Let's talk about the Word of God. Today it is Easter morning, and I want to read some scripture to you. The first 12 verses of Luke 24. Now, on the first day of the week, at the early dawn, the women went to the tomb, taking the aromatic spices that they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb.

But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. By the way, that is a fact as verified by so many points of data, historical, archaeological evidence, eyewitness evidence, Jesus rose again.

While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood beside them in dazzling attire. The women were terribly frightened, and they bowed their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise again.

Then the women remembered his words. And when they returned from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11 and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed like pure nonsense to them. Men don't.

Amen that right now. Okay? They did not believe them. Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He bent down and saw only the strips of linen.

Then he went home, wondering what had happened. Some of us on Easter, as much as we know, as many times as you might be in a church hearing a preacher talking about this, we listening to some message online or reading something, you might still have questions about the empty tomb and the resurrection. And I'll tell you this, if the tomb is empty, then that means something for you. If Jesus truly rose again from the grave, then that has an implication for your life. It has an eternal implication for your life.

So I want to just cover just a real quick bit of history. For those of you who haven't been with us on the journey the last couple weeks or on. On Friday, just a couple days ago, when we had our Good Friday service, it is verifiable fact that Jesus was dead. Not just like kind of dead or almost dead or just really sick and beat up. Gone.

Dead. His body was a goner. No hope, no human hope whatsoever. And yet Jesus had told people he'd like, who was it? Was it Babe Ruth that called his shot?

I forget. I don't remember this stuff. It like, pointed out, and he's like, that's where it's going. Jesus did the ultimate shot call on that, right? Like, he's like, I'm going to die.

I'm going to be dead for three days and I'm going to raise back to life. On the third day at another place, he said. He said, I have the authority to lay my own life down. I have the authority to pick it back up again.

Wow, it is. And so he says, this is what's going to happen. Now, he had also said it in, like, coded words almost. They're like, what authority? You know, what proof do you have to show your authority to do these signs?

Because he had gone into the temple, he's like, you people that are so religious on the outside, but inwardly you're full of, like, maggots and rot and infestation. And he flipped over their tables of the money changers that were cheating the people. He drove the animals out of there because they were pulling a scam on the people. And he says, this is my father's house, and it is to be a house of prayer for the nations. Prayer.

Is that that language, that vehicle we use to connect with God? You might say, have you ever said, like, I don't really know how to pray anybody? Like, I'm not good at praying? Maybe not, maybe not. But you know what?

It's how you communicate with God. And. And if all you can say is, God, I need you, that's the best prayer you can pray in that moment. You don't need to start adding words and multiplying a bunch of just stupidity, flowery stuff, trying to impress God. I'll be honest.

He's not impressed. He's not impressed by how brilliant some people are. I think he's not impressed by how stupid some people are. But I am like, I've seen some stupidity. I'm like, that's a new level.

You know, I swear I didn't even think that was possible, but there it is.

Jesus spoke a little bit coded. After he did that. They're like, who gave you the authority to tip over these tables and drive these animals and things out of the temple? He says, I'll give you one bit of proof. Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.

They scoffed at him. They're like, it's taken 46 years to build this temple. It was like an ongoing project where my family and I went to Washington, D.C. this past week. One of the stops we made was at the National Cathedral. Big stone cathedral, beautiful thing it's been in construction for over a hundred years.

They just keep adding on to it. Private donations come in and they build more. They said they don't take any money from their Episcopal denomination or from the federal government or anything like that. It's all private donations. Everybody donates some money and they get a little plaque.

Like people in the church, they donate money and they get a row, a pew, you know, like in the, in the National Cathedral. Like, there's your memorial on like one of the pillars holding the building up or something. Like, pretty cool. I guess if people give money, they add to the building anyway. It's really cool to be in there.

But like 100 year building project is insane. So Jesus is in kind of the equivalent of that. They're like 46 years they've been building this. And he says, tear the temple down and I'll rebuild it in three days. And they're like, that's impossible.

