Easter Sunday 2026

In this week’s Easter Sunday message, Pastor Cameron unpacks the reality of the resurrection and challenges us to move from simply understanding it to truly believing in the living Jesus.

Creators and Guests

Host

Cameron Lienhart

Cameron is the Senior Pastor of Conduit Ministries

What is Conduit Ministries?

We are all about helping people get closer to Jesus.
Sundays @ 9 AM & 11 AM - 120 Delaware Ave in Jamestown, NY

Speaker 1: 00:04

Pastor Cameron is going to come up here in a moment as we pray, and he is going to deliver the message for today. So if you would, join with me as we pray for the preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, this morning, Lord, I ask that we would be receptive to the work of the Holy Spirit. Lord, that we would hear the words that You have for us. Lord, that You would bless the preaching of your word, that pastor Cameron would be in submission to your spirit and to your leading.

Speaker 1: 00:34

And Lord, I pray that today we would hear the message that you have for each of us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Cameron: 00:45

Good morning, everyone. How are you? Good. My name is Cameron. I'm the lead pastor here at Conduit, and we welcome you here.

Cameron: 00:52

We hope that you find this to be a place where you can call home. Today is without exaggeration and hopefully, maybe without surprise, today is the most important day in the Christian faith. The most important day in the Christian faith. Now, I don't know why you are here, but I think at least probably in some way, you recognize a bit of significance to the day. You may feel the significance of the day because you either have long believed in Jesus or you've recently come to a belief in Jesus, and you believe that Jesus did die on a cross in our place and for our sin and was placed in a grave that he then was resurrected from in victory over death and that by believing in him you may have life.

Cameron: 01:57

That may be your story. That may be your testimony. That may be why you're here this morning. Maybe you're here this morning and you find significance in this day because a day like today means you get to spend some quality time with your family. You get to do some fun activities, maybe eat some good food, prepare for your vacation next week, do whatever it is.

Cameron: 02:26

Like it's a day of significance because it's a day of family. Now there are really, I think a host of reasons, a number of reasons that you could recognize this day for what it is, a significant day, an important day. But one thing I think is probably, or at least I'm going to propose, is very difficult to do is to deny that there is any significance whatsoever to this day. That it is just another day, just another Sunday, just maybe another day to come to church or whatever the case may be. To do so, we have to make a decision about what we're going to do with this man named Jesus.

Cameron: 03:21

To say that there's no significance really whatsoever to this day, no significance to what we celebrate today, you have to come to some kind of other conclusion about, mean, there's this guy named Jesus. And even from a non believing historical perspective, virtually unargued that Jesus of Nazareth did exist in and around Jerusalem around the turn of the millennium. It's also pretty much historically unarguable that He gathered around Him or had around Him a large following of people, sometimes numbering in the thousands. It's clear even from history that he was kind of a controversial figure in Roman history, making claims that was, that he, not Caesar, was the Lord. That he was the Messiah, the anointed one that would come and bring freedom for the captives, released from the prisoners, binding up the brokenhearted, coming to save not the healthy, but the sick, to be in atonement for sins, to die and to resurrect.

Cameron: 04:45

And these claims and claims like them got him arrested, unjustly tried, crucified, and then placed in a grave. Those facts, just at a historical perspective, are largely unargued, even among unbelieving historians in the world. But then you come to the place of claims of his life afterwards, that the tomb that he was once laid in was found to be empty, that there was no really reasonable explanation for where His body went. The Romans didn't have an answer. The Jews didn't have an answer.

Cameron: 05:39

His followers didn't have an answer. It was just like, Well, I don't know what happened. The tomb is just empty. So listen, no matter what you think about the Easter message itself in its miraculous nature or in the spiritual nature of the message, you sort of have to come to some conclusion about the person of Jesus in order to live even a historically honest life. Who was Jesus?

Cameron: 06:21

Now there's several different options. You're not without options. It's, some people have said that Jesus is a lunatic. Like most of us, honestly, would probably consider someone if they said, Yeah, I'm like kind of God. I don't know if you know that or not.

Cameron: 06:45

You ever heard someone call themselves or consider them say that they're God? Have you thought about that person as having a right mind? Typically we don't. And so you have this man, Jesus, just honestly, who's claiming himself to be God, has the power to forgive sins, claims to be the Messiah, set to be the savior of the world. And so is there a possibility that there's just something wrong up here with him?

