Vivi Diaz: This is the Sandals Church Podcast, a place for real people with real struggles learning to follow Jesus. Wherever you are right now, driving, working, or trying to make it through the day, we are really glad you're here. Let's get into today's message.
Pastor Andrew McCourt: Hey, Sandals Church. So good to be with you today. My name is Andrew, and I am glad to be back at your church, especially on this really, really incredible weekend. Why? Because we have reached everyone the end of the gospel of Matthew.
We finally made it. Give yourself a round of applause. Do you know when we started this? It was back in January 2025. And do you know how long ago that was?
Well, back in January 2025, you could buy gas for $4 a gallon. That's you remember the good old days? Anyone remember the good old days? I went to get gas the other day, and this is what I saw. This is what I saw.
Look. Regulars an arm, then a leg, a kidney. And if you're driving a diesel, it's gonna cost you your heart. If you're driving a diesel, we're gonna have a special offering for you because it's cheaper to put wine in your car than diesel today. It's just like it's kind of crazy.
But we made it to chapter 28, and it's 28 chapters in the gospel of Matthew, 1,071 verses. But here's something that's really, really cool about Sandals Church. Since January 2025, to this moment, listen to this. Are you ready for this? And get ready to cheer.
This church has baptized 2,000 people since we started this. Come on. Jesus, we give you the glory. That is remarkable. And it shows you this year that when you teach the word of God and you stick to the word of God, it literally does change lives.
And I think that we've left the best to the last. Why? Because today, we're gonna be talking about Jesus' ultimate victory, which is the resurrection, and then about Jesus' ultimate authority, which is the great commission. So are you ready for this today? Yeah.
Okay. So let's jump into God's word. I'm gonna read here from verse one, and we're gonna be talking at first about the resurrection. It says here, after the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and going to the tomb rolled back the stone and sat on it.
Isn't that a great image of the authority of God? They thought they were locking Jesus in, but the angel sits on the stone. I don't know what's blocking your life today, but you know what? God is sitting on top of it and he is still in charge. And it says, his appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow.
The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. When I get to heaven, I'm gonna watch this video. I just think this will be so good. Then verse five says, the angel said to the women, do not be afraid. How tender and how pastoral at this moment.
Obviously, the guys were afraid. They did a runner, but the women are staying, and they and the angel speaks to them tenderly. Do not be afraid for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. And here's the great news. He is not here.
He is risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he led. Come on. Step into the empty tomb. Then go quickly and tell his disciples.
What I love about this, the first evangelists were women. Can I hear it from the girls all across? The girls got to teach the guys about the greatest news ever in all of history. Then go quickly and tell his disciples he is risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him. Now I have told you.
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And suddenly, Jesus met them. Greetings, he said. He sounds very English there, doesn't he? Oh, greetings.
But it was it was the greeting of the day. He said, and they came to him, clasped his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and they will see me. What a shocker for the two Marys that day.
What an absolute shocker. I was given, like, some great advice when I was younger, and here's the great advice here. It simply is never ever ask a woman if she's pregnant unless you see an actual baby being born. Even then, act surprised. Is that good advice, girls, for the guys?
Just like me, super super smart. Okay? And it it was a shocker for these girls that Jesus had actually risen from the dead. And I believe as a Christian, as a preacher of the gospel, but also as someone who studied the word of God and has looked into this in-depth, that Jesus did actually defeat death, that Jesus is alive. And I wanna call this message today, this changes everything.
It literally changes everything. But practically, we need to ask the question, what does it change for us? Well, here's the first thing, and if you're taking notes, can write this down. And if you're not, don't worry. Your wife will tell you later.
Alright? But here here it is. The first thing that this changes is something profound. It changes how I see the claims of Jesus. The angel of the Lord came down, and I wanna focus here just on verse six again, what the angel said there.
He said this, he is not here. He is not here. Now that is super surprising. Right there. He's not here.
They came for a funeral, but God gave them a resurrection. And maybe that's a word for you today in your life. Maybe with your teenage child, maybe it's something that you're going through in your marriage, you're feeling like it's a bit of a funeral. Here's the truth. My Jesus is alive and when he comes into our lives, he turns funerals into resurrections.
