The Resurrection Brings Joy and Power to Your Life

John, Chapter 11, is actually a long chapter. I am not going to read all of it, but I am at least going to read verses that are relevant and applicable to what we want to emphasize here. It is the well-known passage about the death and resurrection of Lazarus, and at this time, on this very special day when we meditate on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, this passage lends itself to our drawing from that great event a meaning that is very, very close to our lives.

Verse 1 says, “Now a man named Lazarus of Bethany was sick, from the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, behold, the one You love is sick.’” When Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Jesus loved Martha, her brother, and Lazarus, and when He heard that he was sick, He remained two more days in the place where He was. Then, after this, He said to His disciples, “Let us go 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, “Does the day not have 12 hours? Whoever walks during the day does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But whoever walks at night stumbles because there is no light in him.” After saying this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I am going to awaken him.” Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will recover.” But Jesus was speaking about Lazarus’s death, while they thought He was speaking about resting 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.” Then Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.” So Jesus came and found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went out to meet Him, but Mary remained at home. And Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “Oh, 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 is dead, shall live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.” May the Lord bless His holy Word. Oh Father, help us do justice to this beautiful Word on this very special day, the day of Your resurrection, when we remember Your victory over the grave and over death. Bless this message, Lord, and these thoughts that we share with Your people, and give them power to leave a mark on the lives of Your children, Lord, so that we may draw nourishment from these words, Lord, and leave this place revived and strengthened. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen and amen.

Brothers and sisters, this is a day when the Christian community gathers throughout the earth to celebrate the day of the resurrection. Many of you know that I was in Italy with Brother Gilberto Sámano this past week, and one of the places I was able to visit there was Saint Peter’s Square, directly in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica, in the central area of the Vatican. It is an immense square; I believe a hundred thousand people could easily fit there. It is an impressive sight: streets, a square paved with stones—black lava stones—very neatly fitted together, an impressive spectacle, surrounded by that semicircular colonnade, which makes that space something marvelous. And I know that already, because Italy is six hours ahead, a great celebration was probably held there with pilgrims from all over the world who, like us today in a much more modest place, also celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it makes us think about the power the resurrection has to call the people of God together. It is a day when we all feel motivated to go to church and remember the great victory that Christ has won and obtained through His resurrection. It is important for us to meditate on the resurrection, because I would say that it is the climactic moment of all history and of Jesus Christ’s entire pilgrimage on earth. I would say it is the greatest day in all creation, because the birth of Christ is very important, but if Christ had merely been born and that had been all, His life would not really have had any greater significance. If Christ had been born and died on the cross of Calvary, that too would have been tremendously important, but something very important would have been missing: death would still have had, as it were, the final word, and Christ might have gone down in history as a great spiritual genius, a highly accomplished person who left humanity a great message, a moral message, an ethical message. But there would really have been nothing to distinguish Him from other great figures, from other great religious geniuses who have influenced history with a message that was also very lofty and worthy of admiration. But when Christ rose from the dead, when God raised Him from among the dead, something absolutely unique in the history of the universe happened: death was definitively defeated, because when Christ rose, He rose forever. He has now ascended into heaven, and death will never again have dominion over Him. Through His resurrection, the Lord declared that He was not like any other religious or spiritual figure. He proved that His mission on earth was something completely sui generis, as they say in Latin, unique in its kind. There was no one else who could compare with Him. And yet we can say that if we do not fully understand what the resurrection means for us, for our own lives, then the resurrection simply remains there in that very lofty, very theological, very sublime realm of great truths and great spiritual events.

But what strikes me about the resurrection is that it has some very serious implications for us as well. It has implications and carries tremendous weight for your life, for mine, and for the lives of Christians here on earth. It is not merely an event that happened two thousand years ago, for which we thank God that it took place; rather, the resurrection is also fulfilled in your life and in mine. The resurrection brings hope to our lives, amen. The resurrection brings joy to our lives. The resurrection brings power to our lives. The resurrection, as it were, unleashed an energy that we too can draw upon as we walk through the events of our lives.

