John: I Am the Resurrection & Life

We celebrate Easter together and Pastor Fletcher preaches from John 11:1-44 about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Discussion points: Without any life after death, love and truth lose their value; Jesus is promising eternal life for those who love and follow him; Jesus teaches us to embrace death to ourselves and life for him.

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  Scripture reader: [John 11:1-44] Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and his sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

  Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Ju to Judea. Again, the disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again, Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. After saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go to awaken him.

  The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover. Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him. So Thomas called the twin said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with him. Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days, Bethany was near Jerusalem about two miles off and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

  So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is coming into the world."

  When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary saying in private, "The teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now, Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her saw Mary rise quickly and go out. They followed her supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

  When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping. He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not. He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying. Then Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man said to him, "Lord, by this time, there will be an odor for he has been dead four days."

  Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus come out." The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them "Unbind him and let him go."

  This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

  Preacher: Finally, after all of these years, Hollywood has finally made a depiction of what my Easter Sunday morning always feels like that depiction is not in the chosen. It's not in that old the passion movie. The best depiction of what Sunday Easter Sunday looks like for me is in the Barbie movie because in the Barbie movie, there's this scene pretty early on where everyone's happy. They're all dancing. They're having a dance party like maybe a roller skate dance party at the dream house. Barbie's Dream House before it's the Mojo dojo casa house. And they're all skating all the Barbies are so happy and they're looking at each other saying today is the best, isn't it? And Barbie Margot Robbie Barbie, you know, they're all Barbie but Margot Robbie, Barbie main, main character, Barbie says it is the best day ever and so is yesterday and so is tomorrow and so will be the day after tomorrow and every day from now until forever. Do you guys ever feel like dying? Do you guys ever think about dying is what she says?

  And then it's like a, you know, like everybody looks around and that is what every Easter morning feels like to me because we get together. The music's great. Everyone's happy. They're like, hey, nice bow tie. Yeah, your bow tie looks good too. Like we're just like, yeah, nice, nice. And then I get up, do you guys ever think about dying? That is Easter Morning summarized for me. So do you, what happens when you die? I'm not sure there's a more asked question in the history of the world. What happens when someone dies?

  Most of us handle death kind of like I handle car problems. Megan will tell me, hey, the car's making a weird noise and I'm like, oh, is it? And she's like, yeah, so, you wanna do something about that? I was like, oh, no, not really. My, my children think I'm funny. I usually just wait until the car stops working before I do something with the car and most of us handle death in the same kind of way. We don't want to think about it until it's staring us right in the face. And then even sometimes when it's staring us right in the face, we still hope that we don't have to think about it, but the scriptures tell us.

  And in fact, we live in a very privileged time because this is not the way that the world was before the 21st century, before the 20th century, at least for me, modern medicine has done a wonder to cause us to be isolated from death in many ways. But this is not the way that the Bible handles death. Life after death is a big question for the modern Somerville. If you really press them on what happens when you die, the answer you would get from most of our neighbors and friends would be nothing. What do you believe happens after you die?

  Nothing. That's what Richard Dawkins believes. When he's asked what happens when we die. Dawkins quotes Bertrand Russell and he says, I believe that when we die, I believe that when we shall die, I shall rot and nothing else. How could it be otherwise, this is the majority opinion of those around us, but it is the minority opinion globally. It is not what the majority of people think around the globe. It is also the minority opinion.

  Historically, it is not what people have thought throughout the ages. I think sometimes we can be in our little Somerville bubble and forget that it's a bubble that people outside of here think very differently than we do. Oftentimes if nothing happens after death, let me just ask you this, what's the point? Because it's not a belief in atheism that's being pushed forward. It's really a belief in Nihilism that's being pushed forward. And nihilism is the belief in nothing. And I don't know about you, but I've met a few Nihilists and I've never met a happy one. OK. Nihilism does not lead to happy thoughts. You can look at the founder or really the kind of the father of Nihilism Nietzsche. And it's like n I just press the rest of the keys on your keyboard. OK. It's you, you don't know what's gonna happen there.

  He understood that a Godless world is ultimately a meaningless one. The implications of embracing nihilism are really depressing. We might value things like love, beauty, truth, virtue. But why, why would we value those things? If everything is nothing? If we believe that nothing happens after we die, why would we value something like beauty? We value these things because we're created in the image of God who values these things. And our so and our society continues to value these things because our secular world operates on the borrowed capital of Christendom. What used to be accepted in our society continues to be. But it's not because of what we believe that has caused us to continue to value those things.

