Understanding the Resurrected Life
Part of understanding how His Resurrection affects you life is what God was doing the day after Adam and Eve fell from grace. It didn't just start with your birth or with the coming of Christ. It started way back there and it's a whole history of redemptive process until God said, “This is the final way.” ♪ ♪ If we're going to talk about Easter, the first thing we have to talk about is that Jesus lived.
We shouldn't stop at the information in the Bible. I know a lot of people are reluctant. They read the Bible and say, “Oh, it's, it's a collection of good stories written, and we can't really”━save that for somebody who hasn't done the years of studying. But for the benefit of those people who are suspicious that this is just a mere collection of things, I step outside of the Bible for a minute to say you've got a first century Jewish historian, Josephus, who writes about Jesus. He does not say too much, but he does indeed admit that Jesus lived. You have evidence from the Babylonian Talmud, which was written between 70 A.D. and 200 A.D., although there, there is a continuation that takes you all the way up to 500 A.D., but the specific portions I'm interested in actually come around 80 A.D. and do indeed mention Jesus that He lived. He was not a figment of the people's imagination. And if you really want to go to the extremes, even the prophet Muhammad, who lived some 600 years, more or less, after Christ's death, in the early-600s when he was writing the Quran, he spoke of Jesus, although Jesus, in his version lived, Jesus was a mere prophet.
Nonetheless, even Muhammad acknowledged Jesus lived. And if you want to go even beyond that, you've got the writings of a Roman, non-Christian source in Tacitus recording Jesus and the life of Jesus. Pliny the Younger, who was the Roman governor of Bithynia Asia Minor, who wrote to the emperor Trajan in 112 A.D., asking what was the proper legal conduct, “What should we do about these followers of this one Jesus Christ?” And we know from these writings obviously that are outside the Bible, they are all talking about a living━a person who lived, not a figment or an invented persona. Also Lucian, the Greek satirist who wrote about second century A.D. as well, so there is abundant evidence outside the Bible for Jesus' living, being an actual person and not some made-up fabrication as some would tell you. The next bullet point is that Jesus was crucified. That's not difficult to believe, because crucifixion, and anybody studying, just even go beyond the Roman period, we've, actually here we've taken a look at crucifixion in a historical way to see that it existed long before the Romans took it up as punishment.
So there's no doubt in my mind if somebody says, “Well, could it be possible that this man was crucified?” Beyond, beyond plausible, as that was the punishment of that day. So two things: that Jesus lived and that He was crucified. If you start there, you're starting at a good place. You know, don't, if you, if you're not even willing to consider that He lived, don't even bother studying this, let alone that He was crucified. That He died on a cross, this is an important one, because there are many people who doubt━good Lord and Lord help us━that this methodology could kill anyone. Okay, well, I highly urge those people who are doubting of that to actually do some research to understand that the whole premise of this type of death was to be slow and painful, and that the victims didn't usually die because they were nailed to a cross.
But they usually would die from collapsed lungs or other things, not necessarily the first but second and tertiary events that would occur in the body to bring about death; and slow and painful usually. So we've got to put that there. But of course, there are many theories that people have propagated over time. For example, that He really didn't die on the cross, but He fainted, and when they took Him down from off the cross He resuscitated in, in the coolness of the tomb. Or that this is all made up. There, there's so many theories as to what really happened on the cross. In fact, if you google, “Did Jesus die on the cross?” you will find a lot of fantastic ideas. They're all fantastic, but if one actually understands the science, and there is a science behind crucifixion, the likelihood that any individual could actually survive crucifixion is slim and none.
So let's just put that there that Jesus did indeed die on a cross. All right, the fact that He was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, a high-ranking person in Jesus' day and this is important, because the controversy still goes to this day. There are two tombs in the Holy Land that people visit and people argue about which tomb. Let me help you out with this. We know from the Scriptures that Joseph of Arimathaea went to beg, went to Pilate to beg for the body of Christ. And the question must be asked: why Joseph of Arimathaea? See, there are a lot of minutia in Jewish law that most people don't know about, and one of them is that only next of kin could go and ask for a person's body.
That was basically according to actually both Roman and Jewish law. They both had their intricacies. We know that Joseph of Arimathaea was uncle to Mary, mother of Jesus. So put that down as one not so odd if you consider that. The greater oddity is that Joseph of Arimathaea was a high-ranking person in the Sanhedrin, and it is the body of the Sanhedrin, the 71 elders, that had the influence to crucify Jesus at the behest, by the way, of the Jewish leaders. Do not say all Jews, because His disciples, many of them were Jews, so at the behest of the Jewish leaders. So what's important here is we know Joseph of Arimathaea, much like Nicodemus was a secret follower or an underground follower of Christ. And something written in Mark 15:43, it says he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. It didn't say he was devastated at the death of Christ, but he was waiting expectantly. That tells you that Joseph of Arimathaea believed what Jesus was saying about Himself. So put that as a one-second pause right there. Now, the other thing that's important to recognize is when we talk about the tomb.