That's what he does. And they came, and you know what? They were the mourning and they came out of homage and they were good women. They never expected this, so it was a massive massive surprise. And for Matthew, the empty tomb really does matter.
I want you to grasp this here. He includes the guards and he includes the empty tomb and he includes the stolen body rumor. And you can read that later in verses 11 to 15 because whether you believed in the actual physical bodily resurrection of Jesus or you didn't, there was an empty tomb problem to deal with. And how the religious authorities dealt with that is that they bribed the soldiers. So the first thing was, and it was just like super surprising.
He is not here. So if he's not here, the question is, where is he? Where is he? But the angel answers the question that was in everybody's mind, he has risen. Can I hear an amen, everyone?
He has actually risen from the dead. And again, for Matthew, the bodily resurrection of Jesus really does matter. See, Jesus Matthew here, he doesn't speak about anything vague or spiritual. He talks about a bodily resurrection. And for first century Jews, resurrection meant that something had happened to a body.
It wasn't a vague thing. You know, Jesus is alive in our hearts or Jesus is exalted in heaven. No. Jesus is alive in a body on the earth. That's what it was at that moment in time.
And everyone, he still has a body, but this time he has ascended and he is seated at the right hand of the father. That's good news too, isn't it? Great news for us. N. T.
Wright, the great theologian, he puts it this way. When the early Christians said that Jesus had risen from the dead, they knew they were saying that something had happened to him that had happened to nobody else and that nobody had expected to happen. They were not talking about Jesus' soul going into heavenly bliss. We're talking about a full bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the angel continues.
He says this here, he is not here. He has risen. And he uses these words, just as he said. And I think that's incredibly super challenging. It's really, really challenging.
He prophesied it. He predicted it. So quite a number of times across the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus talks about and predicts his death and he does so in John, but in John it's so super subtle and beautiful. But he also, and this is remarkable, He predicts his resurrection. Now for everyone in this room, we can predict our death.
Now we don't know when we're going to die. That's not we we don't know when we're gonna die in life, but the truth is we know we're going to die. Is that true? Unless the Lord returns before that, we know we're going to die. But no one in all of history except Jesus himself was able to predict not only their death, but their very resurrection.
That is radical and makes Jesus stand out like nobody else. And it really then links us to this. With the with the fact that the resurrection changes everything, it changes how we see the claims of Jesus, but also it changes how we see the person of Jesus. Who is this Jesus that predicted his own death, that predicted his resurrection? What these claims that he made were pretty radical, but he also made some other claims.
And I would say this is the most important claim. He claimed that he was God himself. And I would put it to you today, especially if you're a little bit of a skeptic, if he was able to prophesy his death and if he was able to predict his resurrection, maybe too the claim that he was God is true as well. And it's important that we grasp this today. It wasn't just that one man came and he was resuscitated and came back to life.
No. It was one man who was the God man, God in the flesh and read it John one verse 14. God in the flesh, he comes and he dies and he is raised again and he's not an ordinary man. He's the God man. He is God himself.
And we see this with the response of the two marriage. I'm gonna read this to you again. It says, suddenly Jesus met them. Greetings, he said. And let me tell you this here.
If you were here today and you had a family member and and and this past weekend, you know, they had passed away and suddenly they turned off at your campus today and you saw them, what would you what would your reaction be? Here we you it would be beyond greetings. You would be like, oh my goodness. But look at what the women do. Look what the what the what the women do.
It says, they came to him. They clasped his feet. Well, if I met a loved one who'd passed away just three days before, I would grab their feet. I'd grab their head. I'd them.
I'd give them a twirl. When was the last time you give someone a twirl? I'd pick them up. I'd give them a twirl, but I wouldn't do what the women did. Look what they did here.
It says, they clasped his feet and they worshiped him. This is really really important everyone. It wasn't just excitement here. It wasn't like just meeting their fallen hero who is now alive. This is God himself.
