CAPTIONS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED Welcome to the Bridge Church Greenbrier podcast, where we connect all people to the person, power, and purpose of Jesus. Wherever you are listening from, we're so glad that you are joining us. Now let's listen to this week's message. God is, he's full of comeback stories. He's full, he wants to meet people right where they are in the broken spots that they are.
And when their life's in a million of pieces, when they think that this is how life is always going to be, and then Jesus shows up on the scene. And he turns it all around. And this is the series we're in right now, is the comeback story. And last week, we heard about the comeback, the greatest comeback of all times, that Jesus is the goat of comebacks. The greatest of all times, when they thought death defeated him, he said, no, no, no, I'm not dead. I'm surely alive.
And now he wants to be living on the inside of you and I through his Holy Spirit. And the comeback story. Last week, we saw that Jesus was, in Matthew 28, that Jesus had been dead. In Matthew 28, one and two, it says, after the Sabbath at dawn, the first day of the week, you know Sunday isn't Sabbath, the Saturday is.
And the reason why you and I have Sabbath is on Sunday is because of this right here, that on the first day of the week, which is a Sunday, they went and found Jesus was no longer in the grave. That's why you and I celebrate on Sunday and not Saturday, because Jesus rose again on a Sunday. So if Jesus can rise from the grave, I think the least we could do is rise out of our beds to come to church, amen?
It says that Jesus, it says, it says there was a violent earthquake for the, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and went to the tomb and rolled back the stone, then sat on it. Man, you know you're free when you can sit on the stone that once held you captive. Oh, it's so good that he rolled the stone away and he sat on it and said, see, I have defeated death. The Bible says that Jesus sits at the right throne of the Father because it is finished.
And there's some of us in here today, we're like, well, God, like if you saw the situation I'm going through in my life, how can you be seated up in heaven? I need you doing things in my life. And the reason why he's seated up there is because it's already finished. He already, it's already finished. And so when you know the outcome, it makes the journey a little less, it makes it a little more simpler. When you know we serve a God of the outcome, you and I, we just have, we have to obey.
Obedience is our responsibility, outcome is God's response to our obedience. And when you know that he has, he has it all finished, it's a finished work already, it's already a finished product, that he's calling us from the finish line. He sees where you're at and he says, hey, I'm calling, here I am, I stand at the door and knock, I'm already standing at the finish line, just let me in and let me help you get to where I'm at. He doesn't call you from your past, he calls you from your future.
I love that so much. So Jesus, but he has the ability, that's today's message is Jesus still rolls stones away. The stones in your life, but he doesn't just roll stones away, he also stops stones. He stops stones, I am so thankful that the people I surrounded myself with around, that he was able to stop the things that they were throwing. You know, they say sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt me. That's the most falsest statement I've ever heard in my life.
How many people know that words hurt? That words can be like stones and hurt, it's like the words that are said about you and the words that you believe about you, those hurt. And so he has the, but he wants to know, when he tells the story of the woman in John 8, he tells the story of a woman who was caught in adultery. And if they were going to obey the old law, the law of Moses, that if you were caught in adultery, you were going to be stoned to death.
It's just what the law said, and so they were trying to trip Jesus up on the law when Jesus was standing out talking to them all. And they bring this woman who just got caught in the act of adultery, they say, Jesus, what should we do? And Jesus, I can imagine all of them in a big circle holding a stone, ready to stone her, right? This is an unforgivable act that she's done, Jesus, what should we do? And Jesus said, hey, you without sin, I want you to throw the first stone.
No, like, I'll provide the stone, but the only way I want you to throw the stone is if you have no sin in your life. Do you want, are you, surely you, you shout me down in services, you are a woman of God, you still have sin in your life? Oh, and so what happened was, she starts seeing all these people throw the stone down and walk away. And Jesus says, see, he says, see, they can't stone you because they still have sin in their life.