As I said, I'm not going to argue about which tomb, but I am going to point out a few things that are of interest. As you know, there were Roman guards posted outside of the tomb. The tomb was closed with a large stone rolled in front of it and sealed with a Roman seal. Now let me give you the small details of that. The Roman guard would have been a detail of 16 guards, each guard responsible for a 6-square-foot area. And this is what people don't talk about. If you were a Roman guard and you fell asleep there was punishment. You would be beaten and you'd be burned in your clothes.
But not only that, the entire unit of guards would also be put to death. So it would behoove each guard to be keeping watch not only on the tomb, but on each other. You get my point? Hmm, okay, good. The stone, the stone weighing anywhere from one to two tons, and here's the, the magnificent thing. The stone would have been on a track somehow, grooved, but it would have been on a decline. That means that the stone would be easy or easier; two men could have, two men, two strong men could have facilitated rolling the stone to close it.
But because if was on a slant, two men could not push up to two tons up a hill. So the likelihood of somebody tampering, once it was closed, is very unlikely. Furthermore, the Roman seal put on the tomb itself; that seal, the breaking of that seal, which represented the authority of the Romans, breaking that seal was the death penalty. So you've got a whole, what we'll call it a conundrum of how do you explain all of this? You know, were the guards on the take? Did they accept a bribe? Come on, even if that happened, they all would have been put to death.
So when people talk about this, the tomb, it's important to understand this is not some cartoon version of what you think. There were a lot of details. And those details need not be excluded from a close examination. The tomb that Jesus was buried in was indeed, after the fact, after He rose, empty. And this is another interesting thing that we should discuss. The followers returned to find the stone rolled away and the body is not there, and in fact, at least in one or two records we have angelic beings saying, “He is not here; He is risen,” basically “go find where He is, you'll see Him.” If you go and read Matthew 28, it says that the Jews were saying that the disciples had stolen the body. Just by those words alone, they were acknowledging that the tomb was empty. Sorry, but you did it to yourself. And I could go on, but I'm trying to do this in a very quick fashion. The leaders who instigated the crucifixion had an agenda to try and disprove the Resurrection. Theories to deny or disprove the Resurrection were being circulated because, think of it this way and this is probably the most important thing I could say, if the Resurrection actually happened, who would have greatest problem on their hands? The Jewish leaders, why, because if it was true, if it was actually true and could be verified as true, let's just say that you were all part of this Jewish leader community and you had heard that this man rose from the dead and He was seen amongst His followers preaching, what would you do? I know what I'd do.
I'd jump ship from that conglomerate of people and I'd go follow the One that came out of the grave, as He said He would. So food for thought, this would have endangered the future of Judaism. And if you think about it, the Gospel starts in John with, “He came to his own, and his own received him not.” The idea that they could have acknowledged Him; now some did, as I said Joseph of Arimathaea is one, Nicodemus is another. And I'm sure we've got a catalog of many more, but the bulk and the vast majority, it would have injured their religious careers in the future, so their best interest is to disprove and put out as many ridiculous stories as possible. The disciples preached what they had seen: Christ was raised from the dead. The record tells me that Jesus called forth Lazarus. Now Lazarus had to die anyway to eventually live a resurrected life, but calling him forth was a sample in kind. And this is why the apostle Paul talks about “If Christ is not risen our faith is vain”; we're all gathered for naught.
But the fact of the matter is that if you want to talk about this, actually this book cover to cover has more people being raised from the dead. And I would say pre-Christ's incarnation, proof of God's ability to raise people up from the dead, then God sent His only begotten Son, tented in human flesh, and still continued to do the same thing that was being done in the Old Testament. You just have to read and wonder, why would such things be written? To give us false hope? Or did they actually happen? And in Lazarus' case, I believe it actually happened. The more important thing is as they were preaching that Christ raised from the dead, they also preached that He would be coming back, that He would ascend and that He was coming back. Now, we cannot relate to this, because 2,000 years ago something happened, but put yourself closer to the event and they were all waiting for His immediate return.
And that's what stoked the fire under the early church: “Christ is coming back!” “Christ is coming back!” So we have to kind of be mindful. They were all basically saying, the disciples were all saying the same thing: He is alive. He was crucified for our sins. That He was raised up just as He Himself had said He would. And that brings me to the next thing. How do you explain the birth and growth of the church? There is no logical explanation.
