Archive.fm

ReCreate Church’s Podcast

Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, June 23, 2024

Dinner with Jesus Today Michael is talking about the Last Supper.   Jewish holidays, during biblical times, were in the spring and close together, starting with Passover, going into the Feast of Unleavened Bread and then the Feast of Firstfruits.  So, this lesson is on the Passover meal and how Jesus asked His disciples to prepare the meal and trust in Him.  There are two key takeaways from this lesson: Trust in Him.  Even if you cannot see what He’s doing or the results you may seek or expect, He IS working in your life.  It might be that He is wanting you to prepare something for someone else; not you.  Mark 14:12-16 (CSB Bible Notes) 14:12 Jesus decided where they would observe the Passover, but his disciples were responsible to prepare it. 14:13-14 Luke (Lk 22:8) identifies the two disciples as Peter and John. Go into the city indicates they were outside Jerusalem, probably at Bethany. Meet could mean either “encounter” or that the man was looking for them. The owner of the house was apparently acquainted with Jesus since they identified him only as the Teacher. 14:15-16 The “guest room” (v. 14) was a large room upstairs, probably the spacious roof chamber of a wealthy man. The room was ready to accommodate a large group. Found it just as he had told them stresses the exact fulfillment of Jesus’s words. Today’s verses can be found in Mark 14: 12 - 21.  Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Duration:
36m
Broadcast on:
25 Jun 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Dinner with Jesus

Today Michael is talking about the Last Supper.  

Jewish holidays, during biblical times, were in the spring and close together, starting with Passover, going into the Feast of Unleavened Bread and then the Feast of Firstfruits. 

So, this lesson is on the Passover meal and how Jesus asked His disciples to prepare the meal and trust in Him.  There are two key takeaways from this lesson:

  1. Trust in Him.  Even if you cannot see what He’s doing or the results you may seek or expect, He IS working in your life. 
  2. It might be that He is wanting you to prepare something for someone else; not you. 

Mark 14:12-16 (CSB Bible Notes) 14:12 Jesus decided where they would observe the Passover, but his disciples were responsible to prepare it. 14:13-14 Luke (Lk 22:8) identifies the two disciples as Peter and John. Go into the city indicates they were outside Jerusalem, probably at Bethany. Meet could mean either “encounter” or that the man was looking for them. The owner of the house was apparently acquainted with Jesus since they identified him only as the Teacher. 14:15-16 The “guest room” (v. 14) was a large room upstairs, probably the spacious roof chamber of a wealthy man. The room was ready to accommodate a large group. Found it just as he had told them stresses the exact fulfillment of Jesus’s words.

Today’s verses can be found in Mark 14: 12 - 21. 

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. 

