Hi, my name is Shira and I've been on the worship team for almost two years.

I didn't grow up in the Christian church, I grew up in a Catholic church and being a child of two deaf parents made it really difficult to communicate with the world so I wasn't able to speak until I was about five years old.

Music was just kind of my way of communicating.

I was always caught in the middle.

I was always the one interpreting and being the middle person for the hearing and for the deaf.

In my own family and even outside of the home, I always felt like I had to be perfect.

That everything weighed on me, and that really made it difficult for me to figure out what my purpose was.

Because at that moment, I just felt like, oh, my only purpose is to just help out my parents.

I got to high school.

I started doing drugs, started drinking, and just fell into the wrong crowd.

Yeah, and I just lost myself.

Then in 2024, a friend invited me to one and all, to a young adult's night.

And at first, I was like, nah, I don't want to go.

But then I really felt something telling me to go.

And that night, I had experienced nothing that I had ever felt before.

I cried and broke down in church, which has never happened for me in the Catholic Church.

I stopped smoking, I stopped drinking, I felt called to lead worship.

When I got accepted onto the worship team, I told my parents about it and they were very against it.

They didn't really have a deep relationship with God.

They were like, why are you going to do worship if we can't even hear you?

And why are you going to serve a God that doesn't even love us?

Because we felt isolated from the whole world because He made us deaf.

But then one day I was on YouTube and I was just scrolling and then I saw um worship in sign language for the song Gratitude and Goodness of God.

I learned them right away and then I showed it to my parents and they broke down crying and I was like, why are you crying?

And they were like, because even though we were born deaf, God blessed us with you to be our voice and to bring us back to him.

My relationship with my parents grew a lot.

They now go to a deaf church.

They even go to deaf Bible studies and every time I hang out with my mom we're always talking about what God has done in our lives and what she's studying in the Bible, which I had never thought in a million years we'd ever be able to do.

I'm going to Life Pacific University studying worship arts and media.

And my main goal is to bring the deaf community and the hearing community to the church together as one body of Christ.

I don't know, it's just something really special that I know only God could do.

And even God being so intentional in the way that he made my name, my parents, they combine their names together to make my name, but in the Hebrew language, it actually means song.

You know, when I first saw Shira's story, I immediately thought of Isaiah 35.

Everyone will see the Lord's splendor, see his greatness and power, give strength to hands that are tired.

and the knees that tremble with weakness.

Tell everyone who's discouraged to be strong and don't be afraid.

God is coming to your rescue.

The blind will be able to see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap and dance, and those who cannot speak will shout for joy, and they will be happy forever, forever free from sorrow and grief.

Isaiah 35.

You know, to a lot of people in the world today, this is just pie in the sky.

It's something that we tell ourselves to be able to deal.

with the tragedy of life.

In fact, when Robin and I lived in New Zealand, there was a university professor during the course of which I was the host of a program called Questions of Life.

And she came to visit and she goes, you know, I'm very uncomfortable that so many of my students are attending your church.

And I said, why?

And she said, because it's only non-intellectuals who believe this stuff.

And my response to her was, in kindness, I said, if my ignorance about what you believe was immense as your ignorance about what I believe, You would laugh at me.

She said, what do you mean?

Do you not know that some of the best educated, highly influential, highly respected intellectuals of past and present believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ so intently that they converted to Christianity?

She said, name a few, and that was a mistake.

Sir Lionel LeCoultre, who's the most successful lawyer, according to the Guinness World Book of Records, set out to disprove the resurrection and did so for 14 years until he finally converted to Christianity.

Lee Strobel, award-winning journalist with the Chicago Tribune, tried to disprove Christianity through historical research, ended up writing a book called The Case for Christ and the Case for Faith, converted to Christianity because the historical...

The reality of the resurrection was overwhelming.

Rosalind Picard, I don't know if you know who she is, an MIT professor, she began reading the Bible in order to disprove to her students Christianity.

She ended up converting to Jesus Christ.

C.S.

Lewis, a renowned atheist, prolific writer, converted to Christianity because of the overwhelming historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Not to mention Francis Collins, the former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

leader of the Human Genome Project, Dr.

John Lennox, a mathematician and philosopher of science at Oxford University, Alistair McGrath, a molecular biologist at Oxford University.

As you look down the course of history, some of the best educated, highly influential, highly respected intellectuals of the past and present believed in the resurrection, the historical reality of the resurrection to such a degree that they converted to Christianity.