If you start from the day of Pentecost, there is no logical explanation for the testimony of hundreds of thousands that have been radically changed, but specifically the Scripture says so many thousands were brought into the church in one singular day. How does one explain that? Except the power of God, the speech that was coming forth that was so powerful, not the words themselves nor the speaker, but the power of God coming through that individual that moved the hearers. So you can say, “Well, if this is not true, these poor, delusional followers, they were making up a lie, they built a church on a lie,” but you still have some problems explaining how. Remember, these are just regular people, how did they remember? How did they come up with? Why is it that people were gravitating towards these people and expressing things like the belief that these individuals had “super powers”? And I use that term, they thought it of Peter, they thought it of Paul, except that they had been endued by the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said, “If I go not away, I can't send the One basically who will do this for you.” Now you're either reading the most fantastic woven tale or you're reading an absolute chronicle of what happened.
And I get it. I, I understand people would say, perhaps they were just protecting the memory of their dead leader that they loved so much that they'd do anything to keep perpetuating a lie to protect this poor, dead Jew. You think about it. The problem is if you would think about how they all dispersed, Jesus told them before He left and ascended, He said, “Go into all the corners of the earth and make learners basically of all that I've told you.” And that would only be made possible, by the way, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we know they all took off in far-flung corners of the earth.
They all, they all went in different directions and they all started repeating the same message: Jesus was raised from the dead, just as He said He would after a set period of time, three days, three nights, just as Jesus, He Himself had said, “There will be no other sign but the sign of Jonah.” And interestingly enough, you've got perhaps the most doubting person of them all, Thomas, who by the way, had the exposure, he was with all the other disciples, and yet he's the only one that would not actually believe that Jesus was risen, until the Lord appeared in front of him and he could touch the nail-pierced part of His body, look at where He was pierced on His side. And that brought about the exclamation or his declaration, “My Lord, my God,” the reality, “Oh my God, this is true.” Now I think there are a lot more Thomases than anything else.
And a lot of people, who can be following in the church, who can be going along with this great, “Let's just gather and waste an hour's time every Sunday,” much like Thomas. But here's where the rubber meets the road. At some point exposure to all this is going to produce something. It's not for, it's not just for entertainment value, it's not an educational purpose, if you will. Thomas, the most doubting one goes off to the most philosophical part of the world, India, think about that, to preach and proclaim Christ. We still have Thomas; basically they're called Thomas, Indian Thomas. There's different denominations, but they all have “Thomas” in them to this day.
So you think about that. What would it take to make you pick up, let's just put ourselves in modern times, pick up from California, although for me it wouldn't take much, but what would it take for you to pick up from California and, say, go to Turkey and start teaching people over there. You don't even speak their language, and start talking to them about everything that you've learned from this book. And you'd have to say, “You're out of your mind.” Well, that's what I'm saying to you. These people were either out of their mind or what they were telling was the absolute truth. But on top of all that, as I've repeated year after year, they all died terrible martyrs' death, all but John, and John probably would have died.
They dipped him in hot oil, burnt his body and somehow he was spared. And I believe the reason he was spared is to be exiled to Patmos that God would give him the final Revelation, the book of Revelation. I believe that's why he was spared, like God was saying, “Wait, wait, wait! I've got to save this one because this one I'm going to use to write the last chapter of the book.” But all the others died a terrible death. And it was very simple. They all could have said, “Oh, we're lying! We made it up!” to be spared, but none of them changed their tune.
None of them stopped preaching. In fact, they all went their death saying, “He rose, He ascended, He's coming back.” Think about that. And I don't know about you, but at some point even the most hardened criminals will usually roll, and they'll usually to spare, to save themselves. So there's a lot to put into this. And then, of course, as I've pointed out we can talk about the disciples, and we can talk about Christ, but as I introduced to you probably a couple of years ago the most important factor for me is one who was not part of the disciples.
He was a zealous Jew, Saul of Tarsus who became the apostle Paul. He was not part of the close band of followers. In fact, he persecuted the church; he persecuted Christians. And you tell me why a man who had everything going for him; he's a member of a high religious council, he's highly respected, he's doing his own commission, which is to go and persecute and stone and kill Christians. What is the interest or the value for him to make up a story that he had an encounter with Christ? And Christ said, “Why are you doing this?” What is the; what's the benefit? You're going to be ostracized from your community, you will become persona non grata, no one is ever going to let you back into that circle, because you're a traitor for━in their eyes you're a traitor, you deserve to die; an infidel. So what was the benefit of the apostle Paul to make up this story? There is none, except that he had an encounter that changed his life and the consequences for him, it was more important for him to preach Christ than to revert back or to, excuse me, cover his derrière about anything.
