Welcome to The Roads Church All right. Here’s the roads church. We get excited about the Bible. Every time we open it up, you’re like, man, you guys are rowdy bunch of people, but it’s because Jesus was rowdy for us. So we believe it’s only worthy to be on a rowdy back. So we get pumped about the Bible. If you got your Bibles today, get them out. Let’s open them up to Matthew chapter 27, Matthew 27 sermon notes are available there in your worship guides as well as the YouVersion Bible app. If you’d like to follow along there, please bring your Bibles to church. If you can make sure I’m not making anything up.
Matthew chapter 27, I’m going to read a long passage of scripture here, and then we will jump into it. Is everybody ready? All right. Let’s let’s go. Verse 45 says now from the sixth hour, until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land. Now the sixth hour, if you’re wanting to know what time that is, that is noon midday. So from noon to 3:00 PM, the Bible says for that three hour period of time, there was darkness over all the land. We’ll come back to that in about the ninth hour or three o’clock in the afternoon, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying Eli, Eli Lama. Sabachthani. That is my God. My God. Why have you forsaken me now? Jesus is not just randomly complaining to God right there. He’s actually, if you look it up, he’s quoting Psalms 22. So he’s literally speaking the word of God back to God, quoting, fulfilling a prophecy that was written hundreds of years prior to this, in that moment.
Some of those who stood there when they heard Jesus say this, they said this man’s calling for Elijah. This could get interesting. Immediately. One of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with sour wine and put it on a Reed and offered it to him to drink. Then the rest said, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come to save him. You got some popcorn out there. Excited, waiting to see what’s getting ready to happen. Verse 50. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Very important. The word yielded. He yielded his spirit. That word in the Greek means to literally send away to release, to discharge. See Jesus did not die in the fact that they took his life. You can’t kill the giver of life. He yielded his spirit. In other words, he said, okay, you can’t kill me, but I’m going to send my spirit off because the time has come.
So that morning, I want to encourage you that when Jesus yielded his spirit, he was the one in control of that moment. And it wasn’t the devil taking life from him. He gave his life for your sake and for mine. That’s how powerful Jesus is. He yielded up his spirit. Then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two. Now the veil in the temple separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy place. The Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the covenant was where the presence of God would come and settle. One day on the day of atonement once per year, the high priest, the only one that could go in behind the veil, no one could go into the presence of God or they would die. They would literally tie a rope around them with bells on them. Once they went in, in case they die, they can pull them out.
So it is when Jesus died though, notice the veil torn in two from top to bottom, the veil was so tall up there and so thick, no human being could clean them up and tear it from the top. So it was the symbol that God was saying, you can’t come to me, but I’m coming to you. What’s separating me and you I’m taking it out of the way. You can walk into the presence of God. We’ll have to wait for just the high priest. We all can get in the presence of God. Whoo. Tear that baby up. And let’s go in, was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth quaked, the rocks were split and the graves were opened. Don’t miss this part of the story. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Now falling asleep means they were dead like doorknob, dead, like buried dead in the graves.
They didn’t have a straw. There’s breathing to keep them alive. It says they were dead. They were raised on the bodies of the saints and coming out of the graves. After every say, after, after his resurrection, they went into the Holy city and appeared to myth. So here’s the power. When Jesus Rose from the dead, after his resurrection, it caused others to actually be raised from the dead. After he raised from the dead. Others can get in anybody else thankful that after Jesus Rose from the dead you get in and you can be raised to new life too. That’s good. That’s not the sermon, but it’s just good stuff. So when the Centurion and those with him regarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that happened, they feared greatly saying truly, this was the son of God and many women who followed Jesus from gallery ministering to him where they’re looking on from afar among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Joseph and mother of [inaudible] sons, James and John verse 57, the sons of thunder, who I was trying to think of their nickname, their leathers James.
