Hi, welcome to One and All.

My name is Drew.

I'm Heather, and we're a couple of the pastors here at One and All, and we get to work in this digital space.

Yeah, and it's a lot of fun, and we're excited because we are in week two of Hope Beyond, which this series will lead us into Easter, so you don't want to miss each message.

Pastor Jeff has just been going...

On and on, and this has been really, really good.

Yeah.

And so before we get into it, I want to encourage you to download our One and All app and follow along with the sermon notes because it is a lot.

So you want to make sure you have the notes.

So let's get into the message.

I'm in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 18 through 21 in Colossians 2, 14 and 15.

It's important, let me repeat that, it's important that you find those places.

Ephesians 1, 18 through 21 in Colossians 2.

14 and 15.

Now, as we get started, what book has sold more books than any other book in human history?

I think you've heard me say this before.

And of course, it's the Bible.

We're up to somewhere around, they estimate, 9 billion copies.

And its closest competitor is around 100 million.

So think about that.

9 billion, 100 million.

That's quite a discrepancy.

Second, what is the most recognized symbol on planet Earth?

Without a doubt, it's the sign of the cross.

Even if you don't know what it means, still, it's the most popular, the most recognized symbol.

You'll find it everywhere in the modern world, in homes, in churches, hospitals, schools, hilltops, overlooking freeways, mountaintops, on cars, and in some cases, overlooking entire cities.

Third, one of the two most celebrated holidays around the world.

That's easy, Christmas and Easter.

Again, you may not celebrate them for the same reasons.

Nevertheless, Christmas and Easter, the two most celebrated holidays in the world.

Now here's the only point I'm making with this.

Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, none of this would be a reality.

If Jesus had just died without a resurrection, he'd be part of a long list of dead leaders and messiahs whose names would have been ultimately forgotten.

Instead, his story has sold more copies than any other book, his symbol is the most recognized symbol in the world, and his birth is the most celebrated event in human history.

And yet, Few people really understand the implications of his death, burial, and resurrection.

And even far fewer Christians really have learned to appropriate the power and truth of the resurrection of Jesus into their everyday lives.

Now listen carefully, please.

We're going to build something here, and it's going to take a little bit of cerebral effort on your part.

The resurrection of Jesus not only means that Christians have a hope for the future, but it also means they have a hope from the future.

The resurrection means not only that Christians have a hope for in regard to the future, but they have a hope that's coming from the future.

So when Jesus rose from the dead, he brought the future kingdom of God into the present now.

So it's not here fully, but it is here substantially.

and Christians live an impoverished life if they don't realize the power that is available to them.

So let me read Ephesians 1, verses 18 through 21.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms, far above rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come.

So the resurrection, according to the Apostle Paul, to the church at Ephesus, launched the kingdom of God on earth.

and this kingdom is above all powers, authorities, rulers, and dominions.

However, if God is going to enlighten our eyes and our hearts to the wonder and the power of what is accessible to us, what has been given to us, we've got to understand what the kingdom of God is.

So let's postpone the pep rally for a moment.

Just for a moment, and let's think about this.

The coming of the kingdom of God was prophesied all through the Old Testament, and perhaps without doing an incredible or exhaustive Old Testament survey, we can just visit a passage in Isaiah that I believe summarizes the entire Old Testament prophecies of the coming kingdom of God.

When he speaks about a descendant of David who will be uniquely filled with the Holy Spirit, Isaiah chapter 11, 1 through 3, and who would rule.

bringing not only justice for the poor and the oppressed, but unity among all the nations and races.

So this is just a few things among a lot of other things, but in Isaiah 11, verse 6-9, we're told of the coming kingdom, the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra's den, and a young child will put its hand into the viper's nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

So even though this is definitely a literary form, poetic form, the message is completely clear.

The kingdom of God, when it comes, will not only bring political peace and social improvement, but nature itself will be healed.

The violence and the bloodshed of nature will be over, along with aging, disease, and death itself.

So if you're hearing this as a Christ follower, you're thinking, wait a minute, what?

Let me get this straight.

The kingdom of God began with the resurrection of Jesus.

The kingdom of God includes political peace, social justice, as well as an end of violence, death, and disease.

Well, if you're like me, you would think, wait a minute, what am I missing here?

In 1 Corinthians 15, which basically this entire series is dealing with 1 Corinthians 15, that deals...

On multi-levels with the resurrection, we're just visiting other passages that I think help us clarify 1 Corinthians 15.

We're told in verse 20, But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

But each in turn, Christ the firstfruits, then when he comes, those who belong to him.

Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power.

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

So something evidently devastating happened in Adam, the first man.