Good morning folks. It's good to see y'all so much. I was just telling Katie as we're worshiping there when we when we started recreate church, the praise team was three people, just three people. It was me and Isabelle and and Ivan, a lot of you guys will remember Ivan who had grown for us. And I'm like, wow, this tripled in size. And I never thought we'd have cool things like a poll percussion section over here or a harmonica or a saxophone, which that solo was awesome, Mike. That was awesome. I mean, you know that already because Valier tells you how awesome you are every day. So you know, I don't need to tell you that, but I just, I give God the glory and it's so nice to see you folks. Um, it's, uh, I told you last week, summertime is weird because everybody travels and I miss people when they're naughty or so much. And I'm glad that some of y'all have made it back, but officially welcome to the gathering of recreate church and our motto is, no matter your story, you are welcome, you are wanted and you are loved. Okay. I want you to tell me what these three things have in common. Listen closely. What are these three things have in common? The sketchy egg salad sandwich have been rotating for a month in the vending machine into break room and you're real hungry and it's third shift. Okay. Second, the two week old barbecue that you forgot was in the back of the fridge and it still smells pretty much okay. Or, and the third one, the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples. What are these three things have in common? Well, they could all be called the last supper. At my work, we have a vending machine that's got sandwiches and stuff in it. I've never been desperate enough to get like the chicken salad or the egg salad or anything with mayonnaise because some of the employees call it the wheel of death. The wheel of death, I have eaten out of the wheel of death and yet I live. Ain't got good. Anybody else had to eat out of the wheel of death because you didn't bring anything that day. Yeah. So, uh, the important distinction between the first two things and the last one is that two of them might lead to death and one of them leads to life. We're talking about the last supper. Okay. The last meal Jesus shared with his disciples and when, when most people hear the last supper, the image that comes in their mind is the famous painting by Leonardo. I think we have that. If you'll pull that up, famous painting by Leonardo, pretty classic painting, very impressive work of art, especially considering Leonardo was a ninja turtle. Who painted it. I may have those Leonardo's mixed up. It was Leonardo da Vinci. Uh, so da Vinci's depiction puts everybody on one side of the table, puts them at a European style table and you know, there's a, it's really a nice picture, but it probably didn't look anything like this. Okay. It was nighttime for one. Uh, they, these all appear to be white dudes and they didn't have many of those in the Middle East at the time, except for the Romans. You know, they were Middle Eastern Jews and they, they would not have looked. Uh, they would not be blonde dudes who look like they're from, from Europe. And, uh, you know, there's a, there's a lot going on here that probably would not be, uh, historically accurate, the serving, it would have been communal serving bowls. And hey, I'm going to give him a pass for putting everybody on one side of the table because it would, they are facing the camera. So they understand, you know, there's a lot going on. If you read into the history of this painting, there's a lot of reasons that, that Leonardo made the choices that he did. However, from a perspective of 2024, I'm going to get down here so I can see it with you. From a perspective of 2024, uh, it's like, why is everybody in, body being so dramatic? Do you see what I see? I don't think this will point on the screen, but I can kind of point under it. So I want you to, to notice here, to the right of Jesus, Thomas is showing Jesus his hangnail and asking him to heal it. James is, for some reason, blocking Thomas and maybe saying, Hey, bro, man, it's dinner time. Don't be flashing your nasty hangnail. On the, uh, the, the left side of the table, kind of here, two people are from Jesus starts Peter with the gray hair in the back, spilling the tea to John. I don't know what they're talking about, but it's some juicy gossip. It looks like then, uh, over on the right side again, you've got these three dudes who are like, trying to figure out how they're going to split the check. They're all pointing over there. And then you've got the guy on the left side with both hands up. And he's like, bro, don't look at me. I forgot my wallet at Bethany. I mean, there's a lot going on. And then you've got Judas there, Judas, uh, holding the money bag, looking, you know, real sketchy, almost kind of looks like he's sitting on Peter's lap, which is weird. I don't know. There's a lot going on, a lot going on there. So I want you to understand that I don't, I don't have any disrespect for the classic painting. And I certainly don't have any disrespect for the biblical event. I think we, we learned a lot from it. Jesus is there in the middle and he's trying to explain some things to these guys on there, obviously not getting it. They're, they're pretty distracted. And at the real last supper, I don't think they were so much distracted, but they definitely didn't get it. They didn't understand. And I'm hoping we can understand it a little bit better today because the true story from the word of God is very powerful. This was far more than a formal dinner. This was 13 close friends who were sitting down to dinner for the last time together. And I'm not saying they completely understood that this was the last time, but the people in that room knew something was about to happen. They had been feeling of the tension has been building for months and months to get to this point. And this is the last time that would all be in the same room together. This was what we would call Thursday night. And in a few hours, Jesus would be arrested by nine a.m. Friday. He's hanging on the cross by three in the afternoon. He's dead. Jesus will be dead less than 24 hours after this meal. The disciples have been told this. Jesus has explained this. They did not understand it. They could have no concept that their Lord would die. But he knows and here at the end of his mortal life, he pours out a lot of teaching. Remember the there's four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the other three guys tell a lot more about what he said. Mark is a very action oriented gospel and he's talking about what happened, what he did. And he's very, he talks a lot about the preparations for the meal and the meal itself. So we're going to see that here in Mark 14, starting in verse 12, dinner with Jesus. And it's not just dinner with Jesus because every moment you share with Jesus is powerful. It's life changing. If you want a different life, spend some of that life with Jesus and it'll change you. Before we read the scriptures, I want to pray. Heavenly Father in Jesus name, I pray you'll open us up to understand this word and to respond to it and to give our lives, lives to Jesus and whose name we pray. Amen. So let's read, read a little bit. I'm going to read a chunk of it here and we'll talk about it. