Encountering the Resurrected Christ

Yes, Jesus Christ is alive. He rose from the dead and that day that Easter Sunday morning, that first Easter, when Mary and Mary Magdalene and Silo went to the grave expecting to an older dead body. They saw the angel sitting there and they said, where is Jesus? The angel said, he is not here, he is risen.

I submit to you tonight that that's the greatest news the world has ever heard. He is not here. He has conquered the grave. He's alive.

And ladies and gentlemen, I believe that there's more proof that Jesus Christ rose from the dead than almost any other fact in Roman history. I don't believe there's a fact in ancient history today so well proven as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But even if there was no proof, no historical proof, no scientific proof, and there is, I would still believe it because I believe this book is God's inspired word and the whole early church went up and down the country, reaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was the thing that shook the Roman Empire, that a man had risen from the dead, that he was alive, that death did not hold him.

Christ is alive. He's a living Savior. Let's take a look into the Word of God in Luke chapter 24 verse 33 through 49. It says, the Bible says, and they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and they found the 11 and those who were with them gathered together saying, the Lord has risen indeed and he has appeared to Simon.

Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. And as they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, the resurrected Christ stood among them and said to them, peace to you. But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit and he said to them, why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet that it is I myself touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they were while they still disbelieved it for joy and were marbling, he said to them, have you anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate before them. And then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

And then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from an eye. That is the word of God. Amen.

So let's take a look at this on your hand out. If you got a pen and you got a hand out, you can follow along. We invite you to this. Hopefully you can even take these notes home and look at it later and read these verses and go deeper in God's word in your own personal walk with Jesus.

And it says this on your hand out, it says there's eight blessings of the resurrection. And I took these, these aren't going to be anything creative that I came up with. This is right out of the word of God. Jesus gave in this passage, we just read, because of the resurrection, you get eight blessings.

Okay? Turn your neighbor and say, you get all of these. Tell them. Yeah, there we go.

That's good. Yes. Fill this in. Number one, it says, there's eight blessings of the resurrection.

Somebody said, you can? So that's what all these eight of these are you can blink. All right? So you can number one is have peace.

Fill that in. You can have peace. In verse 36, he says, peace to you. Wouldn't that be awesome in the worst moment of your, is anyone here ever gets dressed or overwhelmed in life?

Okay? When that happens, can you imagine Jesus coming into you and saying to you, peace to you, right? Wouldn't that be the most awesome gift if Jesus himself showed up right in front of you and says, peace you, well, guess what he does? He does every day.

He says, my peace, I give to you, my peace, I leave with you. I don't give as the world gives. I come to comfort your hearts. Jesus wants to give you peace.

And it says, look, the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guard your heart and your mind. Flipping tells us the idea of God's peace is such a gift to us because of the resurrection. You can have his peace and it's not a piece like the world gives. See, the world is going to offer peace by trying to give you a fix.

The world is going to offer peace by trying to say, oh, let me make things easier for you or more convenient for you or take a rest so you can have peace or stop all the noise. So you go on vacation, you can have peace. But Jesus is talking about a peace that is for your soul, a peace that surpasses everything this world has ever known. So you can have peace is number one.

Number two, that you can have, you can, you can not be troubled, not be troubled. And Jesus asked that question in verse 30, 80, says, why are you troubled? You cannot be troubled. Does anyone want this?

Are you troubled in life? Jesus is saying, you can not be troubled because I'm with you. Yeah, it's not a sense of you having a life that doesn't involve trouble or trials or tribulation because you will. You will face hardships.

You will face things that are tough in life. But Jesus is saying, you don't need to be troubled because why? Because he's God, because he's in charge of everything, because he holds the whole world in his hands. Are you thankful that you have a God that takes care of everything and that is sovereign and is overall and in all and through all?

Are you thankful that God's in control and you don't have to be troubled with things, right? In the end, is God in control? Yeah, and we can know that and not be troubled. We can have no fear.

So which leads to number three, the third blessing of the resurrection, you can not doubt. You can not doubt. And Jesus said this in verse 38, he says, why do doubts arise in your hearts? Now we notice in scripture, this is not the first time Jesus said something like this.

You guys remember when they were out on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus and his disciples on that fishing boat and the storm was coming and the waves were enveloping the boat and they thought they were going to die and Jesus woke up out of the boat. He was sleeping in the boat and he says, why were you afraid? Why did you doubt? Don't you know who's in the boat?