As I watched you arrive here at church this morning and saw the joy with which we were singing one of the first choruses—I do not remember which one it was, that chorus when the front here was full and the people seemed to burst into such special praise and dancing—and as all of you began arriving here at church, and I heard the laughter of the brothers and sisters and the joy that was palpable in the midst of the congregation, I also thought, “Wow, these people who come here to the house of God and worship the Lord with such delight and so much energy.” And as I looked at my brothers and sisters here, I know your lives, at least part of them. I know the ordeals many of you face. We, the pastors and counselors of the congregation, have the privilege of sitting with you in the counseling rooms, praying for you, and listening to your struggles. And I knew that these people who were worshiping the Lord with such joy and coming to the house of God have their problems and come with their difficulties. Some even stand here still holding a cane in their hand because they have an illness they are battling, and they are asking the Lord to heal them. Some of them have marital problems; some have experienced great losses, suffering, and failures in their lives; some are struggling with financial problems and difficulties involving housing, documentation, and any number of other things. But I was saying, “Father, how good, how glorious it is that, despite all these things, we can come to Your house, worship You, and rejoice in the Christ of the resurrection, amen?”

Because we understand that something has happened in our lives. Yes, the problems may continue, but Christ has removed their venom. Christ has taken away their ultimate victory. We are a defiant people; we are a militant people; we are a people who, despite life’s struggles and wounds, continue declaring Christ’s lordship over all things. And one day we will reach heaven, and perhaps we will get there limping a little, and some of us even smelling of smoke, but we will get there, and we will enter and be welcomed by our heavenly Father into eternal life without any kind of problems or difficulties. That is the power of the resurrection. That is the beautiful thing about being part of a people like us. Never lose hope; never lose your joy; never lose sight of the fact that despite all the struggles you have in your life, Christ is with you. Christ triumphed on the cross of Calvary, and you too can triumph, as the Word says, because He lives, I will have victory tomorrow as well.

But this passage here, where Christ shows us that He is the Author of life, that moment when the Lord raises Lazarus, is a very, very special moment, pregnant with meaning, full of significance. And in this passage I see three great messages about the resurrection, like three great implications, three ways of looking at what the resurrection is. The first way I see Christ working through His resurrection—this passage shows me one thing—is that Jesus embodied life in Himself; He had the power to raise Lazarus there in his tomb.

The only person who has life in Himself is Christ Jesus. Jesus is a great reservoir of life; He is a bottomless well who embodies life. Everything that is life, everything that is healing, everything that is health, everything that is hope, light, love, and joy—Jesus, as it were, gathers it all together in His person. And because He possesses it within Himself, He can therefore share it with others; He can distribute it 360 degrees all around Him. Everything that draws near to Him can drink of that life, can receive life from Him. I believe the world is what it is because Christ is life and has life in Himself. And that life Jesus had was what could lead Him toward Lazarus, and when He reached the place where that tomb was, with a man who had already been dead for three days and smelled bad, that definitive death embodied by Lazarus could not withstand the life Christ represented, the life that was in Him, because Jesus was life itself. And that is what we need to understand: the resurrection reminds us of that fact, that Jesus is life in Himself and that everything that exists must draw its life from Him.

Colossians chapter 1 reminds us of this fact and tells us about it. It says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. It says, “For by Him all things were created, those in heaven and those on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers; everything was created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things.” And here in verse seventeen it says, “And in Him all things consist.” That word “consist,” singesteken, means that all things in the universe have coherence, meaning, purpose, and unity in Him, because He lives, because He exists. Remember that the Jesus who walked on earth was merely a human-divine manifestation of someone who had already existed for all eternity in heaven.