But we're told that something far more impacting happened in the second Adam or in Jesus Christ.

So that Christ's impact will heal the entire world and all the dimensions of human life.

From the throne of the coming king, and he came in his resurrection, flows new life and power such that no disease or decay or poverty or blemish or pain can stand before it.

Now here's the problem.

A major part of the reason, as we've mentioned before, that the people of Jesus'day refused to believe in what they were seeing before their very eyes.

Think about what they saw.

Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

That's pretty impressive.

The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and they saw it and they knew it.

But because they were steeped in tradition with the idea that when Messiah came and established his kingdom, that the age of Adam's sin...

and all of its ramifications will pass away immediately.

And the new age of the kingdom of God, when it's ushered in, would begin right now in full force, in full completion.

So Jesus shows up and he claims to be Messiah, Luke chapter 4.

He teaches that when he arrives, when he has arrived and he has, that the kingdom of God arrives, Luke chapter 17, verse 20 and 21.

He claims that he brought in a new covenant, John chapter 6, 45.

He said that to believe in him would mean that we were delivered from death, John chapter 11, the story of Lazarus.

He said that.

the exodus through which God will liberate the entire creation from slavery, death, and decay is through him, Luke 9, 31.

And that he was building the prophesied new temple, John 2, 19 through 21.

In other words, Jesus claimed in the greatest detail that every feature of the reign of God had begun now with his first coming.

And yet, Jesus was also clear that the kingdom had not yet come in its fullness.

So he teaches his disciples that the kingdom prepared for them since the foundation of the world would not be given in full, although it had come in reality.

It would not be given in full till the day of the Lord or judgment day, Matthew chapter 25 verse 34.

So let me kind of illustrate what we're told in the scriptures.

And we've done this before.

Let me just remind you, some of you may not have been here, but basically you and I are living life between two trees.

The first tree is the reality that the gospel story does not begin with the book of Matthew.

It begins in the book of Genesis, which means, by the way, beginnings.

Well, the beginning of what?

The beginning of this, where we are here and now.

If we stopped right now and we rewound the tape, that tape would run out at creation.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, beyond the first tree of creation, we're told that God was enjoying community and fellowship and eternity within the Trinity.

And then he says, suddenly, let us make man in our own image.

So love in this perfect community between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

still inspires God to create man in order that he would love beyond just the Trinity.

So God creates man to share his love more broadly.

Places man in the garden.

In the middle of the garden is the tree of life, representing that all life ultimately comes from God.

And man, a good life it was indeed.

I mean, man had it good walking with God in the cool of the day.

Can you imagine every evening you take a walk in the garden with God?

And then God creates woman and the Bible says man was forced to talk.

I'm just kidding.

God creates woman and we're told they were perfect for one another.

They were naked and unashamed.

And that's not because they were both on a low-carb diet.

It means it's about more than their bodies.

It's about emotional connection.

It was the first e-harmony, you know, soulmates.

Adam and Eve in perfect community and relationship with each other and with God.

This is what the first tree represents.

Acceptance, love, community, goodness, all of that, all joy, no fear.

But then sin enters the world and now that's where you and I are living.

However, the gospel doesn't culminate in our living, our time.

It just begins in the message of the cross.

But there's another tree that we find in the book of Revelation.

Here's what we read in Revelation 22.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.

On each side of the river stood the tree of life.

Here we go again.

Bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

So John is basically saying to us, that where the tree of life in the beginning, where everything was good, in this beautiful garden, now John is taking that same paradise, and instead of describing it as a garden, he's describing it as a city.

Tim Keller says, this is the city in Revelation that Adam was supposed to have built, a beautiful, glorious earth under the dominion of human beings, serving and living in the reign of the power of God.

What a great city it would have been, but the first Adam did not build the city.

And as a result, sin enters the world, death, destruction, pain.

And like Adam, we have used our freedom to pursue ourselves, not God thinking that we'd be better off in doing so.

But the other news is the second Adam Jesus did build is about the business of building the city that we all long to live in.

He came so that such a city could be built.

So in Revelation 21, we read what that city will be like when we're told that God's dwelling place is now among people and he will dwell with them.

They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.

So stay with me here.

What we're told, we have life beyond that tree, which was perfect paradise with God and perfect unity and diversity community.

We have life beyond that tree, which is a city rather than a garden, which again is perfect community, unity with God where he is our God, we are his people.

The problem is you and I live in the middle between the two trees, the tree of life in Genesis, the tree of life in Revelation.

Now.

what that tells us is that we've been impacted by this tree because they were kicked out of the garden and Adam's sin has been passed down to us.