And and and the Greek word here for worship is the same Greek word that is used in Revelation chapter seven when it says that all of the angels and all of the elders and all of the the four living creatures, they all bowed down and they all worship God. It's exactly the same worship. Notice what the women didn't do. They didn't worship the angel of the Lord. He was pretty impressive.
Yes? I mean, caused an earthquake. He's rolling stones back. He's as white as snow. I mean, he's thunder and lightning, this dude, but they didn't worship him.
He's just the angel of the Lord. He's not the Lord himself. And it's important here that we see the person of Jesus is completely radical. I am from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and it's it's just like the home of God. And I I believe that, you know, that the the Garden Of Eden is just outside of Belfast, and it's just it's a that's a joke, by the way.
It's a it's a wonderful place, but one of our native sons, one of the heroes from Belfast is a man called C. S. Lewis. Anyone ever heard of C. S.
Lewis? And he's one of the greatest Christian thinkers ever. And he wrote this in what what many people would regard as his greatest book, not the Chronicles of Narnia, but as mere Christianity and he wrote this. He said, people often say about him Jesus. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. That's pretty smart from an Irishman right there, isn't it everyone?
We don't have the option and this is what I find in life. If you don't fall down and worship Jesus as God, and if you don't have a God, we end up becoming our own God. Why? Because God has created us to be beings that actually worship. I don't know if you've ever heard of this before, but the difference is the the difference between a cat and a dog, a dog a dog, like, looks at you and a dog, like, sees you because you know what you do?
You give the dog a bed and you give the dog a home and you look after that dog. You take the dog on walks. I mean, it's just amazing. And that dog turns around and looks at you, and that dog says, you know what? That guy must be a god.
I mean, he's just absolutely incredible. But a cat you feed a cat and you give a cat a bed and you give a cat a home, he thinks I must be a god. That's what a cat does. Completely turns it around. And I wanna say to everyone, you're not a cat, you're a dog.
Alright? You're a dog. And let's surrender to the real God in our lives. And let's not just say he's a great teacher, he's so much more. He is God himself.
So this resurrection thank you. This resurrection, it literally, it changes everything in our lives. It changes everything. It changes how we see the claims of Christ. It changes how we see the person of Christ, but it also changes how I see death.
Death everyone. Death is tough. It is. It's tough. We we weren't we weren't created to die.
That's why we weep. It's not a natural thing to us. It always feels weird, and it's really, really tough. And and we try to do different things with death. First of all, we try to delay death.
It's not right. I mean, let's let's all be honest. We we put our seat belt on, and I it's not right. We try to buy a vehicle with airbags in it. And if you're really into this, buy a Volvo, good Swedish car.
Alright? The safest thing on the planet. Alright? We we try to we put sunscreen on. We we protect ourselves.
We don't drive on the 91 on a Friday afternoon. Why? Because we wanna live long. That's what we're doing. We try to extend our life.
We we go on a good diet. Here we are in Southern California, and everyone looks healthy, and everyone's gonna live forever. No. It's not true, But but we we try to delay death. And then the other thing is we do, we we try to deny death.
We because nobody dies anymore. Nobody dies anymore. You've heard of the euphemisms. Alright. You're ready for this.
They don't die. They passed away. They left this world. They've gone to meet their maker. They're resting in peace.
They slipped away. No. They didn't. They died. Yes?
But we we use these words because we try to sort of soften the blow. So what we do is we try to delay death. Sometimes we try to deny death, but no one in this room is trying to defeat death. One of my best friends and smartest person I know, you know what he does from Monday to Friday? He's working on cures for cancer and Parkinson's disease.
I don't know what you do in your life, but I'm rather boring. Alright? He's trying to cure cancer and Parkinson's disease, but he has never brought me into his lab and say, oh, and over in this room with these mice, we're trying to defeat death. None of us are trying to do that. And here's the good news.
None of us need to. Why? Because on the cross and with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he defeated death for us. Death is defeated. It's gone.
It's no longer going to win. Paul wrote to the church at Colossae, and he said this incredible phrase. He, Jesus, is the firstborn from among the dead. Colossians one eighteen. Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead.