Don't you know? Like do you think the mission of God is going down because of this little storm? Like Jesus is in the boat and he's in your boat too. He's in your life and you don't need to doubt.

You can have faith. You can trust God. That's a huge part of what it means to follow Jesus is to have faith to trust God when you can't see what's ahead. Number four, you can come and see.

You can come and see. Jesus invites them. They're all doubting. We know doubting Thomas.

We know that famous saying of course, but he wants you to know that you can come and see. He says, see my inverse 39, he says, see my hands and my feet that it is I myself touch me and see. It's an invitation. Come and see.

So I'll bet you there's people in this room that came here to this Easter service today just kind of like, I'll come and see. Maybe you're not all in with God. Maybe you're not someone that's saying, hey, I love Jesus. I'm still trying to figure this out.

I don't know what I believe. I got to tell you're welcome here because all of us are a bunch of screw ups. All of us are struggling with all kinds of things. Amen and counter church, right?

Nobody here is perfect in this church. We all are a mess. Right? Amen.

Especially our pastor. I get it, right? Okay. We're all a mess, right?

We're all screw ups and we're all a mess. And yet God says, you know what, I'm going to just show you that I love you. I'm going to keep, I'm going to stay with you. You don't have to figure it all.

You don't have to purview. You can come and see. You can come and see. You can imagine these guys, minds being blown.

Jesus is like standing in the room with them. And they're like, we saw you get crucified. We saw this spear go into your side and water and blood, blood flowed. You were scientifically dead.

We saw them take you down from the cross with your lifeless body. We saw you getting wrapped up in burial crows and they put you in a tomb. Like we saw this and Jesus is there and they're still like, just a ghost. Like what's happening in this room?

And just like come and see. Go ahead and touch my hands, my feet, see where the scars are, see where the nails were. Come and see. And it's an invitation to you today.

Come and see the goodness of God. Come and see the works of God. Amen. Come and see how good that the Lord is.

Number five, the fifth, are you guys liking these blessings first of all? Yeah. Again, these are my ideas. I'm not looking for affirmation for me.

This is like, Jesus, great to come and say after the resurrection. Hey, you can have all these things. One through four, you can have peace. You cannot be troubled.

You cannot doubt. You can come and see. Anyone excited yet? These are good news.

Okay, come on people. Here we go. Number five. Number five is, you can know he is here.

You can know he is here right along with number four. It's this idea of come and see. You can know he is here. When he said this, verse four, he says, he showed them his hands and his feet.

And Jesus promised throughout the scriptures that he's going to leave his spirit with us and that he will never leave us or forsake us. You can know he's here. And I feel like we live in a world. I'll bet you every person in this room has had a friend or a family member bail on them.

Right? Has anyone, give me a head nod. Yeah. Have you ever been hurt by somebody?

You ever had somebody not be true to what they said or they just kind of gave up on you or you felt like, gosh, they don't care about me anymore. It hurts, doesn't it? And it hurts even more when it's people closest to us. And here, Jesus is saying, I want you to know that I am here.

Jesus, wants you to know he'll never leave you or forsake you. He's the only one out of every person in this room. Jesus is the only one that will never let you down. Like, guess what?

I'll let you down. Right? The person next to you will let you down at some point, won't they? Right?

And don't get too excited about that. Some of you are like elblin your spouse. That's not nice. It's Easter people.

Be nice to each other. But you're supposed to understand though, like we are fallible people. And yet, God is perfect in his holy and Jesus says, I'm here. I need you to know that in your darkest hour, I'm there in your greatest hour, I'm there in the highs and the lows, I'm there when it's sunny out.

I'm there when it's raining. I'm there when it's a storm when it's a downpour when it's windy. I'm there at your work. I'm there in your car.

I'm there in your room alone at home. I'm there. I won't leave you or forsake you. I am with you because of the resurrection.

That's something you can have. Cool? That's good stuff, isn't it? It's okay to get a little more excited on Easter.

This is all really good news from God's word here to number six. And this is cool too. The sixth blessing of the resurrection is you can fellowship with him. You can actually fellowship with him.

Somebody shout it out real quick. What does fellowship mean? Hang out and commune. Yeah, those are great definitions.

Boy, better than I could have said it. If you can hang out with Jesus, you can commune with Jesus. You can be intimate with Jesus. This invitation to have fellowship with him in verse 41 through 43.

I love this. The resurrected Christ says, and this proves that you get food in heaven people. He says, have you anything to eat? And he sat down and ate with him, right?