However, we're also impacted by the other side of that tree where Christ's kingdom has been launched through his resurrection and much of the city he is building now is available, not all, but is available to us now.

So the question is, what on earth does all that mean?

Well, first of all...

It means that Christ has established that kingdom in its early stages, in its beginnings.

But we're also told in Matthew 13 that the kingdom of God is like a seed that grows largely out of sight, invisible to the human eye, and yet eventually grows into the greatest of trees.

In Romans 5, we're told, stay with me, we're packing this in, but we'll bring it together.

For if by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ?

So all through the gospel story, we're told about these two trees.

We're told about what happened when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, and that sin passed down to us, the impact, the effects.

But we're also told that Jesus has established a new kingdom, and the power and authority and dominion that he has over all things now has been launched through the resurrection, and somehow we have a part to play in that, even though it's the seed, the early beginning, the first fruits, before we realize it one day in full.

The point is we must not underestimate how present the kingdom of God is now, and yet we must not underestimate how unrealized it still is.

Because the kingdom of God is present partially, albeit not fully, we must expect substantial healing, but not total healing, in all the areas of our lives.

So to believe that Christians will never get sick or suffer setbacks or earthquakes or sin or famines or floods is to deny the reality of the impact of Adam's sin in a fallen world.

But to believe that the power of the future kingdom is not available to us to some degree in the here and now is to deny the power of the resurrection.

That's a lot, but remember we started this series by asking the question, okay, let's say Jesus did rise from the dead.

And we spent last week talking about the objective evidence of that.

But still the question is, so what?

How does that impact my life now?

That's the million-dollar question.

And the million-dollar answer is, to be brought out of one kingdom into another as Christians means that we are freed from the things that once controlled us and attempt to destroy us through the fall of Adam as it is passed down to us through generation after generation.

When I was young, sometimes my father would want to wake me up to something and he would, he was a boxer.

So he would come over and get me kind of in a headlock and rub the top of my head, which is why I'm convinced I started losing my hair.

He would rub the top of my head and he would say, wake up.

I'm trying to wake you up.

That's what I'm trying to do for us to wake us up.

Yes, we've been impacted, but yes, the kingdom of God has been launched to the power of the resurrection and that power has been available to us.

And when we learn to appropriate it, everything will change.

So What are the ramifications?

Just a couple.

Number one, it means if the kingdom has come, now there's no more shame or guilt.

You know, I pray that some of you would have a Jesus revelation this week because even though it's the simplest of truths, there are so many people that live without this kind of joy.

Let me give you two quick illustrations that I think will help you.

One, if you commit a crime, And the debt to society is two years in prison.

How do you know that you've paid the debt in full?

And the answer is when the doors that barred your way are opened and you're able to walk out freely.

You know that you paid your debt.

The Bible says in Romans 6, 23, that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And in Galatians 3, 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

So Jesus takes the penalty that comes with the curse of the law for us.

Pays it in full.

How do we know?

And the answer is because the door of death opened and he walked out.

When Jesus walked out of the tomb, sin and death went down for the count.

They no longer had power over us.

So second, that's how we know our sins are forgiven.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Sin and death defeated.

Second, if you go to Walmart or some store somewhere and you buy something deep into the store, Costco, wherever it is, and you're walking out to the gates and the bells go off, somebody may come up to you and demand to see your receipt.

So if you buy something and you have your receipt, you get stopped, you whip out your receipt and you say, this proves that I paid for this.

This proves that the price has been paid in full.

And with that, you're free to go.

Jesus worked on the cross and because of the resurrection.

you can know with certainty that God has stamped, paid in full across your life, your sin that has been paid, never to be mentioned again.

That's why.

Notice what Paul says back in 1 Corinthians 15, 7.

He says, if Christ has not been raised, you are still living in your sins.

Whoa, what?

Now follow me.

Oh, man, this is so good, but you've got to grapple with it.

Why doesn't he say if Christ wasn't crucified, you're still in your sins?

No, he says if Jesus was not raised, you're still living in your sins.

What does he mean by this?

Paul says hundreds and hundreds of times in his letters, you are in Christ and Christ is in you.

Your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus and the Father loves you even as he loves Jesus.

That means when God looks at us, he sees a son or a daughter who has died to sin and been raised with Jesus.

So everything Jesus did has been credited to you.

Do you see that?

Which is why in John 17, Jesus says something astounding.

Verse 22, he says, Father, I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity.

What?

How is it that Jesus, by giving us glory, ensures that we're all going to be unified?

Well, the word glory, the typical word doxa, is a word that also means beauty.

And we're told in the Bible, because of what Christ did for us, though our sins may be as scarlet, they shall become white as snow.

