Hey, we are super excited. We started a new kids church last Sunday. And so right now, I'll dismiss any of our kids up through a grade three who'd like to go. You can meet Ms.
Cam on this side or Ms. Dina on this side. And we also have a nursery for those up through up to and including those who have not been potty trained. And then our kids church is for potty trained up through a grade three.
So you guys enjoy yourself over there. So I want to say to you about the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is not just about whether you believe it. It's about whether you're going to allow the resurrection of Jesus to change your life.
Truth is now for 2,000 years, it has changed, not only our world, but it has changed countless lives of people who've built their entire lives around the fact that Jesus rose from the grave. There's an artist by the name of Mike Landjillo Marisi, who's really better known as Caravaggio. One of the world's great painters, one of the world's great artists, I mean, he's a fascinating individual. If you're not familiar with him, he was a brilliant man, also a brutal man.
He was in every respect, a contradiction. He painted sacred scenes of lots of scenes from the Bible. And he did it in a way that was gritty and real, in a way that people had never really seen before. When he painted, you really saw real people, real dirt, real wood.
And he really pulled you into the scenes that he painted. One of his famous paintings is called the Incredulity of St. Thomas. I wanna show it to you here.
So this particular scene is a famous one in the Bible. Let me set it up for you. So this is Thomas right here bending down, sticking his finger into the side of Jesus. And the scripture story goes like this.
Jesus is crucified and it's traumatic for these disciples who have been a part of Jesus's life daily for three years now. And a week, or excuse me, on Sunday, after Jesus has been crucified, the disciples are in a room and there the resurrected Jesus shows up. There are 10 of them, all of them except for Thomas. Now we don't know where he was.
We don't know if he went to get lunch or had a couple errands to run. All we know is he wasn't there when the resurrected Jesus showed up. Now when he returned, the 10 disciples, his friends said, Thomas, you won't believe what happened. Jesus showed up here.
And Thomas very famously said, no, I can't believe that. I watched him die. I saw them drive nails into his hand. I saw them run a spear through his side.
And I won't believe it unless I can put my fingers in the wounds that I saw them make. Now a week later, the Bible says the disciples were again here in this same room and the resurrected Jesus shows up. Now I think there's a lot of fascinating truths about that. One of them being that, while Thomas is famous for being called doubting Thomas, eight days after he said, I won't believe it unless I can put my hands in his wounds.
He's still there in that room. And when Jesus shows up, this is the picture that Caravaggio painted. And this picture, by the way, is about three and a half feet, high and nearly five feet wide. It's almost life-sized.
And so I would love one day to be able to stand in front of it and to see what looks like the real people, Jesus, Thomas, and two unnamed disciples. Couple of things I want us to notice. One is look at Thomas's finger. It's way up inside that wound.
Now I think what's beautiful about that is for Thomas here, he is all in on deciding what is going on with Jesus. I love the fact that the light is centered on Jesus and all of the light comes from Jesus himself. I love the other two disciples there who are equally fascinated by what's happening. Notice that Jesus isn't just passively standing there.
He has Thomas by the wrist and is pulling his finger there into his side. And it's a lovely picture of what the Bible teaches us about God, that God doesn't just passively wait for us, but he is actively seeking us and pulling us into relationship with him if we're only willing. Now it is a lovely picture. It's one of my favorite paintings of all time.
What I want us to see is that Caravaggio's life is reflected in this painting. He was a man who clearly understood grace. He painted it, he studied it. He returned to it.
Again and again throughout his life. And yet, I mentioned that his life was a contradiction. He was a struggler. He struggled his whole life to allow Jesus to change him.
He got close, but he was never able to really experience the change that we see in the paintings that he did. He had a deep spiritual hunger, but he died at only 38 years old. He died of wounds from a fight that he had gotten in, which was a regular practice of his. He died of a combination of wounds and sickness that came from a very short but hard live life.