Well, what does that phrase mean? There's like a theological meaning to it. Well, the first thing is that Jesus is the first to rise into resurrection life, and that's really important. See, when Jesus was on earth, he raised some people from the dead like Lazarus, like Jairus' daughter, the widow of Nain. Her son was raised from the dead, but they were raised back into mortal life, and Lazarus isn't still running around Jerusalem, everyone, and hanging out.
And Jairus' daughter's not just still at school or something like, guess what? They died again. But Jesus was the one that was raised into the new resurrection life. Isn't that good news? New resurrection life.
And it says that he was the first born. He was the first to do it, and the indication is that there's gonna be more for anyone that is listening to me today and all of our campuses and people in this room and people watching online. If you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you gain eternal life. And here's the good news, we will be raised again into a brand new body and into a brand new life, and we will never die again. Death has been defeated.
Death has been defeated. But firstborn also means rank. It means rank. And back in the Jewish home in that day, if you were the firstborn son, well, you had special privilege and you had authority and you would one day assume all authority. And Jesus has all authority over death.
He has all of the honor, all of the inheritance, all of this supremacy and here's what it is. He has supreme authority over the realm of death. Why? Because he invaded it and he conquered it. Jesus did a home raid on hell and he defeated death and he rules and he reigns and we no longer have to fear it in our lives.
But what I love about this passage that we just read, it leaves us with what I would call this great sort of biblical juxtapose. It's like we're left with attention. Why? Because we're still living in the real world and we're still going to die, but death is defeated. So how how do we live our lives?
And there's a verse here, a verse here. It says this here that that that the two Marys, they left afraid but full of joy. Do you do you love that scene? And the angel of the Lord had said in verse five, don't be afraid. Now if an angel speaks to you and tells you to do something, what should you do?
You should do it. But not being afraid, it's hard. And is is anyone with me or is it just, you know, is it just the Irish get scared sometimes? No. But fear is a reality in our lives.
It is a reality and fear comes along and and it's very real. And and so the women are like, they're going, okay. We shouldn't be afraid, but but I'm still a little afraid, but but I'm also but we're full of joy at the same time. And that's often how we live our Christian lives. And I wish I could say, I never have fear.
Fear is a thing of the past. I wake up every single day of my life, and I've never had an anxious thought. No. But guess what? At the same time, I'm full of joy.
And I live in that tension and that juxtapose. So don't beat yourself up, but don't let fear control your life. Yeah. Don't let sometimes I live with fear, but I live with joy at the same time, and joy leads me. Yes?
Yes. But but there's a little bit of fear also sometimes in my life. It it the juxtaposed oppose is this here. How many people know the shortest verse in the Bible? You know the shortest verse in the Bible?
Jesus webbed, John eleven thirty five. Well, actually, in the Greek Bible, it's not the shortest verse because the shortest verse in the Greek Bible, Jesus webbed is 16 characters, but the shortest verse in the Greek Bible is 14 characters, and it is rejoice always. Rejoice rejoice always. And you live in the tension of those two things. Jesus wept, but rejoice always.
Why did Jesus weep? Because he realized that death was still a reality, that he needed defeated, but then at the same time, we rejoice always. Are you still with me everyone? And it's challenge of what theologians call it's called the now and the not yet. It that's where we live.
It's like where there's like there's the the the two eras that we live in. There's the present age and the age to come, and NT Wright explains this so well. It's that it's like at the moment they overlap, and what happens is miracles still happen. Your pastor, pastor Matt, wrote a book on healing. How many people believe that God is still alive and God is still working?
And that's why we're praying, let your kingdom come. Does everybody get healed? No. They don't. But I wanna bring you comfort here today.
Leaving this world, taking your last breath, and going into the arms of Jesus is not a punishment. You have not lost. Death is still defeated. It will not have the last say on your life. And obviously, we miss those people that have gone on, but the Christian church is the only community that does not lose a member when they die.