But the temple he was speaking of, the scripture tells us, was his body. And he says, you can tear my body down three days later, I'm going to bring it back. I'm coming back to life. And so this is what has happened, this is what is going on. And we're reading in Luke this morning, but the Gospel author Matthew, one of the disciples of Jesus, he wrote, and he told us a couple extra details.

He says there was a big earthquake. In that moment when Jesus came back to life, there was an earthquake and the tomb was opened up. Angels showed up. There was two Roman guards that were there. Pilate, the guy that had sentenced Jesus to death, because the Jewish leaders that were jealous of him didn't have the civil authority to execute someone, to crucify someone.

So they had to outsource that to Pilate, the Roman governor. And they had said, hey, we heard this guy say that he was going to come back to life after three days. And we don't believe that, but we think his disciples might steal him out of the tomb and then make a lie that says he's alive again. So can we have a guard? He's like, yeah, you have your own guard.

Like, you already have Roman soldiers that are assigned to the temple. Take some of them, use them however you want to make the tomb secure. So they take a couple of them, they post them up outside the tomb. And there's a lot of funny videos that people make today, like guards just hanging out, like, we got the easy job, boys, you know, like, this is gonna be great. And one of them says, yeah, I didn't want to tell you, but I'm actually up for a promotion.

I'm gonna be riding a desk pretty soon. If everything goes well and we do our job here today, everything's great. And then there's this earthquake. And the stones rolled away in a bright light, and they're like. And the guy says, sorry about that job promotion, Bowie.

You know, like, it's not happening, dude. Matthew tells us that they fell. Like, they were just so, like, shocked by what they witnessed that they fell to the ground, passed out. They had to tell lies about what happened. And the Jews paid them off to say, like, hey, just say that his disciples got him.

We were asleep on the job. That's not a good thing for a soldier to do either. But that's what they did. And so here's this Matthew telling us this story about the guards that fainted at the sight. But it's important not to miss the part that the angels were there.

Angels are a messenger from God. They're one of the ways that God can communicate to us, one of the ways that God can speak directly to his people. There's other ways. There's plenty of ways God speaks to us. But sometimes that speaking is very evident.

I'll tell you, I had a moment this morning where God was talking to me. And I don't know why, but I came in here, and many of you know, and some of you don't. My. I don't want to call it a tradition, but something that I do every time that I come in to this building. And I did this at the church that I served years ago, before this one.

Every time that I came in was whatever it was for the first thing that I do, except when I forget, which isn't very often anymore. And if it is, my daughter's usually here to remind me. Like, dad, first thing I do is I come up to the altar and I pray. Sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes. Just spend that time connecting with God.

And as I was here this morning, God said, I need you to take some stuff off. I'm like, okay. And I'm kneeling there, and he, like, won't let me talk to him until I start shedding some stuff. I'm thinking of Moses going up to the burning bush where God's in this burning bush in the wood wilderness. And he starts approaching, and God says, take your shoes off, for the place you're standing is holy ground.

So Moses is like, okay. And he takes his sandals off, and he approaches to meet with God. And so here I am. This morning, this has never happened to me like this before. And I start taking out stuff out of my pockets.

Now we went through a lot of security points. Like I don't know why to go up in the Washington Monument you have to go through an airport style security line, but you do because I guess there's a whole lot of people doing the terrorism at the top of the Washington Monument, I don't know. Anyway, so I'm like taking all my stuff off and I walk through and I've got this hat and it's got little metal grommets and that beeped through it and I take it off. Well, I guess it wasn't that. I've got this metal cross necklace that I wear sometimes under my shirt, sometimes over it.

And I was like, oh yeah, I forgot about this. I can usually feel it on me though. Sometimes it's like those old WWJD bracelets we would wear. Like what would Jesus do? Which is sometimes just a reminder, like, don't be a jerk, you know, like Jesus wouldn't yell at that person for messing up your food at the drive through.