And while he was fascinated with the person of Jesus, he was never apparently able to allow the person of Jesus to change who he was. Now this morning, all of us face a similar position, wherever we walked in here this morning, we're reminded today that Easter changes everything. Easter is about the fact that God sent his son to die for us. He died but conquered death and rose from the grave.
He wants to change my life. He wants everything in my life to revolve around the new life that I find in him. Even if I don't expect it, even if I don't want it, even if I don't think I need it, God wants the resurrection to change my life for the better. Caravaggio apparently was never able to experience that, but it's what God wants for us.
Now let's kind of summarize real quickly the message of Easter here. I've got a couple of verses I want to read for you. Romans 5 verse 10 says, if we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his son, now just think how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life. So God wants more than for us to believe the resurrection happen.
God wants us to be changed by it. Look at this verse in Luke chapter 5 verse 32. Jesus said, I'm here inviting outsiders, not insiders, an invitation to a changed life changed inside and out. Now maybe you can identify with Caravaggio changes that need to happen in our life are sometimes hard to make.
We sometimes know what needs to be changed, but the ability to really follow through and allow God to bring those changes that we know should happen, that we know need to happen, it's hard. Caravaggio was never quite able to do that. And while he painted about the resurrection, he never experienced the power of what it can do. So this morning I want to take a few minutes on this Easter Sunday, I'm 2,026 to talk about how the resurrection can change us.
Some of you seem to make some small changes. Some of you may need to make some big changes. Some of you may have drifted a little bit from the joy of your faith because of things that happen in your life. Some of you may be just experiencing what Thomas here is.
I'm doubting questions about whether this stuff is real and it's worth building your life around. So I want us to talk about three things this morning that can happen through the power of the resurrection to bring about change in our life. Here's the first one. So if you have your outline, you can write this down.
The first thing that needs to happen is I've got to open my mind to God's power. Open your mind to God's power. So there's a little book called Ephesians, and this is actually a letter that Paul wrote to a church in a town called Ephesus. And here's what he says in Ephesians chapter four, verse 18.
He says, their closed minds are full of darkness. They are far away from the life of God because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against him. Now Paul's writing here to a church. It's a church filled with people who have proclaimed faith in Jesus and are trying to live the Jesus life.
Now why would Paul tell church members not to have a mind that's closed to God's power? Why would he tell people who are followers of Jesus not to have their hearts hardened towards spiritual things? There's only one good reason I can think of. And that's because there are lots of people in this little church who have closed their minds to what God can do in their life.
There are people in this little church who have become hardened in their heart to how God wants to change and build their life around his purposes. And so Paul is encouraging them to do exactly what he says, don't harden your heart and close your mind to God's power. And I think it's an important message. Now let's look at the sequence here that we see in this short verse.
A shut mind leads to a hardened heart which leads to distance from God. This is a sequence of the way it happens in real time in our lives. It's not random that we find ourselves not close to God. It happens very naturally just like this.
So listen, here's a super important thing I want us to walk away with today. I know you guys didn't walk in here because you're terrible people this morning. You walked in here, you're good people. You're worshiping.
You're in a church on Easter Sunday, 2026. And how does it happen that us, know about me, new good people can drift and find ourselves in a place where we're not as close to God as we want to be or we're not as close to God as we used to be? How does that happen? Well, this is what Paul's describing right here.
It's not that our mind gets completely closed off to God's power. Nobody wakes up one day and finds themselves a long way from God. It happens one little decision at a time. One little decision where we close our mind to God's power in our life, where we harden our heart to what God wants to do in our life.
One little decision at a time, one little step at a time. We move away from God. And so this distance grows quietly over sometimes a long time. And the biggest challenge that you and I face is that noise gets in the way.
Distraction pulls us away from God. Business pulls us away from God. Old hurts that happened in my life. Sometimes at church, sometimes just from life pulls us away from God just one little step at a time.
And then maybe one day we look and we are shocked by just how far away we feel from a God that maybe we used to be close to. And this is what Paul's describing here to this church. And what does he say is the secret. Well, the secret is to open our minds and keep our minds open to God's power.