He could have gone back and said, “Yeah, I met the guy; nothing to it,” and kept on doing what he was doing, but he didn't; a complete life change, radically changed. In fact, all of the disciples were transformed. There isn't one of them that wasn't changed or touched by an encounter and time with Christ. Peter, from the impetuous, fast-talking big mouth, to the man who stands up and collected and in measured, we'll call it eloquent oration, preaches the sermon on the day of Pentecost.
The two brothers, but specifically John, they were known as “the sons of thunder,” and in the Bible, John is known as the disciple of love. And we could probably catalog even, by the way, Judas. Although I said he wasn't affected, he had to be somewhat transformed, because at the very end he does end up repenting and feeling bad for the deed he did. See, when you actually are exposed to the evidence, the Resurrection of Christ, if you study it, believe it, have analyzed it, it should change the way you think, your mindset.
That's the first one. Write it down if you will, because someday somebody is going to ask you, “What? What is the purpose of all this?” Once a person has truly looked at the evidence with an open mind, I believe it changes the way you think about almost everything. The apostle Paul wrote something, which you've heard me reference many times over, but put it in the context of this message. He said that those that basically live in the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, and those that live in the Spirit mind the things of the Spirit. People who are unaffected by this message are still living in the flesh. They heard it, many people will hear it, but they don't know what it is to live in the Spirit.
And let me dial this back a little bit. The conversation that was had between Jesus and Nicodemus, and He says clearly to Nicodemus, because Nicodemus is asking the question, “Well, how? How am I saved?” “You must be born again from above.” Do not use the expression “I'm a born-again Christian” unless you understand what that is. All Christians are born again from above, that is the Greek word: to be born again from above; the second birth. The first one is when you came out of the womb, so put that down as correct verbiage. And Jesus says basically the Spirit goes where it wills. Someone who is born from above, the Spirit will come and inhabit them.
Don't think that it's going to make you speak in tongues, roll on the ground, jump up and down, and do crazy stuff. I've said to you before the Spirit of God is given for service. And service is not limited to the pastorate. Service is across the board. It empowers people, it helps you to remember the Scripture, it keeps us guided, directed; there's a whole host of things. If you, especially reading the book of John, you can see how this actually would affect yours and my life. Now I'm standing in front of you. And if somebody said to me, “Well, I, I don't know how it could change the mindset,” then listen to me, because I came into the church, you've heard me say this before and this is not personal testimony; this is a fact. I came in the church in the mid-'90s, the early-, mid-'90s. I did not know one verse of Scripture, not one. Now, do I just have a good memory? No, that's just not true. But Christ's words say, “If you abide in My word, My word will abide in you.” That's the essence of John 15.
Think about that. You don't need to be━I've met people who are writing down verses of Scripture, trying to remember them. That's not going to help you. That's like what you do in the flesh. But mining the Spirit is being in here, and let this word, as the apostle Paul said, “Dwell richly in you.” That is the first marker of the Resurrected life: you have interest in the word of God.
You don't just read it on Sunday, and it's living in you, it's guiding you, it's giving you direction. So what about the people who read this and are still unaffected? I'm going to tell you that that's a big problem, because I believe there are people who hear, they've heard the message, but nothing else has penetrated. There's no word dwelling in them. No, I'm not your judge.
I can't know like the person who criticized me and said, “I don't even know if she's saved.” I can't tell you who's saved and who's not. That's God's job. That's God's responsibility, but I can tell you change of mindset is at the top of the list. Now, why does the Resurrection matter? We're still sinners. We are covered by the blood of Jesus, washed and forgiven by the blood, but I still sin every day. I'm not going to stand here and lie and say, “Well, I don't sin anymore.” We're all sinners, every single one of us. 1 John says, anyone who says they don't sin is a liar, and the truth is not in you. And there's way too many pastors and parishioners, who think once they've come to the Lord, they sin no more. Good luck, because you're still wearing your Adam attire, surprise. Don't run out with some perfectionist ideology that somehow because you came to the faith you're perfect. There's only one perfect One, that's Christ.
But learning about Him, His word, and His way is part of our life. So the Resurrection matters on so many levels. This is probably the biggest one and the one every time I talk about this I have people that just, they do this. One day we're all going to be dead. Period. I will be dead too. Everybody has a time. I don't care what science is coming up with. So somebody who doesn't want to talk about death, and I've met people like that, “Oh, I can't talk about that.” It means the resurrected life; an understanding of the resurrected life has not penetrated into your soul.