You probably shouldn't have gone to the drive thru anyway. That's not real food anyway. And so I wear that cross and it's metal, it's heavy, and I can kind of feel it on my chest sometimes. It's that little reminder, like I'm carrying Christ with me everywhere I go. I'm carrying his name and his reputation.

How would Christ respond? How would he act, how would he speak to these people? So I had to take that off. But I'm taking all these things off in the security line. But here I am kneeling at the altar this morning and God is saying, I need you to take some things off.

So I start emptying out what we call your everyday Carry the stuff that's in your pockets or on your purse every day. And I start taking it all off and then he's like. And I kneel back down. He says, I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. He says, you still got more.

Like, okay. He's like, what about your belt? I'm like, lord, can I at least keep my clothes on? You know, like it'd be real weird at 5:30 in the morning if somebody popped in early and they're like, okay, he's lost it. But God just wanted to start stripping me of some things.

And I think he's going to have a meeting with me later to tell me the rest of that. I don't Know what it is. But God was speaking to me this morning, and I look forward to him to continue speaking with me on this. One of the ways that he speaks to us is. Is through angels.

Sometimes some of you might have had that experience. Most of us probably haven't. When Jesus was born, angels showed up, and they spoke very clearly. Hosanna in the highest glory to God in the highest Hosanna in the heavens, like the Son of God is born. They showed up to announce his birth.

And now in this moment, they show up when the women are at the empty tomb. And they show up not to announce his life as a baby, but his eternal life that he is now able to offer to everyone because of his resurrected life. The angels show up at that. But the women, they weren't looking for the resurrected Jesus. They didn't expect that, even though they heard him say it.

It's like they heard him. They had heard these words, and yet it didn't really compute. It didn't comprehend in their minds. And so they show up ready to permanently bury Jesus. See, they had all these burial customs, and only part of it had been followed when he was taken down off the cross because of time.

They didn't have enough time to do it before the evening and the Sabbath started. And so these women were coming to finish the job, and they were coming to prepare his body for burial. And they showed up there for that. They're expecting a dead guy. And Jesus, he's not even in the tomb anymore.

He's out. He's alive. And the angels are there to very clearly communicate to them. He's not just disappeared. Nobody stole him.

Nobody moved him, nobody took him. He's alive. But he said these words, and I love what Luke says. He says, why do you seek the living among the dead?

We do the same thing. We do the same thing in our lives. We're looking for. For things like. We're looking for life and fulfillment in things that are actually bringing us death in different ways.

We're looking for something for fulfillment, for hope, for pleasure. And we're looking for them in ways that are actually causing us to die. You know, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, they had everything. It was like, perfect. It was great.

All they had to do was. Was just live, just exist. And yet they wanted something more. And Satan had tempted them. And God had said, in the moment, in the day that you eat from this one particular tree, this tree that belongs to me, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the day you eat from it you will die.

Now we see that they ate from it that day, and they didn't die that day. And that brings us quite a big question, by the way. When you read your Bibles, you should be asking questions even if you can't figure out the answer and can't find the answer. Even if you got to call up the pastor and play stump the pastor and see, like, if you can do that or not, which you can is possible because Karen's been doing it to me lately. But anyway, and I love that, but like, you need to be asking questions of the word of God as you're reading it and saying, I don't understand this and I don't want to just sweep it away.

I want to meditate on this until God reveals the answer to me. I want to study this. I want to look for resources. I want to read stuff. I want to watch some videos that explain it until I understand it.

Adam and Eve, though, what happens is they didn't immediately die that day. The mercy of God allowed them to continue living. He slaughtered animals, made skins. Before that time, they had been naked. They weren't even aware that it was a problem.

They were naked. Everything was good. Now that they've sinned against God, taken, which doesn't belong to them, they're vulnerable towards one another and towards other human beings. And so they say, I've got to cover myself up or you might take advantage of me the way I've taken advantage of God. And so God, in his mercy, he slaughters an animal.