They just get elevated into eternity to be with Jesus forever. A great guy, his name was Juergen Maltmann and he basically contended this. He said, miracles represent the restoration of the original created order rather than an interruption of it. In a fallen world, suffering feels normal, but it actually but it is actually the unnatural interruption while miracles restore things to how they should be. When God breaks in and does his stuff, that's the real world for the Christian and the resurrection was the start of a new redemption, a new redemption for all of creation and for all of Christianity, for every single person.
I was at a funeral last year and it was a a dear friend of Isabel and I and his wife had passed away and the guy it was just there was sadness in the room and she was a dear Christian woman who loved the Lord and had just remained strong right through just a terminal illness. And the guy that was got up to do the sermon, a wonderful preacher, he was preaching away and then he said something where I was like, woah. And he caught us all for just a little minute and he said this and I'll not mention her name. He just said, you know, it was back there the the three weeks before when she passed away. On that afternoon when she passed away, she lost her faith.
I was like, I never heard that. I heard that she was strong to the end. He said, no, she lost her faith because when she closed her eyes, she no longer needed faith because she was face to face with Jesus. You see we need faith on this side of eternity but one day we won't need faith. Isn't that amazing?
We won't need faith. Why? Because I will He'll see me. I'll see him, and I'll be with him for all of eternity. This resurrection changes everything, and it changes how I see death.
These women, these two Marys, they came to mourn, but they left to rejoice. That's the story of the resurrection. So death is defeated, but look what it says here in first Corinthians chapter 15. Then the end will come. Who's excited for that?
The end will come. And when he hands over the kingdom to God the father after he, Jesus, has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And I love this one here. Look at you ready for it? The last enemy to be destroyed is who?
Is death itself. One day, death is defeated right now, but one day it will be absolutely destroyed, and there will be a day when there is no more death. When you are raised again into your brand new body come on. Who out there today needs a brand new body? I can see you.
Row three, you need a new a brand new body. Need a brand new body. I'm up for it, everyone. I need a brand new body. This whole knee just hurts because it hurts.
I don't know. I hit this knee. But you know what? I need I need a brand new body that death will never touch again. Death will never touch again.
And finally, the great one the preacher says finally, everyone's like, hallelujah. Hope has come. We're gonna have lunch today. Okay? And this is what it says here.
The resurrection changes how I see the world. It changes absolutely everything. We are the resurrection people. It changes our perspective on life, on the claims of Jesus, on the person of Jesus, and how I see death, but also how I see the world. So we saw Jesus' ultimate victory which was the resurrection and now the resurrected Christ meets with his disciples in Galilee and he speaks to them.
Think of their faces. Think of this moment. They're all like, wow. This is pretty remarkable. And Jesus stands before them and he says these words.
Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. And when he saw them, they what? They worshiped him, but some still doubted. I mean, listen to me. Not everyone's gonna believe in you because some people even doubted Jesus, and there he is, like, with holes in his hands, holes in his feet alive, but still some doubted.
Okay? That's encouraging for every pastor. Then Jesus said to them, look at this, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. All authority. No one in all of history has ever claimed that all authority is with them.
There's been some megalomaniacs, some crazy dictators, some people that are just their ego is but no one has ever said all authority. Jesus stands up and he said, all authority belongs to me. Now if he has all authority, I think we need to approach him with all humility. Is that true? We don't need to approach him with fear in our lives, but if the one who defeated death that has promised that one day he will destroy death, and now he stands in front of us as God almighty and has all authority, what should our response be?
Well, I'm gonna pray about it. I'm gonna I'm gonna think about it. I'm gonna take some time out. I need a mental health day just to think about this. No.
He stands with all authority, and when he speaks, guess what? We should listen. And if he says jump, what's our response? High. That's right.
We're we're we're gonna do it. All authority. He stands in front of us, and he says, all authority in heaven and on earth. And I want you to see this today. It's not that Jesus one day will be crying Lord of all of heaven and of all of earth.
He is crowned lord of all heaven and all earth right now. He is in charge. He said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. And then his first words are, therefore, go. Come on, people.
Just go. I I've I've got all authority. I'm in charge. And, of course, not like, oh, he's a crazy dictator. No.