When scholars honestly pursue the truth in history, nine times out of 10, they become Christ followers.

Now, in 2005, and folks, you have no idea what I had to do to track this down.

This is a 2005 edition of Newsweek magazine, which I could not find, but I had remembered reading it, got a good memory.

I had to pay $35 for this on Amazon to some guy, or eBay on some guy who did not want to part with it.

But it was worth it, because something unique happened in this article in 2025.

I don't know if you saw American Idol this week, when one of the episodes was like a Praise Jesus Hour.

Did you see that?

I'm not sure they intended to do that, but it turned into that, didn't it?

There's an article in Newsweek in 2005, and you start reading it, and you think, where is this guy going?

Because this isn't exactly your ultra-conservative evangelical magazine.

And the writer starts to trace the history of the Christian church.

And as you read the article, you wonder, where's he going?

Is he going to suggest to us in this magazine, Newsweek, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an actual historical event?

And that's exactly what he does.

And so letters to the editor poured in after this article, March 2025, and the contributor said, how on earth can a liberal journalist believe or arrive at such a conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a literal historical event.

And the answer, according to the article, is this.

There is no other historically possible alternate explanation for the events of the resurrection.

If you don't believe in the resurrection as an actual historical event, the author says you've got a major problem.

How do you explain all the events that occurred?

after the resurrection in well-documented eyewitness accounts, such as the gospels, which continue to gain more and more credibility as time goes by, not less.

And the author says, you've got to account for the fact that hundreds of Jews saw Jesus Christ in groups repeatedly for 40 days after the resurrection.

And he says that people don't tend to hallucinate in groups.

You and I live in a time when we can look back and notice the cause and effect of all the events of the past.

And so you and I ask questions like, well, if the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a deliberate lie by the disciples, then why on earth did they spend all of their lives proclaiming and worshiping Jesus as God and then refuse to recant even when their lives were threatened and their families were murdered?

Yes, I know historically people will die for a lie.

but they won't die for a lie that they're certain is a lie.

And the disciples would have known whether Jesus came back from the dead or not.

These are the points this guy makes.

Not a theologian.

This guy makes a historian about the resurrection.

And he says, and then you've got the cultural issues.

You have to understand that when Jesus ascended back to the Father, this is what we read in Luke 24.

While he was blessing them, he left them, was taken up into heaven.

They worshiped him.

and returned Jerusalem with great joy, and they stayed continually at the temple praising God.

And the author says, wait a minute, the Jews were the last people on the face of the earth to think that God could become a man.

The name of God was so holy, they didn't even say the name, they didn't even spell the name, yet immediately.

After the resurrection, 15,000 Jews started worshiping Jesus, a man from Nazareth, a carpenter, as if he was God in the flesh.

That's a shattering of thousands of years of a paradigm.

And then 15,000, 20,000 Jews move from going to the tabernacle and worshiping God on the Sabbath to meeting in homes together and worshiping Jesus.

on the first day of the week because that's the day he rose from the dead.

Historians agree that kind of a cultural shift could only happen if their paradigm was shattered.

So the question historians ask, what shattered the paradigm?

And the only plausible explanation is that Jesus must indeed have risen from the dead.

They saw him die.

They saw him buried.

They saw the soldiers running through with a spear.

Jesus was not mostly dead, Princess Bride.

He was fully dead.

Historians say this cannot be overrated.

The Greeks didn't even believe in the resurrection of the body.

The Jews didn't believe in an individual resurrected Messiah in the middle of history who dies.

Yeah, they believed in a Messiah who would come as an earthly king like King David and rule and give the Jews their rightful place in the world.

But they had no concept of a Messiah who would come and be tortured and would be crucified on a cross.

Cursed is he who hangs on a tree and yet would pray on the cross, Father, why have you abandoned me, forsaken me?

And the angels did not deliver him.

The Jews had no idea of a Messiah like that.

And yet, Jesus was scourged, crucified, killed, buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and then he rose from the dead.

So historians say, why is it that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Jews and Greeks, historically speaking, overnight started to believe in Jesus.

Why did smart, intelligent people, steeped in hundreds and hundreds of years of tradition, almost overnight begin worshiping a man they believed to be God in the flesh?

Newsweek magazine, you know what the article says?

The only plausible explanation to explain history is that Jesus must have come back from the dead.

You can imagine.