Yes. Read on verse 57. Now when he makes it, sorry, my brain just took off and was just over here somewhere. I had to really back in, where did you go? Just looking at the page now, when he had come help me, Lord Jesus, just even he’d come there came a rich man from Aaron Lithia, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This went to pilot and asked for the body of Jesus. Then pilot commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body and rafted in clean linen cloth and laid it in his tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock. He rolled a large stone. Make note of that. He rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there. And the other Mary sitting opposite the tomb.
I want to make note of something, go back to verse 45 says now in the sixth hour, until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land. When Jesus was crucified, he was crucified. This was the most difficult time in his life. And in the middle of that moment, he was surrounded by darkness. Now it says darkness was on all the land. This was not a solar eclipse. This was a supernatural phenomenon, much like what happened in the land of Egypt with the children of Israel that literally the land became dark. Like dark, dark, not light. You couldn’t have. There was no sunlight. There was no light anywhere. It just settled supernaturally on the graph. And it was the darkness of sin and separation from God. It’s what that darkness represented. Darkness came on the land. So now he was surrounded by darkness when he was crucified.
And then now go back to verse 60. And then after he died, he was buried in darkness. So they rolled a large stone against the door. And now he’s stuck in darkness. There’s no way out. All hope is seemingly lost. He is buried in the tube. Do you ever feel like there is darkness in your land? Have you ever felt like you’ve been buried and surrounded in darkness as begin to lose hope and what’s going to happen? And when things are going to get better, how many of us have experienced that? The Roads Church Maybe even in this last year, if you’ve experienced the darkness, I want to talk about how darkness can impact our lives. Three ways. There’s a lot of different ways, but I’m just going to highlight three of them. Three ways that darkness can impact our lives. Number one, when it’s dark, it creates uncertainty.
You go into a room and the lights are off you don’t. I know where you’re going. You don’t know what’s in front of you. It can create uncertainty and confusion. When we get into darkness in our life, it creates a moment or time in our life, a season of our life, where we’re just uncertain things that normally you wouldn’t would not trip you up. They’re tripping you up because you’re in the darkness. Maybe you trip over the furniture. Maybe you trip over the coffee table or thinks that if the light was on that, wouldn’t get you. But when we’re in darkness, there are things that can happen in our life. That trip us up, that if we’re not in darkness, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. How many has ever stepped on a Lego piece? That’s been left out overnight. Praise the Lord for those love those. So darkness creates uncertainty or confusion. Number two. Darkness can have this effect on us. It can cause fear. Have you ever said, you’re afraid of the dark Ms. Ever heard your parents say, Hey, the same things are there or not there in the dark that’s air in the light. It’s just the light
Throw. Yeah, whatever.
So here’s the question I posted. Are we truly afraid of the dark or are we more accurate to say we’re afraid of what we can’t see that might be in the dark. I don’t know if the darkness is really what scares us. It’s the fact of what we don’t knows in the darkness. So the fear comes when we don’t know what’s there. Anybody being afraid of what they couldn’t see. He might’ve been afraid of what might happen that they didn’t know about, of what might take place or what might, how things might end up Mike turnout. The enemy can surround us with darkness of uncertainty, get us overwhelmed with darkness and fear. When we don’t know how things are going to play out with this situation, our family, with our friends, our own health, the diagnosis, this, the pandemic, the, this, the election, when we don’t know how things are going to pan out, fear can grip us with the unknown. It’s not the darkness that we fear as much as the not being able to see in the dark.
Number three,
Depression, darkness can cause depression, medical news today reported that before the pandemic 8.5% of the us adults surveyed, reported being depressed. But over the last year, that number has risen to 28% from 8.5 to 28% in Borrowell Alaska. So darkness has a impact whether we’re shut up when people are shut up and they can’t get out, they can’t do anything. Darkness starts to move in
Depression
In Borrowell Alaska, the Northern most community in North America. The sun does not rise for 65 days from dusk, November 19th to Dawn, January 23rd, 65 straight days with no sunlight studies suggest that as many as 20% of Alaskan suffer from seasonal affective disorder or sad, a mood disorder triggered by light deprivation. According to Dr. Aaron Wolf, a psychologist at Langdon clinic in Anchorage, Alaska. See what happens when darkness see we have what’s called a pineal gland in our brain and the pineal grant gland is wired to our eyes. And how it works is that when light comes into our eyes and it works, it begins to trigger in the pineal grant, pineal gland to release serotonin, which is kind of a pick me up. It’s a, it’s a go getter. It’s, it’s something that’s going to help you get moving. But when it’s dark around that pineal gland releases melatonin.
