Welcome to The Roads Church in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God, through him, all things were made everything and everyone from the gleaming stars to the brilliant sun, every creature on land and sea, every delicate flower, every intricate tree coming to life at the sound of his voice, just as the first creation responded to the noise. As he declared, let there be light and there was light and it was good. Darkness was also in the beginning, void empty and without purpose. There’s a deeper darkness. We’ve been experiencing a heaviness. As we see the evil and chaos around us, the brokenness inside us, we were drawn to the darkness accustomed to the lack of light, our eyes so easily adjusting to the pitch-black night. But it’s in
The midst of that darkness. When we truly realized our desperate need
Of life,
New day is daunting. As we see the great light, the light of life, Jesus Christ. God’s one and only begotten son. He entered the world and invaded our darkness. He became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory full of grace and truth. And we behold him. Now the resurrected King, the light of life, the Lord of them,
The one who paid the price, we could never afford you. You paid your life as a sacrifice. The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world takes away. [inaudible] [inaudible] Jesus. I see his, his body hindrance. They laid him. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]
Welcome to the road’s Easter service. This morning. We’re here to celebrate Jesus. The light of life. He is the light of the world, and we just want to magnify him today. That’s what this day is about. If it’s your first time here, welcome, we just pursued Jesus. And we want to lift his name up because he’s worthy and he’s so good.
He’s worthy of all of our praise.
So I want you to worship with us today at The Roads Church. This is not a performance. This is worship to Jesus. We’re joining with heaven today and praising the name of Jesus. So there’s no other name. That’s greater than his name. So we’re going to sing about his name. This song called your great name.
It’s a simple song called
Geez. Geez. Geez. When you don’t know what to say, you say, geez, I didn’t know what to say, but I knew that tech, jeez, [inaudible] the crown treated the word and he came in bed crowd. He chose. So he [inaudible]. He was [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] she, she, she [inaudible] she,
But I want to invite you to come to this altar right now. I want you to invite you to come to this altar, to step out of your seat and become undignified before God, it may look embarrassing, but today is your breakthrough. [inaudible] what it looks like. And it goes along with Chris’s work. Jesus had Rosen risen from the dead and his disciples didn’t know it. And I believe there were two of them walking down the road and all of a sudden Jesus started walking with them. It was the road to them.
We began talking to them, but they didn’t recognize. And then later after it was revealed to them, that Jesus had risen from the dead. And that was Jesus that was walking with him. They looked at each other and said, did not our hearts burn within us. And I have a word for some people and encourage for some people here is your heart burning within you right now. You may not recognize that Jesus has risen from the dead. You may not realize the reason for the burning in your heart right now, but it’s the risen Lord. The reason that you’re feeling that right now, and you may not understand it is the risk Lord is walking with you at this moment in time. I encourage you to not miss your day of visitation. You’re not here by accident. You’re here by divine appointment, and I want to encourage you to follow up on Chris’s words. Come forward, come forward for your day of visitation that a fire will, everlasting fire will be lit in your heart. Do not miss this opportunity.
She [inaudible] your face facing the sunlight today. God’s bright. Glory has put God rises on you today. His sun rise. [inaudible] your, the name with it. [inaudible] when I was a little girl,
Even when I didn’t know what to pray, all I need to say was the name of Jesus. And even as an adult, there are times that I don’t know what to say or what to pray, but if his name, his name will leave my lips, that there is power in that name in this morning, you’re standing there. And the devil is saying to you, but they don’t know where you’ve been. They don’t know what he’s done, but you know what you being here is not by accident. It’s not just you being here because it’s Easter Sunday. God knew that you would walk through those stores. Just call out to him right there, where you, Jesus sheets, Jesus, Jesus. Even if it’s a whisper, he still hears it. Jesus. If you need to shout it from the rooftop and say, Jesus, in the name, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We call out to you this morning. I release that name Jesus right there, where
This is more than fear, anxiety
Of whatever the devil has stolen. And he is stolen and killed and destroyed. So much of what told me. I just want to be some hope that today is the day of resurrection. So they have life and light and what Jesus had. We’re all always be the cabin of the Trinity. And we will have life on this earth. Please do not want to instill any war from you. Walk out of this place, feeling whole in Jesus name.