So in a very real way, Christ has made us judicially pure, pure.

but he's done that not because of our efforts, but because of the gift of grace.

So the idea is that when he gives all of us his glory, his beauty based on grace, that we would all understand we're all in the same boat and we're all sinners, so we wouldn't be so hard on each other.

That it would promote or catalyze a unity because we know we're all in a boat and it's sinking, but Christ saved us all.

And if Christ saved us all, then we know we have nothing to boast about other than the cross of Jesus Christ.

That unifies us.

That's why you can meet somebody when you travel all around the world and when you talk about the fact that you're both Christians, even though you speak a different language, you're from different cultures, instantly there's a unity that happens.

It's like you've met a long-lost brother or a long-lost sister because we're all saved by grace.

So when the Father looks at you and sees purity and goodness, which he does, not because you're good, but because your debt has been paid in full, and because his Son lives in you, guess what?

When God sees you, he sees you through cross-colored glasses.

You say, and I have people say, Jeff, I want to believe this.

I really do.

Because I really do.

But sometimes I misbehave, Pastor Jeff.

So when I misbehave, does that mean Jesus misbehaves?

No.

it means that God still sees Jesus as the one who atoned for your sins.

Yes, he sees your misbehavior.

There is a disappointment.

There may even be a discipline.

But he sees you.

When he looks at you, he sees mercy and forgiveness because he looks at you through the cross of Jesus.

But Jeff, didn't you hear me?

I still sin against God.

I mean, in fact, just last night.

Okay, first, stop it.

Knock it off.

but second, when your son misbehaves, do you stop loving him?

No, you weep for him.

You discipline him.

You may even be disappointed, but you don't stop loving him.

God's love, says Jesus, far exceeds anything your earthly father could ever give you.

And to the degree that you live in consciousness of that, to that degree, you are free from shame of anything you've done in the past, anything you'll do in the future.

By the way, as I've said many times, there's a worse sin than you having a sin that you think God cannot forgive you from.

And you're so shameful, so filled with guilt.

The only worse sin is not believing that Jesus'death, burial, and resurrection is powerful enough to forgive you.

Think about that.

Let that sink in for a moment.

You think you've done something that's so bad that you can't come near to God.

That's a worse sin.

because the power and the blood of Jesus Christ in his resurrection is sufficient to overcome all sin.

No matter how atrocious or heinous, God can overcome all sin through the blood of Jesus, and in fact, he does so.

So God says in the resurrection, this payment is sufficient.

You never have to pay for those things again.

Do you understand that?

Do you have your receipt?

Do you look at the resurrection and say, that's God's way of saying to me, I'll never have to pay for any of these things that happen.

Romans 8, 1 says there's no condemnation.

Not a little bit, not some.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So no failures, no setbacks, no unholy thoughts, no wandering, no idiotic decisions.

If you're in Christ, God forgives you.

Now, if we stop there, it would be a little bit dangerous because this truth has to be believed in conjunction with the second truth.

And the second truth is this, no more enslavement to the authorities that would destroy us.

So in Colossians 2, 14 to 15, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

So notice, Jesus'work on the cross and the resurrection disarmed the powers and authorities over us.

So first, our legal indebtedness, and I think some of us have began to understand that, so that the barrier between us and God has now been removed.

We got that, right?

We got the receipt paid in full.

But we're also told, hmm?

that the authorities or powers that fought against Jesus have been defeated and mocked.

They thought they had him.

They believed the knockout blow had been delivered, only to discover that God was playing rope-a-dope.

Now, if you're not 50 or above, you won't know that term, but there was a great boxer, perhaps the greatest fighter of all time, Cassius Clay or Muhammad Ali, and he was famous for a thing called rope-a-dope.

And when he would fight George Foreman or Joe Frazier, he would simply put his gloves over his face and head and let the other fighter for four or five rounds just beat on his body.

He believed that he was so strong, filled with endurance, he could take a beating.

And he would wait until the other boxer wore themselves out, thinking truly that they were having a victory, and then suddenly all of his strength would come out, and within a round or two, he would knock them out and deliver the final blow.

In a real way, that's exactly what God did in Christ on the cross.

The devil thought he had won.

He thought he had delivered the knockout blow, but the knockout blow came when Jesus walked out of the grave.

Then all sin and death were defeated and we're told that the powers and authorities that thought they had triumphed over him, Jesus made a spectacle out of them as he triumphed over them.

You say, well, what are those powers?

The same powers Paul refers to in Ephesians 6, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places.

And if you remember our series called Deception last year, you'll know that we said again and again that there's an unseen world that impacts the world in which we do see the one we live.

There is a three-tiered system that is very organized to defeat us.