This is what the article points out, and it's what Christian apologists have pointed out for generation after generation.

Now, some of you in the room, in the tent, on the patio, in the street, wherever you are, you might say, Jeff, nice try, but I just don't believe it.

Okay.

Thanks for being honest.

Can you be honest one more step with me?

When you deny the resurrection, you're not doing history now.

You're taking a leap of faith that history is untrue.

Dr.

Tim Keller says that if you don't believe in the resurrection as an historical event, you are desperately holding on to a belief against the evidence, not for it.

Your white European enlightenment faith has prejudiced you against the supernatural.

And he says, just admit what you're doing.

Your denial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with fact.

Now, you know what fact is, right?

Let me help you.

I was visiting my daughter in Kazakhstan last year.

She took me to a little place called Bordevoye.

It was beautiful.

It had a golf course.

I was the only one on it.

I could play like 18 holes in two and a half hours.

It was beautiful.

I just kept going round and round and round.

It also had a great gym right in the little town.

And so it was like heaven.

I could play golf.

I could study in the morning, play golf in the afternoon, work out in the evening.

When I walked into the gym, I don't know if I shared this before.

When I walked into the gym, all the young men stopped what they were doing and they walked over to the door and shook my hand.

I mean, they lined up.

And I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

You know, this doesn't happen by accident.

I'm really feeling good about myself, guys.

And then I work out, they're watching me.

And when I leave, they all line up at the door, shake my hand again as I'm going out.

I got home and I said, Sian, Robin, my wife, you're not gonna believe what happened.

And I told them and Sian said, no, dad.

In Kazakhstan, it's the way of respecting old men.

When old men enter a building, young men shake their hands.

Now, let me tell you something.

I didn't like hearing that.

Here's fact, I'm old and I don't like it.

I wish it were not true.

I am not aging gracefully.

The first time a McDonald's helper asked me if I wanted a senior's coffee, I wanted to reach across and smack them in the name of Jesus.

I didn't do it.

I'm old, it's a fact, I have to deal with it.

People say, well, I don't feel old.

Well, good for you, but you are.

Divine old.

Well, I'm 61 years old.

I am not young.

I am not middle-aged.

I am old.

61 is not middle-aged.

What is it then?

Old age.

Well, Pastor Jeff, I'm 80.

What does that make me?

I'm borrowed time.

That's what it makes you.

Now, the point I'm making is much of the world is going to celebrate Easter this year.

193 countries, 193 countries, more than half of them in our world will celebrate Easter.

You're going to have women wearing fancy hats in the South where I'm from.

You're going to have children hunting for Easter eggs.

You're going to have people eating chocolate bunny, which I happen to like.

But there are going to be many people go to church, especially in the West.

And the reason they go to church on Easter, they will say, well, the resurrection is a symbol of truth that we must always have hope.

In the worst winter, spring is just around the corner and good things can happen.

And all the other philosophical pish posh.

That is not what Easter is.

It's much more than some kind of philosophical idea that...

perhaps somehow in an airy, fiery land, something will happen that we have a better life.

Let me read the story to you in Luke 24.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground.

But the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead?

He's not here.

He has risen.

Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee, the son of man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again.

Then they remembered his words.

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11 and to all the others.

It was Mary Magdalene, Johanna.

Mary, the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles, but they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb, bending over.

He saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away wondering to himself what had happened.

And then in Luke 24, two men are walking on a road, Jesus, this is the road to Emmaus, and Jesus before that experience met with the disciples and appeared to them and noticed the disciples' response and then noticed Jesus' response to them.

Verse 37 in Luke 24 says, they were startled and frightened thinking that they saw a ghost.

They said to him, or he said to them, why are you troubled?

And why do doubts rise in your minds?

Look at my hands and my feet.

It is I myself.

Touch me and see.

A ghost does not have flesh and bones.

As you see, I have.

Jesus is saying to the disciples, you see me.

This is not an apparition.

It's not a vision.

It's not a hallucination.

I have flesh and bones.

It's Jesus' way of saying this stuff's about to get real.

This is real.

And if you ever hope to glean the power of transformation in your life because of the historical reality of the resurrection.

The first thing you have to do is understand this story is not legend or myth, that it happened in time and space.

It is rooted in history.

Otherwise, what are we doing?

What game are we playing here?

Either it's real or it's not.

Either it happened or it didn't.

If it happened, everything changes.

If it didn't, we're just playing a game here and making each other feel good, but there's no reality to it.