The Bible says in the first verse of John, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God, and that Logos came to dwell among us and became flesh through the person of Jesus; but Jesus already existed, Jesus was present at creation, the third person of the Trinity—or the second person, Father, Son—already existed before He came here to earth in His incarnation. Jesus was present when the world was created, when the suns and the stars and the universe were launched into creation; He already existed, He is the source of life. What we saw walking here on earth was the Logos made flesh. Because in that same passage from Colossians that I just read, it says that Jesus unites all things in Himself, the visible and the invisible, the eternal and the temporary. Christ came as an element to unite the human and the divine, the absolutely holy and the sinful, the temporal and the eternal; He embodied it all in His person. And when Jesus walked upon the earth, what He was doing was giving a demonstration, as it were, of what He does in the universe, which is that He keeps everything that exists alive; He is the source of life. The Bible says that the only One who has life in Himself is He. The Lord Jesus also says, I have life, and I can take it and retain it, or I can give it up. It also says that He was the life and the light, and the light was the life of men. So we understand this: in the resurrection we see the fact that Jesus is life itself, He is the power of life, and that we have to connect ourselves to the life of Jesus. The only hope Lazarus had of coming back to life was for Christ to draw near to him and communicate life to him through His words.

Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you and encourage you, every day of your lives, to keep your life connected to the life of Jesus Christ. You have to live your life knowing that without Christ you have no meaning. I do not know about you, but I cannot begin a day without entrusting my life to the Lord. And I cannot end a day without saying, Father, today I have expended energy; renew it during the night's sleep. Just as I take my cell phone and plug it into the power source that will recharge it, because I am using it all day and the battery keeps running down, and in the morning I get up and look and see that those four little bars are strong again, one hundred percent, and I see that today my cell phone can keep working for one more day. That is what I have to do, and what you also have to do with your life: live your life clinging to the source of life, who is Christ Jesus.

Because life is going to drain your energy—the disappointments, the struggles of life, the unpleasant experiences, physically, when you are on the road and have a bad time, or you are stuck there and you are in a hurry and want to get somewhere, when you have an argument with your wife or your husband, when your children do something that bothers you, when your boss does not speak to you the way he should, when you lose your job, when something you did not expect happens—all of that drains life from you, takes life away from you, and that happens to everyone, to the most exalted person or the humblest person: the university professor with his impressive degrees, the millionaire in his corner office on the fortieth floor overlooking a great metropolis, the president of a nation, the most accomplished poet. In the end, beneath all that foliage there is a nervous system that wears down; there is a person who, when life's crisis comes, will need something beyond himself. Men and nations suffer and wear down and lose strength, because they do not have life in themselves; the only One who has life in Himself is Christ Jesus. And we have to cling to something greater than ourselves, you know. A car needs gasoline, an airplane needs fuel, a submarine perhaps needs atomic power, a laser beam needs something, the earth itself needs the sun and its power to renew itself; everything that exists needs to be connected to another source of energy, because it uses energy and requires something to renew its energy. You and I need energy, and that energy comes from Christ Jesus. He is life, life is in Him; learn to live plugged into the person of Jesus. That is why Jesus says, remain in Me, and I in you. Brothers and sisters, we have to learn to live life in Christ Jesus; fight your battles with Christ, in Christ Jesus. And when you experience a great disappointment or great suffering in your life, it is time to cling to Jesus so that He may heal you and cleanse you. When you have a great problem that you do not know how to solve, go and cling to Jesus and ask Him, Lord, impart Your wisdom to my life. When the end of the day comes and you are tired and perhaps even a little doubtful about your own salvation, cling to Jesus again, pray to the Lord, cry out to the Lord, praise God, connect with that eternal dimension so that your life may be renewed, your energies may be renewed; live life continually clinging to Christ Jesus, because He is the source of life, He is the source of healing and salvation. As He was for Lazarus, Christ wants to be for you.

This week I was deeply moved by the story of a professor at Princeton University, a man apparently at the height of his career. I saw his photograph on the Internet, and it had a great impact on me because I studied in the same department in which this man taught, and I know something about how that world in which he moved operates, and I am sure that when I was much younger I was in some of the classrooms where he taught. That is why hearing about his ordeal and his tragedy had such an impact on me, and I spent the entire week thinking about him. A man, a Spaniard, a lecturer at Princeton University, for reasons of internal politics—it is not known exactly what happened—did not have his contract renewed. After five years they were supposed to review his contract, and for various reasons they did not renew it. He was a man who was apparently greatly loved by the undergraduate students, but he had problems with the graduate students.