The blood of the animal is shed on behalf of them, but it only lasts for a certain time. And it's foreshadowing of the fact that there would one day be a perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, whose blood would be shed for us and would cover us, but God sheds the blood of that animal, makes garments out of it for them, leather garments for them. I don't know who's worn leather underwear. I know I haven't. Doesn't sound comfortable, but apparently that's what they had.

I don't know. Anyway, I guess it was an upgrade from the fig leaves. So they fig leaf underwear doesn't sound great either, you know, it really doesn't. So they didn't immediately die, but death began in them. As death began.

Death reigns, Death increases. Their first son murders their second son. That son goes off, and then he goes. And he starts going away from God. The Bible talks about he moved east every time.

You see in the first few chapters of your Bible that somebody goes eastward it's always referencing going away from the place of God. The presence of God is going further and further from God. I don't know if that's why they built the capitol in the eastern part of our country or not, but anyway.

Okay, a couple. You got it? Fine.

The temptation that Satan tempted Eve with was threefold. And we've got a verse in First John that talks about this, and it kind of explains it. It's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And what this is talking about the lust of the eyes. For instance, do we have that John Scripture?

Can we put that up or is it not working? No. Okay. Oh, that's lovely.

It's jumbled, isn't it? You'll have to clear the background on that, probably. Fun times. I love technology. Hey, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but of this world.

The lust of the eyes is things that satisfy our physical needs, things that we desire what we see, and we want to get more and more of that. People that are. That are tempted by this are captivated by a sense of materialism. It's not just like looking for your daily needs to be met. Jesus even talks about praying that God would cover your daily needs, the things that you need for today.

He says, your heavenly Father knows what you need. He knows what you need. Before you ask him. He's a loving heavenly Father that wants to gift these things to you. That's not what we're talking about here.

We're talking about a sense of materialism that's saying, like, I always see something and I want it. One of the worst places for this is some of these unsocial media apps like Instagram and Facebook. Watching the reels and all these different things, I'd sound like an old guy. Like the TikTok. Anyway, whatever.

Anyway, all these things, and you're watching these influencers out there, and you're looking at the portion of their life that they show you, and it looks so great, and you're like, that's what I want. That's the good life. I need those things. I need the things they have. Ooh, this person bought that thing.

I want to buy that. Oh, look at what a friend of mine got. That's really cool. I want one of those, too. I'm going to Go after that.

I'm going to buy it. It's that sense of always looking for more, not quite being satisfied with that which you already have. The lust of the flesh is things, though, that we desire to own or possess. It's life dominated by our senses. You're intent only to live on your own conveniences.

Like you want to obtain things and experiences that bring you joy. It's a little different from materialism in the sense of like, this is stuff that just is good on your body. It feels good, you know, it feels like this is what I want. It would even include experiences, sexual experiences that people seek out that aren't in line with the things of God. All these types of things, then the pride of life are the things which exalt us above our station in life and give us godlike qualities.

You're attempting self sufficiency. One of the parts of Satan's temptation for Eve was that he said, like, hey, if you eat this fruit, you'll become like God. In other words, you won't need him. You'll be able to choose for yourself the things that are good and the things that are evil. You don't have to listen to God being oppressive and telling you these things are evil and these things are good.

You can make your own decisions. We see this over and over and over in our world today. We're constantly redefining things that we believe. We're so enlightened that we believe these things are okay now as a society. And we keep rewriting the rules that God has already given us, the guidelines, not just as Christians, but as human beings, the things that he created us to do, and we keep taking those and we keep shifting the line, whatever we feel like.

And they not only pass laws and popularize it on TV or movies or media of some sorts, they even get pastors to start agreeing to these things. It breaks my heart when I see colleagues of mine. The things that they put online, the things that they say in their sermons, the permissions that they're giving their congregations to go diving into sin, things that God has said are wrong for us. I pray that I never fall into that temptation to lead you astray. In that way, the pride of life seeks recognition, applause, status, advantages.

In life, you're always looking to promote yourself. These are the things, the ways in which Satan continues to tempt us. In Hebrews 4:15, we're told that Jesus was tempted in all ways, just as we are for you. Note takers, there's three scriptures up on your screen. I just Wanted you to be able to write them down and look at them later.