Earthly powers influenced by rulers of darkness who are governed by spiritual hosts of wickedness.

Those forces are powerful and have influence and sway over those who are not in Christ.

But for those of us who are in Christ, these powers and authorities have been disarmed and defanged in the life of the believer.

Which means there's not only now therefore no condemnation, it also means there is now therefore no slavery to those authorities.

You with me?

If you say that the blood of Jesus cannot forgive you of your sin, then you rearm the powers and authorities in your life.

Moreover, if you say that you're too weak to overcome the sins of the future, I'm telling you the real problem is you either really don't want to exit, you really don't want to look for the exit sign, because no temptation has come to you that is not common to man, that God will not provide a way out.

So you either don't want to get out, or you're not appropriating the power of Jesus'resurrection into your life.

Now let me go back and refer to an illustration we've used many times, and it's the potato heads.

They work so well with this, because here's the deal.

when you and I are trying to conquer some temptation or sin in our life that is destroying us, we have the temptation to think that it's us, and this little fellow here represents sin, that it's us and sin partnering together against God.

But the Bible says that is a wrong way to look at this.

In fact, sin is helpless unless you lend to him the members of your body.

So you actually have the power through the Spirit to say no.

So if this little guy over here, Sin, says, give me your eyes, Pastor Jeff.

There's a few things I want you to look at while you're traveling on this trip.

At that point, the Bible says, I have the power within me to say no.

because of the resurrection.

No, you can't have my eyes.

And so if I say, no, you can't have my eyes, then it stops dead in its tracks right there.

Now you could go on and do this with every member of the potato head body.

Pastor Jeb, there's a few things I'd like to say to your wife in response to what she said to you the other day.

At that point, also, if I want to live, At that point, I can say, no, I'm not going to give you my mouth.

I'm not returning evil for evil.

I'm going to get in trouble for that.

I am going to be quiet, remain quiet, passive in this particular case, and I'm going to forgive and show mercy.

I'm sure my wife does that with me all the time.

But keep going.

Pastor Jeff, I want you to listen to some things.

Pastor Jeff, I want you to touch some things.

Pastor Jeff, I want you to go some places.

So the Bible says it's not us and sin against this guy.

that it's me and God and the power of the resurrection that will defeat this guy by doing what?

Well, let's read it.

It's in Romans chapter 6, verse 8 through 14.

Now, and I know we're reading Scripture, but you've got to get Scripture into you, man.

I can't just stand up here and tell you this, this, and this.

You've got to get the Word of God.

It's the Word of God that will not return void.

Not my words.

And so in Romans 6, we're told this.

If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again.

Death no longer has mastery over him.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

Do not offer any part of yourselves to sin.

No.

as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as though who have been brought from death to life and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

And then he says in verse 14, For sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under law but under grace.

For a long time I thought, what did Paul just do there?

Did he change the conversation from sanctification back to salvation?

Not at all.

He's simply saying, remember, you're not under law.

You're under grace.

You're under grace because God gave you the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit because he made you pure on the cross, which meant now that you are in purity and Christ lives in you, God and you can enter into relationship.

and because you're in relationship, you have the power over sin and death.

But you have to be aware of what's happening to you.

You have to be, because we're told back in Romans 5 again that the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man.

How much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man.

So whatever Adam did, and it's a long theological discussion, whatever Adam did, whatever impact he had on us, Christ rectifies.

So the tree in the Garden of Eden that pulls you left, it has no judicial claim over your life anymore.

It may have a pragmatic impact on your flesh that will only be completely solved on the day of redemption when you're given the new body, and we'll talk about that next week.

But in the meantime, the residual impact of Adam's sin resides, yes, throughout the generations, but you have power over it because you're drawing from the kingdom that is beyond the second or the third tree.

Jesus'gift to us, rectified, whatever it is that Adam said accomplished.

Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.

God's power in us is greater than the powers and influence of darkness.

However, this is the key, there is a battle to be fought.

The kingdom is here.

We do have power over sin, but not in full.

We still got to fight.

All right.

I want to clear up a misunderstanding, and then I want to really hone in on this particular idea of how God's grace impacts us and things that have passed on to us through generation after generation.

There's a verse in Exodus chapter 34, verse 7, that I hear often quoted.

Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord.

So God is doing the speaking here.

And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord.

The compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.

So, I want you to notice something in this list.

First of all, again, God is describing himself with these attributes.

And if you were to make a list of what he just said, here's what you'd come up with.

Compassion, slow to anger, gracious, abounding in kindness.

abounding in faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving sin, and then finally not clearing the guilty.

Now, have you noticed something?

The first seven are all positive.

