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I want everybody to do this with me. I want you to take a deep breath in

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and let it out. Do it one more time. Deep breath in thin

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and let it out. Okay? Now here's the next thing I want you to do. Okay?

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I want you to, I want you to find a pulse. So either on your wrist,

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on your neck, feel for your heartbeat. And when you find it,

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I want you to take your other hand.

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I just kinda want you to tap along to the pace of that heartbeat.

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Are we all good ? Everybody's got it.

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Everybody has breath in their lungs and they can feel that heartbeat. Hey, uh,

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listen here, here's what I want you to think about. You know,

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those two things are,

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are probably the clearest indicators to any of us that were actually alive. Uh,

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the reality is,

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is that God forbid if there was something to happen to me right now and I were

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to collapse and hit the stage, let me paint a picture of what would happen.

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Okay?

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The medical team would rush the stage and the first thing they would do is try

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to find a pulse. And while everybody's panicking and freaking out,

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the people who are up here in the front actually might be pretty easy for them

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because what they would do is they would look at me and they would say, oh,

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well, his chest is moving up and down so he's alive.

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Everything is gonna be okay. And that's a physical reality.

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If we have a heartbeat, if we have breath in our lungs, then we must be fine.

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We must be alive. But when we open the pages of the Bible, what we realize is,

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is that even though that as a physical reality, it's not a spiritual reality,

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the Bible actually teaches us that there is a condition of the heart where you

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can have breath in your lungs and a heartbeat in your chest,

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and somehow you can still be dead. And so with that,

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we turn to Ephesians chapter two, where a man named Paul writes these words.

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He says, once you were dead,

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because of your disobedience and your many sins,

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you used to live in sin just like the rest of the world.

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You were obeying the devil, the commander of the powers of the unseen world.

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He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.

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All of us used to live that way following the passionate desires and

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inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature,

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we were subject to God's anger just like everyone else.

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I for some of you who read this verse or who hear this verse,

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I realize that you may have noticed what seems to be an oxymoron in this.

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You notice Paul, he's saying, Hey, this is how, or he says, you were dead,

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but then he says, this is how you live. He says, you were dead,

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but this is how you breathe. And you think, well, well which one is it?

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Was I alive or was I dead? And to this, the answer is yes.

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Paul, was I dead or was I walking? Yes, Paul,

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was I dead or was there breath in my lungs? Yes.

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Was I dead or was there a heartbeat in my chest?

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The answer to all of those things is yes,

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because even though you are physically alive, there's a spiritual death.

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And this is how he describes it. He describes it in three ways.

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The first is that you were following the course of the world.

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Let me ask you, have you ever found yourself doing just that?

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Have you ever found yourself just kind of drifting along through life,

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getting caught up in the rat race? And the next thing you know, you're like,

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man,

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I ended up here and I don't know how I was just kind of following the way that

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everybody else was doing things. The second is he says,

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we are following the prince of the power of the air.

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What he's doing in this statement is he's opening our eyes to another spiritual

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reality that if you've ever been trying your best to do your best and you feel

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like, man, there's someone or something that feels like it's opposing me,

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Paul is opening our eyes to the reality of yes,

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you actually have a very real and active enemy who's actively trying to ruin

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your life.

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And then the third thing he says is that we were following the passions of the

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flesh and carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

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Can we be real for just a second? We've talked about external forces that uh,

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typically try to slow us down,

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but do you ever realize how often you're the problem? Like,

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have you ever noticed how following your heart tends to be the very pathway that

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gets you into trouble time and time again? Listen,

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this isn't a problem that's unique to you. This is a,

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a spiritual reality that the Bible opens our eyes up to. Uh,

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there's a theologian, his name was Eugene Peterson.

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And Eugene Peterson took a, a large chunk of his life to try to, uh,

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paraphrase the Bible and look at how he paraphrases Paul's words from Ephesians

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two. He says,

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it wasn't long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.

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Check this out. He says,

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you let the world which doesn't know the first thing about living teach you to

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live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief

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and then you exhaled disobedience.

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We all did it,

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all of us doing what we felt like doing when we felt like doing it.

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All of us in the same boat. Listen, if this is where we all are,

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then what is it that we all need? We need a savior.

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We need someone who is outside of that boat that can save us.

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We need someone whose lungs haven't been polluted by disbelief to cleanse our

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lungs.

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We need a savior who can come in whose heart has never been defiled to cleanse

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our own hearts.

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We need someone to reach in and to intervene because as dead people,

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we can't save ourselves.

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I don't know if you've ever realized this or not,

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but you've never seen someone giving CPR to themself .

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No matter how hard you try and how weird it would seem,

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you can't give yourself mouth to mouth.

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And so if that's the case, if we're people who can't save our own mortal bodies,

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then maybe it's true that we need someone to save our souls.

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We need a savior. We need good news.

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And we call that good news the gospel.

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It's the reality that a man named Jesus over 2000 years ago came to this earth.

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He lived a perfect life. He died, he went in a tomb, but he didn't stay there.

