Chris Hodges - Only Believe (Easter at Highlands)

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Hey, everybody. Jesus is alive, everybody. We’re here to celebrate the greatest day in history, and we’re just so delighted you’re here. Give your neighbor a high five. You may be seated. And then we’ll let the guys set up behind me right now, and while they’re doing that, let me just look straight into the camera and say hello to all of our campuses that are now joining us. We are one church that just happens to meet in 26 different campuses all across Alabama and Georgia, and we’re so honored that you guys are along for the ride today. God bless you guys. We love you so very much. We also bring this service and really all that we are as a church throughout the week into 22 of Alabama’s Department of Corrections facilities.

So right now, there we… yeah! Come on! Put your hands together. That’s great! And I hope that blesses your heart, you guys that are there. You need to know that you’re not a project to us. You are our church family, and we’re so glad that you’re with us today. And then of course there are people that are watching this. We’re streaming this live right now, literally around the world. We have people that have already texted me. I got a text just not too long ago, just an hour or so ago, from somebody who is watching from Montana. So, wherever you are around the world, we’re glad you’re here. I wanna give a special shout-out though to our servicemen and women. We get texts and emails every single year, especially on big days.

In fact, there’s a gentleman, an officer, who serves in the military, and he already texted me and said, Hey PC, we’re gonna have a whole bunch of us around a computer, defending your freedoms, but celebrating Easter where we are. How about a big hand for them? Come on, everybody! God bless you guys! Oh come on! You can do a little bit better than that. God bless you. Thank you for that. That’s awesome. Thank you for that. And then I wanna give my heartfelt welcome, too, to those that are here for the first time. I know your campus pastor has already done that, but I want you to hear it from me as well. We always wanted to be a church that welcomed people who are looking for a church, maybe new to town, or maybe you’re even a faith journey right now, and you just are kicking the tires.

And if you’re looking for a home church, we hope you found one. There are great churches in our area. We could recommend many of them to you, but we think this is a good one as well. And I just want you to know you’re very, very welcomed here. One of our traditions… we’re 23 years old. Our church, this is our 24th Easter service. And we’ve done something every Easter, and that is we take just the first couple of minutes of the message and actually, we get some information back from you in the form of what we call an Easter survey. So you have a card in front of you in the seat back or it’s in the worship guide you were given. Take it out just for a second, even if you’re not gonna fill it out, just entertain me for a minute, everybody, alright?

Just look at this for a second. Everybody, just take a look at the little card. And on the front side, it’s the same card that we have in the worship guide or the bulletins every single Sunday, and it’s what we call the Connection Card. And we have these so you can stay connected with us, us with you. And then if you’ll notice at the bottom, there’s a place to put a prayer request, and also, notice that that portion of the card is perforated because we separate your prayer requests from your personal information. We guard your information very, very strongly. In fact, we treat you the way we would wanna be treated, so no one’s gonna call you, come by your house if you give us any information. But we wanna pray for what’s going on in your life because we believe, come on everybody, our God still does miracles, right? We really believe that. Anybody else in this room believe that? I do.

In fact, at the beginning of the year, a gentleman put on the card that his eight-year-old daughter had cancer and said, «Would you believe God with me for my daughter to be healed»? I got a text from him on Thursday. He said, I just got back from the doctor, and my daughter is completely cancer-free. Come on, everybody! Yes! So, If you have a prayer need, every single card gets prayed over, and we would be honored to stand with you in prayer for your particular prayer need. On the back side though, it’s different.

So we only do this one Sunday a year. That is a survey, an Easter survey. Look at it with me there. And I’m gonna go to my screen here with the same questions that’s in front of you. And there’s just two at the beginning and one at the end of the message. And the first one is: I wanna grow in this area of my life. This is gonna help us a lot for sermon prep, series prep, things that we’re gonna put in front of you. We need to know the areas that you’re wanting to grow in. We believe the Bible speaks to every single one of those areas, and we would love to bring you messages and programming with our different ministries.

So let us know that. Secondly, what’s been the most impactful part of your Highlands experience? This is letting us know where we’re really hitting it, maybe some areas where we may need to improve ourselves. We’re always doing that. And your responses here really help us. I know if you’re new, you really can’t answer this question because you haven’t been impacted by this church yet. But you can see some of the things that we do offer our people. We work very, very hard to bring you programming and ministries and just, we’re trying to help you in every way we can because we love you so very much. I do wanna take a couple of minutes because we have so many new people that come to our Easter services.