The resurrected Christ, you too, will raise him to dead and you will have food in heaven. Great banquet of heaven. This is pretty exciting. Okay?

He says, have you anything to eat? I mean, in that culture, you guys understand this. Maybe we're confused about it today in 2026, but I'm telling you, in that culture, the idea of asking someone to have a meal with them was a massive event. Sometimes it would spend three, four hours sitting down and lounging.

When we went to Israel, they did a little mock stage of what a meal looked like out there in the desert. We wrote Tamles over to this place and ate this really tasty chicken. I don't want to get into that right now. Well, look, I mean, there was no chairs.

You lounge and you lean against pillows and you sit at this table. And it was like people would come and do this because they wanted to be with each other. They wanted to know each other. They wanted to do face to face.

They didn't want to sit there and scroll on their screens and be at an airport where no one in the planet talks to each other anymore, right? But they wanted to see each other. They wanted to have fellowship. And Jesus is saying, look, I'm resurrected from the dead.

And I want to have a meal with you. I want to have fellowship with you because of the resurrection. You can have fellowship with the Son of God. Again, church, are you getting excited about it?

Okay? I hope you are. There's only two more points. You only have two more chances to not make me insult you.

Okay, no, I'm not doing that. Okay. Number seven, the seventh thing, the seventh blessing of the resurrection is you can't remember. You can remember.

You can remember the good things of God. You can remember what he's done. You can remember what he's done for you, how he's done it. Jesus said this in verses 40, 49, he said, I've spoken.

He's words to you while I was still with you that everything written about me must be fulfilled. He reminded him, you need to remember everything I said. My whole life, it's led to this moment. And now I've died on a cross.

I resurrected from the dead. You need to remember all I've done for you. And sometimes remembering what God has done for us is such a gift because you look back at what you once were and what you are now and you give glory to God. I've invited an awesome brother of mine, Justin Palmore, to share his testimony with us this morning.

Let's hear it for Justin Palmore, everybody. All right. Check what? Good morning, everybody.

What a great segue for testimony but the gospel. Let's get things started. I'm going to tell you a little bit about me before I was a Christian. Before I had a relationship with Jesus, I was consumed with myself.

Everything I said or did was to satisfy or meet my desires and needs or what I thought were needs. I was never an atheist or anything but as far back as I can remember, I knew who Jesus was. I just didn't have a relationship with him. I was more concerned with my relationship with the world.

So my social status, my dating scene, the late nights, the fuzzy, blurry weekends, but beyond this, this outgoing, funny, charming young man was actually I was a sad, lonely, depressed, pathetic little boy, searching for love and acceptance from anyone willing to give it. But never once did I find it, I became a complete narcissist, actually, manipulative and later developed a pretty severe mental instability. I wound up burning a bunch of bridges and ruining relationships, left me homeless actually and unable to cope with life. I remember laying in this after-van I had night after night and just thinking to myself, like, what have I done?

I've disordered my family, I've disordered my parents, I got nothing left and I finally got a place actually after that van and everything was going pretty good. I was still partying but didn't really care because I had roof over my head and the fridge was stocked, so things were pretty good. But I remember one morning it all changed. I woke up at about 7am on a Saturday and went outside and this new van I had a work van was stolen.

All my tools, my fishing rods, even my surfboards gone. So I calmly walked back inside and I sat on the edge of my bed and I remember just beginning to melt down and I just the tears start to roll, I get in angry and just felt desperate. And I cried out to Jesus himself, I said, I can't do this anymore, I need you. Because I was at my wit's end without further description of that, I'm sure you can figure that out.

I said this before but at this time it was different because actually meant it, I was like I said desperate. I didn't realize yet but everything began to change at that moment. That night I got home from the toyard and they found my van, got back from the toyard and everything was gone except my surfboards, so there is a god. No.

But when I got home from the toyard I cracked a beer and it just didn't quite, wasn't as refreshing as I thought, I was like okay that's weird. When outside I spoke a SIG for like celebrate, got the van back and I was like this thing's disgusting, like I was like what's going on. Even the music I was listening to at the time it just made my skin crawl. There was something happening in my life which is the miracle began to come into fruition.

All the things I used to do to not think about God were now making me think only about him. But in my summerness I continued my habits but by his grace I was convicted, by his grace I was convicted, by his grace I was beginning to feel anxious and oppressed and miserable because I made a commitment I cried out and I wasn't fulfilling my side of the bargain. Fast forward a couple years. I was also tired and weighed down by the sin I was very aware of.