The eighth one seems to be negative.

Yet, in the original translation, What the Bible says is that he does not remit all punishment, yet he does not clear the guilty, which that means he's a God of justice, which is still a good thing, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children's children upon the third and fourth generation.

So what is pointed out here is the Hebrew word is poked, which means visited, which actually means remembers.

So literally, God remembers the iniquity of parents upon the children and children's children upon the third and fourth generation.

But this verse does not mean that God punishes the children for their parents'sin.

That would be contradictory to Deuteronomy 24, 16.

Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents.

Each will die for their own sin.

The intent of this passage is to communicate two things.

Number one, God remembers the good.

It's a parallel.

Hebrew parallelism, very popular.

God remembers the good done by people a thousand generations, but only remembers the bad done for three or four generations.

But the second thing we're told is that God is describing for us the way the world and the flesh really works.

When parents do bad things, their children, knowing no other model, often follow in their footsteps.

The Bible is simply stating the psychological and emotional damage done to the children of parents who commit sin.

And how real it is and how it's passed down.

The problem you and I have is our parents were sinners.

But guess what?

Their parents were sinners too.

There is a pattern that develops.

However, let me say it one more time.

When the kingdom of God comes, Christ will release his power to overcome.

No matter the degree of the sin or pattern that has been passed down.

I mean, in fact, there's no idea.

One of our pastors here, Michael Chisaka, he's gone on trips with me to Africa many times.

And I've always noticed we both do some speaking and I do some leadership stuff.

But really, the guys really hone in and start to really pay attention when Michael starts talking about something he calls a genogram.

And he tries to get these African leaders, African men, because in an African culture, oh my, there are years of generational sins, especially when it comes to the treatment of your wife, the abuse of your children.

I'm not saying that every African Christian is involved in this, but there definitely is a cultural pattern.

And Michael will attest to this.

So when he starts talking about this, the African leaders really hone in.

And he encourages them to identify through prayer and scripture what these patterns are.

And he gives the example of his own father.

I'm sure if he looked at his grandfather and his great-grandfather, right on down through the ages, there are habits, there are things that we learn in the environment of the family that even though we might hate them, we have the tendency to pass them down as if they were inherited all the way back to the sin of Adam.

Now here's the thing, we all have them.

We have been tainted by Adam and the fall, for sure, including our parents.

There's a cause and effect.

Now, I wish I had the time to go through numerous examples, but I do need to give you one or maybe two.

Let's say there is a daughter who has a father who is very militant.

And so he's demanding, he's protective, but he's not very emotional or connecting.

And yet this daughter longs desperately for affection.

And her father's not a bad father.

There's just something missing in the father-daughter relationship that she desperately longs for.

So as she grows older, guess what?

She's going to develop habits in her life to cope with this feeling of a lack of affection.

I know a particular case where in order to do that, the young woman at a very young age started sleeping with every boy she could, not because she was addicted to sex, but because she was addicted to approval.

She was beautiful.

Somebody once said to me, really?

I can't believe that about her.

Look at her.

She's gorgeous.

She can get any guy she wants.

But it has nothing to do with looks or the exterior.

It has more to do with what's going on in the inside.

And she is looking for a young man to save her, to love her, appreciate her, give her the approval that her father never gave her or that she didn't feel like she received from her father.

Most of our issues go back to the failures of our parents and the failure of their parents and the failure of their parents.

We're only human.

And there are generational sins that have been passed down to all of us through generation after generation, some more serious than others.

I mean, we know this on a genetic type level, physical level, don't we?

One of the things I'm amazed about is how when we see a professional athlete, you think about what, a lot of it is talent, no doubt, a lot of it's talent.

Like I've said before, I could practice every day of my life and never hit a golf ball like Tiger Woods.

A lot of it's just God-given natural ability.

Then you get a family like the Manning family.

You got Archie Manning who was quarterback.

Then you got Peyton Manning.

Then you got Eli Manning.

Then you got the son of, I think, Peyton, Arch Manning, who's playing at Texas.

How can it be that in one family you've got so many professional athletes, people who excel to a great degree?

The answer is this.

These physical attributes, for some reason, that hone in on this particular area, have been passed down.

I think it's a good thing.

What the Bible teaches us is that you and I have inherited emotional struggles, attributes and predispositions that are all part of the fall.

For some people, they can take one drink and become an alcoholic.

Others can take one drink every two weeks or so and not even phase them.

Others can look at pornography and suddenly it's trapped them, it's got them involved.

There are insecurities that we have that force us, not force us, that inspire us or give us a predisposition to behave a certain way.

There are controlling personalities because they felt they were controlled, so they've become controlling.