The fact was that this attractive man—for I saw his photograph, almost like a movie star—was in his forties at most, I believe, and brilliant, I am sure, since he was able to teach at a university like that. But when they did not renew his contract, he became so desperate that he went to his home in New York, took a knife there, and stabbed himself to death, bleeding to death alone in his house, because they had taken away his employment contract. And one wonders, well, why would a person with so many possibilities do that? Because if he had been teaching at that great university, he could probably have found work in many other places. But he probably placed his affection and his hope in that name, in that place, in that profession.

Very probably this man, who could have given so much to the world, had a life confined to time and space, to the now and the here of academic achievements. And when that bond was severed, he had nothing else; he had no access to eternity, he had nothing to temper that great loss, that great tragedy in his life. I am sure that if he had known Christ Jesus, well, he might have cried a little, because it is all right to feel disappointed over the loss of a dream. But we know that life is much more than a profession, life is much more than a man or a woman whom we love, life is much more than a job, life is much more than a house. All those things are lost and gained again, brothers and sisters. What we have is eternal life, salvation in Christ Jesus, our eternal destiny secured. We know that everything in this world is fleeting, because we have taken a great pill of eternity, and that dilutes all the things of this world. If great triumphs come, if the great admiration of men comes, we take it with a grain of salt; we do not let it go to our heads. And if great losses come, we know that this is relative, it is temporary. The important thing is that we have an eternity secured for us through the resurrection of Christ Jesus.

If you are clinging to Christ, then the great tragedies of life do not kill you, they do not harm you as much. And another thing: when we are clinging to the life of Christ, it is as though you are always expending energy, using energy, but you are also continually receiving energy; you are being renewed day by day, says the Word of the Lord. So problems and struggles come, but you know what? Instead of those things wearing you down and draining your strength, on the contrary, it says that the inner man is being renewed day by day. The outer man is wearing away, the beauty of youth is lost, the very taut, beautiful skin is lost, many things head south, downward; but the interior, the spirit, is being renewed day by day. We become more beautiful each day, more tolerant, kinder, more generous, wiser, more capable of counseling others, because we are clinging to the source of life, who is Christ Jesus, hallelujah.

I do not know about you, but I feel better and better and stronger, and more excited about life than ever before. Because Christ is the source of my blessing. I know that everything the devil throws at me, I hit out of the park for a home run; everything that comes into my field, I bat right out, because I have the grace of Christ in my life. And you can do the same. Even if problems come, problems are simply steps that you use to grow and to keep moving farther ahead in Christ Jesus, because, because He is the source of life and you make use of everything. If only this nation understood this; if only the nations of the world understood it. How easy life would be if humanity found its source of life: the risen Christ Jesus, the One who laid down His life for us but also took it up again, and then ascended and sat at the right hand of God the Father.

A second thing—and I will go more quickly—is that this passage not only shows me that Christ is the source of life in Himself, that He has life and embodies the hope of all creation, but also, through the resurrection of Christ Jesus, it reminds me of something: His resurrection gives me the right to aspire to my own day of resurrection. The Bible says that one day the trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who remain will be lifted into the air, and we will meet Him in the air. And as we are transported, we will experience a transformation of our own bodies, and what will ascend into heaven will then be a completely transformed man, a completely transformed woman, right? How wonderful that is. Because Christ rose again, He was the pioneer; when He rose again, He opened a path through which all of us who are in Christ will also arrive. I already know that this world is not everything; my death here is simply something instantaneous, fleeting. In fact, I will never taste death, because the very moment my body ceases to function, I will already be with Him. What Christians do when they die is pass instantaneously from a poor, limited, partial, imperfect life to a perfect, pure life, without spot or wrinkle, without difficulties or sorrows. We pass from the temporary to the eternal in an instant.