The writer of Hebrews, we don't know for sure who it was. He doesn't really say who it was, but he says that Jesus was tempted in every way, like we are. That's referencing Matthew, chapter 4, verses 1 through 11. And some of the other gospels talk about it too. But it talks about when Jesus, after he was baptized, he was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit of God.

To be tempted. That's problematic, isn't it? Some of us are like, wait a second, God led God into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan? What? Yes, he did.

Now, the good news is God doesn't lead you into temptation. In fact, the scripture tells us no one should say when they're being tempted. Oh, God's tempting me. For God is not tempted by sin. Rather, when we who are evil or tempted by our own sinful desires are enticed by sin, we fall captive to it.

What's the antidote to that? Being held captive by Jesus Christ, saying, lord, I'm yours, lead me and guide me. I don't want to walk in sin. I want to walk in your ways and in your footsteps. So Jesus Matthew tells us in Matthew chapter 4 that Jesus was led by the spirit of God into the wilderness.

But he did not sin. He was tempted in everything like we are again, those same three things. Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life. Satan tempts him in those three ways and probably some more after that. But he doesn't fall prey to those things because one, he knew who he was.

Two, he knew what his mission was, and three, he knew the word of God. It dwelled in him. He was able to recite it. He's able to recall it and recite it as appropriate. And even when Satan starts quoting scripture to him, Jesus says, you're not going to catch me proof texting scripture, he says, because here's what it is.

And then he corrects Satan. Have you ever had somebody throw Bible verses out at you and try to show you how to live? And they're totally off base or totally wrong? Those people are aggravating, aren't they? They know just enough to be obnoxious, really.

Genesis 3 is where we see the story of the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3, 1 7. We see that story there and we see where all this started. The three temptations that Eve and then Adam experienced. Jesus experiences those, but he's triumphant in all of those things.

Can I read something to you that I did At Easter a few years ago. It's like six minutes long. Is that okay? I'm going to read. I don't like reading sermons, but this is something I just.

It's. It's important. Today, as we see the women stooping into the tomb, investigating angels were showing up to announce the completion of the Gospel. At the birth, angels announced the miracle to shepherds and everyone who would listen. And at his resurrection, they show up again to announce his eternal life.

Why do you seek the living among the dead? We all look for life and things that don't actually give it. Job promotions, stock market investments, new cars and homes, toys big and small, inappropriate relationships, sinful sexual relationships. The living Jesus is not only alive, he is the living one. The living one.

The One from where all life is derived. From the One who is alive forevermore. The alive One who gives us his life. He is not bound by death because he has defeated it. Why do we look for life among death?

Too many times we look for life in the things that are actually bringing us death. God's Word tells us how to live in right relationship with him, in right relationship with others, and in right relationship with our environment around us. One of the first commands he gave us as humanity was to care for the garden around us, to take care of the place in which we live. He entrusted it to us, and yet so many times we have ignored him and it's killing us. He instituted marriage and told us how it should work out and gave us the boundaries and parameters for marriage.

He gave us this gift because it would create life. But yet we decide to get married to people that we never should have been married to. Or sometimes we don't even get that far. We just make a decision to sleep together, live with one another, and basically use each other for our own selfish purposes until something different or better comes along. Or until it gets too difficult and we decide to get out and it is killing us.

He talked and commanded us how to live with our neighbor, our fellow man. He gave us laws that were supposed to inspire us to be generous rather than greedy. They were supposed to teach us how to live at peace rather than hostility and at war. But instead we pay wages as low as we possibly can so that we can have more and more and more to ourselves. We hoard and gather and store away rather than give away, sow into and invest in others, and it is killing us.

He created us as one. Humans meant to live in harmony with God and with one another. But we divide among racial, economic, patriotic, gender and sports affiliation lines. We oppose people on the other side of those lines and we seek the best for the people in our camp. And it's killing us.