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, what do you want us to go to prepare that you may eat the Passover? And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, go into the city and a man will meet you carrying a picture of water. Follow him. Wherever he goes in, say to the master of the house, the teacher says, where is the guest room in which I may eat Passover with my disciples? Then he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, there make ready for us. So his disciples went out and came into the city and found it just as he said to them and they prepared the Passover. So in the Jewish spiritual calendar, there are seven major holidays and the first three are crammed into about a week in the spring in late, late March, early April, back to back to back and even overlapping a little bit. And we have a couple of them mentioned here. The first one is Passover and technically Passover was a meal and not a whole day. The Hebrews didn't count time like we count time. We count time like the Romans did. Our day begins at midnight to the Hebrews. Their day began at sunset. So days ran from sunset to sunset. So after sunset, it was a new day. So technically, the first meal of the day they ate was the evening meal. So this is the first meal of their day. In 24 hours after this, at the next sunset, the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin and it lasted for seven days and one of those seven days was a completely other feast called the Feast of First Roots. So it like overlapped. It was a very busy holiday week. During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the people would eat only bread with no yeast in it, with no leaven. They would spend the whole, spend like a long time cleaning the house to make sure there wasn't any leaven anywhere, not even a crumb. You know how it is with a house? It can look very clean, right? Your house can look very clean until you move the refrigerator or the dryer or you know look under the couch cushions. I did two of those things this week. The dryer, you know, we had a leak working on that but the couch cushions was more the eye-opener for me. I found myself having to remove the couch cushions and work on the couch because to my shock and dismay, a pack of wild rhinoceruses have evidently broken into my home and jumped up and down on my couch. I know it had to be rhinoceruses because it could not have been my children because they would never do such a thing to the furniture in our home that their poor old daddy worked so hard for and so we're blaming the rhinoceruses. So if you see any around in the county, don't be surprised. Don't let them in your house. So I had to take the couch apart and I did find that everything that was capable of being broken was broken but that's okay. I got an impact gun and a big old box of screws and we put it all back together. I know it had not been that long since we had lifted those couch cushions and cleaned under them. It's amazing how quick things get filled up because you know we have our kids and we also have you know the nieces and nephews that are around and we have a lot of visitors and stuff. So you pull up these couch cushions and there's a lot going on under a couch cushion. There's pocket change, not a lot of that. Kind of hoping for some more pocket change. You know my pocket change tends to get going when I lay it down. I don't know rhinoceruses again I guess. I didn't know they had opposable thumbs that could pick them up. Whatever. I don't know. It's a weird world. There were ink pens, various and sundry gum wrappers and candy wrappers. Candy that was not shared with dad. There were colored pencils from our niece and there were copious amounts of what I can only call mystery crumbs. Have you ever found mystery crumbs under your couch? I see the parents whose children are still young are nodding vigorously at the mystery crumbs. Comment. There's a lot of mystery crumbs. I try not to think too hard about it. We just got the vacuum cleaner and now I've got the heebie jeebies again. There's amazing how fast gross stuff collects in places that we don't always look down in the couch cushions underneath of something you don't move. You see the feast of unleavened bread really was a reminder of that fact. They were yes technically sweeping the house and cleaning every corner to make sure there was no no leaven in the house. But what they were really learning here was how sin collects in dark corners and we don't even realize it because yeast in the Bible, leaven in the Bible is a symbol of sin. It's a fitting symbol because a little bit of yeast will cause this whole big blow up of the dough, right? It only takes a little in the work its way through the whole thing of blow up. That's what sin does. It only takes a little bit of sin to work its way through our whole lives and it'll really blow it up into something that we never expected. So this search for this leaven was really to prepare them to search their hearts for the sin that was there and to get into all those dark corners lift up the couch cushions of their heart so to speak and to deal with what they find. But understand that there was a reason God wanted them to be searching their heart for sin because he was going to someday send a Savior who would help them deal with that sin that they found. He was preparing them for Jesus to come who was the Savior who is the Savior who's the one who will help us find the mess in our hearts and deal with it. If you want a different life invite Jesus into it. Now is it pleasant? Is it fun to have to tear apart a couch