  How do you build a life of meaning and purpose when it all amounts to nothing? This is the primary question posed by irrepressible thoughts of death, Barbie, and it's the primary question for you today. And I think that the answer that actually is given in the movie is very much the same answer that we have to have today. You need to have an encounter with your creator who can tell you your creative purpose. Because when you have an encounter with your creator and he can tell you your created purpose, it makes life worth living you.

  And I have a creative purpose. Life is not just you live, you die. And that's it. It's not as you know, I haven't actually preached unless I've quoted CS Lewis at least once. So CS Lewis says, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world, we all have to face the reality of death. What do you do with that? What do you do with that today?

  We're continuing a series that we've been going through for many months now in the book of John. And so we just planned it to where the raising of Lazarus happened on Easter Sunday. And this is the crescendo of the entire book of John. This is the peak of the book. It kind of everything climbs to that and then everything descends from here. This is the center point of the book of John. It's the seventh and final I am statement of Jesus. When Moses met God in the burning bush, he asked God who he was and God said I am and that was his simple answer. I am who I am.

  And today Jesus has continued to be able to fill in that answer, explaining more of who he is by answering in seven different ways. I am the bread of life. I am. I am the, the shepherd. I am the gate, all these different ways. And today we get to the final one. I am the life and resurrection. It is also the final miraculous sign before Jesus goes to Jerusalem to face his death. But in this passage, Jesus teaches us our only hope in life and death.

  So let's dive into it. We're just going to walk through the passage and I'll give you some application at the end. Now, a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And now Mary and Martha, they pop up pretty often throughout the scriptures, at least in two of the gospels. They have several different stories that we've learned about Mary and Martha. And here we learn of their brother, a man named Lazarus and they're all friends of Jesus and this man Lazarus, he's very sick and he's in the town of Bethany right now. Jesus is on the other side of the Jordan river. It's an entire day's journey away from Bethany.

  And so somebody has been sent a messenger, go find Jesus and they went and they found Jesus and they have told Jesus that Lazarus is sick almost to the point of death. Verse five. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. How sad it is to be Mary there. Ok. She gets her sister, Martha and her sister and Lazarus is like typical middle child syndrome here. Ok. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

  Now, that's a bit confusing. Is it not that the man who has the power to heal would hear that his friend is dying and decide to stay for two more days instead of running to his aid immediately, Jesus is loving him though in a special way that this is how he wants to show his love through his slowness. Has God ever showed you his love through his slowness? His slowness sometimes leads us to repentance and it leads us to a greater praise of who he is many times if we would get what we want immediately when we want it, we would think that it was just us that got it. We would not give him all of the credit as one author says it's not deliverance if it's not the 11th hour. And so sometimes we have to wait until the 11th hour. And then we see that God comes through amen for some of us. It's more like the 13th hour, but he comes through Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary.

  And so we waited, he wanted them to experience something greater than a healing. Sometimes God, God's slowness is his way to love us verse seven. Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. And the disciples said to him, rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again? So let's recap what's happening here, Jesus has been ruffling the feathers of the religious leaders for chapters now, ok. He's constantly saying things that's getting him in trouble and he's constantly having to make ninja moves to evade the religious leaders because they're trying to lay large stones on top of him and kill him. They're trying to kill him.

  And now they're on the other side of the Jordan where they're pretty safe from the religious leaders. But yet now Jesus wants to go back into the belly of the beast here. He wants to go back to where the religious leaders are prevalent. Bethany where Lazarus is living is only two miles from Jerusalem. And the disciples are like Jesus. Are you, are you sure about that? Are you sure you want to go back there right now. They were just trying to stone you because you healed that blind man. You remember that they were very upset about that Jesus has a choice. He could stay and save his own life or you can go to his friend Lazarus knowing that it will cost him his own life in the process.

  And for Jesus, this isn't any choice at all. Jesus tells us this later in a couple of chapters when he see it says that true love is laying down your life for your friends. For Jesus, there's no choice. He loves Lazarus. He's going to go lay down his life for Lazarus. Even if it's through a cascading series of events that happened after that. What happens after that? There's one verse that I don't want to skip. OK, because it'd be easy just to go to Bethany now and see what happens with the sisters and Lazarus and everything.