Cameron: 07:19

He's got literally a God complex and he's just crazy. That's a possibility. That is a possibility. You can have another possibility and say, Well, no, Jesus wasn't a lunatic. He wasn't crazy.

Cameron: 07:36

He was just a really cunning and deceitful liar. He knew who He was. He was the son of Mary and Joseph, carpenter's kid, right? Nothing really special about His life, but had this grandiosity about his interior world and this pride about him and just wanted to make a name for himself. Was really lying about all these claims to be Messiah and to be sent from God and have the power to forgive sins, and just wanted to gather a large crowd around Him.

Cameron: 08:06

So you could come to that question about who Jesus is. And you could say, Well, I think Jesus is just kind of a lunatic. Crazy. Who says they're God? Oh, I think Jesus is just a liar.

Cameron: 08:20

He just wanted to be famous, wanted his name to be remembered in the history books of life, but like any other liar. Or you could stand and believe and say, Jesus is not a lunatic, not a liar. So given everything else in the story, it seems maybe that He is who He said He is, and He is the Lord of all creation. Now, this guy in the New Testament named Paul, the Apostle Paul, he wrote like two thirds of the New Testament, mostly in letters to churches that he had planted. He would write these letters to them, either giving them instruction or wisdom or rebuking them for some behavior or whatever.

Cameron: 09:15

Paul came onto the scene in biblical history in the book of Acts, but he didn't come onto the scene in the book of Acts as a strong and ardent supporter and believer in Jesus and all the claims that he made about himself. Paul actually came onto the scene as a hard line skeptic to who Jesus was. Paul probably would have fit in one of the categories that said Jesus is a liar or a lunatic. And his followers are the same. So skeptical was Paul that he actually asked permission from the Jewish leaders to search for, find, and execute those who swore allegiance to Jesus and accepted him as Messiah, as the savior of the world.

Cameron: 10:13

Now you might think that that means that like, man, I don't know what Jesus did to tick Paul off. What's the story in the Bible of when Jesus and Paul met and Jesus told Paul off or said something that he offended him or whatever? Like what happened between Jesus and Paul that created such enmity between the two of them? And the answer is there's nothing. We really only have one indication of Paul and Jesus coming face to face in an encounter.

Cameron: 10:47

Only really one time where they came together and met face to face. And it wasn't it wasn't while Jesus was living, it was actually after Jesus had died and the tomb was empty. And the followers of Jesus were out there proclaiming to the masses that Jesus had risen from the grave. It was at that moment that Paul, on his way to find these Christians and put them to death, was overwhelmed in an encounter with the resurrected Jesus that changed the trajectory of Paul's life forever. It was when Paul came face to face with what he doubted, that his life was radically changed.

Cameron: 11:46

Now, I don't think that Paul was expecting on that road to the city of Damascus that he would meet the resurrected Jesus in a burst of glorious light. He probably was expecting to just go about his merry way to do the job that he felt called to there in the moment. But he certainly was not expecting to meet the glorified and resurrected Jesus. And this is fairly consistent with the way in which God handles our expectations about life. We have our plans.

Cameron: 12:26

We have our expectations. We have our purposes. And then God goes to work to flip those upside down on their head in favor of His plans, His purposes, and His direction for our lives. We have a direction that we're moving. We have a thing that we're doing or believing or pursuing or are all about.

Cameron: 12:55

And we can see no other pathway but this. And then almost in a moment, in a flash of glorious light, Jesus rewrites our expectations in favor of his plan, in favor of his purpose, and in favor of his direction for our lives. See, this life changing encounter with Jesus completely rewrote Paul's life. I remember growing up, it was early, I was maybe eight or nine years old, maybe 10. But a friend of mine, his dad had a massive heart attack.

Cameron: 13:42

And he did survive the heart attack, although it was pretty touch and go, but he did survive. And as he recovered, he completely shifted his lifestyle. Like the trajectory of his life just like went in a way different direction after this one moment. He did things like I knew he quit smoking. He significantly reduced his alcohol intake.

Cameron: 14:11

He began being mindful of what he ate. I remember so vividly going over to their house for a movie one night, and they were going to make popcorn. And I was excited because popcorn is one of my favorites. And then he started eating the popcorn, and it's like, No butter, no salt. I'm like, What are we doing here?