That’s the one that’s dark. It releases that and tells you it’s time to go. Night-night unless you work third shift, then you got to work that out. You’ll get your pineal gland rewired, but this is what happens. So what happens when darkness comes, it releases this melatonin and begins to settle us down and bring us down. And so we’ve got to be careful where when darkness, when we’re surrounded by darkness, depression, consent in, on our lives. And we’ve seen that in mass quantities over the last year. So how many people have ever felt buried in darkness in one of these areas, uncertainty, fear, depression, like we’ve all dealt with that one case of another. So if that’s what darkness can do to us, what’s the solution. What’s the weapon. Are we stuck in it? If we’re going to experience darkness, we just there’s no hope.
What do we do? If, what is God’s answer? Let’s look at what God’s answers to darkness was looking at Genesis chapter one. I’m gonna go way back to the beginning. Genesis chapter one, we’ll look at one the beginning, not roundabout beginning, but the beginning, of course, reading the scripture Genesis one, one, it says these words, these three in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form. Here was the condition of the earth. Here’s the condition of God’s surroundings in God’s life. Check this out in the beginning was the word was sorry. It was the beginning in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form. Here’s what without four means without four means waste desolation, no distinct shame, shape or form a worthless thing. That’s the shape the earth was in without form and void. Void means empty. Undistinguishable ruin and darkness was on the face of the deep or darkness was on the surface of the deep, but notice the next part. So here’s the earth. Here’s the condition of the earth. It’s without form, it’s worthless, it’s wasted. It has no shape. It’s empty. It’s undistinguishable. Darkness is covering the face or the surface of the deep, but the spirit of God was hovering.
Brooding, moving,
Shaking over the face of the waters. So notice this, we’ve got the face of the waters or the surface of the waters and we’ve got darkness is on the surface. And then we got the spirit of God and the Bible says, it’s hovering. Now. It says it’s hovering. It’s not
Like just
The Hebrew word for hovering. There means literally to move back and forth in a quick motion, almost like you could use the word gyrating. So what does that tell me? So that in the presence of darkness, in this worthless void, empty place of nothing, the spirit of God in the same face, face, face, same place, the spirit of God is there waiting.
I need to move houses. That encourage me
That no matter how dark it seems, my circumstances are, the spirit of God is always moving in my life. Even if I can’t see it, even if I can’t hear it, even if I can’t feel it, even wherever there’s darkness, the spirit of God is moving, waiting on God to do something he’s ready. He’s already, you’re like, man, God’s not doing anything. You see it. But he’s moving in the same place. There’s darkness. The same place. The spirit of God is. So look what happened. The spirit of God’s they’re just hovering. I’m not sure that’s how it was working, but I’m just going with it. He was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God, verse three. Then God said, then God said, let there be. So God said, let there be light. And there was light. Then God said, let there be light. And there was, so God said the light came through his word. He spoke and light came Psalm one 19 verse 30, one 30 says the entrance of your words gives light. So God said, let there be light. And there was life verse four and God saw the light that it was good. So now just check this out. Notice the pattern, darkness. God sees nothing but darkness empty, worthless void. He said light verse four. He saw light. Notice the order. He said, light Vinnie saw lights.
He didn’t
Saw light and then go, wow. Light. He saw darkness and said light.