I began to read the bible more consistently and began to learn of the character of God and how much he loves us and why he loves us. So the character of God is he's a loving father and he's righteous but he's also a just judge. And I was deserved of a very crucial and violent punishment for the things in the way I live my life. But the way he loves us, he loved me so much that he died.

The creator of the universe died for me because he loved me, because he would rather come off his throne and hang on a tree that he ordained to grow. He would rather get beat to a bloody pulp. His beard ripped out of his face, the skin ripped off his back but it's actually looking after all that. It was Jesus being my propitiator, the one who took the wrath of God on himself so I didn't have to take it.

Because everything I did there had to be a consequence and he took that punishment for all that. After this realization, repentance, turning away from my sin was inevitable and by this I realized I was no longer a slave to my depression, anxiety, anger but to sit in those states of mind was now a choice. I chose not to choose. Now I walk in a mind and spirits set on gratitude and realize God owes me nothing and I owe him everything.

The older and more mature I get, the more I realize how broken I am which can make me pretty sorrowful but now I can give that sorry to Jesus and he turns it into joy. So now I'm in the era of AD or after my resurrection. Not only the resurrection of my king, my Lord and Savior but the personal resurrection by the Holy Spirit with ears for the hurting. I now have a heart for the broken people.

A life consumed with helping and providing for others and I've never been more grateful. So now I want to just take this time to just if anything I said trigger something in your mind in your heart. I want you to please just respond to that. This was a five-minute testimony of 40 years of sin and debauchery and everything in God's grace was sufficient.

He came through for me and he could do the same for you. If you're here to appease a relative or if you're here just because it's tradition for you on Easter and Christmas to do this type of thing. I don't believe it's an action I believe you're here for a reason and I prayed a lot for you personally. The one that is listening today and I just I urge you I just to surrender.

All the good things that happen those are just the perks. The real reason I follow Jesus is because of what he did for me because I deserved death and the punishment and he took that on himself and he justified me. So now I'm justified which is just as if I've never sinned which is completely mind-blowing me but I sit in that state of gratitude because of this. So don't follow man, follow Jesus because he is the one that will be faithful to the very end.

Thank you. Awesome. Don't you love that man. He's so great.

Yeah. So you got to remember what God's done for your life. Can anybody show me a hand that God's moved powerfully in your life? Let's see.

Yeah, look at this. And if you're not ready to raise a hand for that you know it's coming. That's going to move powerfully in your life. He makes the dead things alive.

He makes the lame walk. He makes the blind see. This is the God of resurrection. And he says I want you to remember all the things I've done because that's where we lose it.

We start losing it because we forget all that God has said. He said back on your handout under number seven about remembering. You can remember because of the resurrection. You can remember there's four bullet points there.

And he said this right in those verses where she's 44 through 49. He says I want you to remember who I am. What I've done. What you've seen and my promises.

I want you to remember who I am. What I've done. What you've seen and my promises. I want you to remember who I am.

What I've done. What you've seen and my promises. You can't hear it enough people. Some of you like it.

He just repeat himself. Yes I did. That was intentionally. The point is that God wants you to remember this stuff first.

Who I am. Do you know who God is? He wants you to remember who he is. You're not supposed to forget.

You're not supposed to walk around forgetting how the Almighty is the Almighty God. How he's omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent. Which means he's all powerful. All knowing and he's ever present.

All wants. There's no one like that. You know who's not those things? Satan.

The enemy. He's not omniscient. He's not all powerful. He's not all knowing.

He's not omnipotent. He's not all powerful and he's not omnipresent. He can't be ever at once. But God is.

Remember who that is. He's God. He's the first and the last. He's the great I am.

He says remember what I've done. What's God's track record. He says remember what I've done. You just read the Bible.

If you haven't read it, read the Bible. It's unbelievable to read what God has done. His track record is perfect and God has done so much. What has he done in your life?

He says remember what I've done. Has God done things in your life? You're supposed to remember that. The third bullet point says remember what you've seen.

Like don't deny the milestones. Don't deny his presence. Remember what you've seen God do in your life. When we take our eyes off that, we will start to focus on the wrong things.

So set up altars in your life. Celebrate his works. And finally that fourth bullet point says remember my promises because he's faithful and he doesn't lie. That my God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

He doesn't change like the shifting shadows of the winds. Aren't you thankful for that? I mean man this world changes and I don't like a lot of the changes that are happening in this world. Some are good but I don't like a lot of them.