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He rose again in new life.

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And that's the reason why us in hundreds of thousands of churches across America

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and churches around the entire world this weekend will spend time celebrating

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the reality that the grave is empty and that Jesus walked out under the power

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of the Holy Spirit being resurrected. And here's where we come in.

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Jesus wasn't the only one who was resurrected that day

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when Jesus walked out of the tomb.

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What he was proving to the entire world is that all of these people that Paul

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described in Ephesians two who were dead, they can walk out of the grave too.

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All those people who are spiritually dead.

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Now there's a resurrection that can happen. And so you say, well,

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how does that happen? Well,

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Paul actually lays this out for us in the next verse. This is Ephesians two,

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four. He starts it off with these two words. He says, but God,

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you know,

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if you open your Bible and you read through the letters written by Paul,

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what you'll realize is, is he was really eloquent and really capable of, uh,

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describing the gospel in a way that just opens your mind to all the realities of

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heaven. It's this long flowing sermons that just filled with beautiful,

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eloquent language, but it's these two words that sum up the whole thing.

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But God, when we were drowning,

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when we needed someone to step in and save us when we couldn't save ourselves,

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but God, yes, you were following the course of the world, but God, yes,

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you were following the power of the prince of the world. But God, yes,

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you were following the passions of the flesh and carrying out the desires of the

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body and the mind. But God, yes, you were drowning, lights fading, hope,

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waning, but God,

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he chose to get involved even when there was nothing we could do to save

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ourselves. And he did it on our behalf.

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But the thing that blows our minds is how he chose to do it.

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It almost seems counterintuitive. You know, I talk about how Paul,

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he eloquently writes, uh, the gospel and, and he has,

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I mean there are chapters upon chapters of how he does this,

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but one of my personal favorites,

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it's one sin and it comes in second Corinthians 5 21.

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He says that God made him who had no sin to

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be sin for us,

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so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Do you realize the implications of this? Well,

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second Corinthians 5 21 is saying, Hey, the God of the universe,

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the creator of everything, you know what he did?

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He gave himself lungs and he filled them with air.

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The God who is so high above a so other that God

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gave himself a heart and said, start ticking.

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And then he allowed his heartbeat and his breath to be taken away

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for our sake and our on our behalf. And why did he do it?

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Why would, why would God make himself killable?

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Because by doing this, he could show us two things.

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He shows us a spiritual reality and a physical one. The spiritual one is this,

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is that sin and death is no match for him.

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Everything that Paul says was our previous condition.

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Everything that he said that we were subject to Jesus stared it in the face and

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said, you're no match for me. And in turn,

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opening our eyes to a possibility. And then for the, the,

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the physical reason of doing this is to prove that death doesn't have to be the

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end for us. See, Paul redefines death.

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He says,

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just because there's breath in your lungs and a heartbeat in your chest,

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it doesn't mean that you're alive. And now Jesus comes along and says, listen,

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just because you lack those things, it doesn't mean you're really dead. In fact,

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you're more alive than you could ever be because of what I'm doing.

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For you see, Jesus in his death,

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in his burial and specifically in his resurrection, a lot of us like to think,

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oh, Jesus came to earth and he did it for us.

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But this isn't just about something he's done for us.

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It's about something he wants to do in us.

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The physical death of Jesus is a, a representation of our spiritual death.

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But so is the physical resurrection of Jesus.

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The physical resurrection of Jesus is a physical resurrection that happens,

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or I'm sorry, a spiritual resurrection that happens in each of us.

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And he calls this eternal life, right?

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You've been to a football game before John three 16.

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Jesus came to give us eternal life. But what what does that mean?

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Here's a, a fun little piece of Bible trivia for you right here. Okay?

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So when you go to work tomorrow and somebody goes, oh,

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what'd you do over the weekend? You say, I went to church. And they go,

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what do you learn? You're like, this is, here's something.

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I got it in my back pocket for you. Okay, hold on to this.

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What did Jesus do the night before he died?

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It's kind of a trick question 'cause there's a couple of right answers to it.

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But the one that stands out and the one that impacts me the most is Jesus

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prayed. He prayed for you and he prayed for me.

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And I want you to make note of this prayer as I think you should because if

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Jesus prayed for me, well,

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I'm willing to bet that's probably the most important prayer  that I'll

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ever have spoken over my life.

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This is John 17 verse one. It says, when Jesus had spoken these words,

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he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father,

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the hour has come glorify your son,

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that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all

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flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

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So Jesus's prayer for you and for me is this,

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I pray that they receive eternal life. What does that even mean?

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He explains it right here in verse three. He says,

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and this is eternal life that they know you,

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the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent

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Jesus himself,

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came and died and rose again so that you can have access to the life

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you are always designed to have.

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And that is in an intimate relationship with God.

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Before that, we were all a hopeless case. We were all drowning.

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There was nothing we could do to save ourselves.

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And then Jesus himself stepped in in order to make that

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a reality for all of us.