  One verse I don't want to skip because there's a character in the Bible that gets such a bad rap and I am very defensive of him. And it's Thomas because look at Thomas verse 16 and Thomas called the twin were never told anything about the other twin of Thomas. It's like that friend. We all have that friend where like you learn like three years into knowing them like, oh, I'm, you're a twin. What? Really? And then you like, you meet their twin. It's all kind of crazy. Thomas is a twin and he says to his fellow disciples, well, let's go too. I guess that we may die with him. You know, the doubting Thomas is a pretty bold person if you look at the character and the scripture and I, I always, you know, you get such a bad rap for saying I won't believe until I've stuck my fingers in, in Jesus' hands after the resurrection. But now we see that there's reason to believe even here that he that Thomas believed who Jesus was so much that he was willing to follow him to his death.

  Now, Jesus arrives at the home of Lazarus and he's been dead for four days now. Ok. It's a one day journey for the messenger to get there two days. Jesus waited a whole day journey for Jesus to get to Bethany and he's immediately approached by Martha. Now, Martha is the typical first child in every way. She is strung tightly. Ok? She is. She sees Jesus down at the end of the driveway. She's going to talk to him. I have something to say to this man. What are you doing? Just now? Getting here, she chases Jesus down. Verse 21. Martha says to Jesus Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

  Now, before we look at Jesus' response, I just want to point out a few things Mary, when Jesus finally does get to Mary says the exact same thing to Jesus. Exact same words, Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And though she says the same thing to Jesus, she gets a totally different response. When Martha goes to Jesus and says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. How does Jesus respond? He gives her a lot of information. He teaches her, he gives her a bit of a lecture honestly. But when Mary says the same thing, what does he do? It just gives her tears. He just cries.

  I think it teaches us something really important about living in community in a church is that some of us are going to engage with God more intellectually. Some of us are going to engage with God more from the heart. But Jesus, he does not condemn one or the other. He accepts both and loves them both and they're each unique individual ways. I've heard a lot of people moralize Mar Martha. A lot of people have moralized Martha and said, Martha, she should just be like Mary, get that out of here. Do you see? That's not the point.

  The point that we see over and over again is that Jesus loves Martha and I'm glad he does because I'm a lot more like Martha than I am Mary. I'm a tightly wound human and I need him to love me too. He does. I don't have to become someone. I'm not for him to love me. But he does. Jesus says to Martha, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection. On the last day, Martha is answering correctly here. She, she knows, she knows the book, she knows her Bible. She knows the scriptures. The Jewish leaders of the day taught that one day a Messiah would come and he would and the dead would rise. But for Martha, this isn't much of a reality. It's more like platitudes. It's, it's more like saying when you're at a funeral and someone's saying, well, he's in a better place. Well, he's in a better place and it's not really without any theological backing to it really. So this is more platitudes.

  She doesn't really understand how the resurrection works. It's just an idea to Martha. Verse 25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus doesn't say I am the one who gives resurrection in life. He says I am the resurrection in life. Martha, what you know, in theory, I am Jesus is saying, I am this thing that you're alluding to that you don't really understand.

  And then Jesus explains it more. He says, whoever believes in me though he dies yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Jesus is saying that if you trust in him and follow him with your entire life, you will receive eternal life that after you die, your body may die, but your soul will continue forever. And one day you will receive a new glorified body in the new heavens and the new earth.

  That is what Jesus is teaching that through faith in him, eternal life is ours, that we were created for something more than what this world can provide. And one day we will receive it. Amen. D A Carson puts it this way, ordinary mortal life ebbs away. It will for all of us friends, the life that Jesus gives never ends. It is in that sense that whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die. Do you believe this? Jesus invites the question and it's the question for us today also, do you believe this? Can you answer as Martha did as she said to him? Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Messiah, the son of God who is coming into the world.

  He is our only hope in life and death that we are not our own, but we belong to Him. He is my resurrection. He is my life. Do you believe this? After speaking with Martha? And he goes to speak with Mary and Mary approaches Jesus totally differently. Martha, I imagine she has a little bit of a wagging finger in his face. Ma Mary on her knees at his feet crying the second he sees her, Jesus is overcome with emotions and he asks to go see the tomb. And when Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping. He was moved deeply in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? And they said to him, Lord, come and see.