The apostle Paul says this in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15: But now Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who slept. In other words, He was the firstborn, He was the prototype, He was the One who opened the way, He was the model, He was the One who established the precedent. Then it says: Since death entered through one man, Adam, the resurrection of the dead also came through one man, Christ. But each one will rise in his proper order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at His coming, then the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, and when He has abolished all dominion, all authority and power, because He must reign until He has put all His enemies beneath His feet.

You know, brother, how beautiful that is, isn't it? There is a plan that God has. Christ's resurrection was what began an entire process. I know that this world is not everything for me in terms of death and life. I was telling the brothers and sisters that every day it becomes more difficult for me to mourn too long for a person who has died, whether a loved one or a member of my congregation. And I do not believe it is because, as a pastor, one becomes accustomed to officiating at so many funerals and, like doctors, loses one's sensitivity and becomes hardened to death. No, I believe it is because, as time goes by, I become more convinced that when a child of God dies in Christ Jesus, although there is indeed a moment when one cries, because it is natural—one will no longer see a person in the same way one saw them before—if we cry over a person when they go away on a trip for a few months, or when we say goodbye to our countries and return here to the United States, or vice versa, even when we know we will see them again, then I believe it is natural for us to cry. But you know what? Once we have mourned our loved ones, we must also thank God, because now they are enjoying an existence that we ourselves would like to enjoy. They are in a place of eternal peace, of great blessing, of great rest. We could not describe what happens there, but I know that it is good and that it is worth fighting for.

Christ established a pattern, a way, and the Bible already says, “O grave, where is your victory? O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?”—or the other way around. The point is that the venom, the finality, has already been taken away from death. It says, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Christ’s victory overwhelmed the meaning of death. For the children of God, death has no meaning. Do not fear death. Perhaps fear psychologically that pinch you get when you die, because there will always be something that happens through death: an accident, an illness, a death in a hospital, a heart attack. No one enters eternal life elegantly; something always happens, right? It is like a child: a child is not born without blood, water, screams, and people running here and there. Life always comes about that way. You know, eternal life is the same as well. You always have to pass through a courtyard of illness or suffering or something else; there is always a tearing that has to take place. But you know what? On the other side, something radiant, beautiful, perfect, and lovely awaits you. So do not fear death. As a child of God, you no longer know death; you are already living in eternity now. We are children of eternity because Christ rose from the dead, and we also have our own life.

And the last thing we see here in this passage—and, by the way, where do I see this? Notice: through the power of Christ, Lazarus was raised, and Lazarus was like a prototype of resurrection. If you look later in the passage we read, where Christ says to Martha, “Martha, do you believe that I can raise Lazarus?” she tells him, “Yes, I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” But Jesus says to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he is dead, shall live.” In other words, that drama of resurrection was in Jesus’ mind, right? He was raising Lazarus, but he also knew that Lazarus was like a foretaste of the resurrection that all his followers would experience on the day of resurrection. So here we see Christ, the source of life in himself, a great reservoir of life to which we must all remain connected so that we may be renewed day by day and be able to walk this road until we reach the end.

Second, Christ is our hope of resurrection and eternal life; through his resurrection, he opens the way to our resurrection.

Third, I also see here that, through his resurrection, Christ wants to show his power today, now, here, in your daily dramas. When you get up tomorrow—how many of you have to go to work tomorrow? Raise your hand. Ah, that is hard to think about, isn’t it? Look how lovely you all look here. In fact, we do not even want to think about tomorrow. But tomorrow, like Cinderella, we have to get up and go to that alarm clock. I do not want to depress you, but I want to make a dramatic point through this, right?

We are going to get up and return to everyday life. We still have a few hours before the clock strikes midnight and, um, the princess turns back into Cinderella. And perhaps we can still go to a good restaurant and enjoy a meal; perhaps something very lovely is waiting for us at home, whatever it may be. But the truth is that life is waiting. Out there, from the moment you walk through that door, the reality of life awaits you. And what are we going to do with the machine while we are there in the factory where we work, or amid the hustle and bustle of the dining hall where we work, or in the mass of cars on Route 93? What does the resurrection have to say to us about that?