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Jesus hung on a cross that was meant for you.

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He got into a tomb that had your name on it.

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But then he walked out proving that all of these people who for so long

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had been dead, man,

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there is a new reality where they are resurrected and experiencing

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life to the full life that only Jesus could bring.

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Listen, I don't know if you caught this earlier or not,

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but when we're reading Ephesians chapter two,

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Paul was talking in the past tense. He said, you were dead.

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You were walking this way, you were breathing this way.

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And the reason why he was doing that is because he was talking to, uh,

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a group of believers,

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people who had already put their faith in the resurrection of Jesus.

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And now they had put death in the rear view mirror

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for a lot of them. This was their past.

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But I know for some of the people who are watching this, this is your present.

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This is the way that you're living. You've got breath in your lungs.

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You've got a heartbeat in your chest, but you're spiritually dead.

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And to that man, listen, that's nothing that's, that's said to shame you.

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In fact, the most loving thing that Jesus ever did was to,

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to open our eyes to that reality.

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But then he loved us enough to say, Hey, you're not gonna stay there either.

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I love you. And so I offer resurrection to you.

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I wanna finish out that verse that we started earlier.

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Paul starts 'em with these words, but God and he continues.

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But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us,

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even when we were dead in our trespasses,

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made us alive together with Christ by grace.

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You have been saved and raised up with him and seeded and he seeded us with him

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in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ. So that in the coming ages,

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he might show his immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us

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in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith.

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And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God,

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not a result of work so that no one may boast for we or His workmanship.

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Believe this about yourself. Maybe this is the first time you're hearing this.

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You were created in Christ Jesus for good works,

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which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

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I wanna summarize this verse pretty quickly, just like this one.

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God has already done the work. He's done all the heavy lifting.

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He's going to the cross on our behalf. And so now this is where you come in.

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The invitation has been extended and it's,

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it is now your time to accept that. This is Romans 10, nine through 10. It says,

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it says it simply. It says,

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if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that

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God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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For it is with the heart that one believes and is justified.

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That's the internal change. And it's with the mouth.

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That one confesses and is saved. That's the out outward change. Listen,

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I believe God wants to change you from the inside out.

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He wants to do this salvation both on the inside and on the outside of you.

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And then the final thing, and this is where God,

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he comes into the picture again, he seals it with his spirit.

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The Bible says, if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin,

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the spirit is life because of righteousness.

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If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead swells in you,

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he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead,

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will also give life to your mortal bodies through His spirit who dwells in

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you. Listen, according to the Bible,

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there's two statuses of every person who's ever lived,

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those who are dead and those who are alive.

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And the invitation to be alive is to experience the eternal life that Jesus

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talked about.

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It's to have a relationship with God that starts right now

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and continues in the life to come.

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But there's also a reality where we don't accept that invitation and we spend an

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eternity separated away from him. Listen, God wants the absolute best for you.

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And the absolute best for you is to say yes to his invitation.

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So I'm gonna close out our time here by praying.

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I wanna ask everyone to close their eyes. Even if you're watching at home,

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I want you to do the exact same thing. Maybe you're by yourself,

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maybe you're with other people in a room. But I want you to close your eyes

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and I want you to take those inward and outward steps.

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Here's the inward step I want you to resolve in your heart,

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to decide with your mind, to believe in your heart

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that what we're celebrating this weekend is true.

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That Jesus actually did rise from the grave.

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This isn't just something that we do to, to put another holiday on the calendar.

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This is a moment when we celebrate the moment where all of humanity was invited

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to walk out of the grave and recognize that Jesus extends that exact same

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invitation to you. That's the inward piece. And then there's the outward piece,

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Which is where we, we confess with our mouths. And so,

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so maybe you don't do that part right now,

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but here's what I am gonna ask you to do.

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I'm gonna ask you just to raise your hand as a sign before God,

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as a sign before maybe anybody else who you're around,

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maybe even just a sign to yourself of Jesus,

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I believe. Dear Lord,

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thank you so much for each and every person who accepts the truth of

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your word and says, I want to put my faith in Jesus.

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I recognize that there's something going on in my life that's broken that's off

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track.

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I resonate with the words of walking around with my heart beating and air in my

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lungs, but not truly being alive. God,

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we pray that right now in this moment,

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that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will

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infiltrate our souls.

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That we will call you Lord and follow after you,

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and that your spirit would give us new life,

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a resurrected life just like Jesus experienced.

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Father, we love you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

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Listen,

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whether you're at one of our physical campuses or whether you're watching

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online, we want you to to, we want to be there with you for that confess step.

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We encourage you, man. We have volunteers and pastors all over the place.

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Even right now, if you're watching online,

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there's a space in the chat where you can just tell somebody,

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maybe you're sitting in the room with family and you're like, Hey, listen,

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something just happened . I don't really know what it is yet,

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but I wanna walk along with someone through this. Listen,

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there are people who are there specifically for you. We are here for you.

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We would love to hear about it. We love you. Happy Easter.