  Verse 35, Jesus wept. The shortest verse in all of the Bible. All kids, you've been learning verses and ka kids, you've got like a list of verses that you have memorized. Let's add one more right now. OK. We can just add one. Jesus wept. You got it all Jesus wept. You can add that to your list of memory verses. You now know another verse in the Bible. The shortest one, it says that Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

  Now, this phrasing is really interesting. It doesn't translate awesome into English, deeply moved. It, it means more like angry, that's like everywhere else. You find it. It's more like an angry word, not just sad, it's not just that Jesus is feeling sorrow and grief, but he's feeling anger. Why would Jesus be feeling anger in this situation? Maybe he's angry because everyone is weeping as if there is no resurrection. Maybe he's angry at their unbelief, maybe he's just angry at death in general. The idea of death. And the fact that death's reign continues and his friends are suffering.

  The Bible teaches in First Corinthians 15, that the final enemy to be defeated is death and that Jesus will defeat death. And Jesus sees the side effects of death on those who he loves his friends. So verse 38 Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. And Jesus said, take away the stone, Martha, the sister of the dead man said to him, Lord. By this time, there will be an odor for he has been dead for four days. All right. So even if Jesus had left the second, the messenger had gotten there, he would not have made it in time. Jesus knew that whenever it happened, but he wanted to be sure that you give them a miracle in this 13th hour.

  And Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So at that moment, Jesus prays and he, he says, Father, I know that you hear me. Would you make it clear that you hear me? And that these here might see my glory might understand who I am.

  Verse 43. When he said these things, he cried out with a loud voice. Lazarus come out and the man who had died came out and his hands were bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth looking like a mummy coming out of there on, on Halloween day. And Jesus said to him un bind him and let him go. Has often been said that the authority of Jesus was so great at that moment that if he had not specified Lazarus, that all of the graves in the area would have given up their dead and climbed out at that moment to resurrected life. This raising of Lazarus, this is a sign of what Jesus was to do.

  Jesus has been going through the book of John recounts many signs of what Jesus has come to accomplish. Lazarus would die again. But in a few short weeks, Jesus would be risen to new life and would never die again. Ascend to the father on high. After many days, Lazarus was raised with a physical body, but Jesus, he was raised with a spiritual body. The resurrection of Lazarus really accomplished nothing. Lazarus woke up that day and continued to be a sinner. Jesus never was a sinner but his spiritual life, the life that this pointed us forward to Jesus is saying, I'm gonna do something even better than this. The raising of Lazarus is really just a sign pointing us forward to the resurrection of Jesus when he would conquer sin and death.

  And we likewise will one day participate in that resurrection. For a Christian death is not the end. Everyone who lives and believes in Jesus shall never die. This means that our lives have purpose because he lives I can face tomorrow. We have purpose beyond just avoiding death or trying to suck as much life as we can out of each, every day before death. Think about it. What do you live for? To avoid death and to suck as much life out of life before I get to death. But with resurrection, with Jesus, we have more to live for than that.

  On Easter, four years ago, I had a bit of an existential crisis myself, maybe a little bit like irrepressible thoughts of death, Barbie. And if you remember, we had this thing called a global pandemic. We were all at home. It was just depressing. I mean, we had, we had this, this church, this is our six year birthday at city on a hill. We have a, a long, long history before that, but we launched the city on a hill six years ago. So four years ago, it was really, we were only two years into this thing and all the churches were shut down and we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know how bad the virus was. We didn't know what was going to happen and we did Easter on Zoom and let me tell you, it was so joyful to see you all on Zoom, so joyful to see you all on Zoom.

  But the second I turned that off, I was depressed as I can be because for a pastor, it's like my life is to worship Jesus and to lead others to worship Jesus and we just did Easter on Zoom. Like that's not the way it should be. If you're logged on right now, we're so glad you are. If you're able to be here next week, come next week, you know, or just leave. Now, we've got cupcakes after the service. Get over here. I was just left asking. Just does anything matter? You know, like I was, I, I promise I wasn't the only one having these thoughts during the pandemic. OK? Does anything matter? Is my life matter? What is this all in vain? What is happening here? Death is not the end. Everyone who lives and believes in Jesus shall never die. And that truth helps us with our each and every day life.

  Jesus doesn't tell us that avoiding death is our ultimate goal. In fact, Jesus tells us something quite the opposite. Jesus tells us to embrace death, a death to yourself, not in a kind of self hatred kind of way, but to embrace a death, to your ambition, a death to your own desires, a death to the life that you want to live and then embracing of what he has given to you in the life of Christ, to live for him, not in a, not in a self hatred kind of way, but in a death to self. I have been crucified with Christ kind of way. I just wanna close with with this application first Corinthians 15. If you've been in the church for a while. You know that First Corinthians 15 is the most famous passage on the resurrection outside of the gospels. Paul waxes on eloquently about the resurrection for 58 verses. I will spare you. I will not read all 58 Lisa read 44 for us a few minutes ago. I will not read all 58 of these verses for us today.