Jesus doesn't see, he doesn't see sin on calibers like you and I do. Like, oh, oh, they're, oh, they do that sin, they got to stay over there. No, Jesus sees sin has sin. And what he did, he didn't condemn the woman, he condemned her sin by saying, hey, go and sin no more. He'll never tell you where to go without telling you what to do. He told her to go and sin no more. Like, leave this life that you had once lived, leave that behind and don't do it again.
You know, my life, my wisdom, like, wisdom in my life looks like a bunch of dumb mistakes. Because I learned from them. And that's what God wants. He's saying, listen, I don't want you to repeat the same thing you've been doing. I want you to go and sin no more. So Jesus has the power of rolling stones away. He has the power of stopping stones. But he doesn't just stop there. Like, he wants you and I, I don't know what the stone is in your life.
I mean, if we all got honest in here today, we all have a stone in our life. It could be an addiction. I don't know what your addiction is. You do. And if I went around naming every addiction in here, I would probably name yours. A lot of us think, oh, it's just drugs and alcohol are the only things you can be addicted to. False. I don't know what your, you know a good thing can become a bad thing if it keeps you from the best thing? Some of us are addicted to even good things.
But it's keeping us from the best thing. And so we have addictions. Hurt. Anybody ever been hurt before? From your past. I mean, maybe there's a person who's hurt you sitting right next to you. Q, do not look off to your left. No, I'm just saying we have this hurt in our life and we have this hurt and we don't know how to deal with it. It's okay that you have hurt. It's okay that you have an addiction. Pastor, what do you mean? What's not okay is you haven't confronted it yet.
And it's not until you confront it that you can deal with it. It's not because you confront it that you can label it and then rip it out of your life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit by Jesus. And so we have this hurt. Then we have rejection. Man. Rejection. You know, it's a sad place to be when the people you should have trusted the most reject you. The ones that you should have loved you the most reject you. Jesus, the Bible says he came into his own and his own did not receive him.
He went home back to Nazareth and he couldn't do what he wanted to do for the people, his family, the ones he loved because of their lack of faith because they rejected him. Even though he was the son of God, they rejected who he was. So rejection. And then this one, this is a big one. This is a big one in my life because this one right here, this unforgiveness part. Man. This unforgiveness, that's why he set the example for us.
He said, Father forgive them for they do not know what they're doing when he was hanging up on the cross. They were still doing things for him and he was forgiving them in the act of doing it. I don't know if I could have done that for you for real. I don't know. But he set an example for us. And it's the forgiveness, it wasn't the forgiveness that the people doing this to him deserved. It was what he desired. It's not what other people deserve.
It's not about how much forgiveness people deserve, it's how much freedom you desire. I want to be set free from all these things in me. I want to be set free from this hate. I want to be set free from... In order to be set free, I got to drop these things. I got to drop them. We're going to splash zone up here, okay? I should have put a warning. Shamu's coming, I'm coming next. No, I'm joking. I got to be willing to drop these things in my life. I got to lay these things down.
I can't hold these things around and expect to run this race. I can't expect... The Bible says in James 8.31, it says if you hold to my teachings, in order to hold something, that means I got to drop something else. In order to hold to my teachings, in order to be my disciples, you have to hold my teachings. When you hold this teaching, it says then you will know the truth, then the truth will set you free. I can't hold stones of regret, hatred, envy, malice, come on, unforgiveness.
I can't hold stones and it's truth at the same time. So that means I'm going to be bound, or I'm going to be set free. If the truth will set you free, that means the stones will keep you bound. And I got to let go of these things. And some of these things aren't even your fault. It wasn't my fault when I grew up. It wasn't my fault, all these things that happened to me. It wasn't my fault. It really wasn't.
But they became my prison, because I locked myself in there and I decided to play the victim card everywhere I go. I'm a victim. Woe is me, I'm a victim. But you can't be a victim and have a victorious life. Sometimes, the key to success... You ready? The key to success is playing the hand you were dealt like it was really the hand you wanted.