Now, Caravaggio's picture here pictures a progression. Look at this picture again. Now what I want us to do is focus here on the face of Thomas there. And look at his brow, all of the wrinkles there.
See the contradiction between his hand and his face. His hand is reaching towards Jesus, but his brow reflects a person who's still not quite ready to give himself fully over to this Jesus that he has his finger in. This is the way doubt works in our life. It keeps us from fully engaging in where we want to go.
This is I think also a reflection of Caravaggio, the author, who wanted to be a person of faith, who was fascinated by Jesus, but never allowed faith to take roots in his life and change him. Now here's what Paul says is the antidote. In Romans chapter 12 verse two, Paul says, let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Now it's not just about knowing more, it's not about believing the right things.
It's about really letting God get into the way I think. It's about really allowing the power of the resurrection to change who I am from the inside out. And that is a different thing entirely. I know some of you have walked in here this morning facing some monumental challenges.
Maybe financial challenges, maybe health challenges. Maybe career challenges, maybe a relationship, depression, addiction, anger, pornography. I'm sure in a room even the size, we've got people facing all kinds of challenges. And this is the power of the resurrection.
This is what Paul says God can help with that. God wants to help with that. And it begins by believing that God can help with that. Whatever that is for you.
Here's what it says in Ephesians chapter one verse 19 and 20. Paul goes on and he says, to the same group of people, I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe this is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead. So here's how change happens. It starts when we say, maybe God's bigger than I thought.
Maybe his power that raised Jesus from the dead that's changed the world. Now for 2000 years can actually change my life and God can transform me and deal with my problem. So this is the first thing that the resurrection can do to change me and I need to open my mind to God's power. Here's the second thing.
I need to open my heart to God's grace. Open my heart to God's grace. Now what's grace? Grace is one of those words we throw around a lot.
Here's a simple definition. Grace is God's gift of salvation and the power that God gives to change our lives. That's grace. It's God's gift of salvation and the power that allows God to change my life.
Grace means God loves you, all of you. The good stuff and the bad stuff. The beautiful stuff and the ugly parts that most people don't see and don't know about. God loves all of me, that's grace.
Easter is what makes God's grace available to us. That's the message of Easter. And so the question is, am I going to allow God's grace to really flood my heart? Let's look back at this picture of Thomas again.
Here's the thing that I love about this picture. He is fully leaning in to this moment. He's still not sure, but he is fully leaning into this moment of grace. Here's another picture of Caravaggio's that he painted.
This one is called the calling of St. Matthew. Now this doesn't, it's a little dark, and so I have to describe some of it. It's not quite as dramatic, but what we have right up here in the top right corner is Jesus, and you can see he's holding his finger out like this.
He's pointing. And here is a table, and you can see these faces that are looking at Jesus, but this guy right over here. This is Matthew. Now of course the title of this painting is the calling of St.
Matthew. Now you can see that Matthew, well you can't really see it, but I'll tell you that Matthew is looking down. Everybody else in this picture is looking at Jesus. I love this guy right in the middle.
So Jesus is pointing at Matthew, so clearly he's calling him. Hey you. And everyone else is looking at Jesus. Matthew is looking down at the table.
And this guy in the middle is like him, you're calling him? Now why is he doing that? Well Matthew was a tax collector. This is the Matthew by the way that wrote the first book in our New Testament, Matthew.
Matthew, this is Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. Now why is that important? Well because people in the first century, Jews who lived in Israel, they hated tax collectors.
That's probably not strong enough. They hated tax collectors. They hated tax collectors. Why?
Well because tax collectors were betrayers of their own people. Matthew was a Jewish boy who worked for the Roman government. And he collected taxes at the expense of his own people. And he took money off the top to enrich himself.
And so they hated tax collectors because they became wealthy off of the backs of the people of Israel. And what's Matthew doing right there? He's counting his money that's laying on that table right there. Now why is this picture so dramatic?