You know? But you can count on God. He's consistent. He's constant.

He never changes. We can celebrate his works. Okay we have one more on the handout. The eighth blessing of the resurrection and this is a big one.

It's the finale. It's verse 49 is that you can have the Holy Spirit. You can, yeah someone woo woo woo. I heard that.

That's great. You can have the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in verse 49, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. You will be clothed with power from on high.

It's the Holy Spirit. You are filled. Every spiritual blessing. It's Christ in you.

The Bible speaks of this mystery of the gospel. There's a mystery of the gospel and it's scattered throughout the New Testament. It keeps on bringing up this idea that there's a mystery of the gospel. Do you know what the mystery of the gospel is this?

It's Christ in you. It's the Holy Spirit of God in you. See what's tricky about this is because all the listeners at the time when Jesus was saying this didn't know this to be the case. They didn't have the Holy Spirit.

They had Jesus right in front of them that they could see and even after he resurrected from the dead they could touch and they could feel the holes in his hands and the feet. But they didn't understand this concept of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit. I know the Holy Spirit might be confusing to people.

It might be like, what's that? I understand God. He's like the Creator. I understand Jesus.

He's like the Son of God and he came and died on a cross. We know who Jesus is. That makes sense. This Holy Spirit.

I don't quite get it. I just want you to understand this. It's God's Spirit. It's the Spirit of God.

And God is now saying that through Jesus he's saying, I want you to know you're never going to be alone again. Like I have come so that you can have when I leave a comforter the Holy Spirit of God. And it's going to be awesome. It's the Holy Spirit.

You are filled. Every spiritual blessing in Christ. It is Christ in you. So I want to show you something real quick.

We got some little visual analogy here happening. Today we have a glass of ice cold milk. Everybody see that? This is you.

All right? You're the milk. Then we have a bottle of Hershey's chocolat syrup. This in the analogy is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit of God. All right? Now what happened in the Old Testament, if you read the Old Testament, this is how everyone understood the Holy Spirit of God is because what would happen is you would have the Holy Spirit of God would come and rest upon the people and then it would be taken away. The Holy Spirit would come and rest upon the people and then it would be taken away.

And there was a big movement where God's Spirit needed to do something. He was always coming to rest and do it. It's name and then it would come and be taken off. On, taken off.

And then you'd have someone like Samson. And if you'd be in a situation in the Holy Spirit, the Bible says the Holy Spirit would come and rest upon Samson for the mission that was at hand and then it would be taken off. So everybody's just thinking, this is the Holy Spirit. The idea of this.

Okay. Holy Spirit. Where is it? Chase the cloud, chase the fire, chase the pillar.

All this stuff. Like just the Holy Spirit. We got to have to be a part of it somehow and we would come and oh, now the Holy Spirit is coming. It's going to come and rest on us.

Great. Oh, we got the Spirit of God resting on us. But then before you know it, the Holy Spirit's gone. When the Holy Spirit's going to come back.

I don't know. And you're Jesus, the Son of God, of the perfect life, the miraculous things his whole life. He raises people from the dead. He makes the blind see and the lame walk.

I mean, Jesus, the Son of God perform more miracles and fulfill more prophecy than any person in all history. And he's coming to this point with his disciples and he's trying to tell him, look, there's this plan, like you saw in the video, there's this plan, I'm going to go and be betrayed into the hands of simple men. Like everyone's going to turn on me and they're going to capture me and it's going to be so bad, they're going to accuse me of all kinds of things and they're going to send me to be crucified on a cross. And I'm going to die.

And three days later, I'm going to raise from the dead. And in John 14, he wanted to tell them, but take heart, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to give you a helper when I leave. When I go to heaven, I'm going to give you a helper.

So here we are. We're like, oh, I'm a glass of milk and everything's fine and life, but that's all I am. I got some milk. And then Jesus saying in John 14, no, the Holy Spirit's going to come.

You're ready for this? The Holy Spirit's going to come and it's going to live where? Inside you. How much did I put in here?

More? I don't know. This is getting crazy. You people are crazy.

So the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us, which is amazing. Now here's the key, this is where the analogy gets a little crazy. Some of you are saying, Pastor J, the Holy Spirit went inside this glass of milk, but the glass of milk kind of looks the same. That's right, because what happens is so often the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us, we act like, oh, we still need to call him over and join us because we're ignoring him, because we don't live in Christ like we're supposed to, because so often we're just doing things our own way.