There are coping mechanisms.

There are food addictions.

There are gaming addictions.

There are gambling addictions.

It goes on and on.

Let's say you had a mother that was absent, all about herself.

Now, she loved you in her own way, but this is how she was taught from her mother and her mother's mother.

She was somewhat absent.

She was controlling.

She wanted everything to be exactly the way she wanted it to be.

She was insecure, which made her be a little bit temperamental.

She developed addictions in her own life as a coping mechanism.

You hated it.

The older you got, the more you realized her weaknesses.

Guess what?

You're becoming just like her.

You know?

You are responding to the things that you hate with things that are just as damaging to the next generation.

So let's say you go the opposite way.

You're responding to what you detested in your childhood.

So to make sure you're not absent, you are too present with your children.

That is, you won't let them out of your sight.

And that gives you a sense of comfort.

Think about that.

To make sure no one else controls you, you control everyone else and everything else to make sure that can't happen again.

But you've become just like your mom or your father.

father if it's your dad.

To make sure you don't feel insecure, you gossip, slander, and cancel everyone who disagrees with you just like your mother did.

And guess what?

You hated her addiction or you hated his addiction, but you find your own addiction.

Shopping, eating, church even.

Do you know that?

Church can be an addiction.

You do it to make sure you don't have what others perceive as a bad addiction, but make no mistake, you still have a coping mechanism.

The addictive personality is still in you.

It's been passed down.

So you're going to latch on to something in an unhealthy way to satisfy whatever it is you think is missing.

Now, don't be so hard on yourself.

This is all of us.

And let me tell you something about counseling.

Good counseling may help you and identify it, but bad counseling will help you revel in it.

If you're not being counseled by someone who has a worldview that the power of the resurrection overcomes all things, and you never move on until you stop playing the role of victim and you give the grace to your parents that your children are going to need to give you when they get older, you're never going to move on from it.

In heaven's name, for the sake of your children, for the sake of coming generations, get into an accountability group.

Appropriate the power of the resurrection.

Let other people help identify that sin in you.

Ask Jesus for a Jesus revelation to help you see the way he sees your life.

Then acknowledge the power that is in you.

Don't play the role of victim.

That's the devil's game.

Do not give up.

Do not give in.

Feeling sad or feeling sorry is not the same thing as repentance.

And just because you're transparent, just because you tell people, yeah, I know I have this problem, but you never appropriate the power of the resurrection, that's not the same thing as repentance.

the power in you, remember what you're told, the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the age to come.

Do you know, the great song Rock of Ages included a line, that as old as it is, still so true, rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.

Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure.

Save me from its guilt and power.

that is the role of the Holy Spirit.

Listen, if you're a person that says, well, I've got this thing in my life and it's just too demanding.

It's too powerful.

I am too weak.

Do you understand what it is that you're saying at that point?

You are saying that the power of the resurrection is not powerful enough to help you defeat the demons in your life.

And at that point, you make a spectacle out of the cross again.

I'm not saying it won't be difficult.

My goodness, it will be difficult.

The battle against the flesh is very difficult, but it's a battle you can win.

Don't believe the lie that you cannot have power and victory over this.

So quickly, let's finish.

No more guilt and shame because of the power of the resurrection.

And no more enslavement to the authorities that would destroy you.

But third and finally, no more fear of death.

Now we've touched on this a little bit and we'll touch on it again every week.

But I want you to understand something.

George Herbert addresses death, and here's what he says.

Though death was once an executioner, it is now merely a gardener, an usher to convey our souls beyond the utmost stars and poles.

What's he saying?

He says, one day, we're all going to die.

But for the Christ follower, whose faith and trust is in the resurrection, death will be the final enemy that's destroyed.

And there's no need, no need to dread it.

Now, I said this.

to our prayer meeting on Monday.

And by the way, if you missed that, I gotta encourage you once again.

Why have you never attended a prayer meeting?

Man, if you can't come every time we have them, you've got to come and witness one because that's where you're gonna see revival that's happening in our church.

So I looked out over the crowd and I told them, you know, when you're young, you're afraid of dying because you're afraid of all the things you're gonna miss.

I haven't lived yet.

When you get older, you start to realize somewhere around your late 40s and 50s, you know what, I'm not missing that much.

I'm not missing that much.

And then when you get old, old like I am, when you get 60s and 70s, you do have a concern about death, even a fear from time to time.

But the fear is not that you're going to lose an experience of some kind, or that something you've been pursuing or chasing isn't going to be fulfilled.

The fear is associated with people that you love.

and you don't want to die because you don't want to leave them.

But this is what the resurrection undoes.