Now, the second thing is if it's an historical reality, then it explains all of history because history is his story, the story of God and what he's been doing in the world.

And that's why at our church, we're constantly asking questions like, why am I here?

For what purpose did I come into the world?

What am I supposed to do now?

Why does God allow pain, suffering, and evil if he's a good and merciful God?

Is there hope for a better world?

All of those questions we deal with, but we only deal with them because we believe that God's story you It culminates, climaxes in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Therefore, since Jesus rose from the dead, he can be trusted.

How many of you saw the movie Sixth Sense?

I'm going back old now, aren't I?

It was a good movie with Bruce Willis.

You learn, though, toward the end of the movie, that Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time.

So when you realize that he's actually been dead, you go back now and reinterpret the movie in light of the fact he's not living.

So you go back and you see him talking to a woman in the same room, but you realize they never look at each other and you're seeing it through the eyes now of the reality that he's not alive.

Now, when Jesus rose from the dead, What you do now as a Christ follower, or as anyone doing history, you go back now and you reinterpret history on the basis of this truth you've discovered.

One of the most comedic scenes in the New Testament is back to those two guys that are walking on the road to Emmaus.

And Jesus appears to them and they're complaining about Messiah has died.

What's going to happen now?

And Jesus said to them in Luke 24, 25, how foolish you are, how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning him.

Now, you know, the Old Testament's a pretty big book.

It'd take you a while to read it.

Jesus is going to talk to them about how he is all through the Old Testament?

How long did that take?

Jesus, the Bible says, opened their eyes.

And God had written the story of Jesus from the book of Genesis.

Beginning in chapter 3, what did Jesus say to these guys on the road to Emmaus?

Did he tell them about Isaiah, where there is this great king who will come, but he's also a suffering servant?

How do you have a great king and a servant at the same time?

Did he remind them of the Old Testament sacrificial system by telling them that the blood of goats and lambs were never going to forgive sins completely?

But this was a mere foreshadowing of the ultimate lamb.

The ultimate sacrifice once and for all.

Did he remind them of Ezekiel and Jeremiah who both spoke of a new covenant that would not be written on stone tablets, but would be written on the hearts of men and women everywhere, in every culture, every people group.

And the day would come when we wouldn't no longer need a priest and we don't need the temple or sacrifices because Christ will come and he's the ultimate temple and he will make for us all a kingdom of priests.

Did Jesus remind them of the promise that God gave Abraham?

That all nations, not just Israel, would be blessed.

In Luke 24, 44, he said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you.

Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms.

And then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures.

He told them, this is what is written.

Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

And repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things.

Now, don't you find it ironic that a statement that was made 2,000 years ago is now true, that the name of Jesus is still resonating through every people group and every culture?

The gospel has been preached to the world.

Once you understand the resurrection as a true historical event, then you look back and you realize Jesus is the greater Moses who stretches out his arms and brings us out of the ultimate slavery into the ultimate promised land.

Jesus is the greater Noah who takes us on board and saves us from the waters of the judgment of God.

That he's the ultimate Isaac, the beloved son of God who was marched up the hill of Golgotha, whose life would not be spared.

The knife of God's justice would come down.

God would provide the lamb that Abraham knew he would someday provide.

That Jesus is the victorious, noble King David, bringing by his hand all the rebellious powers under his authority.

That Jesus is the magnificent and triumphant King Solomon, governing his kingdom in peace and prosperity.

He is the strong and powerful Samson, who by his own sacrificial death overwhelmed all his enemies.

And he is the ultimate good Samaritan.

He comes to heal us, to restore us.

to set us free at great cost to himself.

The resurrection is a historical event.

And if you're an intellectual and you consider yourself to be an intellectual, you don't have to check your brain at the door when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You just got to do a little history.

And once you understand his story, then you interpret everything in the light of this truth that Jesus Christ sent into this world by God, the father.

to die for your sins so that those far from God could come near to God and live forever in a kingdom that is to come.

But here's the third thing, and this is where I want you to lean in.

I don't have as much time.

It's Easter.

It's transformational when you really understand what it's about.

It's not just a holiday, not just chocolate bunnies, Easter egg hunts.

When you truly take it in, it changes everything.

And when you truly understand and believe it, seldom do you just sit on this truth.

You take it to those around you in the world.

Because it's the best possible news you could ever hear.

Luke 24 in our text, verse 33.