Well, brothers and sisters, I want to tell you that the energy of the resurrection is imparted in the here and now. I believe that when Christ rose from the dead—look, in the spiritual world it was as though an incredible explosion took place. Rays of light and energy spread outward from this tiny point in the universe where the risen Christ was, and the universe was never the same again. Energy was released.

You remember that when the first atomic bomb exploded in Japan—I think it was around 1949 or 1945—when that first atomic bomb exploded, and then the second, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you know that human history would never be the same. After those bombs went off and humanity realized that the energy of the atom had been released and that it could cause incredible devastation, that it could kill hundreds of thousands of people, that the world could now practically be destroyed, that man could destroy man through that secret energy contained within the atom, then it was understood that an energy of death had been released, and that totally changed the meaning and course of history.

Well, you know what? When life exploded in the body of Christ Jesus and raised him from the dead, the universe understood that something had totally changed as well. But the energy Christ released was one of life, not death. The energy Christ released was now something that would reverberate throughout all creation. A new power had been released into the universe. Darkness, demons, sickness, and the bondage of the human spirit were no longer final, and now there was a new sheriff in town: the power of the resurrection of Christ Jesus.

And every day we can draw from that resurrection power. The resurrection is not something that happened far away; every day we can live in that resurrection power, and every day we can have access to that power. And I see something here: Martha—Martha does not understand that the fact that Christ is present in her drama of losing her son—her brother, excuse me—gives her the right to understand that her situation is not as tragic as she thinks. The Lord is trying to convince Martha of something, and that is: “Martha, you know that I am the solution to your problem. Your brother has died, that is true, but here I am. I am the answer at this very moment.” Martha thinks, well, yes, Christ will make her brother’s resurrection possible, but that will happen someday, way off in eternity. That is why the Lord tells her again, “Your brother will rise.” But Martha answers him, “Well, I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” In other words, Martha is like many of us, many times.

Something the Lord spoke to me about this passage this week, brothers and sisters, is that God wants this congregation, and his people throughout the earth, to learn to operate more and more with what I call specific faith, as opposed to a general or generic faith, a religious faith. Martha has a religious faith that encourages her to carry on through life’s tragedies, to endure them, and to hope that something good will happen to ease her situation. I see so many people who live in religion. Religion is like their shoulder to cry on: they can come to church and cry in church, and religion sort of absorbs the excess suffering, right? It is like a sponge that you apply where some liquid has spilled; you put that sponge there, and it soaks up the liquid on the surface. But Christ wants more than that. Christ wants to completely undo the damage today. Christ wants to give you power. Christ wants to give you victory. Christ wants your faith to transform your situation. Christ wants specific faith for life’s problems, because he is with you. You have power over your reality. You can cry out to God because Christ—because he lives—you can triumph. You can ask the Lord to heal your body. You can ask the Lord to give you victory in your financial situation. You can ask the Lord to heal your marriage, to heal your housing situation, to heal your emotions, to heal your memory. Perhaps there are memories from your past that have hurt you, but you know that you can come to Christ and say, “Lord, heal me. Lord, give me power. Lord, I take authority over every situation in life.”

You know, before I came this morning, I was—I am going to say I was—badly affected by a cold that took hold of me, which I think I had sort of incubated before leaving here for my trip to Italy and which came fully into bloom on my flight back. And when I got home, I arrived in a state of crisis. And that cold loves me so much that it has not wanted to leave me. Calling it a cold is doing it a favor; it is more like a completely destructive flu. And this morning I did not feel strong enough to stand here, be here, preach two sermons, and remain on my feet for several hours.

But you know what, brothers and sisters? I have believed in a Christ of power, and I wanted to be with you, and I wanted to proclaim the Word of God together with my brothers and sisters. I did not want your pastor to be saying, “Oh, I have a cold. Ah, I am sick,” and sitting there like a beggar, let us say. I know we have good preachers. Glory to God for our pastors, who preach so well and do such good work. But I have believed in a God who strengthens us. I have believed in a God who goes beyond our weaknesses. I have believed in a God who, if we entrust ourselves to him, somehow brings forth the answer. And I give glory to God because I believe that, at the very least, I have not made a fool of myself by standing here before you.