and fix it? I can testify that it is not. It's not fun to pull out the refrigerator or the stove or the dryer and clean up under that. It is no fun at all but when it's done and you put it back feels different doesn't it? Feels better, feels better and if you deal with the junk in your heart that's there that will collect without you even trying. If you take it to the Lord it's not going to be much fun to deal with it but it's going to be different when it's over. You're going to be different. You're going to feel different. You can trust Jesus with the mess. That's unleavened bread but that's not the only festival we had going. Have Passover here, Passover is an even more powerful message about Jesus. The observance of Passover goes back to the time when the Jews were captive in Egypt for 400 years slaves in Egypt and because of all the evil of Egypt God sent plagues, 10 plagues upon Egypt and the last and most terrible one he sent the death angel to every home but he made a way of escape for those who would trust him. The believers could offer a lamb as a sacrifice and apply its blood to the door. I know living in 2024 we live in a time where we're so far separated from the food we eat that for a lot of people the idea of of killing an animal and preparing it to eat is is uncomfortable. This was their daily life our day. There was you couldn't run over to food line and just get a pack of meat. You're going to have to get your hands a little dirty so they were closer to it so it didn't maybe wig them out as much as it would to us today but maybe it's good that it does bother us. They said what they had to sacrifice a poor little lamb and then do something with his blood. It is a big deal but understand that Passover was God's way of preparing them for the Savior that was coming in another way because Jesus would be the sacrificial lamb and his blood will cover us. You see every house that had the blood on the door frame the death angel would pass by would pass over that's why they called it Passover. And understand if the blood of Christ is applied to your life the judgment will pass over you. You do not have to face that. You can have everlasting life and it doesn't start it's not just about escaping wrath it's a new life. It's a beautiful beautiful thing the truest deepest purpose of Passover was to prepare people to see Jesus to understand him. So the disciples will connect these dots later they don't get it now as far as they were concerned they were looking for the practical side of it. They said okay we've got to eat this Passover meal. Jesus apparently indicated that he was not going to do that in the house they were staying in Bethany. They said well okay Lord where do you want us to go to prepare. And he gave him some interesting instructions. He said go to the city of Jerusalem this was a couple miles from the little village of Bethany and he said you will meet somebody carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him two of them. Now how would you like to be the guy with the water? You just minding your own business carrying some water through the beautiful city of Jerusalem at this lovely holiday time and two rough necks from up in Galilee start following you around. Of course you know you're not scared you're tough but there there's two of them. There's two of them and they're pretty strong looking. How would you feel? I don't know I don't know I did a I don't Katie will remember it. I did like a skit one time based on the guy carrying the water pot. That was a lot of fun. I'm at the dust that off someday. But we don't we don't get that story. I think it would be funny of like him taking off running and them having to chase him. That just it sounds funny to me but we don't know we don't know maybe he's like jumping across and doing parkour and it's like a chase scene like I'm about it could have happened but probably they just followed him from a distance like a creepy weirdo and found the house. So they talked to the person who owned the house and they they said we've been sent here by Jesus and he says you've got an upper room prepared. Now if you were to follow someone out of this parking lot and follow them home I'm not endorsing or suggesting that at all please don't unless you've made some sort of arrangements with that person and they're on board with it and you were to show up and say hey what's for lunch? They would probably feed you lunch but it'd be real awkward they would not be prepared. Hey when we hear sirens y'all know what we do we're going to stop and pray for the folks involved. Let's pray now Heavenly Father you put us on this corner to pray for our community we're doing that now we hear sirens and we don't know what's going on but you do so in Jesus' name we lift up to you the folks who were involved in whatever the emergency is and we pray for all the first responders and we pray to all work out good in the end in Jesus' name. Amen. So wonder of wonders a room is prepared God had been doing some stuff that we call it an upper room all right in nicer houses in that area at that time they would have a second floor an upper story that would be a large open room that could be used for activities. I remember growing up and I can't remember who said it somebody I went to school with said something about a rumpus room I don't think my family rumpest I rump we didn't we weren't rumpersers we would go outside because my mama wouldn't say boys go outside when we started to do anything that could be called rumpassing we were sent outside we did not rump us in the house but they had this big upper room that was multi-purpose room I guess and so interesting to me that God had prompted this family who lived in this home to make a preparation for a large gathering of people 13 is not a small amount of people for a formal dinner like this was a sit down dinner with some specific things we can't be sure how it worked did were they prepared for a bunch of guests that all canceled at the last moment don't know or maybe the Lord moved their heart to prepare and they had no idea what it was going to be they just knew the Lord had prompted their hearts the table was all set up with everything they need the cushions were laid in the floor that's how they did they set it a very low table and reclined on cushions it wasn't like the picture was sitting in high chairs it just that wasn't the way it was done nowhere in the four gospels does it describe how the disciples went out and made