Come on, let’s just give the Lord praise today. If he’s worthy in her life, just give him a big shout of praise. Give him an embarrassing praise.
Sweat right now. Just raise your hand. If you just experienced freedom in your life today, just because of being in the atmosphere. Come on, look at that hands all over this place. People being set free. If it’s something noticeable that you noticed dramatically, or you notice this, keep your hand up, raise your hand. If you noticed it, that when you came, you have your bread, which represents the body of Jesus. You also have the juice without any other animal sacrifices that can take away the sins of the world. Lord, that can remove every stain of sin from our lives, but only by the blood of Jesus without the remission, without the shedding of blood. There’s no remission sins. There’s no forgiveness of sin. So God, we thank you, Lord for your blood, your precious, precious, powerful, wonderful blood as we drink today in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Hey, just take a moment and check out the Rose news. And then we’re going to see what’s happening here at the roads church.
Good morning church, happy Easter. And welcome to the roads. We are excited to be together today to worship and connect with the one who is the light of life. Jesus, as one church, with many locations, our North city campus, our Mount Carmel campus and our E Rhodes family. As you join us from your homes, through your devices all over our nation, wherever you are, Jesus is amazing. And being in his presence is everything. If you’re joining us on one of our campuses this morning for the first time, take a minute to fill out your connect card found in your worship guide that you got. When you came into service after service, stop by our next steps table on your way out. We’d love to get to me you and give you a welcome gift. And if you’re joining us online today for the first time, we’d love to hear from you to go ahead and text the word roads to (618) 243-0900.
Are you wondering how you can get to know The Roads Church and get more involved? Growth track is your next step. Our North city campus offers growth track on Sundays at 10:30 AM in the growth track room. And it was a four week class. We also offer our fast track growth track in April. That gives you all four classes in one day. And this is available at both our Mount Carmel campus and our North city campus. Please check your worship guide for details and fast-track registration information, Mark your calendars and land to gather for prayer at our Eagles prayer meeting this Monday, April 5th, located at our North city campus. We get started at 6:00 PM and everyone is welcome. We want to invite you to join us for our first Wednesday on April 7th at six 30, located at our North city campus auditorium, our adventure Avenue and Allie roads, kids classes.
We’ll be joining our youth and adults in the auditorium for service our dreamers drive in wonder way classes for ages. One to three years, we’ll still be operating during our first Wednesday service at our North city campus child check-in begins at six 15. Our first Wednesday service is live streamed at our Mount Carmel campus. There are so many ways for you and your family to connect with Jesus and our here at the roads with our roads kid services every Sunday at 10 30 at both our Mount Carmel and our North city campus, our move youth meeting on Wednesdays, our roads groups meeting in homes and our roads crew serving one another. Make sure to check out the worship guide or our website@wwwdottheroads.church for more information and visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel for all of our services and pastor Chad’s teachings. That’s all for the roads news. We love you. Rhodes family. Welcome home.
Thank you. Good morning. I’ll try that. Good to have all of you with us. Welcome to resurrection Sunday here at the road’s church, wherever you’re watching from. We want to thank all of our heroes, family, our overflow room. People just take a moment and look in the camera. Thanks to people that are watching our eat groups. They’re watching from the Northwoods, Wisconsin, Roxboro, North Carolina. We’ve got people that are new friends in Decatur, Illinois, LaSalle, Illinois, who am I forgetting at? Fort Bragg, North Carolina, some of our military guys watching there at Fort Bragg. We’re just thankful for all of them. We got one of our, uh, one of our roads groups watch parties from Tyler, Texas are here this morning and purpose and [inaudible] and then a special shout out today to our family. Uh, that’s meats a little bit North of here on the same road, but just same, a little bit up the road. Mount Carmel, our roads, Mount Carmel people. This is their first ever Easter service at Mount Carmel. Can we give our roads family Mount Carmel? What’s up guys.