  But this is some fine tuned theological teaching on the resurrection. If you have never read first Corinthians 15, I, you go home read first Corinthians 15. He summarizes it all in one application point. That's my type of preacher. OK. 57 verses of theology, one application point at the end. OK? And when he gets to the application for First Corinthians 15, he ends it with just this one verse. Hear this verse. It's one of the most important verses you'll ever hear.

  Therefore, my beloved brothers because of the resurrection, therefore, be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord. Knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. That's what he tells us. He says that your life has meaning and purpose because of what Jesus has done. And therefore, if you believe what Jesus has done, stand firm. If you believe what Jesus has done, that makes you immovable. If you believe in what Jesus has done, your life is not in vain with capital letters. What, what does your life what takes up your life? Are you working? A 9 to 5? Are you raising kids? Maybe you're a stay at home mom and they're just driving you nuts. I understand. Maybe you have a pointless job or maybe you finally get to the point where your job makes sense. But you know, when you get to the bottom of it, when you keep asking questions, maybe it doesn't, maybe you're taking care of people who don't care. Maybe you're trying to pour into a community that is difficulty receiving that.

  We often think about the resurrection as a lullaby that we tell Children so that they might sleep better at night. But then it would be quite embarrassing if they continued to believe it into adulthood. But the resurrection is not a lullaby. The resurrection is power. The resurrection of Christ makes you immovable church. Hear me, whatever you're going through, whatever you're walking through in life. The resurrection as a result of it says, stand firm, your life matters, stand firm, your life matters. It is not in vain. That is what Jesus has to say to us that we will receive resurrected life with him. The resurrection makes you immovable, abounding a good work. It allows you to stand firm because life is not in vain.

  Ten years ago, I got an email from one of my closest friends at the time that was really pretty random and it was probably the seventh email in a chain of emails that we have been sending back and forth about a, a really random like theories of, of, of apologetics. OK. It was a very random kind of email chain that we had going. but this friend is not a normal human. He's he, he has a phd in the classics at Harvard and is now a now is a college professor in Kentucky. And after 10 years I think about this email almost every week. And I've, I haven't ever told him that I texted him this week and was like, hey, I think about this random email every week. He's like what?

  But hear what he said at the end of his email, he said new life is the theme of Easter Tomb. Busting earth, shaking heart, cracking, resurrection power is the theme of Easter Lazarus is the theme of Easter resurrection is the answer to every aching moment of human loss. Every dead father and sister, every lost hour or day, every tear and moment of heartbreak resurrection is what tells us that the ultimate end of the story of the universe is victory in capital letters. Amen. Jesus gives our life purpose, not only in this one but in the one to come. And that is what we're looking forward to because that's guaranteed this life has purpose and meaning death is not the end for us. Everyone who lives and believes in Jesus shall never die.

  Do you believe in what I say, we're gonna give you some time to consider and to respond to what God is speaking to us this morning, we always practice a sacred meal called a communion meal. If you are a believer and you're receiving this truth, and you're saying, yes, this is true for me. We invite you to the table. Let me encourage you to come and receive the meal that we're about to take on the night that Jesus was betrayed. He took a loaf of bread and he tore it into. And he said, this is my body broken for you. And then he took a cup of wine and he said, this is my blood shed for you, do this in remembrance of me. And so each week we participate in the sacred meal as a reminder of jesus' death and resurrection on our part. And we will continue to do this as Christians until he returns victoriously in the clouds to call us home. Let's stand and prepare our hearts to respond to Jesus.

  God, you give us purpose and meaning, you take this life and you make it your own and I give you my life right now. God, I pray for anyone here who's discerning what they believe, discerning. If this is all true God, we pray that your Holy Spirit right now would come and fill them with the truth of Christ and the life of Christ. And that they might experience the resurrection of life. Themselves, that the conviction of sin would come. But the forgiveness would come a moment later. And God, as we prepare our hearts to receive this meal, we pray that you would be magnified, glorified. We just want you to be big and for us to be small, for you to be greater and for us to be less. Father, we pray that you would use our worship to magnify yourself and that you would connect with us in this time. And God, we pray that there might be more belief in this room that our belief would be reassured. Reaffirmed that our life is not meaningless, but that we are immovable. In Christ's name we pray, amen.