They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem.

And there they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.

Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

He told them, This is what is written.

The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

You are the witnesses of these things.

Last year, Robin and I were in Greece.

When you go to Greece, one of the things you're going to notice is the statues of the Roman and Greek gods are everywhere.

Why?

Because there was really no separation between the religious and the secular.

The gods, the Roman gods, the Greek gods, were so ingrained in the culture that there was no separation between the two.

They were one and the same.

In other words, If you as a citizen of Greece or Rome, of Rome rather, the Greco-Roman world, refused to worship the gods, the emperors, the statues, then you would be killed.

You would be to certain death.

If you refuse to attend the temple on behalf of the temple festivities in the worship of the Roman and Greek gods, it meant treason and betrayal to the citizens and the state.

So, secular historians, this goes back to the article again, secular historians have asked for centuries, how is it possible that the populists in three short generations in the Greco-Roman world turned away from classical culture and started to embrace Christianity?

How is that possible?

And they say, we have no other examples of such a turn anywhere in world history.

And the article says the only plausible explanation?

There had to be an earth-shattering event.

Something had to have happened that was so compelling that generations of belief and cultural norms were thrown out the window.

What was it?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, and here's why.

Listen now.

You can do this.

Before Jesus, there was no such thing as hope.

Do you know that?

The Greeks and the Romans believed in cycles, not linear progress.

They believed that based on the season, fall, winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, they believed that this was a sign.

That the world never came to completion, that all the bad events of your life and of the world just kept cycling over again and again with no end in sight.

That was the belief in antiquity before Jesus.

Do you realize that the reason you are a hopeful person, if you are a hopeful person, is because you have grown up in a world that's been influenced by Judeo-Christian values.

It's the way you think.

You've been hit by it harder than you know.

Hope did not exist until Jesus came into the world.

And then suddenly, this band of brothers, this group of believers, transformed the entire world because of the resurrection of Jesus.

They began to hope for a better day.

That somehow one day, you and me and the creation would be remade, renewed, and restored back to its original order.

And when you pair the resurrection with the cross, Then you start to understand God's story.

That yes, God is transcendent.

He is powerful.

He is omnipotent, all-powerful, omnipresent.

Yes, but he's also a loving father that would give up his own son so that he would not lose you.

And then the resurrection coupled with the cross shows you that you are going to live forever.

That like Jesus, You will rise from the dead.

He has defeated death.

And so all those who call on his name will do the same.

So that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have what?

Everlasting life.

Now my secular friends tell me, and I get into some great conversations, they tell me that they're not afraid of death.

They'll say, Pastor Jeff, you know, I hear what you're saying, but you know what?

I'm not afraid to die.

I'm going to die someday.

Big deal.

I don't believe you.

I don't believe you.

Let me tell you, you'll be singing another song when you're in that hospital.

And it's not because you're dying.

It's because you're losing something.

You're losing the people you love.

When I die, it's not my golf clubs I'm going to miss.

I don't miss them now sometimes.

It's not any money that you've made or your cars or your house.

No.

Love.

It's the pain of thinking that there may be people in my life that I'll never see again.

Do you know, do you realize that one out of four suicides is linked to having lost somebody that you think you are never going to see again?

When I was visiting my daughter in Bordeaux-Vouillier, I realized I only get to see Sion once a year.

And man, I'm close to my daughter and it's hard.

I know she's doing the Lord's work and I know she's about as far away as you can get.

I started thinking about that.

You know, she traveled as far away as possible from me.

Is there a story in there somewhere?

But seriously, she could not be farther away.

And as I'm going up the elevator to board the flight, it hit me that I'm not going to see my daughter for a year.

And I just started crying.

And my daughter said, Dad, are you crying?

She has no idea.

She will someday, right?

She'll get it.

But the thought of never seeing my daughter?

My father-in-law is 87 years old now.

And every time he comes and visits, and when he leaves, he weeps because he wonders if he's ever going to see Robin again.

I notice he smiles when I leave.

But with Robin, the same way with the great.

He's got great grandchildren now.

And when he sees them, he...

He just, Rick Reed, my buddy, took my father-in-law out for coffee and they talked and Rick said, you know, your dad, your father-in-law got really emotional because he wondered if he was going to see me again.

Because at any moment, in any day, it could be the end of their lives.

My grandkids, man, if you told me I was never going to see them again, I'm not sure I could deal with that.

