Well, it’s great to be together this morning as we celebrate Easter. Of course, the theme for today is “From Death to Life.” And that obviously is a big theme of Easter. But you experience this in other arenas of life as well. You see this in, let’s say, fashion. Okay, every 20 years or so you thought bellbottoms were dead and gone. Here they come back again. You see this in music? I thought we’d never hear “Can’t Touch This” again after high school. Here it comes back around every once in a while. You see this in hairstyles? There was a hairstyle that was… popular may not be the right word. It was around when I was in high school and it has come back around. You know it. You’ve heard about it. Some call it the Kentucky waterfall or the Missouri Compromise, maybe the Walmart Wolverine. You probably know it as the mullet, right? You’ve seen the mullet, now the mullet I was always impressed by because of the whole business in the front, party In the back aspect. You always knew that was true of the mullet. This guy, though, has taken it to a whole nother level now. It has artistic expression on the side, not just front and back, really enveloping the whole head. I think this guy, from what I understand, he’s preparing for the national mullet competition. Yes, that’s a real thing. In fact, they have a youth division as well. And so parents. There is hope. Start ‘em early, start ’em young, train up your child and who knows? We all have these things in the world we’ve experienced we thought were dead and gone. They come back around. That’s kind of humorous, but what about when it’s not? What about when you hope it comes back to life? And maybe it may not. Friend of mine lost his job recently. He thought he would be there the rest of his life. What do I do now, John? What am I going to do? Will it come back around or not? Where am I going to go? What about a relationship? Maybe there’s a relationship. You thought that person would always be there for you no matter what. And now they’re not. Maybe they’ve even betrayed you. What do you do? Will that relationship get healed again? Will life be breathed back into that relationship or not? Sometimes it’s our health. You hit that certain age. One author has called it the end of invincibility, and you realize everything doesn’t work like it used to. Will I be able to continue life like I thought I would? Or is that the end of the dream? Will life come back? You experience this theme in various realms of life, from death to life. And the greatest example of that historically is the death and life of Christ. He said in John chapter 11, I am the resurrection and the life. It’s through him that we will experience life to its fullest. Now I know some struggle with this idea of resurrection. You mean to tell me that some dude 2000 years ago died, supposedly came back to life? And then now I’m supposed to trust in him to find my life? What do you mean? I don’t get all that. And listen, I understand that can be hard to put your mind around. And so this morning, what I want to talk about is four reasons why you can trust in the resurrection. Four reasons why you can believe in the resurrection. Four reasons why you can believe that his death did lead to life. And in that you can find life and hope and peace and purpose and joy and everything you’ve longed for today. Now, to do that, I’m going to unpack this word life. We’ll use that as an acronym to talk about these four things The letters L, I, F, & E. But I’m going to do it backwards. I’m going to do it in reverse because a lot of times you know how this works in life. You’ve got to start at the end to know how you want to begin. So we’re going to start at the end of the word life and start with the letter E. And the letter E is all about the end of the story. This is one of the reasons why we can trust that the resurrection is true, because every single one of us is longing for the end of the story. Every good novel you’ve read, every great movie, it’s all about a wonderful ending where everything is made right again because it was broken in the beginning. You see that over and over again. And of course, our story. If we go back to the beginning of the Bible, it began with perfection. Adam and Eve, created perfectly, placed in the garden. Everything was perfect. Anything they wanted to eat whenever was at their hands. They walked around naked all the time and weren’t even aware of it. Which is maybe a loss in my estimation, but I don’t. You process that however you need to. The point being, everything was perfect except for one thing. God said, there is. You can have everything in here. Everything except this one tree. Don’t eat from it. Now you know how this works, right? Whenever someone you never wanted something ever in your life, you never had any interest at all. And someone says you can’t have that. And now that’s all you can think about. I gotta have that. Who are you to tell me I can’t have that? What, are you trying to keep something good from me? How dare you? Here’s how this worked for me. I never wanted long hair in my life. Ever. No interest until I went to a high school. And they said. If your hair touches your collar, its got to be cut. That’s not allowed. So here’s how that turned out. I never wanted long hair. And guess what? I don’t think that would make it into