Cameron: 14:37

This is an abomination. Right? But he was being really mindful of now of what he ate and how it affected his body. And most significantly, he became really, really active in endurance sports, riding his road bike long distances, running a lot, getting into races, and became quite kind of like the apologist for a healthy and active lifestyle, where in previous times he was like, Smoke a pack, drink a case, eat whatever you want, don't exercise. Now he was all like, Serve the kids popcorn without butter and salt.

Cameron: 15:18

He had a life changing experience. He had something radically come crashing into his life. And it did something that changed the direction of his life really forever. See, the Apostle Paul went from this like, This guy Jesus is a lunatic and a liar and so are his followers, to literally writing a letter to one of his churches later in life, where he stated in one Corinthians fifteen fourteen, If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and so is your faith. Paul went from saying, If you follow or believe in Jesus, you're a liar and a lunatic, just like he is, to being like, The central and core thing to our faith is the resurrection of Jesus.

Cameron: 16:11

Without it, everything else is useless. So the significant orbital point of Paul's life changed in a moment of encounter with the resurrected Jesus. And this is the core of Christianity. Jesus resurrected from the dead. To strip that away completely changes everything about our faith.

Cameron: 16:43

It renders it useless and powerless. But there's this one fact about it that we, maybe people in the modern world, but also people in the ancient world, find the most difficult to believe. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a miracle. It is a miracle. In all of the ways that we think about miracles, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a miracle.

Cameron: 17:26

Not explainable by either modern or ancient methods or technologies. No logical frameworks that make it make sense, completely turning over and rearranging the laws of nature and time and death and life, resurrection from the dead is in every sense of the word, a miracle. Something that does not happen naturally or normally. And to strip away the center point of Christian faith, to strip away that miracle just turns our faith into another moral or ethical framework. Just a form of spiritual self help practice, but devoid of hope.

Cameron: 18:22

Devoid of grace, devoid of promise for the future, devoid of eternity. Now listen, doubt the resurrection is not a new phenomenon. It's not like, Oh, we are so much more advanced in our understanding of the natural world and the scientific processes that we now have come to doubt the resurrection because that kind of thing doesn't really happen. Those people way back then, they were a lot more naive and ignorant and stupid than all us really wise people in the room. But listen, doubt about the resurrection is not new.

Cameron: 19:14

It's existed since Jesus was resurrected. It's existed since the days and hours after he was crucified and set in that tomb. Even Jesus' closest disciples had some difficulty coming to grips with the reality of the resurrection. I want to read the Easter story this morning, the story of the empty tomb from John's gospel, John twenty:one-eighteen. And we're going talk a little bit about it.

Cameron: 20:00

Now, the writer of John's gospel, did not refer to himself as John in the gospel. He referred to himself really humbly as the one whom Jesus loved. I was writing my own gospel, maybe I would say that about myself too. Ah, you know, I was just the one that Jesus loved. No big deal.

Cameron: 20:27

Anyway, his account of what happened that morning here is in chapter 20 of his gospel. It says this, Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. And so she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one that Jesus loved, and said, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him.' So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in.

Cameron: 21:13

Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside. He saw and he believed.

Cameron: 21:40

They still did not understand from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, Woman, why are you crying? They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I don't know where they have put him.

Cameron: 22:17

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. Woman, he said, why are you crying? Who is it that you're looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him. Jesus said to her, Mary.

Cameron: 22:45

And she turned toward him and cried in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said, do not hold onto me for I have not yet returned to the father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am returning to my father and your father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news. I have seen the Lord.

Cameron: 23:07

And she told them that he had said these things to her. So as the story goes, Mary, you know, went sent off for the tomb where she knew Jesus had been buried early in the morning on that third day. And she had saw that the stone that the Romans had rolled in front of it and posted two guards at, the stone was rolled away, removed from the entrance. And so not thinking really anything else, she ran to the disciples. She ran to Peter and to John to tell him to tell them what she had seen.

Cameron: 23:57

Mary's only plausible explanation for the empty tomb when she got to Jesus, Mary's only plausible explanation for the stone that had been rolled away when she got to the disciples was really simple. Someone obviously has taken away his body. There was not this like burst of joy, this firm belief, He's risen, He's risen like He said He was. The tomb is empty. There's this running and panic getting bursting the room probably.

Cameron: 24:35

Someone has taken away his body, she says. Someone has obviously taken him. Now, we look back on the story in kind of a perfect twenty twenty hindsight, taking ourselves out of the context and forgetting that Mary is a real woman with a real life and with real experiences in her heart and in her life, maybe forgetting the things that Jesus had said earlier. But Jesus was really clear with His disciples in teaching in his ministry that this is exactly what was going to happen. Exactly.