They told me that I was, I didn't know you could.

Granddad, you know.

You didn't know you could love little kids like this, did you?

You didn't.

Now, you get to send them home, and that helps.

Do you know there's a well-established link between depression, anxiety, and the loss of someone close by death or by estrangement?

Don't you see what the story's about, really?

It's about that everything you lose is temporary.

And it tells you, the resurrection story tells you that all losses will be restored to you, restored to you to an infinitely greater degree.

About 170 years before Jesus, there was a ruler by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes.

He ruled with an iron fist.

He was an Assyrian king that came in and conquered Israel, occupied it.

And the stories we have in antiquity, he was so brutal.

And one of the things he would do is take publicly prominent families, bring them in the public square.

and call on them to disobey God.

And he would demand that they would eat unclean food, or meat, or reject the law of God, the ceremonial laws that they had inherited from their forefathers, and really confess ultimate loyalty not to God, but to him.

And if they didn't do it, he would torture them, would kill them in front of everybody just to make an example of them.

And perhaps one of the most famous stories we have in antiquity is a mother and her seven sons who were brought out in public before the king.

And every son was asked, Will you disobey the law of God and show loyalty to the king?

And if he refused, the king would have his tongue cut out, his limbs chopped off, scalp him, and then still breathing, still alive, he would roast him alive over a fire in front of his mother and his brothers.

And then he would turn to the next brother after this brother was dead and say, what about you?

The story in antiquity tells us that the mother stood there and actually encouraged her sons.

to not recant and to not lose faith.

And she encouraged them to die courageously.

And here's how she did it.

Filled with a noble spirit, she said to them, and I quote, it was not I who gave you life and breath.

It was the creator of the world who devised the origin of all things and who will, in his mercy, give life and breath back to you again since you now forget yourselves for his sake.

Is it not true that you and I live very safe lives, that we're so concerned about the designer life that we had in our head and isn't happening.

But do you realize that most people, most cultures, in most centuries, we're only one step away from this kind of thing?

Do you realize that our brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world do not have the luxury that we have?

Do you know they are being persecuted and slaughtered and dipped in hydrochloric acid?

children, their daughters and wives are being raped and murdered in their villages, pilfered.

Did you know that?

In India right now, in Iran for a long, long time, in places like Nigeria, in Sudan.

How do you face something like that?

This mother in the story believed, listen now, in a better resurrection.

Now, what is a better resurrection?

They were culminating this.

Come on now, lean in.

What is a better resurrection?

Have you ever stopped to think that when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he died again?

Temporary, wasn't it?

When Jesus raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, she still got sick.

She still died in a later time.

So when you avoid suffering and death, you do it temporarily.

Eventually, it's going to get all of us right.

One day, we're going to suffer and we're not going to be healed from it.

one day we're going to die and we're not going to escape death.

We need something better than a resuscitation.

What this mother is saying to her children is that one day we're going to get these eyes back.

We're going to get these hands back.

We're going to get our family back.

We're going to get our lives back.

We're going to get the loves we've lost back.

And it's going to be far better than it ever was before.

And the real clincher for the early church was Revelation 21.

When John writes from the Isle of Patmos, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be their God, and he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

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

Folks, when my parents died young, I had to know what the Bible meant when it says there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth.

What does that mean?

There are two Greek words translated new in the book of Revelation, kynos and neos.

One means brand new in time, never having preexisted.

The other means refurbished and renewed.

How many of you would like your body to be refurbished and renewed?

I mean, like right now, I would.

I mean, my, thank you, Mike.

Things are sagging, and there's nothing I can do about it, okay?

I would love to be refurbished and renewed, but this is the concept that the Bible gives.

It's what the early church believed.

It's what Jesus taught.

It's what the Apostle Paul taught.

Too many of you think heaven is when you die, you go to this airy, fairy place somewhere up around Mars or Venus, and there's something up there that you've never seen, and you're going up there, and you're going to fly around.

But the Bible teaches that heaven, listen now, is here, refurbished and renewed, and the impact of sin removed so that God is going to restore everything that's lost.

This is not, this is not, heaven is not consolation.

It's not where you're playing league baseball and you strike out and you lose the game and your grandfather comes and he buys you some ice cream.

You still lost the game.

You still struck out, but you feel better because you got some ice cream.

That is not what heaven is.

It's not consolation.

It's the restoration of everything that you've lost.

The Christian story is not that God takes us away from this place.