He commanded us to live lives in complete honesty, not seeing how we can manipulate people in our conversations and business deals to our benefit. Instead, we lie, we twist the truth, and we slander others so that we get what we want. And it's killing us. He taught us to walk with him, not just for a few moments in the morning or at night before bed, but to actually live our lives with Christ. He not only showed us how to live, but he promised to give us his own life to be lived through us.

Instead, we continue on our own, trying to create our own ways to live and create things that we believe will give us life, only to find out that they're doing just the opposite and killing us. We are like the women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning. We are looking for things like peace, closure, answers, and comfort in all the places where death reigns. You don't get your answers from the dead. The place where answers are found is in the one who is alive forevermore.

On the contrary, don't look for the living one among the places that bring death, but do look for the living one when you're in the places that bring death. In other words, don't just say, jesus is with me and I can go do whatever I want and dive into these sinful ways of life. Don't try to drag Jesus through that mess. But if you find yourself in that mess, know that Jesus is right there ready to bring you out. Some of you have known this truth for a very long time.

Some of you have been walking with the risen Savior for many years, or maybe even many decades. And yet it's possible that you still have room to walk closer with your risen Lord. Some of you here are newer to this walk, this walk of faith, this walk of belief. It's quite likely that a few of you in this room don't even have a relationship with Christ right now. You haven't decided to walk with Him.

It's easy to struggle with belief even for those that are the longest running Christians in the room. They still struggle with belief from time to time, I'm sure. But the closer you walk with Christ, the more assurance he gives us that our faith is not misplaced. Sometimes people need reassurance. They need somebody to share the witness to the empty tomb.

Many of us here carry a burden for loved ones who are not walking with Christ. They are in fact, searching for life among death I encourage you to reach out to them today and share the hope of the empty tomb with them.

I spoke those words in 2017 at the sunrise service at the hospital as I was preaching there, and I wanted to share them with you this morning. I think so many times in this world, people are looking for answers that they might not even know where the answer can be found. They don't recognize that it's in Christ, and they won't know that unless we're sharing that with them somehow or another. Paul tells us in one of his epistles. I mean, he says in one of his letters, he said, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

But how then are they to call on the name of the one whom they do not know? And how will they know about him unless it is declared to them or preached to them? And that is not just the preacher doing it. By the way, the declaring of the Gospel is not just from a platform at a church. Like, it's from whatever place you find yourself in your life.

And how will those people preach it unless they are called? Like, Jesus is the one that calls you to declare the gospel. And just if you think, well, he hasn't called me, ha, you're wrong. He has. You just didn't read that part in the Bible yet, I guess he's telling his followers, he says, I want you to go out, and as you're going, wherever you are in the world, I want you to make disciples of all nations.

I want you to go out and declare this gospel, this good news to all nations, whether it's now, he said he lived in a place, you know, where he used their geography. He says, Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, we might say, like, you know, Zephyr Hills and Dade City and East Pasco and all of Florida and the rest of the earth. I don't know. Like, we just kind of move out from there. But Jesus, he gives us those marching orders.

And so, like, if you're here and you're following Christ, if he's your Lord and Savior, then you have the burden, the mission, the job to carry that message forward. And one of the things that I want to do, that we want to do as a church is help equip you to be able to do that. Like, Easter is kind of pointless if I don't actually, like, put some legs on it, you know, like, if it doesn't actually walk among us, if the truth of the Gospel isn't real in our midst. And so One of the things that we've been working towards as we renovate the building here, the discipleship place, we're making it a place that has lots of different options for you to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. A disciple simply means a follower, one who follows after Jesus.

And we want to help you to be able to do that. You can't get everything you need to grow in Christ from just the few minutes that I talk on a Sunday morning. You can't get it just from that. Or reading a few minutes every morning in your scripture or every evening, that's a great start. You've got to dig into the Word of God.

And I know everybody has their own way, and I'm not going to tell you you've got to do it the same way that the next person does. But I'll tell you, you've got to be into the Word of God and say, okay, Lord, what do you have for me today? Because the Bible says of itself, the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than a double edged sword. Now, they're not just talking about a cool like fighting sword.