You don't have to worry about this anymore.

In fact, because of the resurrection, when we acknowledge that our true fear of death is associated with the loss of love, now we can know that death itself, because of the cross, is associated with the loss of love.

can now only infinitely enhance our experience of love and joy in the presence of God.

You say, well, how so?

Because when we die, we are rejoined with those that we've loved and lost, and we will see them as they truly are in the presence of God, and the love will increase.

We'll go back to paradise, gained.

in the city that God has built, not made with hands.

They will be with us.

When I think of that, man, when I think of one day getting to see my mom and my dad and my grandmother, I just, you know, what's that going to be like?

And to live with that knowledge, to live with the knowledge that I'm really, in death, not going to lose anything, but gain to an infinitely greater degree.

You say, well, if you die, Jeff, you're leaving your children behind.

Yeah.

God will take care of my children and one day we'll be rejoined and we'll meet again.

For those mothers who have lost children, I always like to remind them, you may have lost them temporarily, but you will meet them and you will rejoice and the dots will all be connected and all this will start to make sense and your love and your joy will just increase infinitely to a degree that you could never imagine.

So here's my challenge.

Don't make the same mistake the first disciples made.

Jesus has defeated sin and its effect, yet not in full.

We are forgiven of past, present, future sins, but we still struggle and fight against them with the weapons of our warfare.

Don't give up, don't give in.

Appropriate the power of the resurrection by taking a journey of discovery in scripture and in prayer.

And maybe you're a person that needs to join on Monday nights, what we call regenerate.

This is a place that will help walk you through these things.

And if these things, as I was talking to you, man, and you heard this message and you're thinking, man, Jeff, you're so right.

Man, I'm becoming just like my mother, or I'm just like my father, or I'm fighting these and I can't get over them.

Man, you need somebody to come alongside you and walk with you through this journey.

And you can, through the power of the resurrection, as your eyes are open, defeat the things that are entangling you, keeping you from living an abundant life.

And second, what Adam has passed down to us, remember, Christ has overpowered.

Yes, the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak, yet I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So you know how I want to end this message?

I've always wanted to do this.

I've heard it done a thousand times, but I've always wanted to do this, and it's this.

Let's get ready to rumble!

I've always wanted to say that with a big, loud microphone.

That's what the Christian life is, folks.

You either give up and you claim you're too weak, or you appropriate the power of the Spirit of God in your life.

Everything changes.

Father, thank you for the power of your love and your forgiveness, and I pray in Christ's name.

this message would go out and be heard.

Anything I've said that is not consistent with your word would be like seed trampled upon forgotten.

But all that I've said that is consistent with your word would penetrate the hearts and minds of the hearer so deeply transformation will come as we acknowledge the power of Jesus'resurrection in us.

In Christ's name, amen.

That was great.

Pastor Jeff really called us to really think about the power of the resurrection and how if we call ourselves Christ followers, if we're believers in Jesus, then we can appropriate that power.

And that's what can help guide us through really confusing decisions in life.

And if you've never decided to become a Christian, if you wouldn't consider yourself a follower of Jesus, but you'd like to make that decision, you're going to have to make that decision.

we would love to walk you through that.

You can go to oneandall.church slash Jesus and our team would love to just come alongside you for that really incredible decision.

And outside of that, I also want to make sure you know we have a lot of resources to help on this Christian life.

One of them that's really cool is the Conversations podcast.

No, not podcast, just Conversations, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So can you tell us a little bit more about how that could be helpful for someone coming off of a message like this?

Yeah, I love doing conversations with whoever's speaking that weekend.

Majority of the time it's Pastor Jeff.

And it's awesome because a lot of people always get to see Jeff.

Obviously on the stage, behind the podium, and then oftentimes Jeff will always say, oh, I have to cut this out, or I can't elaborate too much on this.

And really, conversation is that space for...

Jeff or whoever's speaking to really go a little bit deeper in the message and to really talk about something that they weren't either able to because of time or just something that may be confusing for us.

We're like, okay, Jeff, I need you to explain this because I don't get it at all.

But honestly, it's a really good time just to see one, our lead pastor and our other speakers just kind of be themselves and hear from them and hear their heart here.

Sometimes get a, get a laugh out of them, which is really fun, but I think it's a great resource, especially after hearing the sermon, just to be like, Hey, I just need something midweek.

I need something that helps me understand the sermon or helps me communicate the sermon, which is huge.

And so it's a fun time.

I love doing them and they're a great resource for you to watch midweek, wherever you're at, go to our YouTube channel.

and watch our conversation.

And we hope you enjoyed today's message.

And we're going to end like we always do, with one hope, one life in Christ.