The early church creeds were not banking on going to heaven when they died in the sense that you and I think of it.

Now absent from the body, present with the Lord, yes.

But they were banking on the great king returning and taking his rightful place.

This is God's world.

And when he created it in Genesis 131, God saw that he had made that it was very good.

And there was evening and morning in the sixth day.

The world has so much beauty to it, doesn't it?

Now I know it can also kill you.

We'll get to that.

I was just in Africa, Zimbabwe again in March, leading the pastors and I got to go to Vic Falls again.

So I took more photos because you haven't seen enough of them yet.

It's beautiful.

And now they've built this lookout cafe that looks out over the great chasm between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

You've got all these rainforests.

They have restored the golf course.

Hallelujah.

And there are impala running everywhere.

Africa's lands where the animals roam free.

There is so much beauty and so much good.

But the Bible tells us that sin and death have come.

We are living in a fallen world, a world that's been hijacked.

And it's been devastated.

But the real king has the last move.

And he will remove the effects of sin and death and will bring ultimate restoration.

That is what Easter, Resurrection Day, is really about.

When the king returns and casts out his enemies and sets up a new kingdom in the same geographical location, renewed, refurbished, and the old order of things has passed away.

And he will live with his people and his people will live with him.

And there will be no more death.

or crying or pain.

The old order of things has passed away.

So what does the resurrection give you then?

It gives you hope, but a hope that is rooted in historical reality, something you can take to the bank.

This is the 20th anniversary of Jason McElwain.

How many of you remember that name?

Anybody?

Okay.

It's regarded as one of the most heartwarming moments in sports history.

Known as J-Mac, with high-functioning autism, he was the manager, encourager, and sometimes practice extra during b-ball practice or workouts before the big games at Greece Athena High School in Rochester, New York.

For four years, he gave himself to his high school basketball team, relentlessly serving, encouraging, often doing things that nobody else wanted to do, just feeling gratitude to be part of the team.

And then the last game of his senior year, the coach did something few expected.

He put a uniform on him, sent him into the game with four minutes left to play.

The crowd hoped and prayed for Jason, hoping nothing too devastating would happen that would discourage wound or scar.

When Jason hit the first three-pointer, the crowd went ballistic.

The cheers and celebration were deafening.

But when Jason hit his sixth three-pointer in a row, people began to weep.

That's right.

Jason went on a tear, hitting a total of six three-pointers and scoring 20 points in less than four minutes.

He actually won the ESPN Award that year for the best moment in all of sports.

If you go and watch that on YouTube, you're going to cry.

Now, here's the question.

Why?

Why do the people in the stands cry?

Why would you cry?

Why do you cry when you see stories like that?

I'll tell you why.

Because you know deep inside that someday things are going to be made right.

That all the unfairness and injustice in this world is going to be turned on its head and the king is going to make everything right again.

And for those who struggle so much in this life, we'll find peace and rest and joy.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote the famous poem, The Raven.

Strange and dark work, really.

It's about a bereaved man who has broken up with his girlfriend and he's wondering if he's ever going to get her back.

And there's a raven that comes in the poem and sits on a bus every day and says the same word over and over again, nevermore, nevermore.

It's getting across with frightening boldness what life seems to be about to most of us.

And that is the irreversibility of life.

That we have things we really love and then they dissipate, they go.

We have youth and then we get middle-aged and we get old and we're going to go.

And then there are people around us that we love, people that we love, friends that we love.

And they get older and we see them go.

And we wonder down deep inside, are we ever going to see them again?

I was out in my garage a couple of weeks ago rummaging through some boxes.

And I found an old photo of me with my two children when they were six and eight, sitting on my knee.

And I just began to, I teared up and I, what's going on here?

Why would I be so emotionally moved by small children when they have cost me so much money?

I mean, they're big now and they're still costing me money.

But because there's something that I lost, something I lost that I'm afraid I'm never going to get back.

My parents died.

And I often think of my mom and my dad and I, you know, I've lost them.

Will I ever see them again?

Don't you see folks, this resurrection that Jesus offers is not consolation for the tough life you've lived.

It's the restoration of everything you've lost.

You don't get just, you don't just get your body back.

You get the body that you've always wanted.

You don't just get your life back, you get the life that you've always wanted.

You don't just get your parents back or grandparents or children or grandchildren or for those moms that have lost a child.

You don't get another child or replace that child.

That's consolation.

You get that child back.