So glad to have you guys with us. We were supposed to launch in morning services at Mount Carmel last year on Easter, and then obviously something happened and we weren’t able to have services up there at all. So this was their first ever Easter morning service. So just pumped about that honor to have them with us and again, thankful for each and every one of you choosing to come and just celebrate Jesus again. We’re not here to celebrate ourselves. We just want to celebrate him and what he’s done in our life. He’s the one that we want to acknowledge and give all the glory and praise to because he’s the one that’s worthy of it. Does anybody agree with me on that this morning? I do have a couple of things I want to mention too. Um, the special honoring of our drummer, Ben, Dennis, I don’t know if you know, if you ever watched inside the drum enclosure every once in a while, he plays the bass, but Ben and his wonderful family, Maddie and the kids are going to be moving to Missouri.
So this has been his last day on the drums. So I just want to give a big hand, clap to Ben and Maddie, their family. Thank you, Ben and Maddie, we love you. We love you better. They don’t know this is happening. They don’t know. Oh, the dentists love you guys. Another little sad, a little one-upmanship. And your last week I celebrated a puny 23 years of marriage, but this, this week, John and Angela waltz are separate celebrating 40 years of marriage today. We’ll give it up for John and John and Angela 40 years, way to just one up my P measly little life 40. That’s fantastic though. All joking aside. Fantastic. I didn’t think 23 sounded like forever 23 years ago, but we’re thankful for what God is doing. Hey, I want to jump right into the message. Um, yeah, we’ve got a lot to go on, but man, wasn’t the worship.
Great. And we could have just stayed there ministry time again. One always make sure and remind you. Nobody comes for anybody on the platform. We all come for Jesus. If he doesn’t show up, we’re wasting our time. So we just want to always give room for him and what he wants to do. So let’s just pray. Invite him to speak to us father. I just thank you that you’re the one that’s worthy. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We look to you and we celebrate you. Come speak life, speak truth. Holy spirit, whatever you desire to do shine your light right now in Jesus name. Everybody say amen. 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, uh, 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 at 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 I’m going to 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 into. Now the veil in the temple separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy place. The Holy of Holies is 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 died, 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, 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. Woo. Tear that baby up. And let’s go in, was torn in two from top to bottom. And the earthquakes, 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 fall 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 the bodies of the saints and coming out of the graves. After every say, 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, 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, but he sons James and John verse 57, the sons of thunder, who I was trying to think of their nickname, their mothers, James.
Yes. Read on verse 57. Now when he makes it tough, 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. No one had come help me, Lord Jesus, just even he’d come there came a rich man from Aaron. Muthee named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man 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 wrapped it in clean linen cloth and laid it in his tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock. He rolled a large stone. noted 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 like you couldn’t have. There was no sunlight. There was no light anywhere. It just settled supernaturally on the ground. And it was the darkness of sin and separation from God. That’s what that darkness represented. Darkness came on the land. So now he was surrounded by darkness when he’s 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 and surrounded in darkness and 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? Maybe even in this last year, if you’ve experienced 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 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 things 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 there in the light. It’s just the light throw. Yeah, whatever.
So here’s the question I pose. 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 been afraid of what they couldn’t see. He might have 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 darkness.
Number three, depression, darkness can cause depression. Medically news today reported that before the pandemic 8.5% of the U S 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, they can’t get out. They can’t do anything. Darkness starts to move in depression in Barrow, 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.
We 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 Gran 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, when it’s dark, it releases that and tells you it’s time to go. Night-night unless you work third shift, then you’ve 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. Think we’ve all dealt with that one case of another. So 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 and 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. Look at Genesis chapter one. I’m going to go way back to the beginning.
Genesis chapter one. We’ll look in verse one, the beginning, not roundabout beginning, but the beginning, according to 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 war 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 forming 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 telling 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, ready to move houses?
That encouraged 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, Hey, God’s not doing anything. You can’t 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 ours. Then God, verse three. Then God said, then God said, let there be, Ooh. 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 checking 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 light. He didn’t saw light and then go, wow, light. He saw darkness and said light.