Yeah,
You saw empty void, worthless thing and set light. We want to wait until we see God do something before we agree with what God said, but God said, we’ve got to learn to say it before we see it. We got to declare it into the darkness, into the hopelessness. If to the empty and the void. We got to say what God says and release the light, but on our culture, we want to wait until we see it. I’ll believe it. When I see it, when I see her change, then I’ll say something. When I see him change, then I’ll say something. When I see that circumstance turn around, I’ll say, no, no, no God said, I said it. Then I saw it. We got to stop waiting to see it. And we got to say what he says. So he spoke into, he spoke light into the darkness and light came and started driving the darkness out. Now did God tell darkness to go away so that light could come. You ask it again. Did God tell darkness? He saw darkness? Did he say now, now darkness, you go away. So my light can come.
Darkness of fuel diminish than my light will be free to shine. That’s not how he said, did God ask darkness? His permission? If light could shine, he didn’t say, Hey darkness, let me just, is it okay if I bring some light on this subject, he did not talk to the darkness at all. We’re focusing too much on the darkness and not enough on the light. We got to say, listen, I’m not asking for depression to go. I’m not asking for my circumstances to get better. I’m speaking like right into the midst of my problem and saying, you will line up with what God says.
See, we here The Roads Church. We get backwards. Sometimes we thinking when darkness goes away, then the church will shine. No, no, no, no. When things get better, when all this craziness settles down, no we’re not waiting for craziness to settle down. We’re letting the light of God shine. So the light drives out darkness. That’s the pattern that we see here in scripture. So it’s the same thing we saw in John chapter one, the new Testament version of Genesis. One, one is where it says in verse five, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it, or it could not overpower it. So you can’t turn up darkness. You can only turn down light.
Yeah.
I don’t know many people that wake up a certain point in their life and say, Hey, I want to be a drug addict.
I want
To get married someday and go through a horrible divorce and traumatize. My whole family. I want to, I want to go. I want to come up and come into this place in my life where I do this or that. Nobody aspires for that. Nobody wants bad things in their life. What happens? Here’s how I think it works. It’s not that we say I want more evil in my life. It’s when we start turning down, the light darkness gets bigger. I don’t know many teenagers that were raised in church that say, Hey, I want to run away from the church and never serve God again. Once I get out of the house, I want to decide when I go to church and when I don’t want to run away from God and get totally involved in premarital sex and just get them doing whatever I want to do. And man, those are going to be the days. I don’t know many kids in church raised at 11, 12 years old. They say that’s their goal in life,
But
How does it happen? It happens when we begin to turn the light down, I’m not praying as much. I’m not reading my Bible. I’m not going to churches. But when we turn the light down, the darkness gets bigger. You don’t turn up darkness. You turn down light. So keep our lights shining and driving the darkness right out of our life. It overpowers the darkness. So now let me go. Just for time sake, I’ve got to run to John, go to John chapter 11. So wherever darkness exists, we have to turn the light on to overpower it. John chapter 11, the book of John gospel of John Jesus said, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. We’re going to follow after Jesus and have the light of life. But I want to tell you something. It is never too late to bring the light of life, to drive out darkness or to bring dead things back to life.
We’re celebrating resurrection Sunday. And it’s a great to think about things that might be dead in your life too late in your life to let Jesus come in and have a chance at it. You’re facing some situations, some circumstances, maybe even your own thought life. And you’re like, it’s too late. It’s too late in that relationship situation. It’s too late in my family. It’s too late for my wife or my husband is too late for my kids. It’s too late for my job. It’s too late. Before you say the words too late. Why don’t you give Jesus a crack at it? What do you got to lose? Give him a chance. Give him a couple of swings. Give him a couple hacks at it. Let me give you an example of one that did that. John chapter 11, this is a story of Lazarus. And then the whole chapter is good. So afterwards you have homework. You have to read all of John chapter 11 before you eat Easter lunch. I look at verse
For time’s sake. Let me see. All right. So Jesus, let me just summarize, give you a backstory. So Lazarus and Mary and Martha Good friends of Jesus, good friends with her family. Jesus is away. Lazarus gets sick and dies. They sent for Jesus. They called for Jesus. And they said, Hey, your friend Lazarus is going to die. Jesus, intentionally waits for days, intentionally waits for Dave. So Lazarus is dead. He goes in and dies. They bury him. He’s in the tomb. Okay? So now Jesus finally shows up four days later and I want to give a little bit of props to Martha this morning. A lot of times when you compare Martha and Mary, a lot of people celebrate Mary. Like she’s the only spiritual one, just because that whole setting at Jesus’ feet thing, which is great. We love them both. Before you throw some shade on Martha, I want you to see how she had some spirituality right here as well.