And the beauty of it is, this is not just pie in the sky.

This is objectively rooted in history, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the reason that we're here.

Of course, the ultimate question then is, what good is it if this is a reality, but it's not for me?

Of course it's for you.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have what?

Everlasting life.

You see, the real question is, what do you believe, really?

Because the resurrection of Jesus is the great reversal.

Come on, this is the end now.

Do you know what that means?

How can God, how can I have a relationship with God when God is holy and righteous and I'm not?

And that holiness and righteousness requires God to separate himself from me.

But then on the other hand, Pastor Jeff tells me the Bible says that I was created for a love relationship.

And God wants to enter into a relationship, love and grace and mercy.

What gives?

How can God meet the requirements of both sides of his nature?

And that's why the cross is brilliant.

Because Jesus comes down and dies on a cross.

And the requirements of God's holiness have been met.

Because God does punish sin, but he doesn't punish us.

He puts the sins of the world on the back of his son.

And he punishes his son.

And his wrath consumes.

And as a result, the love of God, the mercy of God, comes to reality because instead of punishing us, He gives up what is most precious to him so he will not lose you and me.

And then validates it through the power of the resurrection.

And at the moment, listen now, at the moment of the resurrection, do you realize what happens?

It means suddenly, in one moment of time, at the crucifixion and the resurrection, the justice of God was satisfied so that time, the clock, began to work backwards.

Which means that when Jesus died on the cross, all the damage sin had done is now going to be undone.

And so now it's 10, 9, 8, 7.

We're moving toward life, not death.

So that when you receive Christ as your Savior, that means he dies for your sins.

Justice is upheld.

Grace is unleashed.

And reality itself starts to reverse its course.

So that when you and I die now, it's not the end.

It's the beginning of the real life.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When Shara's parents, in the video, gave their lives to Jesus, the curse of sin reversed, and now the count is moving toward the day when the blind will be able to see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap and dance, and those who cannot speak will shout for joy.

Amen.

Father, I pray in Christ's name that eyes would have been open today, that this faith that we have is not a blind faith, but it has its reasons.

And while it may be true that we don't understand everything, we're not God, we're finite, we understand enough that God created the heavens and the earth, that he put a plan of redemption in place before the foundations of the world, that he defeated sin and death on the cross.

And by his resurrection, he has proven to us that life beyond the grave is not only possible, but a gift given to those who humbly kneel at the cross and receive forgiveness so that the count starts backwards.

And one day, the blind will see, the lame will walk, and everything that we've lost, restored.

In Christ's name, Amen.

When I was young, I lived in the Philippines with my family.

Both my parents were hearing.

Together, we attended a Catholic church.

It was a hearing church with no interpreter.

When my family and I moved to America, again, we went to a Catholic church that had no interpreting services.

Finally, I met a deaf friend.

They were Christian, and they welcomed me to their Christian church.

So I'd go to the church, and they had sign language.

I really liked attending that church.

And really, we were on and off attending that church.

Not consistent.

But it's really because we didn't have a deep understanding yet.

So time went on, and eventually we had our daughter.

When our daughter was younger, she couldn't really help us.

We just had to bear it.

But it's when she became an adult that she could start interpreting for us.

It was nice.

But before that, it was pretty lonely.

We were isolated.

We didn't have very much help to understand.

Later, when our daughter became an adult, she invited us to her church that she was attending.

And we went, and our daughter would interpret the service for us so we can understand the message.

And then our daughter welcomed us to worship, and I thought to myself, I can't hear.

It's hard for me to understand the lyrics alone.

Eh, I don't want to go.

She sat with me and explained worship, and she signed it to me.

Wow, I was so inspired.

I felt a joy I've never felt before.

When my daughter signs worship, I just watch her in awe.

I feel very connected to the music and connected to my language.

I get the chills.

It's almost overwhelming.

Yeah, seeing the closed captioning on the screen is fine, but it's not the same moving feeling.

When I see my daughter signing the worship, Wow.

We're still growing deep in our faith.

We know as time goes on, we'll grow deeper.

We want our daughter to continue to share more with us so we can understand.

It's been a long time waiting for her to get baptized.

My dad's already been baptized.

My brother's been baptized.

I've been baptized.

And now today's her day.

And I'm so super excited.

She's been postponing this for a long time and just been really hesitant.

But now today, the year, 2026, she's ready to get baptized and give her life to Jesus.

Thank you.