He 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 say what God says and release the light, but on our culture, we want to wait till 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 turned around, I’ll say, no, no, no, God says, 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. Then my light will be free to shine. That’s not how you 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 it. 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 in the midst of my problem and saying, you will line up with what God says.
See, we were, 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.
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, uh, and to 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’m, then I want to run away from God and get totally involved in premarital sex and just get into 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 time 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 is 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? Got it. What do you got to lose? Give him a chance. Give him a couple of swings. Give him a couple of 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’s good. So afterwards you have homework. You have to read all of John chapter 11 before you eat Easter lunch. Look at verse, uh, 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 days. 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 of 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 done. If you’d have been here earlier, if you’d 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 you never put a date on God and said, Lord, I’m going to trust you. You’ve got until 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’ve 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 is not there, but this is 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 sang. She didn’t stop there. Verse 22. But even now,
Yeah,
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’d had been here before, he wouldn’t have even died books or
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 would’ve 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 in 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 said, Jesus, nothing is impossible with you even now, even when it’s too late. Even when everybody else says to Ellis, if it would have happened earlier, I’m sure it would have 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 dibs. 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, but I don’t see it and don’t hear it. And someone tells me this is what’s going to happen and see opposite of what I wanted to happen. And now, so what do I do now? Even now I’m going to trust God. So go on, look at this jumping jump verse 38, because he told her, he said, yo, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life you 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 30, then Jesus. Again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb. It was the cave and a stone don’t 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, take away the stone I meditate on. Am I thinking, I God, 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 har hiding some secret compartments of darkness in ourselves and light can’t get in. God wants to change her life. He wants to do some, 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 to speak to your, and my stone. 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 said stone. Absolutely. So why did he, why did he say, Hey, tell them, take the stone away. You do what you can do. And I’ll do what you can to. If you’ll roll the stone away, let the light in, take the stone away. So Martha, Martha, the sister of him, his death, you know, Lord, no, take the stone away in the men. But now he’s, he’s, he’s thinking vendetta for days and create some rotary for semination. It’s going to come out of that tomb. But look what he said to him. 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.
It says, if you will believe, you will see if you will say, you will see he’s telling us, we got to 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 happened once they took the stone away? What happened? What, what got in light? 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. I’m jumping ahead. 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? What’d he specify? What? Didn’t he just say, come forward. Why didn’t you say, Hey, come on out. If he didn’t specify Lazarus, if he just said, come forward, everybody would have been getting up out of there. But here’s what Chris would have. There’s 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. They said, Hey, Lazarus died. Could you send Steve? Hey Lazarus died. Could you send somebody in and say, Hey, Lazarus is dead. Can you send Peter, could you send James? John Matthew don’t send Judas, but could you sin?
When they set, when they sent for him, they sent for him by name. They sit 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 the situation in my life. I’m buried in uncertainty, fear and depression. When I say Jesus, he calls out, come forth, let the light in, 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 equal 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. 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 life can come in and come on out and experienced the freedom that God has for you. But you’ve got to move. The soul hurts. A disappointment. Church hurts a person hurt unforgiveness, pushing that Stone’s going to be hard work, but I tell you, Jesus will come along. I know he tells you the stone, but I believe he 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 and call 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 erodes family right here in the room, overflow room, wherever you are. Can we just pray your style, your heads with me, take away the stone. It’s time to take away the stone and it’s time to take away the stone of her heartache and disappointment. It’s time to take away the stone of discouragement fear. Let the light of God come in.
I’m not here to do anything. I’m here to connect you to the one that comes to bring light in life at The Roads Church. Maybe you asked them Holy spirit right now. Lord show me my stones. Show me. What’s blocking me, keeping darkness in and keeping the light out. Lord. I want to be an open book to you. I’m not in this just to play the game, Lord, I want to be real this morning. I’m rolling away stones. I’m asking you to shine your light. Let Jesus in. Maybe you’ve been overwhelmed by uncertainty, overwhelmed by fear, afraid of what you can’t see. Maybe depression has set in, but I’m telling you, the spirit of God is moving right now. Your darkness. He says, if you say Jesus, he speaks, come forth, come out, be free today.