the mullet competition, by the way, I don’t want to dishonor mullets by trying to claim that that is that good. Here’s what happened. Guess what happened in the summer after graduation? It’s all cut off. Don’t tell me. Who are you to tell me I can’t have long hair? I don’t even want long hair. But are you trying to keep something good from me? What are you trying to do? You’re going to lay down the law in my life. There’s something inside of all of us that says don’t you tell me! And Adam and Eve, from the very beginning said, God, we don’t want your rule. Don’t come in here telling us what we can and can’t eat. And through that entered sin. Evil, suffering, grief. It all came into the world. And since then, we’ve all longed for an end to the story. We have all longed for that thing that went wrong to be set right. The very fact that we are longing for that tells us that there’s a solution out there somewhere. In fact, if you have a Bible, I want to point out that this solution, the hope was pointed out from the very beginning of the Bible. And look, if you don’t have a Bible, the page numbers that are going to be on the screen, we’re going to be in Genesis. We’re going to go right to the beginning of the Bible. If you don’t have a Bible, we’d love to put one in your hands. Just raise your hand where you are. We have people who are around you. The page numbers on the screen are going to match the page numbers in that Bible. We’ll put one in your hands. You can keep that or you can return it whatever you want. That’s our gift to you. But just raise your hands where you are. There’s some guys wandering around with Bibles, and if we run out, we’ll go and grab more. But we’re going to be reading from the Bible. Will be in Genesis chapter three. Genesis is the first book of the Bible, so it’s just a couple of pages. Page three, its probably page three in all of our Bibles. Genesis three Adam and Eve sin and God says things are going to be different and he gives them correction. Adam, Eve. But also the serpent, also Satan. And look at verse 15, because here’s what he says will happen, because in his correction he also gives hope. Genesis 3:15, I will put enmity or strife between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. There will be tension between the… [experiencing technical difficulties] Yes. His followers. They will. They’ll mess up. In fact, I think 99.9% of people who have wronged me, who have hurt me in some way, have all been American. Almost all of them. In fact, it all started with beady eyed little Timmy when I was four years old, and he grabbed my plastic machine gun and broke it over his knee. He was American, but yet I don’t now hate America and swear off all Americans and friendships. No. Look, I recognize that I still love this country. I love America, and yet we’re not perfect. We mess up. We hurt one another. But Jesus is true. He is perfectly true. And his death and resurrection is something you can trust. And I want to point to a passage in First Corinthians 15. This is a great testimony to the truth of his death and life and resurrection. And I know for not everyone, this doesn’t answer every question you have. It’s not meant to in a short message, to answer every question you have about the truth of Jesus. But this is one data point to put in the mix as you’re processing. Who is he and what does he mean for my life? First Corinthians 15 Paul is writing to a city in ancient Greece. Paul wrote a large portion of the New Testament, and he was writing letters to people who were trying to follow Jesus, and he was trying to give them direction. And here’s what he says in verse one. Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you. You may have heard that word gospel before. We’ll use that a lot in church, the gospel of Jesus Christ. That word gospel just means good news. If you need rescuing, if you’re in trouble, you don’t just want good advice. That’s what many people think the Bible is about. It’s just full of good advice. There is good advice in the Bible, but when I need rescuing, I don’t want good advice. I want good news. I want to know that a rescuer is coming. That’s good news [experiencing technical difficulties] And letter I gives us the third reason why we can trust in the resurrection. Irresistible hope. Irresistible hope. What are you going to do with your regrets? You’ve got them. I’ve got them. What are you going to do with your guilt? How do you deal with your shame? Things you wish you would have done differently. What are you going to do about your anxieties and fears? How will you deal with those? I heard about an interview recently with a young actress. She was working on a film with Tom Cruise, and of course, Tom Cruise, super confident, actor, seems to have no fears. And she was really struggling with a few things on set, and she came to him and said, what do I do with my fear about this thing? How do I deal with it? You seem so confident. Do you have any advice? Tom Cruise said, here’s what I do when I have a fear. When I fear something, I stare right at it and I stare at it until I learn something about it. Okay, Tom, thanks. That’s helpful, I appreciate it. That’s kind of creepy the way you’re staring at me right now, Tom. But you stare right at it. Stare it down. But what about when you can’t stare at it? Those