to grow and experience more

01:06:14

and more of all that God intends for you,

01:06:16

and we want to help make that happen.

01:06:18

Thanks so much for watching with us.

01:06:19

We'll see you next week. Happy Father's Day.

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