Cameron: 25:20

In fact, in John's gospel, there are no fewer than four examples where Jesus spoke to the disciples and the crowds saying, I am going to be arrested. I am going to be crucified. I am going to die, but I am going to be resurrected on the third day. In John two nineteen-twenty two, Jesus said in front of all of the Jewish leaders standing at the temple, he said, Destroy this temple and I will raise it again to life in three days. And it says that Jesus was talking about the temple of His body, not even the physical temple right before them.

Cameron: 26:02

In John 10 seventeen-eighteen, Jesus said that, lay down my life willingly of my own accord so that I can take it up again. In John twelve twenty three and following, Jesus said he taught a parable about his body and about his resurrection. And he said, Unless a grain of wheat dies and falls into the earth, it remains only a single grain. But if it falls and falls into the a crop far greater than the individual one. So while Mary's only plausible explanation was someone must have taken Jesus from the tomb, The explanation from Jesus' own mouth had escaped her at that point.

Cameron: 26:54

The miracle had actually occurred. The thing that Jesus said would happen actually did. When the disciples that Mary went and told Peter and John ran to the tomb to investigate for themselves, Peter, though he was the second to arrive, was the first to go in. What he saw was not what you would expect in a grave robbing scene, a haphazard type of environment. What he saw was the grave clothes that Jesus was wrapped in neatly folded with intentionality placed where his body once laid.

Cameron: 27:35

And it says in verse eight of chapter 20, Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first went in. Three really simple words or four real simple words. He saw and believed. He saw and believed. This word belief here is not belief that comes from a gathering of facts and information of knowledge and then believing that it's true up in my head.

Cameron: 28:16

The word belief here was really meant to indicate a heart posture of something has changed deep within me. I have had a life changing experience, and now my life is never the same. He saw and he believed. Not understood, not made sense to him, not was in keeping with the rules and laws and nature, but there was something in his heart that was changed in this moment. He saw what he saw.

Cameron: 28:51

He couldn't explain what he saw, but his heart reached a place of belief in that moment. He didn't believe it in his head. It didn't make sense to him in his mind, intellectually speaking. How do we know that? Well, the very next verse, chapter 20, verse nine says that they still did not understand from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

Cameron: 29:20

They had no understanding of it. They couldn't make it make sense up here, but they believed it here. So belief can and does exist without understanding. And often belief precedes understanding in its most powerful form. I don't understand something and then believe it.

Cameron: 30:00

I believe something and then it makes sense. Oh. You know, like heart witnesses to this. Now even the did not yet know what to do with what they saw and with what they experienced. How do we know that?

Cameron: 30:25

Well, because Peter and John were like, Well, what should we do? Tomb's empty. Verse 10, it says, So they went home. It's like they weren't at this place yet of it totally and radically changing their lives to the extent that they just kind of went back to where they were before. I guess we'll just go home.

Cameron: 30:49

What else is there to do? Then the disciples went back to their homes. It's one of my favorite parts of this section here, though. It says, but Mary stayed. Mary stayed, as she often did.

Cameron: 31:15

When the disciples abandoned Jesus while He was hanging on the cross, Mary stayed. When the disciples were hiding in the upper room for fear of the Jews, Mary went to the tomb. Mary stayed. Mary stayed and Mary stayed and Mary stayed. And she bent over in this moment to look into the tomb at what the men and what the men did not see when they were in there, she got to see because she stayed.

Cameron: 31:51

Two angels sitting at the head and the foot of where Jesus' body had been. And in verse 13 of chapter 20, they asked her, Woman, why are you crying? Now it would seem obvious, or it should seem obvious, maybe. Mary was in grief. She was in despair.

Cameron: 32:14

She was overwhelmed. She was ultimately without hope. In her mind, death was final. Jesus was gone. Even in the face of what could be a miraculous site, an empty tomb, she was overcome with the finality of death and the absence of Jesus' body.

Cameron: 32:35

We know that this was her heart posture because the way that she responded to that question from the angels, Woman, why are you crying? Was again a like, It was hopeless. They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have put him. When she turned around in verse 14 and saw Jesus, she didn't recognize him. She actually thought that he was a gardener.

Cameron: 33:13

This is a really interesting part of the story. Why wouldn't Mary recognize Jesus? Why wouldn't Mary recognize Jesus? A man that she had followed for years, who she loved deeply, who she stood by in his greatest moments of pain and suffering and death even. Why could she not recognize him?