“What do you mean?” I'm saying exactly what I mean. Here, go back to the disciples, their beloved Master, who foretold of His death multiple times over, and of course, while He was alive, “No, no, no! Be it far from You! No, no, this can't happen,” right. They didn't understand. But how is it that after He died, rose, and ascended, they were able to go out and talk about His death? They talked about His death in light of the Resurrection, the ascension, and His return. And the Scripture is abundantly clear. Jesus was the First Goer, the first of His kind, which means anyone who calls themselves a Christian following Christ will follow in His footsteps, which means when we read, “Death has no more sting” over the believer, that's what it means. It doesn't mean that losing a loved one is not going to hurt; it will, but that's the flesh part. And trust me; I know there are a lot of widowers in the sound of my voice.
It does not take away the sting, it does not take away the absence or the void, it does not. But what it does do is it lets you look at the reality. That person devoted to Christ; Christ is not a liar, if Christ said basically, “I am the First Goer,” and you're following Him, you too shall follow as He did. That means that you too will enjoy the resurrected life.
Now, somebody who has not got the mindset, I don't care what you think. There isn't some playing tiddlywinks when the end comes. Let me show you something. I know I haven't opened up the Scripture very much, but let me show you something that has an impact for me. In Luke 16 the passage about the rich man and Lazarus, and, and if you read this with the eyes I'm speaking about it will really make sense to you, “A certain rich man, clothed in purple, fine linen, fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. He cried, saying, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am in torment in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things,” just for a little footnote, Lazarus received evil things.
What does that mean? It means probably that he suffered. He probably didn't have money. He probably grappled with a lot of the things that we grapple with; that's “evil things,” whatever that is, “but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” In other words, you spent your time here on earth pleasuring yourself with the pleasures of this good earth, but not paying attention to God. And what comes next is what I want you to focus on: “And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so they, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass from us,” basically, if you understand this and all the other things that are said about heaven and hell, there is a great divide, there is a chasm. The resurrected mindset fixed on Christ, understanding we too shall rise that there are sometimes, we'll call them mild or light afflictions, which Paul talked about, which are only for a time.
Don't think that because something is happening to you that God isn't with you. Actually, usually it might be a sign that God is with you, that He's letting certain things buffet you, just like He did to many of the people in the book. But it drives home the point. There is a great divide between those who have a changed mindset towards death, dying, and the Resurrection versus those who may have heard it but are indifferent, don't care, couldn't be bothered by it; a great gulf fixed. So you know, you might say, “Well, that's pretty terrible.” But if you think about it, and if you believe the proofs, Jesus is the tangible proof, and so many times in the book, it says, “to him that overcometh death.” So you know, I'm thinking to myself there is something to be said there in our understanding.
You are either fearful of that, it brings about fear, it brings about the shiverings; that's the flesh. The Spirit says, “When it's my time, I'm going to go be with the Lord.” I don't exactly know 100 percent what exactly that's going to look like, but that's what I'm told multiple times over. That makes for good doctrine. That makes me stand on that rock to say, “That's that”" Now, you might say, “Well, how are you dividing this?” Let me show you from Christ's own words. People came to Him and said, “Lord, Lord, Lord! We did this in Your name and we did that.” What did He say to them? “Depart from Me.” Why? “I never knew you.” Do you think all these things are written so that we can just read a good story, or are they given to us as instruction? “I never knew you” means you never spent the time to know who He is to get acquainted with Him to even have a relationship: “Depart from Me; I never knew you.” I want you to think about that, because that changed mindset would bring about somebody who says, “I need to know everything I can know about Christ,” and not just as a onetime deal like you read an article in the newspaper.
I need to know everything I can know about the One who said these words. And I'll tell you for me, I, I would pray I never hear, “Depart from Me, I never knew you,” but rather I'm hoping it will be, “Enter in; well done, good and faithful servant.” The idea here, a lot of people come, even in Jesus' day, with lip service. Now we just kind of discount that in today's world, because you know, there, there's different levels of people in the church. They have different levels of faith, different levels of all kinds of things, but we all have one thing united that binds us all together. That is you do not have an excuse for not taking the time to learn and to know about Christ; again, a changed mindset would bring about that frame of reference. And as I said, many of us start off like Thomas, doubting. We're exposed to it, “Yeah, I don't know.” But let me tell you what happens when you spend time in this book. You come as close as humanly possible to touching the nail, the nail holes or the scars, if you will, of Christ as Thomas did when you spend time in this book learning about Him.
That's as close as you're going to come in this lifetime. Don't think there's going go be some other thing to come and show you; there isn't. So you may start off as a Thomas, and that's fine, but eventually, as I said, spending time in this book is going to reveal certain things to you that may actually make you just like Thomas say, “Oh, my God; this is all true!” I, I hope and I pray for that. I, I don't know if anything I can say can bring that about because I know it's not possible. Only God can do that. We call that prevenient grace; God is the Initiator. Okay, what else happens if I am focused on this resurrected life? What other things will be impacted in my life if I understand; I've looked at the Resurrection, I've looked at all the proofs? Okay, it all happened, what else? Tell me honestly; don't put cameras on anybody.