arrangements for the sacrifice and applying the blood to the doorframe or getting the food maybe that family took care of all that as well again we don't know for sure but very likely they took care of all those things now there's a couple of a couple of points we need to take home there first of all hear me on this the Lord might be preparing all kinds of blessings for help and help for you and you don't know it yet the god god might be preparing a banquet for you so to speak and you don't know it yet god is working in your lives you in ways you can't see trust in him even if you can't see it right now he's working things out if you're following him if you're listening to him if you're trying to obey him he's working it out hold on don't give up second there might be times where he wants you to be making preparations to help somebody else and you may not even know who it is yet I've had several times where I felt prompted to stop at a certain gas station or something and there was somebody there that I knew that needed prayer or maybe you felt something too that you I'm one time one time somebody I can't remember who it was or what it was somebody gave me like a hundred bucks I'm like what is this I did not expect this at all and I didn't feel I ever feel like it was my money have you ever been handed money to you didn't feel like was your money and so I stuck it in the little pocket of my wallet and I didn't go looking for it because I got you know I got three kids I I don't expect their money to be in my wallet okay anybody else you know I'm saying dads like I open my wallet there's receipts there's not actual cash money but then I met somebody who had a need I'm like ah that's it that's why that's been riding around and it it was never mine can you understand that everything that you have is not really yours it's been trusted to you that goes for all your money all your stuff your cars your talents your abilities your time it's not really yours it's on loan from God you never know how God's going to use you to be a big part of somebody's story and how you might make a difference on somebody on maybe in a short amount of time maybe somebody you'll never see again you never know so josh jesus spoke to the disciples through the meal he told them about the future you got to read the other gospels to get all of that because mark is only concerned with the action let's read verse 17 on down through verse 21 in the evening he came with the 12 now as they sat in eight jesus said surely I say to you one of you who eats with me will betray me and they began to be sorrowful and say to him one by one is it I and another said is it I and he answered and said to them it is one of the 12 who dips with me in the dish the son of man goes indeed indeed goes just as it is written of him but woe to the man by whom the son of man is betrayed it would have been good for that man if he had never been born most famous story of betrayal in history even people who don't know much about jesus know the name of his betrayer do you remember who betrayed jesus judas judas is scary it judas there was you know there was two disciples named judas there was judas and then it was judas is scary it how do you like to be the other judas and like whoa no that was the other guy don't look at me like that i'm team jesus all the way but the funny thing is we we hear the story so much we assume that everybody already knew judas was the bad guy but that was not the case they did not know that judas was bad now the paintings usually make him look sinister this particular copy of the of this doesn't give him a goatee a lot of times they have a goatee you notice judas will be painted with a goatee and and um the devil will sometimes be painted with a with a goatee and they're like what what's that about uh let me explain let me just sidetracked just for a moment the devil's often depicted with a goatee but the bible does not describe him with a goatee so how did a goatee become the evil beard okay we got some goatee guys please understand i'm about to vindicate you right now okay i want to say just just beard heads just beard it's not the devil okay the whole goatee thing being associated with the devil or or evil it comes from pan i had a goatee for a long time that's because this part wouldn't grow though understand that's why is this would grow this would not so you know the whole thing with uh the goatee devil doesn't come from the bible at all it comes from roman mythology pan do you remember that guy pan not not petered the other pan he he was a trickster god and he had kind of goat-like features and had like a goat like a goat beard when the roman emperor Constantine declared that christianity was the religion of the roman empire do you think that everybody just instantly became christians no they mostly kept doing what they were doing and they just incorporated it in and and they kind of kept some of these features and pan who's a trickster god kind of came but became associated with the devil somewhat so that's how the devil that's how the devil got a goatee should write that down how the devil got a goatee make a note of that i'll put that in the book okay how the devil got a goatee the only physical descriptions of the devil in the bible are in the garden of edan when he appeared as a serpent okay and then in azecial where he is described as being very sparkly like one of the vampires from twilight so you do what you want with that information here's the point though that i'm making the other disciples did not know that judus was bad evidently they thought he was trustworthy because they let him carry the money bag he seemed to be one of the more trustworthy ones and when jesus said one of you will betray me none of them were like looking at judus like i know it's him look at the goatee it's him nobody said that they said is it me am i going to do it they were suspecting themselves before they're suspecting judus Matthew Mark and Luke Matthew Luke and John i'll give details on how jesus came out and said to judus idiot it's you now go on and do it go on do what you're supposed to do the others still didn't get it they thought jesus was sending him out on a ministry errand didn't get it to us over so this is something to think about we don't always see betrayal coming god sees it he's got our back but i want you to know you're going to get hurt sometimes you don't always see betrayal coming the people in the best position to stab you in the