I can truly say, as the apostle Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And when I say that, I immediately bring it down into my reality, into my specific need. Whether it is a cold, a headache, a terminal illness, a financial problem, or a ministry problem, I have believed that the risen Christ is with me today, now, here, and that I can come to him and say, “Here is my tomb, Lord. Here is my Lazarus. Here is my dead one. You are the Christ of the resurrection. I place my problem in your space. You see to it; you take care of it.”

My brother, when we learn to live life this way, there is no devil that has power over your life. There is no sickness with the power to have the final word. You can be victorious, brother. You can find something redemptive in your tragedy, something that lifts up your life. You can find meaning in all things. The world becomes something wonderful. Both the good and the bad speak to you. Your problems become stepping-stones toward greater greatness. I do not know about you, but I find meaning in everything that happens in my life, because Christ is with me. And when a process comes that takes time to resolve, I say to the Lord, “How long, and what do you want me to learn from it?” So remember this: the Christ of the resurrection goes with you.

He not only wants to give you life out there in the distant future; he also wants to walk with you in your situation today. When you have problems, when the devil is attacking you, sic Christ on him. Point toward Christ and tell him, “Hey, the one I have with me is greater than the one who is in the world,” and hand your tomb over to the Lord; hand your death over to the Lord. So let us leave with that this afternoon: Christ, the source of life, has life in himself. He is a great reservoir of life, and if I remain connected to him, I can drink from his strength. Christ is the one who guarantees my future resurrection, the one who has conquered death and has conquered my death as well. I do not have to be afraid of death. I already dwell in eternity. I can live a peaceful life, and I can bury my dead, and I can await my moment of departure, knowing that all my papers are in order and that I am entering eternal life. Third, Christ lives with me. The resurrection is a reality today—in my day, every day, in every problem and every situation. I take a resurrection pill; I take a dose of resurrection, and I say, “Thank you, Christ. You conquered death, and along with death you conquered everything that smelled of darkness, destruction, tragedy, suffering, loss, gloom, and bitterness. You swept it all away in a great avalanche of life, light, and love.” That is the resurrection of Jesus. I hope that message reaches your heart and that tomorrow, when you go out to work, when the bell rings, you will be ready to run the race of faith with ease.

And before we finish, I want us to bow our heads for a moment, and I want to make an appeal to everyone who is here—first, to those who have not yet surrendered their lives to the Lord Jesus. Perhaps there is someone here who has not placed their hand in Jesus’ hand, who has not plugged into the source of life that is Jesus Christ, who has not had that moment of making a covenant with Jesus Christ. You know that the Lord likes it when he is invited. That is why I say the Lord does not operate so much through a general, generic faith; the Lord wants specific faith. The Lord always approached people with a first and last name, actual people, and had conversations with them. Specific people always approached Jesus and asked Jesus for something, and that activated something in the person of Jesus, and it distinguished those people from the crowd. And the Lord realized that something had touched him in a different way from the way everyone else had touched him. And there is a crowd here right now, and the Lord would like you to reach out your hand toward him and open the door of your heart.

That may seem to you like a useless and meaningless gesture, but those of us who have already done it know that it has power, that it has an impact in the spiritual world, when a man or a woman says right now, “The floodgates of my heart are opening so that You may enter,” because You once said that You stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears your knocking and opens the door, You would enter into him or her, and she will dine with You, he will dine with You, and You with him or her. And I want to invite my brothers and my sisters: if anyone has come this afternoon and has not yet taken that step of faith, I want to provide that opportunity before ending this service, because I would like you to have that opportunity to perform that very simple and brief ceremony, yet one that has eternal significance.