Tell me honestly; is there anybody here in the sound of my voice that still grapples with forgiveness or being forgiven? Okay, that's a lot of you. That's actually most people. When I traveled, here's the best place to find out, into the institutions, into the jails, into the prisons, even with inmates that had really been, you could tell they were in the word, not just passing time reading. They were in the word. They still grappled with something, whether it was guilt of the event or many times over we'd hear the expression, “But I can't forgive myself.” Do you remember that? “I can't forgive myself.” And the idea is you don't have to be a hardened criminal or be incarcerated for that to be your mindset. See, what happens is what regrets or mistakes we make, Jesus offers forgiveness to each and every one of us, because the Bible says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died.” Again, you'd have to believe all that. You'd have to believe that that was the purpose of teaching the disciples to forgive one another, because in a microcosm how those instructions affect our lives also affect our relationship with God.
You may not see it that way, but that is the truth. Holding something in is a blockade, not letting go of it is a blockade between you and God. So the resurrected mindset says, “I'm going to work at this until I can figure out what it actually means.” You're looking at the evidence of that. I've told you the story many times, but hear it again in this particular message. The wrongs that were done to me in the first few years of ministry, the attempt to try and violate, tear down, rip apart, from some of the closest people; by the way, most of, a good chunk of these people are now dead. And I'm not going to say where they are, because I don't know. I really don't. I can have speculation, but I don't know. The very people that were trusted, insiders even, who tried to rip apart this ministry and told lies and you know, I'll just say it.
Here's a man who was even let in the most personal space, got to sit on Festival and talk to you all, who was in the room when Dr. Scott gave the final orders. They were, they were in writing already, but gave the final orders and spoke them out in this person's ear just before he had fallen into a stroke. Actually, it was, it was before he was in the hospital. This person turned around and said, “Oh, I, I don't know of any orders. I think she just usurped the position.” That spawned a whole bunch of people who listened to that person saying, “Well, she's a usurper,” that spawned other people making up lies. And it just became an implosion of people trying to attack. And I understood. It took me a while to process this; I don't even know how, because I am not wired this way. I was never wired this way. I was never good at forgiving; never. But I remember sitting in what was our old library, on the floor with my Bible praying and asking God to help me, because it was weighing so hard on me, “How could all these people be believers, followers of Christ, instructed in the word,” and yet they were hell-bent on destroying me and this ministry.
And I sat and I prayed, and I started reading the Scriptures and it dawned on me: I have to let all that go and release them. Not, I don't have to tell it to their face, I don't even have to ever see them again, shake their hand, do nothing. I have to release that. I have to forgive them before God, and theirs is the problem, not mine. I didn't commit the wrong.
Now sins against fellowman we forgive, we can forgive each other. Sins against God and the body of Christ, that's not for me to forgive. So I forgave the part that I could. The rest of it I left with God, because there was a lot of stuff against God and His work that, I'm not God, I'm not put in that position to do. Guess what happened? It happened in front of your eyes. I went from being so weighed down it was almost crippling that I couldn't even talk to you to one day after many months of processing the Scriptures and praying about it the clarity came to me. And it was like some heavy weight had been lifted off my back. And no, God didn't speak me in audible terms, but it became clear to me from Scripture that that is God's way. That's why He told Peter when Peter asked, “How many times should I forgive, Lord?” And basically Jesus' answer is “Indefinitely.” Well, in the flesh I can't do that.
That's right, but in the Spirit it's possible. So you think about these things how it changes everything, but forgiveness, I must digress back to that. If you read the Scriptures, how many times did Jesus say, “Your sins are forgiven; go and sin no more”? And we always take that out of context, but idea is that the Lord Himself looked upon people and forgave them. And remember what, what somebody said to Jesus, “Only God can forgive sins,” well, there you go. Forgiveness happened fully and completely on the cross to reconcile fallen man back to God, not to be put in the state of original Adam, but to be put back in the state to be able at some point to be eternally with God. So all I can tell you is part of understanding how His Resurrection affects you life is what God was doing the day after Adam and Eve fell from grace. It didn't just start with your birth or with the coming of Christ. It started way back there and it's a whole history of redemptive process until God said, “This is the final way.” I've been teaching on the tabernacle trying to show you that even there God was saying, “Christ is the way,” except Christ hadn't come in the flesh yet.