I didn't want these things to happen in my life, but since they happen in my life, I know that God works together all things for the good, for those who love Him, who call it according to His purpose. So I know He's got a plan and a purpose for this. There's God's plan not to harm you and give you a hope, Jeremiah 29 and 11, but He has a redemptive plan for everything else. I'm so thankful for His redemptive plan.
When I screwed it up, when my life was a mess, when I had all the stones carried around, I got baggage! I was able to drop my baggage off and He had a redemptive plan for it. There's some of you today. You take your baggage into every single relationship. Oh, they got baggage. Because they choose to have baggage. They choose to carry that into every single relationship. They choose it. And what you're not changing, you're choosing. And not making your choice is still making your choice.
So you're making your choice by carrying this baggage instead of laying this baggage out. He says His burden is light. Yours is too heavy. So lay yours down and pick up His. Lazarus is one of the greatest comeback stories of all time. And you know, we all have a Lazarus in our life. Lazarus, the thing that we gave up on, the thing that died in our life, the dream that we buried, that we quit on because we thought it was never gonna happen.
We prayed about it and it felt like our prayers bounced off the ceiling. You know that thing? You know your dreams can really never, you can never put a limit on your dreams unless you quit. And it's when you quit that you can never reach the potential of your dreams. Because we all have potential in here. But potential is like milk. If you don't use it, it'll spoil.
And that's why I gotta understand, okay, I have dreams, but if I don't put the goals in order to get to my dreams, it's just daydreams. And I gotta put the steps and the goals in order to get there. But Lazarus and Mary and Martha, Mary and Martha were Lazarus's sisters. And Martha, she was, she was a cooker. Like whenever Jesus came into the town Bethany, He would go to Martha and Mary's and Lazarus's house. Because she cooked and her sister Mary would sit there and listen to Jesus.
So they had a, I don't know, for you people out here who are single, dominate, listen, find yourself someone who listens and cooks. You got them both, you're good. You're good, you hear me? And so Jesus would love to go to Mary and Martha and Lazarus's house. Because who wouldn't love good cooking if someone listened to him? But when it came for Mary and Martha to need something, a request from Jesus, that their brother Lazarus was sick, says they wrote a letter to Jesus.
And I can imagine them writing this letter to Jesus. Okay, Lazarus is sick. No, no, no, no. No, actually, the one you love is sick. That's what they sent Jesus. The one you love is sick. And the Bible says that Jesus, when he got the letter, that he kind of left them unread. You ever been left unread? Yo, a couple weeks ago I was in the grocery store and this guy, God bless his heart, comes to church and, you know, he was in the same aisle as me and I was like, oh, I don't want to talk to him.
So I went down the other aisle and all of a sudden he comes down that aisle and he's like, hey, pastor. I'm like, yeah, yep. He said, hey, did you get my message? Yep. Why didn't you respond? Then I faked a heart attack and just, no, I left him unread because I didn't want to respond to him and sometimes in our life what happens when Jesus leaves you unread? Oh, you won't admit it. He's never let me down. He's never failed me.
But under your breath you're saying, but this one time, all the things you won't say? But just know that if that's the case, know that his let down is just a setup for a victory, that you may seem let down in this season but in the next season you're going to say, oh, yeah, God was working together all things for the good. Oh, yeah, he didn't leave me or forsake me. Oh, yeah, this was a setup.
But it's okay in the middle of this to say, you know, there's the five love languages, if anybody's single in here, you're trying to get a wife or a boy, a husband, like, I want you to know their love language. Like, know their love language and once you know their love language, you can know how to fill their love tank, right? And so, you know, my wife and I took this love language I'm not going to tell you guys what my love language is. It's gifts, I love gifts, okay?
I know when I receive gifts that I feel love. You know what Jesus' love language is? Trust. More than he loves you wearing a cross necklace, he loves when you trust him. More, I probably shouldn't say this because I'm your pastor, more than he even loves you coming to church, he loves when you trust him Monday through Saturday. Ooh. He loves when you trust him.