Because I think that Caravaggio sees himself as Matthew right there. What is this moment? Well this is not after Matthew has accepted the call of Jesus because he did accept the call of Jesus. This is that moment just before.
And Caravaggio I believe sees in this himself. That Jesus had a call on his life. And Caravaggio didn't say yes. And I think it reflects all of us here who have to say, am I going to listen to the call of Jesus?
Am I going to build my life around Jesus? That's what Matthew did. Matthew, after this moment, looked up, accepted the call of Jesus, followed him, and built his life around Jesus for the rest of his days. That's what God calls all of us to do, to be Jesus people, to live the Jesus life, to build our life around Jesus' values.
And what that means is I have to give myself over to God's grace. Caravaggio kept finding reasons not to do that. Here's what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 8. He says, God has showered upon us the richness of his grace for he understands us and knows what is best for us at all times.
We'll talk about that word showered right there. For God has showered upon us the richness of his grace. That word showered is interesting word in the Greek. It's pronounced perishua, perishua.
And I want to show you a little video that describes it. Let's check it out. So how does that illustrate the showered? Well, the word here in the original Greek means overflowing, excessive.
It's like someone who asked you for a cup of water and you gave them a fire hose. So it is more than you need. It is abundant and overflowing. That's the word here for how Paul's describing grace.
God doesn't give us just enough. He doesn't measure it out. So it's just the right amount that you need. No, he gives you grace that's overflowing with abundance, like a fire hose more than we need in our life.
That's this picture of grace. And what we do is we give our hearts to that. Matthew's life was changed because he looked up from his money and he heard Jesus' call on him and he said yes. And countless people have had their lives changed by God's grace over the last 2000 years.
He's changed me and he's changed many of you. And if you find yourself having drifted a little from where you want to be or used to be, it's God's grace that brings us back and gives us the joy of our salvation. So how can we be changed by the resurrection while we open our mind to God's power, we open our heart to God's grace. And finally, we open our life to God's love.
Let me before you, in Ephesians chapter three, verse 16, says, I pray that you have the power to understand as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is, that you may experience the love of Christ, though it is so great, you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. One of Jesus' most famous stories is the story of the prodigal son. And it's a powerful story about a father's youngest son who asked for his inheritance and left his beautiful home and squandered all of his riches until he found himself one day destitute and poor and living on the streets.
And he longed again for his father and for his home that he had abandoned. And after much soul searching, he went back, ready to fall on his face and beg his father for mercy, that he would allow him to be a servant in his father's households. And what he found was a father who welcomed him with open arms back as the son who had left him these many days before. And this is the story of Jesus.
And Easter is a reflection of the fact that this is not simply a story, this is a picture. Easter delivers this, that God's love welcomes us into his family and wherever we might have been. And however we might have squandered God's gifts for us, we are always welcomed back. And so the question isn't whether God loves us.
The question is, will I open my life to God's love? And maybe here this morning, and you're not a follower of Jesus. You like Thomas, I've got some questions and some doubts. A few weeks ago, we talked about doubt.
And what we said is that doubt's not something we overcome. Doubt is something that we move forward in spite of. We say to doubt, I'm not going to allow doubt to make my decisions for me. Doubt's a part of the human experience.
Thomas had it even as his finger was in the sight of Jesus. And yet he moved forward in faith. And no better day to say, I'm going to live my life to Jesus way than Easter Sunday. Maybe here this morning, and you find yourself far away from where you used to be, and you're not happy about that.
You want to be restored to that relationship with God you had one day. No better day than Easter, 2026 to do that. Or maybe you're just here this morning finding great inspiration and encouragement in your faith. And today is a day to celebrate that you live your life the Jesus way every day for all of us.
I believe God brought us here today. God brought us here today so that we can open our mind to God's power, open our heart to God's grace, and open our life to God's love as we celebrate Easter with millions of people around the world. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would help us today to be inspired by your power and your grace and your love, to be people, men and women, young people of faith.
And so help us to make that commitment today. In Jesus name we pray, amen.