So by different shadows and types the depiction of Christ, His vicarious sacrifice; you can list all of them, they're all there. Don't think I'm preaching on the tabernacle because I want to talk about furniture. He knows our frame. I wish I could say this colloquially, because it would hit home for some of you. He knows how messed up we all are. Don't think; you're not fooling me and you're not fooling God and I'm not going to fool you; we're all messed up. There is no person in the sound of my voice that isn't a little messed up in the head, and God knows that. Only some delusional person would say, “Well, some of you are and some of you aren't”━you're all messed up! I'm messed up! And that's part of forgiveness is understanding our frame. You can be the most; you could be a strong person on the outside. You can give all the verbiage of strength, but inside, I don't care if you're a man or a woman, you are as frail and as weak in the frame that God knows that.
Not designed to be a stoic. This is my grievance with some people. They think somehow, “I can't possibly show any weakness at all.” Try that with God, because God knows the façade, He knows the games and the charades we play. That is, by the way, a changed mind before God through the Resurrection will change that. The next one is hope; hope is a part of the future as in life and death, hope through the resurrected Christ offers something else, the ability to see how He is able to help you when everything else is lost, bleak, and gone. Now, that's not battlefield prayers. That's hope that's always been there. That's the knowledge that, and don't misinterpret this, we spend our entire lives messing things up. We do. Even with good intentions, even with the best of intentions. He doesn't somehow with a magic wand fix everything, but it is through the things we mess up. If you're willing to see the direction that He gives, there's hope in watching how God will use certain things to help shape and form and give us direction.
That can give great hope, when you understand that not everything is a disaster. Let me give you a perfect case in point. Look at this crazy world. It looks like it's gone off the rails completely. Would you agree? (Yes, ma'am) But hope, for me, is looking at this crazy world and understanding something that for some people these current events are going to drive people who would never pray and never ask God, “Help me,” that gives me hope that not all is lost, because you know, God has a way of bringing the ones that He wants to their knees. And that may come sometimes through sickness, it may come through loss, poverty; you name it, but God has a way, knowing exactly what it is that will bring me to my knees; same for you. That gives me hope.
And you might say, “Well, what kind of hope is that?” It's the hope that I'm not alone in this world, even when I feel like it. It's the hope that through all of this, I know this sounds like a really cheesy statement, but I have a singular most important Friend, who will never leave me. So when everybody else is running because they're scared, I know the One who not abandon me. That gives me hope. What else will this do? Well, it will definitely change your heart. And by that I mean, and I hope this one hits home, how many people will listen and not have a change of heart? And by that I mean they will never make an attempt to understand what being part of the kingdom of God and being a child of God is. That means I'm part of, I'm actually part of a community of believers. I belong somewhere.
I am not some outsider. Do you know how many people I've heard say, “Well, I come to church, but”━you don't have to come to church to be a Christian. But a changed heart says, “I actually long to be amongst people that are likeminded.” Just think on that. A change of heart can also bring about a change of mind when it comes to things like giving. I know people that are so greedy or so cheap or so tightwad, the idea of actually giving every single week or month to the work of the ministry is absurd, “Oh, no.
I've got to keep the money in my bank account. I might need it. I've got to buy myself something,” fill in the blanks. But I, I'm sure about this; you have a medical emergency, you'll, you'll find the money for that. You have something dire, you've got life or death, you'll find the money for that. And don't tell me that understanding about God isn't life and death either.
See, that change of heart changes everything. Now some people come into the church, and let me talk about this for a minute. Some people come into the church and they are not generous, they are not givers, they have no understanding; they just come. They're happy to just be. And I get that. But at some point there's a nagging that starts to happen, “What can I do? How can I help? What is there more than just sitting in a seat and listening? What is it?” That is the genesis, and I've seen it; trust me, with a lot of new people that have come, “What? What more can I do? How can I help?” And it's not because they believe their help is an embodiment of works; they want to put their hand to the plow and participate, because anybody who understands the work of God and the work of the ministry and doesn't make it into a caricature, you can't help yourself.
And with the resurrected mind you cannot stop yourself, you are going to be, in fact, I've had this problem of telling people don't be here so much. Now you think, “Oh, okay, this person's got problems at home, that's why they don't want to be here, right?” Wrong. You've got husbands and wives coming to fulfill commitments together. That's not because there's a problem in the home. I can give you all kinds of scenarios, but I can also give you the people who give excuses, “Somebody else is doing it. Oh, I'm not really needed.” That's not the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ says, “How can I participate?” Like the disciples who were called, maybe initially they didn't understand what Jesus meant when He said, “I'll make you fishers of men from mere fishermen.” But you come in contact with the resurrected Christ and you take in that evidence and the change occurs, you might actually see it's not going to be some change from A to Z, but the context, the frame of reference, your focus will be different; it will be changed.