So, if anyone would like us to pray for you this afternoon and entrust your life to the Lord Jesus, I would like to see your hand go up now, and I would simply like to pray for you; and by raising your hand, you are saying to the Lord Jesus, “Lord, I receive You as my Lord and my Savior, as the source of life for my life.” I see a brother over there raising his hand; other hands are going up. I am not even going to ask you to come forward here for now; simply raise your hand right where you are. The Lord hears; those hands have power, they have meaning. This sister is coming here with her companion, her son, her grandson, amen. If you want to come to the front here, that is fine; if not, remain where you are. Simply stand up; stand up if you are there. We are going to pray for you. I know there are many of us; if you are able to come up here, that is fine; if not, we will pray for you where you are, as you feel in your heart. But I want to bless you. If you want to come, we will wait for you. And remember what you are doing this afternoon: you are placing your hand in the hand of Jesus. This young man has many years ahead of him, and that is so good, because when we sometimes come to the Lord in adulthood, we have sometimes already gone through many difficulties, haven’t we? But how good it is when, in one’s youth, one can say to Him, “Lord, now I want to live my future, which is quite long, in You, with your protection, with your care, with your support.” That is wonderful.

So let us pray for these brothers and sisters, and for those who raised their hands and perhaps have not come forward, amen. But I bless you right where you are, and the Lord sees; that is what has power. Is there anyone else? Stand up, get to your feet, dare to do it in the name of Jesus, dare to do it in the name of Jesus. These things have power and meaning, my brothers and sisters. I assure you that there is something very powerful in them. The spiritual world obeys those prophetic gestures that we make; they are keys that operate in the spiritual world. Something very wonderful and very powerful happens. So stand up there and say to Him, “Lord, You are my sustenance, my source of power, and I want to live my life with You, joined to You, joined to You.”

I bless your life, my brother, my sister; I bless your life in the name of Jesus. And right now, say to Him, “Lord Jesus, enter my heart.” Say it like this: “Enter my heart, come into my heart, reign in my life. I give You my heart, Lord Jesus. I want to know You, and I want to be known by You. I want to be known by You, Lord. Enter my life, reign in my life, walk with me. I am your property; I am your female servant, your male servant, and I will walk beside You every day of my life, until the last day, until You bring me into eternity.”

And I bless your life in the name of Jesus, and I declare the lordship of the One who conquered death, conquered darkness, conquered sin, and now imparts His life to you as well. Thank You, Lord. I bless my sisters and my brothers now; give them joy, give them peace, give them your power, hallelujah. And finally, all my brothers and my sisters who already know Jesus and want to reaffirm their relationship with Christ, stand up and raise your hand and say to Him: “Lord Jesus, thank You for setting me free. Thank You for also making me your bearer of life here on earth. Thank You for giving me my own resurrection. Thank You because in You I have power, I have victory, I have hope, I have glory. Nothing can touch me; no one can accuse me, because I have been healed, and I have been set free, and I have been forgiven by the One who gave His life for me on the cross of Calvary and who took it up again through the resurrection. In You, Lord, I am free as well. Thank You.”

And Satan, look at my raised hand: I am a daughter and a son of God, and you have neither part nor portion with me. Satan, we declare that you have no power over this community, because it is a community redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; it is a community that dwells under the power of the resurrection.

And each day our lives will be better, and each day we will have greater victories, and each day we will understand more of the mysteries of the gospel, and each day we will have more power to obtain healing for our illnesses, to live prosperous lives, for our children to be blessed, for our homes to be places of peace, for our emotions to be subject to the order and beauty of your kingdom. And death has no power over this community. We will go from better to better, we will go from triumph to triumph, we will go from greatness to greatness, because Christ and His resurrection cover our lives. Thank You, Lord. We praise You; we bless You. Give thanks to the Lord; give glory to the Lord. Celebrate your chosen, privileged status as a member of the kingdom of God. Hallelujah! We praise You; we bless You, Lord. Thank You for your resurrection. I bless you, people of God. Leave here ready to live a victorious life. Whether it rains, thunders, or the wind blows, you have the victory through the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Amen and amen.