It's actually, they're talking like more like a scalpel, like a surgeon's cutting tool that's doing surgery on your body that's excising the parts of you that need to come out that don't belong. The poisonous parts, the cancerous parts. The Word of God opens you up, allows God to scoop out that which doesn't belong and is actually harming you and bringing death. And then to allow that to heal back up and then to make you whole. And the thing is he does that over and over again.

Because like, as soon as you're like, oh, I have victory over this thing, God is, He is, he has called me to stop this area of sin in my life and he's. He's healing me of that. I'm better. And then it's like, as soon as you're like, oh, this is great, thank you, Lord. He's like, all right, Next thing you're like, oh, we're on the mat again.

You know, like, here we go again. All right, heal me, Lord. And his word does that. But you can't just say, like, okay, what's my little verse of the day? Like, we send this devotional out every morning, Monday through Friday.

That's not all you need. Okay? That's like saying you're taking a supplement, a vitamin. Just some little thing that your system is missing. Like, that's just a little infusion in that area.

But that ain't everything. That's just enough. It's like an appetizer. It's just to wet your appetite and get you ready for more. Dig into the word of God.

It'll never be wasted time.

So all these things that we've looked into, we've looked to them for life, but they're actually bringing us death. The question is, what's the antidote to that? Like, how do we overcome that?

I want to look through what I think the answer to that is, and it's in the book of Ephesians. I don't think this one's on your screen at all. In your New Testament, the book of ephesians, in chapter six, I'm going to read verses 10 through 18.

The answer to people who are looking for life in places that are bringing us death, that we're misplacing our efforts to find life. We're looking for life from deadly things, from evil things. The answer to that is, finally, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day. And having done everything to stand, stand firm. Therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist. I think I picture it like a wrestling belt, by the way. Like, this isn't just a little leather belt with a metal buckle.

This is like the big, flashy gold. Like, the belt of truth is amazing. Amen. The breastplate of righteousness. Like, this is battle armor here.

God is talking about you're going into battle, and here's some armor for that. We're going to fit your feet with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace. And in all of this, by taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Oh, it just got ramped up a notch. You're getting flaming arrows shot from Satan at you.

How are you going to block those things? I hear that. Amen.

Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And with every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit and to this end, be alert with all perseverance and requests for all the saints, man.

The antidote to Looking for life in places that are bringing us death is to take on this full armor of God. Arm yourselves, protect yourselves with the tools, the weapons that God has given you. And we go forth in battle there. But we're not fighting against other people. We're not fighting against all this stuff where we draw these lines and say, we're against you and you're against us.

What we realize is there are things, there are forces, there's evil that people are answering to. They're being led astray by evil desires and evil spirits and evil forces. We recognize that and we say, okay, we're doing spiritual battle today for you men. You're the front line in your household. If you've been standing by while somebody else and praise God for strong women that are standing up and being spiritual leaders in your house, you're supposed to do that.

But men, we are protectors, and there are men who have been asleep at the job. I didn't plan to say this. I don't know where this came from. Lord, help me. It's time for us to stand up where we're supposed to be in our community.

When we see people being harmed, when we see children being sold, and you think that doesn't happen, I promise you it does. When you see women being abused, it's our job to stand up and say, this ain't happening anymore. How do I need to get in the fight? What can I do? When you see your family being swayed by all these evil things, when you see them just being sucked into all the evil, there are video games out there where there are predators running amok, trying to steal your children from you.

There are groups out there I won't even get into describing that are online that are trying to prey on your children. Men, stand up. Know what your kids are into. Know what? Older guys with grandkids, their nieces and nephews, talk to the parents of those children and say, do you know what your kids are into online?

Stand up and protect them. We're on the front line, men. We're on the front lines.

Some real simple, practical things as I bring this to a close here today on Easter morning. We want to help you on this path of discipleship. We do a discussion class after service. We're not doing one today. We do them every, you know, every week that we don't have the welcome lunch.