He's our tender Jesus. He's our beautiful Lord. You don't need to worry today whatever his instructions are to you. He's got your best in mind. He's been planning for you for all eternity, and you know what we when you're in sin, he died for you, he rose for you, he's got another body lined up for you.
I mean, all of eternity is looked after. He's gonna take care of you. He says all authority is with me, and in light of that, you need to go. And our next question should be, where? Correct?
That's what it should be. And our God is a going God. I mean, just think about this. Two thirds of his name is go. I mean, that's how simple he's made it for us.
You should just go. Just go everyone. Just go. Well, yes. Where?
I'll go anywhere, but just tell me where. Okay. Well then, he gives a little bit more description and he says, therefore go and make what? Disciples of all nations. And the but think about this.
These guys, most of them were just like, you know, they they lived on the shores of the the the Lake Of Galilee and they didn't have any vision. If they got to Jerusalem once a year, that was a big trip. You know how that was like going wild. They didn't have passports. They were never gonna go over borders, but this was the God that so loved the world.
And he said, if if you wanna follow me, you're gonna have to follow me into the world. Come on, everybody at Sandals. I want you to apply for a passport straight away. We're gonna reach the nations. Yes.
It's what we're gonna do. Renew your passport. We're gonna go to all the nations of the world. And if you live in Orange County, you don't have to go far because one in every three people that live in Orange County were born out of The United States. And serious, that's amazing.
That is glory to God. He's brought the nations to us. Go to all the nations. I want you to hear this. We live in the most exciting generation that I think has ever been.
Most exciting generation. Back in 1971. Anyone remember the nineteen hundreds? Anyone remember back in the nineteen hundreds? Yeah.
1971, there was 4,000,000,000 people that lived on the planet. 4,000,000,000 people. Today, 2026, if you've forgotten that's what year we're in, 2026. 2026, there are now listen to this here. Mind blowing.
8,300,000,000 people on the planet. Our world has more than doubled. 8,300,000,000 people live in the planet, and that's why back in the nineteen seventies, you used to be able to drive in the '91, actually get somewhere instead of parking on it all day. Our world has just doubled. I mean, it's just doubled and doubled and doubled, and we're growing and growing and growing, and we've never there's never been a time like this in society, like, where the sixth billionth person that was born got to see the seventh billionth person born and the eighth billionth person born.
That's never happened in society before. It's absolutely incredible. But listen to this. Out of the 8,300,000,000 people that live on the planet, there's 3,000,000,000 that have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. 3,000,000,000 people never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's why we can't stay. That's why we can't ignore the one with all authority who has said to us, I need you to go to all the nations of all the world. Come on, people. Let's book a jet. We're going.
Gotta do it. But here's the really troubling thing. In the next three hundred and sixty five days, seventy seven million people will die on this planet. Seventy seven million people will die. And so many of them will never have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Do you think it's time to go? I think it's time to go. We need to get our hearts ready. We get our passports ready. We need to do whatever it takes to go and bring the gospel.
And what are we gonna do? We're gonna we're we're gonna go out and make disciples of all nations. And when we go to all the nations, what are we gonna do? We're gonna baptize them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, our triune God, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, like everything, all the hard stuff, like the Sermon on the Mount. If anyone ever says to you, you know what?
I really like the Sermon on the Mount. They've never read it. It's so offensive because Jesus is saying, okay, I want you to teach them everything I taught you and that is you're gonna go the extra mile, you're turn the other cheek. Yeah? And when someone asks you for your Armani jacket, you're gonna give them your Christian Dior one as well, And you're gonna give them your Ford and your Ferrari.
You're just gonna give them anything and and you're gonna be pure in heart and you're not gonna get divorced for any silly reason. We're gonna teach them how to dwell. You're gonna them everything that I taught you. I want you to do it. And when you teach them and you're gonna teach the guys that you can't look at Pornhub anymore and you can't have a Rony fans page and you can't do that.
Why? Because if you look at a woman lustfully, it's like committing adultery with her. We're gonna teach them that as well. Yeah. You're gonna teach them that.
Even in the twenty first century in California. Yeah. You gotta do it. We all went a little quiet there, didn't we? Okay.