Look at verse 32, Jesus shows up. This is when Mary came, where Jesus was and saw him. She fell down at his feet saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Period. Verse 33, Jesus saw her weeping. She’s just crying. That’s not a negative. Just saying that was her response. That’s what she’s doing. Lord. If you’d have been here, my brother would not have died. If you’d have been here earlier. If you had gotten here before that happened, there might be hope in my situation. If you’d have got here before she said that we were okay until she said that you’d been, if you’d have been here before he did that, once he did that, I’m done. That’s the last straw. That’s the one that broke the camel’s back. If you’d have been here before that diagnosis, if you’d been here before I went to the doctor and they said, this is what’s going to happen. If you’d have been here earlier, is anybody relating to what I’m talking about? Sometimes we put a clock on God and we said, well, you can do some great things. As long as you get here by , he never
Put a date on God said, Lord, I’m going to trust you. You’ve got to till next Thursday, I need breakthrough. And if it doesn’t happen by then, it’s going to be too late. She’s already told me that if it doesn’t happen by this week, he’s already told me if it doesn’t happen by then, the boss already told me whatever it may be. If it doesn’t have, I’ve already got a deadline, God, you’re on the clock. Jesus said, if you would have died. So now let’s look at Martha, go back to verse 20. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him. But Mary was sitting in the house. So Mary’s not there, but this was just Martha verse 21. Now Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Same thing. Mary said, same thing.
Mary said, both of them said the exact same word for word, Lord. If you would have been here, my brother would not have died, but I want you to see what Martha finished on saying she didn’t stop there verse 22. But even now, but come on, you got to say this with you, but even now, but even now Martha said, listen, I know you’re four days late and I know we’ve already buried the guy. And I know if you had been here before, he wouldn’t have even died, but there’s something Martha had on the inside of her. That was different. I don’t know if Mary just was emotional at the time and couldn’t get it or whatever. I’m not trying to criticize either one of them, but I’m just saying something jumped out of the page at me. When I read this, that Martha said, if you would’ve been here earlier by marriage could have been saved.
If you’d have been here earlier, my kid wouldn’t have been this way, but this wouldn’t have happened. My job would’ve if you would’ve done this pit here earlier, before this took place, I still would have had some hope. But Martha said, but even now, even now, even when it’s too late, even when it seems impossible, even when it’s buried, even when it’s over, even now, what’s she say, even now I know mother said, even now I know, I know, I know for me and my life, it doesn’t matter what Ted knows do. I know I’m not going to have hope based on what you know, you’re not going to have hope based on what I know it’s do you know? She said, Jesus, I know it’s late and they would’ve, you would’ve been here. Things would have turned out differently. But even now I know the, whatever, whatever you ask of God, whatever.
In other words she say, Jesus, nothing is impossible with you even now, even when it’s too late. Even when, when everybody else says, well, if it would’ve happened earlier, I’m sure it would’ve been good, but it’s too late. Now, even now, some of you are going to have to stir up some even now anointing in your life. But you say just like Martha did. I know it feels like it’s too late. I know it feels like it’s over. But even now, Lord, whatever you say, whatever you say is able to happen in my life. We want to wait till we see favorable circumstance. I know that’s the way I am. I I’m having trouble walking it out when I don’t see it and don’t hear it at someone tells me this is what’s going to happen and the opposite of what I wanted to happen.
And now, so what am I do now? Even now I’m going to trust God. So go, just jump, jump verse 38. Because he told her said, uh, yo Martha, I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in me though, he may die. He shall live. It’s never too late for me. He was saying, it’s never too late for me. Verse 38, then Jesus, again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb. It was the cave and a stone lay against it. Remember the stone over Jesus to a stone lay against it. And Jesus said, take away the stone, take away the stone.