We do that the first week of the month, which normally would be today, but we had breakfast. Normally on the first week of the month, we have a welcome lunch. And by the way, if you're newer here, you've been visiting, and you're like, I don't really know anybody. Get to know some people. If you need help saying, like, pastor, I'm not good at starting a conversation with somebody.

I'm great at it. Right? Amy? Everywhere we go, I find somebody to talk to. I mean, like, we're in that national Cathedral and I found, I found a guy that's a docent of the, like a museum curator guy.

You know, like, he's a docent of the chapel. And I start, he's like, taking us into these rooms that say, like, you know, employees only or whatever. He's showing us, like, behind the scenes stuff. I'm like, yes, it's worth it to do these things. Like, we just.

I'm having conversations with people standing in lines. Like, it's just, I'm good at it. So if you just, you know, if you need help getting to know somebody, just grab me and say, like, pastor, can you set me at a table at welcome lunch with somebody that I can talk to? And I will help you get the conversation going. Because most of you that have been here at least a few times, I know you, at least a little bit about you, but most of the people in the room don't.

And so I get to be able to say, like, hey, do you know so? And so they're like, no, I don't. Let me put you together. Let me get some conversation going. Because those are the people that you're going to be able to call when, when, when stuff starts happening in life.

You're going to need to reach out to some people and say, where's my group? Where's my family? Where are the family of God? Where are my people? I need some people right now.

That's what's important in this life. So come to, come to one of our after service Sunday school classes. Come to welcome lunch Wednesdays at 11. We have a Bible study that I lead. And right now we're going through the book of First Peter on that.

It's been fantastic. Pretty soon, very soon, we're going to be starting something that's called a shape course. We're going to be doing those about once every other month or maybe even once a month. We're going to be digging into that that helps you find your calling, your kingdom, purpose in this world. We're going to have, starting this Friday, a study group called Life's Healing Choices that Susan and Lawrence are leading.

And that's for people that are just wanting to figure out their Hurts, habits and hangups. In the future, we're going to be starting a Celebrate recovery program here, which I know a lot of churches, I think Bridgeway and Newark have that. And we want to start that in our church too, to have that opportunity for people that need it. And so this is kind of a stepping stone to starting that we're going to have. We're actually setting up a recording studio, a podcast studio, and several people are already interested.

Jose is going to be helping run that. Troy's interested in doing a show. I'm going to do one like Jose. We got people that are interested in saying there's a message that I want to help spread out there on the digital world. There's people that are looking for Christ and they're going to their cell phones and their computers to do that sometimes, and we want to make that happen.

And so we've got a room that's going to be set up with the technology to make these things happen so that different people can come in and record and put that out there. We want to help facilitate discipleship as many ways as we can. So what your response to that is to say, like, I need to grow, I want to grow. What's my first step? Your first step is getting to know a few other believers.

Your next step is jumping in and figuring out, like, how to study the Word of God better. And I want to help you do that and how to apply it to your life. The next thing is if there's a group that meets, that you can grow because of that, whether it's a shape, class, life, healing choices, whatever it might be, women's groups, men's groups, etc. We want you to be able to join in on those things and, and to grow and be ready to serve Christ in this world.

One of the ways that you can grow in your faith is to learn to give, to learn to serve, and to learn to just be there for others when they need it.

Next week, I've had a couple people interested. We're going to have the Baptistry that's behind me is that area. We're going to fill it up and have baptisms next week. And I want you to get baptized. If you haven't already, but you're a believer in Christ, now's the time.

And if you have been baptized, That's great. I want you to come and celebrate. For those who are, Baptism is a bold declaration that you believe Jesus is risen and that he's coming again, and that every day that we live life on this earth counts, and it matters. His new life, his risen life, means something for you and for me. It means that even though we may die on this earth, that we can be alive forevermore with him in heaven.

Amen. My last statement is this. John 14:19 says this Jesus spoke these words because I live, so you too shall live.

Sa.