Teach them all the tough stuff. Yes. And surely, I am with you always to the very end of the age, and I love this, to the very end of the age, it's gonna happen. The great John Wesley, he was born in Epworth, and Isabelle and I, our our college was just like a few miles from where he was born. He was born in this tiny little village, tiny tiny little village, and he went on to be one of the greatest evangelist, church planters, and the reason we have the Methodist Church today is because of John Wesley.
And this is one thing he said, I want the whole Christ for my savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole church for my fellowship, and the whole world as my mission field. And listen to this, so important. You can't have the first one. You can't have the whole Christ as your savior without having the whole world as your mission field. You can't have one without the other.
When you get Jesus, you follow his command, the one with all authority into the world. So I've lived here in The United States now ten and a half years. I love The United States. I've become a citizen, citizen of The United States. Oh yeah.
I just love living here. I'm trying to feel more American. I'm trying to eat more Ben and Jerry's and and I just just be way more American, y'all. And I just just just try just trying to do it, you know. And I've really tried to dig in deep, but there's one thing I don't get, and that's your NFL.
I don't get your NFL. We yeah. We play rugby, which is NFL for real men. And and so but anyway, I've tried to and I've shot with I've shot with guys, and, you know, and they said, I'm all explaining the rules. And so so, you know, there's two teams, but then suddenly, the team runs off the field and another team drums on, and I went, well, no.
Well, no. Each team has two teams because that's offense and that's defense. And for me, it's all like, nonsense nonsense. I'm just like, I just I just can't get it. I just can't get it.
You know? But listen. But you know what I've always wanted to do or what my dream is? I wanna be in a huddle. I wanna be in a huddle.
That's what I wanna do. I wanna put on my pantyhose, and I wanna go I wanna put on all my protection and layers and layers of it. I wanna put on my helmet, and I wanna walk out there, and I wanna, you know, do the whole, you know, whatever. I just wanna, you know, I wanna walk into a huddle and look at the other guy going, yo, yeah. I wanna do huddly things, you know.
Boom. Boom. You know. I wanna do I wanna do I wanna do huddly stuff. You all with me?
Yeah. But I don't wanna get hurt. Oh, and some three hundred pound guy running at me. You know, look at me. I'm skinny and I'm Irish.
I'll break. I don't wanna do that. I wanna I just wanna do the huddle. But here's the truth. No one no one comes into that stadium and pays money to watch the huddle.
They come to watch the what? The game. And whatever campus you're on, listen to me. I really hope that you're enjoying it today, but it's just the huddle. Worship leader comes out and does huddly stuff.
Come on. We're gonna worship Jesus today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Matt comes out. He preaches with fire every week. He's been doing it since 1997. He's getting sharper. He's getting better.
Roll like, yeah. And he's going boom boom boom. Huddly stuff. Huddly stuff. Huddly yeah.
And we're all, yeah. Yeah. But here's the truth, everyone. It's not until we leave the doors and go outside that it really means something. The huddle's really important, and this is a great huddle.
Come to the huddle. Please. Come. Yes. We need to come to the huddle.
We need to be excited in the huddle. We we need to get all energized in this. We need to be encouraged in the huddle. But guess what? We need to go out, and we need to get in the game, and we need to follow our Jesus into the game, go to all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit.
Are we ready? Good. We got passport application forms at the back of every campus today. Hey, let's pray. Lord Jesus, I wanna thank you that you're such a good God.
And my prayer is, Lord, for anybody that's watching today that maybe hasn't experienced this resurrection life, my prayer is, God, that right now, Lord, that they would receive Christ into their hearts, and God, that they would that they would go from death into life, and that they would know God, your love and the power of your spirit raising them up with you. And Lord, I pray for every Christian, Lord, that this good news of the resurrection, Lord, that we would take it into our world, that we would take it, Lord, across the street, and we would take it across the world. And, Lord, that we would follow you into your mission, and Lord, it would be the last thing that we do with our last breath, following you and making disciples. Give us your strength. Give us your spirit to do this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.