Or you'll be like I said the one who's indifferent and decides, “No, not my problem.” That's the flesh talking, by the way, not the Spirit. So I will say one last thing on this, on this particular sub-header here, and that is when I look at some of the most famous converts, which I would highly urge some of you if you are still not hearing down to the core, read the story of the most reluctant convert, C. S. Lewis and how his friends, like J. R. Tolkien, who I believe was a Catholic, but influenced in his inimitable way. But C. S. Lewis didn't come to the faith because of Tolkien. He came to the faith because of God. And there's a whole list of these, but you know what is amazing? From a man who discounted and said, “This is all mere rubbish,” and he goes on to write what I would call one of the most genius books that children and adults alike can read and enjoy, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is cloaked in Christian symbolism all the way through.
And you read that book and it has to make you shake your head for a minute that this was written by someone who absolutely discounted the faith, let alone reading the Bible. There's something to this that somehow if we are really looking at the evidence and we're really looking at everything what comes after that is a change. And as I said, it may not happen instantaneously, it may happen over time. Some people will frustrate the grace of God because they say, “Well, maybe I'm turning soft, or maybe I'm becoming this.” But the greatest thing that I can tell you that I have seen with my own eyes, I have watched people, not just for 18 years, but for all the time I've been with this ministry I have watched people that were living a certain way, and not under the, the coercion of anybody else, but they came to a conclusion: this has to stop, this has to change.
And not just words, with my own eyes I've seen. And I'm not going to stand here and take the time to calculate and enumerate how many. That's not the point. The point is exposure to the evidence should produce a change, a change in heart, a change in mind, a change in attitude; a change, by the way, that starts with I'm interested in learning more, tell me more. And maybe like many people who tune in, they say, “I'm not sure that I understand everything you said.” That's okay, because I didn't understand everything at the first. And most people; tell the truth, so that the world can hear. When you came in and you first started listening, did it all make sense to you? (No, Ma'am.) So don't think out there that you're somehow unique because you don't understand. It's called tenacity to stay with the stuff until something clicks, the lights come on, and you actually say, “Oh, my God! Why didn't I see this sooner?” How many, that's, that was my experience, why didn't I see this sooner.
How unfair is that that God didn't open my eyes sooner? But thank God He did. And that's the attitude we have to summarize and, and stay with. So, yes, maybe sometimes your pastor gets a little analytical or she gets a little parsing and things, but I wanted to keep this as simple as possible for the people out there that say, “What am I supposed to do?” I've given you enough in this to tell you there should be something that happens, and don't expect it to be something radical, something overnight; things that happen over time.
And I, I urge you to just consider this one thing. The disciples were with Christ for over three years. Did they change in three years? No. What changed them? The Resurrection, that single event, not just analyzing it, not just being a witness to it; that singular event just radically changed everything. And that same process, don't think that that event stopped and there was a terminus. You know, the terminus will be when God says, “I have enough souls. The number of souls that I desire to have with Me in My eternal kingdom has been met,” whatever that is. I have no idea. And when that number is fulfilled and God says, “Okay, the time is up here on earth.” But that shouldn't scare anyone who has this mind, because it opens the door to something else.
You know, this age we live in where people want to live forever and it's chasing after the fountain of youth, and “How can I keep this? And how can I hold onto it?” instead of thinking this old thing is going to rot. I'm more interested in the eternal clothing I'm going to get that I get to wear forever that I don't have to think about disease, I don't have to think about wrinkles, dying, disease, what I, whatever I just said in multiply it by a million, because everything will be magnified in the positive with Christ, with Him forever. That is really if you take; the takeaway from all this is about the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God starts the moment a person's eyes are opened. And I don't just mean because you heard, but the words have sunk down, taken root, and somehow that change is happening. My prayer today is for all those people who have not even understood what the application is, that your eyes may be opened and that something starts to click with you that this is not some exercise like a checkbook that you just check off that “I've done that,” but rather, a process that will last until you depart from this earth.
And the process is a beautiful one; pain along the way, there's some tumult along the way, there's some suffering along the way, but all the while you recognize there's a purpose in all of this. My purpose I understand, your purpose I understand, is to be a child of God in the kingdom with Him forever. That can only be understood in the Spirit. And I can't make somebody have the Spirit, but somebody who's desiring, somebody who earnestly wants, they will come to that conclusion and understand that's God's job and He is still doing. What He did back here in the book He's still doing today. So you say to me, “Well, change hasn't happened to me yet.” Be patient, my friends. Stay in the word and keep looking unto Him who is able to accomplish all in your life. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass.
If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com.
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