Well, this is Jason's way. These are Jason's desires. This is what Jason wants. This is what Jason's going to get.

And I just kind of get busy. And I just kind of live my life. And it's just one thing to the next. And my life still kind of looks the same because gosh, today's sure was busy.

Man, am I exhausted. Man, am I worn out. I can't slow down for one second. This is my whole life.

And you think, is that how it goes? This all life is? Or maybe we are ignoring the Spirit of God. Or maybe when the Holy Spirit tells us, hey, you've got sin in your life.

You have things that are displeasing to God. And I'm like, yeah, well, it's not so bad. Everyone else is doing it. People are a lot worse than I am.

So I'm okay. You know, and you have all these adjustments and excuses in your life kind of still looks the same. But as the Holy Spirit lives in you, this miraculous, he wants to transform you church. Yes.

That you would have a transformed life. This is one of the big keys I pointed to this all the time, this right here. These five things on the wall and this circle over here. It's what our church stands for.

These five things in countering God, loving relationships, radical transformation, generous lives, life on mission. That radical transformation, it's this idea that the Holy Spirit wants to transform you by the renewing of your mind. That you would be changed from the inside out that God is he's living in you and it should change what's on the inside. And so what happens is there's no stirring in your life because you're just scrolling because you're just working because you're just doing things your way and there's no stirring in your life.

And the Holy Spirit wants to come and say, Jason, I died for you. I want to have fellowship with you. You don't need to doubt. You don't need to fear.

I'm with you. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I'm your God.

I created you so that you can know me and have this awesome relationship with you. And you still look the same because you're not releasing control of your life. The Holy Spirit wants to come in and say, look what I can do. I can change you.

And he starts to stir and you're like, whoa, I don't know what this looks like. I don't know what this is going to be. And you start to hear the Word of God, maybe in a sermon. Maybe this morning, right now you're hearing that Jesus loves you, that he died for you, that he wants to know you, that he wants to have a relationship with you.

Maybe you're in a Bible study or a together group. And the Word of God is transforming you. And before you know it, you don't look like a glass of ordinary milk anymore because there's a stirring in your life. And God wants to stir it up and he wants to change you forever.

Amen? Who wants this glass of chocolate milk? You want it? You want it?

You guys can share it if you want to come and grab it. Yeah. You're welcome, Mom. It's going to be a long afternoon.

Bet you didn't wish. Bet you wish you didn't encourage me to keep pouring that syrup now, do you? But look, what's the stirring in your life? Look at all that God has done for you.

Look at what you hear what Justin talked about like, look, I was dead. This was my old life. And then Christ came in and he stirred everything up. And now I'm changed.

I can say the same thing. And then before I came to Christ, all I wanted was popularity and to fit in. All I wanted was like to be accepted. All I wanted was to like matter and everyone say, hey, look how great Jason is.

That's all that mattered to me. And now I don't care about any of that stuff. I want to say how great God is. Not me.

He's trans, he's changed me. I've been stirred. Now I still struggle. Boy, there's a lot of days where I just look like a plain glass of milk.

But man, when the Holy Spirit gets my heart, there's nothing better. There's resurrection power in me. The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, that same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. Be blown away by that.

Find the wonder in that. He lives in you. The Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead. The resurrecting God lives in you.

And he wants to stir you. That last villain on your handout, just as I choose to encounter the resurrected Christ daily. That villain is not some kind of plug or advertisement for this church. It really is the heartbeat of this church.

It's like encountering the living God. It changes everything. You have an encounter with the living God. Everything looks different.

Everything's changed. Your life looks different. So some of you are like, okay, so I don't know what to do with that, Pastor Jay. I've got plenty of problems in life yet.

The Lord knows. The Lord sees. The Lord knows. The Lord cares.

Yeah, but I don't like how a lot of things have turned out. Yeah, I know. But we're living off of resurrection power and because of the resurrection, you got eight blessings right in front of you. Do you want them?

You can have them. Every single one of you, you can have these blessings. They can be yours. Jesus is an invitational God.

He says all the time, come to me. All of you who are we're in burden and I'll give you rest. All of you are frustrated. All of you who are burnt out and worn out and just sick of life, like come to me.

I'll take everything. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Brian, gentle and humble in heart. I'll give you rest for your souls.

And if you want rest for their souls, Jesus is here to offer it.