back are those who you thought were watching your back ouch been there done that it hurts you can be tempted to give up on people and do not love people and not share your heart trust me i know that feeling hear me now don't stop loving people don't let that pain stop you from doing what's right jesus knew the whole time that judus was going to betray him was judus ever mean or was jesus ever mean to judus one of the other gospel writers record how jesus got down and washed the feet of all the disciples when he got the judus's feet did he skip him he washed the feet of judus just the same as everybody else so yes i'm sorry you're going to get hurt sometimes by people that's not right that's not excusable but don't let it make you anything you shouldn't be remember jesus who washed the feet of judus if you need some inspiration so let's read a little more on that on that encouraging note let's read more of the scriptures and as they were eating jesus took bread blessed it and broke it and gave it to them and said take eat this is my body i'm just going to pause there for a moment that we've heard this before and it doesn't sound strange to us imagine how strange it must have hurt been to them who'd never heard anything like this before verse 23 then he took the cup which he had given when he had given thanks he gave it to them and they drank it and he said this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many assuredly i say to you i will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when i drink it new in the kingdom of god and when they had sung a hymn they went out to the mount of olives so with judus gone from the table jesus shifted into something different here he took the bread in the wine which were a traditional part of the Passover dinner and he gave them a new and greater meaning he took the flat lobes of bread the unleavened bread and broke them into pieces and he distributed them around and said this is my body which is broken for you and he took the cup of the wine and passed it around and said this is my blood which is shed for you they did not understand what he meant at the time we understand what he meant this was a symbolic message about his sacrifice the very next morning his body would be broken his blood would be shed they had just finished the Passover meal and the next day jesus was going to be the Passover lamb it would be his blood that covered the sins they finished dinner they sang a worship song and they went off to the mountain on the east of the city the mount of olives dinner with jesus but dinner with jesus is not just dinner when you spend time with jesus every moment is powerful every moment is transformative in the garden on that mountain jesus would pray in great anguish he understood what was going to happen his humanity was distressed but his divinity was determined judus sometime in the night arrived with a contingent of armed men and jesus went willingly and he endured the humiliation and the torture and the mockery and ultimately the cross he gave his life to redeem us from our sins is that the end of the story does it stop there oh man jesus is dead we what do we do now well that's what they said at first do you remember that i said that there were three jewish holidays that were all stuck together like his one was Passover unleavened bread and then there was a third one it's pretty obscure that happens in the middle happens like three days later after unleavened bread starts you remember the name of that one the first fruits first fruits is three days later after the beginning of Passover after the beginning of the the feast of unleavened reds who was the sacrificial lamb they he died on the first day of of unleavened bread three days later its first fruits what happens three days later in the story of jesus he's raised from the dead the festival of first fruits was to celebrate the first of the grain harvest the very first grain was offered to the lord jesus became the first fruits not of the grain but of the dead other people had been raised from the dead but what eventually happened to them died again all those people that jesus raised from the dead they they died again lazarus died again jesus is the first to rise from the dead and never die again the first true resurrection but he will not be the last everybody who trusts in jesus will be raised to everlasting life everlasting life is available to all those who trust in jesus and let me tell you what you trust in jesus and you're saved it doesn't start when you die okay believe it in jesus is not just fire insurance for eternity it is a different life here and now god is calling you into a a transformed life here and now a life where you have some victory over these things that have been binding you victory over the sin that you can't ever seem to kick out of your life he will get with you he will break out a broom and y'all will sweep all the dark corners and sweep out the leaven and get in behind all the stuff in your heart and help you deal with that and he will stick with you and there's no point where he'll say man you're too messed up for me to help human beings will come to the limit of what they can do for you but there is no limit with jesus he will walk with you through any mess he will help you clean out the dark corners his blood will wash away the sins of your past and his resurrection will give you hope for the future so what in the world are you waiting on what are you waiting on i don't know everybody's story in this room i'd some of you have trusted in jesus i know you have because you've testified some of you maybe haven't yet what are you waiting on what are you waiting on he's ready for you to trust and believe let's go to the lord and prayer and if you need to pray and be saved right now you can pray something like this in your heart right now you can pray god i'm i'm sorry for my sin i want a different life i believe that jesus is your son who gave his life to save us please forgive me of my sin i want jesus in my life make me new in jesus name and lord we we pray for all of us that we might awaken to see what jesus has done for us and we might live every day different because of his sacrifice lord we love you and we praise you in jesus name amen amen amen well lord william will be we'll continue in the book of art next week okay we're like way over a year into this thing it's good stuff though god bless you all hope you have a lovely wonderful day and we'll see you next time