And there's one thing to move from a person that trusts God to a person that God trusts, but that's the process he wants to do with us in our lives, to move us. He wants us to move us from a state of believing to behaving. What if I told you it wasn't enough just to believe? That would blow your mind. But no, he didn't call you just to believe, he called you to behave like him. He set an example on how we're supposed to live our lives.
So when Mary and Martha, you know, I could imagine they were frustrated, but the Bible says that Jesus, it says in John 8-7, nope. It says in John 8-6, so he heard that Lazarus was sick, so he stayed where he was two more days. Like, he loved him, so he stayed. He loved him, so he didn't go when he called him to. That don't make sense to me. That don't make sense to me. When my wife calls me, I know to come. It's just one of those things that I know where I should be.
And Jesus, he says, he loved them, so he did not come. It didn't say, but he didn't come because he was busy. He didn't come because he loved them, because he wanted to reveal to them something they didn't know yet about him, that he was the resurrecting power. They wanted to reveal some things that Mary and Martha have not yet experienced yet. It might be that God has you waiting in a waiting season right now. He's not late.
He's trying to develop things inside you that if he didn't wait, you would never have developed inside you. Are you going to trust him anyway? Are you going to trust him? And so what happened was Jesus shows up four days late, and he goes into the city Bethany, and in John 11-22, and said when Martha heard Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him. That means she had to leave her place of grief to go and meet Jesus at the gate. You've got to leave some things behind in order to meet Jesus.
I mean, come to Jesus as you are, but don't expect to stay that way. And so I could imagine in the middle of her grief, her brother just died, she left anyway to meet him at the gate. And so what now? In the middle of her frustration, she left to go meet Jesus at the gate. And she knew, she said, Lord, you should have been here. If you were here, my brother wouldn't have died. You notice she still called him who he was, Lord, even though she didn't get what she wanted?
Are you willing to right-size Jesus and say, I know you're the Lord of my life regardless of the outcome. Are you willing to say that in the middle of your grief? Are you willing to right-size God in the middle of your frustration? And then it says, it says in John 11 22, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, it says, but even now, even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask. Even now I know that God can do whatever you ask Him to do.
Even now I know in the middle of my frustration, in the middle of my depression, in the middle of my rejection, in the middle of my addiction, I know that God can move in my life. But even now, even now, some of you guys need God to show up even now in your life. Even now. And Jesus responds back to him. He says in John 11 34, He says, where have you laid them? And Martha and Mary said, come and see, come and see.
He will stand where you need Him to stand and He will only come as far as you invite Him. Come and see. Come and see this place where I need you the most, Jesus. Come and see this dark place. Come and see this, come and reveal your light because where you are, no darkness will stay. Come to this place, the place you haven't told Him yet about, He already knows about, so we all have a place in here. We all have a Lazarus. We all have a Lazarus.
But are you willing to invite Him to that place is the question. And in verse 11 39, Jesus says, take the stone away. This boggles my mind. Jesus is all power for all knowing. He could have said, yo stone, get out the way, but He didn't. He said, you, to the people around Him, go move the stone. So important that you have people around you that don't talk about you, that don't see, that don't see through you. I'm talking like people that get your back no matter what.
I'm talking like people that will ride with you, not ride or die people. No, no, no. I'm talking people that will ride with you because ride or die people will leave you. And the moment they stop, they'll ride you till you die. That's the point. But it's so important to have good friends around you. And so He said, go and roll the stone away. And I love Martha says, Martha says, by this time, the odor is bad. Lord, He stinketh. Is what Martha and Mary said.
And He said, so they took the stone away. So they took the stone away. The purpose of the Bible is not to show what Jesus did, but to show what Jesus is doing. It might be that Jesus is going to use you to show other people what He's doing in their life. He's going to use you to move the stone away out of people's life. He didn't just save you from something. He saved you for something. He didn't just save you to bring you out.
He saved you to bring you out Thank you so much for joining us today. If you would like to connect with us, just text BridgeGP to 55498 or visit our website at bridgechurch.tv Thanks so much for listening. Now go out and be the bridge.