Cameron: 33:44

Like I said, not believing in miracles is not just a twenty first century modern American Western world phenomenon. It is a human thing. See, our eyes and our hearts are not really trained to either see or receive miracles. We're trained to see and receive the things that we can understand, the things that make sense to us, The things that we can codify and list and make a logical progression out of and put them in the category of our mind and say, I have now come to this understanding. I can believe it.

Cameron: 34:34

But when God acts out of space and time, when God does the things that God does, we often miss them no matter how close to our face they are, because we have convinced ourselves miracles don't happen. People don't rise from the dead. This tomb is empty because someone took the body, not because Jesus said he is who he said he was. And then Jesus said something to her. He said, woman, why are you crying?

Cameron: 35:09

Who is it that you're looking for? And I have to believe that Jesus was not asking Mary to name a specific name. It's not like Jesus wanted to, Hey, tell me the person, and we'll I'll help you find him. I think that Jesus' question was trying to reach the heart of what Mary was doing there on that morning in that moment. Maybe the question was more like not who are you looking for, but, hey, Mary, what exactly are you looking for here at this tomb on this morning?

Cameron: 35:53

Why did you come here? What did you expect to find? It seems pretty clear based on how Mary showed up that she expected to find a dead and lifeless Jesus. No power, no miracle, no resurrection, no life. Seems like she expected to be able to grieve, maybe in silence, in solitude, to just sit by the stone that was over the entrance to the tomb.

Cameron: 36:38

What she certainly did not expect to find was the tomb empty and full of angels, clearly, was not on her bingo card for that morning. And so when Jesus actually appeared to her, she still wasn't prepared to recognize his voice or his presence. She thought he just worked here in this garden, in this tomb. She was absolutely stuck up to her eyeballs in the emotions and circumstances of the moment. And it wasn't until Jesus called her name in John 20 verse 16 that she actually saw him for who he truly was and for what was actually happening that day.

Cameron: 37:34

I find similar parallels and experiences in my own life. It's really not very difficult at all to get stuck in your feelings. To have a big feeling or a big emotion or even a small feeling or a small emotion and just get stuck there in that moment. To get stuck in what's happening around you, to get stuck in what's happening in you. I I think most of us feel this way, where the only thing that we can see, the only thing that we can hear, the only thing that we can experience, no matter what else is going around us, is like what we're feeling, what has happened to us.

Cameron: 38:26

When the reality of life or when the reality of death comes crashing down on our lives, when we are stuck in a pattern or a cycle of grief, when we are stuck in what that person said to us, when we are stuck in what happened to us in that moment, when we're stuck and we don't know how to move forward in life, when we're stuck because we're confused about what the next step is, or we're riddled with anxiety or fear. When we are stuck, the question that Jesus asks us again is, Why are you here? Who is it that you're looking for? What did you come here this morning expecting to find? It doesn't seem like Mary came expecting to find much.

Cameron: 39:35

And so she almost missed Jesus. But Jesus called her name in order to get her attention that morning so that she could shift her attention away from the stuckness of her life and feelings and emotions and experiences into the miracle of Jesus' resurrected life that was standing right before her. He wanted her to be able to shift her attention from what was happening in her to what God had done in front of her. To get her out of herself for just a moment so that she could focus her gaze upon Him. Because when her gaze, when her name was called and she knew it was Jesus and she fixed her gaze upon Him, everything in life changed.

Cameron: 40:32

Everything was made new. Nothing else mattered. I think the question that Jesus asked Mary is an appropriate question to ask ourselves this morning. What did you come here expecting to find? What did you come here expecting to experience?

Cameron: 40:59

Maybe you came, there's zero judgment on here. I am glad you're here. Maybe you came expecting just kind of a dead lifeless form of religion where you hear a story about Jesus being alive, but in all reality, his influence in your life is dead. It's just not there. Maybe you came expecting to leave as stuck as you were when you came in.

Cameron: 41:30

Maybe you came and your inner world has been crumbling down and you were hoping, just hoping that something would change. Maybe you weren't exactly sure what to expect. I don't know, bro. I'm just here. Just showed up.