things in the past. The things you don’t even know why they’re there that you feel disconnected from life. You feel angst. You feel anger. You feel sorrow. What do I do? Where am I going to find hope, irresistible hope? In fact, I think our tendency is when things aren’t going right is to think that maybe God is the one to blame. Maybe he caused this problem in my life. You know, Jesus’s… [experiencing technical difficulties] In a moment, he says to her. You thought I was only about healing people. But I’ve got a bigger purpose. And I’m going to show you that I have not just power over health, but I’ve got power over death. I’ve conquered death. And he raises Lazarus from the dead. Now, he’s not going to do that for everybody. He’s not going to come around raising the person that you hoped would still be around. Here in this moment he makes a point; I have the power you’re looking for. I have the hope you are looking for. And whatever you’re trying to find your hope in, whatever you’re looking for, for purpose, for life, for meaning, for joy. It’s going to fall short unless you come to Christ. The one who has power over death. He’s the one that will bring irresistible hope. Now that’s the third reason you can trust in the resurrection. The last reason is letter L, working backwards through the word life. And I think this is one of the more powerful reasons why we can trust in the resurrection. It’s our longed for love. Every one of us is longing for love. We’re longing for true love. There’s so much fake love in this world. We want to know love fully at its best. We want to experience the kind of love that we read about in the Bible. When I see Jesus loving others well, that’s the kind of love I long for. But yet, where are you going to find it? How many times have people let you down? Loved ones have hurt you. By the way, how many times have I hurt loved ones? I can’t love anyone perfectly, yet I demand to be loved perfectly. Love me well, almost everything we do is to get love from someone. We’re longing for love. Where do you find it? The one who loves perfectly is Jesus. And here’s the powerful part. And I want you to see this in Luke 22. The powerful part of this is he does it even when he’s betrayed. Look at Luke chapter 22. And here in the story, Jesus life is coming to an end. It’s nearing the very end. And here’s what Jesus does. They have the Last Supper, and the apostles are there with him. And of course, they respond as we would naturally, let’s have an argument about who’s the best among us. What? Jesus is about to die. He’s pouring out his heart before you. And let’s argue about who’s the greatest. A little tone deaf in the moment. And Jesus points out to them, you guys don’t really understand what’s happening here. In fact, you’re going to betray me. Here’s what Peter says. Look at chapter 22. Peter said to him, verse 33, Peter said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. You think all these other guys will betray you? Not me, I’d never give up on you. I’ve been with you every step of the way. I’ve given up so much. You think I’d betray you? You think I’d give up on you? And he said to him, after that I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you even know me. And Peter does that very thing. In fact, just a few verses later, verse 61 or verse 60, Peter said, man, I do not know what you are talking about– When they asked him, do you know Jesus? — Surely you know him. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And I’ve often wondered what that look was like. Was it sadness? Disappointment? Piercing? What was it? But it crushed Peter. He looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he said to him, before the rooster crows today you will deny me three times. And he went out, and he wept bitterly. We’ve all done things that we know the Lord is not pleased with. We’ve all let him down. I don’t know, though, that any of us can relate to what Peter did in his worst moment, in his lowest moment, going to his death to say, I don’t even know him. And look at how he responds to Peter. It’s not here. It’s at the end of the book of John, and I’ll just summarize it for you. Jesus has died. He’s rose again, and he’s on the bank of the shore, where Peter, the other side, some of the other disciples had gone back to fishing. Peter sees him. I think that’s Jesus. He jumps in the water and swims to him and gets to the shore. Jesus has breakfast ready for him and Jesus, the one that Peter had walked out on. Look, I know how that conversation would go if I were Jesus in that moment. Vengeance is mine. Thus saith the Lord, is what we’re going to be talking about right then. But Jesus says, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me a second time? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Tend my lambs. Peter, do you love me a third time to match his three denials, three opportunities to reaffirm his love for Jesus. [Experiencing technical difficulties ] I think she is ready for Christ to come into her life. And give her the hope she’s looking for. She’s come to the end of herself to give her the hope, the joy, the peace, all this other stuff where she tried to find all that is coming to an end. And that night at dinner, he said, listen, I may be reading this wrong…[experiencing technical difficulties]