Can we, the stone I meditate on. Am I thinking I got, what are you trying to say? When the stone rolled over the tomb, it became dark. And the stone represents what keeps the darkness in and the light out. And we’ve all got stones in our life hurts. Insecurities, setbacks, rejection, failures, whatever it may be. We got some stone. That’s ha hiding some secret compartments of darkness in ourselves and light can’t get in. God wants to change her life. He wants to do something, but the stones in the way the stones are blocking. It’s keeping the darkness here. We want to get out, but we can’t because the stones there and God’s wanting you to speak to your, and my sister, he’s saying to you take the stone away. Notice he didn’t say stone rolled away. He taught, he told bill, could Jesus have it said stone.
Absolutely. So why did you, why did he say, Hey, tell them, take the stone away. You do what you can do once you can’t to, if she’ll roll this tone away, let the light in the stone away. So Martha, Martha, the sister of is this your Lord, no, take the stone away in the men. But now he sees he’s stinking. Bendet in there for days, create some rotary for semination. It’s going to come out of that tomb. But look what he said to her verse 40. Did I not say this is to somebody? You got to hear this first. Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God, which came first, which came first, seeing the glory of God or believing in that verse that says, if you will believe, you will see if you will say, you will see he’s telling us,The Roads Church we gotta believe and speak what God says. And then we see the glory of God. Then we see the light come. Then they took away the stone. What happened? What, what happened once they took the stone away? What happened? What, what God in life, once they took the stone away, light came in. The darkness has driven out the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, praise to the father, the verse 43, just for time sake and jumping here. Now, when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice.
Lazarus come forth, took the stone away. What’d he say Lazarus? Did he specify? Why didn’t he just say, come forward? Why didn’t you just say, Hey, come on out. If he didn’t specify Lazarus, come forth. Everybody would have been getting up out of there. But here’s what Chris would ask for something else. I saw that so good. When Lazarus died, they called for Jesus. They sent for Jesus. When they called, they called for they didn’t call for Bob. Let’s say, Hey, Lazarus died. Could you send Steve? Hey, Lazarus died. Could you send somebody in and say, Hey, Lazarus is dead. Could you send Peter, could you send James? John Matthew don’t send Judas. But could you sin where they set? When they sent for him, they sent for him by name. They sent for Jesus. When Jesus showed up, he called Lazarus by name.
When you call out the name of Jesus, he will say to you, I’m thankful that when I say Jesus, I’m in darkness. In this situation, in my life, I’m buried in uncertainty, fear and depression. When I say Jesus, he calls out, check, cut for the light, take the stone away. And this is what I felt like God wanted to do today. He wants to take the stone away. Some of, some of us we’ve got stones on our hearts. That’s blocking the light of God. He’s eco 36, 26 says this, no clothes. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. I’m saying to someone, your name may not be Lazarus, but I don’t know what your name is. But God is saying to you move the stone out of the way. So my light can come in and come on out and experience the freedom that God has for you. But you’ve got to move the soul.
A hurts, a disappointment. A church hurts a person hurt unforgiveness, pushing that. Stone’s going to be hard work. I tell you, Jesus will come along. I know he tells you the food was stolen, but I believe he’d comes along with a little finger. It helps me push it right on out the way that if you’re willing, if you’ll say Jesus had called out to him today, I believe he’s going to call your name. I believe he’s going to say to you, I believe he’s speaking to people right now. Once you lie in Mount Carmel, hero’s family right here in the room, overflow room, wherever you are.
Thanks so much for watching with us. We love our online family and we invite you to connect with us. We have a few different ways. You can do that on our website@theroads.church, as well as on social media, you can text to give by texting the amount space, roads to four, five, seven, seven, seven, and we’d love to pray for any needs you might have. So send us a message and let us know how we can partner with you in bringing the light and love of Jesus to your world.Thank you for being with us here at The Roads Church.