Cameron: 41:57

But I will tell you this. You however you got here and whatever your expectations were in coming this morning, you're not here on accident. You're not here by just some random set of coincidences. Well, someone invited me, and I guess don't have anything better to do at 11AM on a Sunday morning. Or I just wanted to make mom or dad or boyfriend or girlfriend or husband and wife or aunt or uncle or grandma or grandpa happy, so I came to church with them on a Sunday morning.

Cameron: 42:35

Maybe that's the case. But whatever reason that you're giving for yourself, I know because I believe in the miracle that is the resurrection, that in the miracle of God, He drew you here this morning so that you could hear Him say your name. You may not recognize His voice. You may not know Him in this way. But just like Mary did, Jesus is calling your name this morning, wanting you, pleading with you, inviting you to shift from the circumstances of your life, from the stuckness of your emotions, from the hopelessness and darkness or anxiety or fear or depression or hopelessness that you've been carrying around with you.

Cameron: 43:33

And he's going to say, Look to me. He stands before you, victorious over death and full of life, and wants to offer you not just the opportunity to understand it, but to believe it so that you too may have life. This was central to Jesus' entire ministry. It was central to Jesus' entire life. It was central to Jesus' coming to us to begin with.

Cameron: 44:18

In John eleven twenty five-twenty six, just a few chapters before Jesus was crucified and resurrected, he spoke with Mary and Martha in the city of Bethany when their brother Lazarus had died and Jesus didn't get there in time. And Lazarus sitting in the grave tells Mary, This will not end in death, but all will be revealed in the resurrection on the last day. Mary is like, Hey, listen, I know, Lord, that everything's going to be good at the resurrection at the last day. She was kind of like blowing Jesus off. Yeah, good story.

Cameron: 45:03

Great, great story, but my brother's still dead. And Jesus replied very simply, he said to her, I am the resurrection and I am the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?

Cameron: 45:35

Amen. Yes. Do you believe this? To you this morning with an invitation to believe. Not an invitation for your mind to understand, but an invitation for your heart to believe and respond.

Cameron: 46:00

To say, yes, Jesus, I hear you calling my name. I don't understand it, and I don't know where your voice came, but I hear it. And I don't know what it means, and I don't know what it will look like. But right now, Lord, I fix my eyes not on self, not on my own circumstance, not on my own life, not on my own hopelessness, not on my own darkness. Lord, I fix my eyes upon you.

Cameron: 46:29

Invite the worship team back up this morning. And as they as they come forward, this is an invitation to believe. This is not my invitation. I not inviting you to believe. Jesus is inviting you to believe this morning.

Cameron: 47:02

To believe in the resurrection that is a miracle that brings life. To believe that by believing in his name, the same resurrection that was his can be yours. This is perhaps one of the most significant miracles that we can experience on this Easter Sunday, is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not confined to one day. But Paul says that Jesus' resurrection is merely the first fruits of the resurrection to come in one Corinthians 15. And that by believing, you may experience the same resurrection that Jesus himself experienced.

Cameron: 47:44

That the same spirit of God who raised Christ from the dead can live in your mortal bodies and bring life even in the face of death. That by believing, not understanding, you may have life in his name. So if you find yourself in a place this morning where death and hopelessness and despair still has its hold upon your life, on your mind, on your emotions, on your thoughts, on your heart, Jesus is inviting you this morning to believe. To believe again, to believe for the first time, to the belief to believe even if you need help with your belief to believe. Let us pray.

Cameron: 48:37

Heavenly Father, we know that you, through your son, Jesus, are calling us to believe. Lord, we want to believe. In the face of what we can see is only death, father, we want to have an expression of life. Lord, to know that the resurrection from the dead, this miracle, Lord, is not just encapsulated in a space and in a time that happened a long time ago, far away from where we are, But Lord, that resurrection has entered the room. That the spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead.

Cameron: 49:20

That same spirit can live in us through faith in him. Lord, if you never believed, I'd invite you this morning. If you hear the voice of Jesus calling your name, do not harden your heart. Do not close your ears. Simply respond.

Cameron: 49:52

Jesus, I believe. Come show yourself to me. Jesus, I believe. Come and bring resurrection life to my life. Jesus, I believe.

Cameron: 50:09

Bring me to the cross of grace in forgiveness and redemption. Jesus, I believe. Give me strength to walk in repentance to new life. Jesus, I believe in you. Bring me life once again.

Cameron: 50:30

In Jesus' name. Amen. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and I am the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Cameron: 50:52

Do you believe this? Amen. Conduit, you are loved. Have a fantastic Easter. We will see you here next week at 10:30.