If you’re here listening to me and the sound of my voice, you’re saying to me that, Hey, I’m not, I’m not where I need to be with God. Today is your resurrection. Sunday. I want to give you a chance to meet my savior, your savior, the Redeemer. His name is Jesus. I don’t want anybody to be impressed with me. I’m nothing. It’s Jesus. It’s Jesus. If you want to accept Christ into your life through here, and you say, Chad, I, I came to church today and now God is touching my life. Maybe you’ve had some Stony heart issues, but you’re ready to move that stone out of the way and let God come in. Did you not know that if you believe you would see the glory of God, I want to lead you in a prayer. We’re all going to pray together. But if you want to make Jesus, the Lord of your life, I want to give you some words, but I cannot give you the meaning. You’ve got to mean it in your own heart. You got to believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and you need him. Your only hope for life is in Jesus.
So if you’re ready to make that commitment, not to pray a prayer, mind you, but to dedicate your life to him, he died for you. We need to live for him. We pray this all together. If that’s you and you want to make that commitment today, pray this with all of your heart. Say it together. Say dear Jesus today, I changed my life by accepting you forgive me. I repent come into my heart and be my Lord. I believe you died on the cross for my sins. I believe you Rose from the dead to give me new life. Let your light shine in me.
I receive your love. I receive new life. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for saving me. I am born again. Jesus day. Amen. Amen. Come on. Can we get those afraid of prayer I had this morning. Listen, do me a favor. If you’re in one of our services and you pray that prayer, take out your connect card. Stop by our new life table and hand in that connect card marked on there today. The light of life came in my heart today. Accepted Jesus. If you’re watching online, take out your phone and text new life. That word, all one word new life to the number (618) 243-0900 (618) 243-0900. Before we go, we always give an opportunity for you to respond. If you need prayer, what you need in your life is not another sermon. You need an encounter of the power of God.
So if you would stand and I want to give an opportunity for prayer, got a couple of words of knowledge that I want to give, where to knowledge is a gift of the Holy spirit found in first Corinthians chapter 12, where prayer, God would tell us something that he wants to do. And then he’s the only one that can do it. Someone needing healing from chronic migraines. If that’s you, we want to pray for that. You go ahead and make your way to the front there in Mount Carmel right here. If you’re watching from home and that’s you, you can just begin to receive right now. God knows no boundaries. Also had a word of knowledge about healing of lingering effect of prolapsed uterus. So if that’s you, that’s pretty specific. If that’s you and you’re dealing with that right now, you should be thinking today, I’m getting healed because that’s pretty specific.
So let’s just pray. Even if it’s not one of those things, God wants to touch your life. If you need prayer for you, if you want more of God, if you want God to help you shine light and darkness, if you want to roll the stone away while our team is here to pray for you, it’s Jesus that you’re going to encounter. It’s not us. It’s him. We’re releasing him to demonstrate what he’s been talking about in this message, bringing new life to you. Holy spirit, we just released to do what’s on the heart of heaven right now. I thank you for healing. People watching people in Mount Carmel, people in overflow room, people right here in the auditorium. We thank you. That migraines are being healed by the stripes of Jesus. It was. We just trust you to do those things. God, I just thank you for healing.
This uterus issue in Jesus’ name, thank you for people with blood disorders got up. We’re just coming to agreement for those that you bring healing into that blood in the name of Jesus platelet deficiency. I’m hearing that platelet deficiency. God, I pray that you bring healing and abundance. There balance that out for the glory of God, lingering ongoing sinus infection, antibiotics have not been able to get rid of it. You’re still dealing with it, father. I thank you for the power of the Holy spirit right now. We tell you to go in Jesus name, let the light of God come Lord, you are worthy. You are worthy all praise and glory to you above all others. We praise you in Jesus name. Listen, I’m going to turn it over to our service hosts. They’ve got a few things they want to mention to you. If you need prayer, come up front. We’ll be available to pray for you immediately. Following service eman homies, thankful for that word this morning. How many needed that this morning? So it’s an amazing word. A timely word. Amen. Rose family. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope that you had a great experience today and we’ll catch you next week at The Roads Church.