I’d just like to take just a couple of minutes and tell you who we are as a church. So, in the Bible, cover to cover, God has basically always wanted four things for people that people don’t know about. It’s in there cover to cover, but for a lot of people, the Bible is very complex and hard to read and hard to understand, and that’s my job. My job is to bring you what God’s Word says in a way that you can actually understand it, and I love doing that. But cover to cover, basically, if you read it, and of course I have, and I bring great delight in delivering this to you, that God has always wanted basically four things for you. And then we created language to help people today in today’s language to understand what that is. And basically, we came up with these four phrases several years ago that you can actually know God.

So, I don’t know if you know this or not, but Christianity is not about you joining a church necessarily or being a part of denomination, and it’s certainly not about being religious. It means you can actually be in a real dynamic relationship with God that you actually like. If you’re wondering why the rooms are full at 26 locations and we’ve been in services since Friday night, the reason is is because we’ve helped people have a dynamic, real relationship with God that they actually enjoy. And we would love to take you on that journey as well. Once you have the relationship, you get God’s power with it. And with the power, you can start tackling some of the areas of your life that you don’t even like.

So a lot of people think that if God gets involved in your life, he’s only gonna mess with the areas that you actually don’t mind having in your life. It’s the ones he wants to get rid of. That’s not true. You have areas in your life that if it wasn’t in your life, you know your life would be better. You want them out of your life. And maybe you’ve tried on your own and failed. You can actually find freedom with the power of God. And again, we’d love to take you on that journey so that once you settle your yesterdays, you can see your purpose.

So Mark Twain said, «The greatest days of your life, the two greatest days, are the day you were born and then the day you discovered why you were born». But guess what? The only one who has the answer to the second question is the one who created you, which is why I love my job so much. Because you’re gonna have to come to God to find out real purpose. A college can’t do that. A career can’t do that. Only God can really show you and reveal to you what your real God-given purpose is so that you can do what we’re all called to do and that is to make a difference, in other words, impact the lives of other people. And secular sociologists have proven, so this is not Christian, this is secular, have proven that the happiest people on the planet are the people who are touching the lives of other people in an impactful way. And again, we can do this if we know God, and we would love to take you on that journey.

So, for 23 years, we have been saying this little phrase that has just caught on. I mean, there are more people who come up to me and say, «Man, I did this little phrase you said when I was in the service,» and that is: give us a year of your life, and try it. Like, what would you have to lose to see if I went all in and really dive into the programming and all that we are as a church? I always tell people it won’t even take you a year. And if your life after a year isn’t remarkably better, then I’ll admit it doesn’t work, and I’ll go to another church with you. Okay?

I’ve never had to do that because it really does work. We really believe it works. And again, everybody in this room who’s already been on that journey could tell you that’s the truth. But I wanted to show you one story before I preach to you today. I wanna bring you one story. Because last year, there was a person sitting in the room who wasn’t one of us. And he was just a visitor by someone who invited him, and he heard what I just described. And he decided to actually let God do a work in his life. I’m gonna let you hear his story from himself. Look at the screens.

Dan: My whole life, I looked for purpose and belonging. My friends, they would all tell me how the military brought them closer together, you know, a brotherhood. I was seeking that out. I ended up joining the Air Force. Things went south quickly. At one point, my mental health got so bad to where I couldn’t see light anymore. Depression took over my whole personality. I truly felt alone. I was telling myself, if God was so perfect, how could he make a mistake like me? I completely lost my faith. I couldn’t think of any other way to let the pain stop. I decided to take my own life. I felt a hand stopping me from going any further, and it was a voice I’d never heard before said, «It wasn’t your time». The Air Force cut me loose. That was the dream. Now the dream is dead. And so, I couldn’t figure out where I was going. Seven years. I had no path, no direction, no purpose. Friend of mine invited me to church, because she knew I was lost, wandering around for so long looking for answers. I was like, «Okay, let’s see if you got the answers I’m looking for».

I remember it was like a message tailored for me. As the message continued, I felt the breath of God. During that service, they did the… what was the saying? «Give me a year of your life. Go all in». I remember those two key phrases. I said, «You know what? Bet. Let’s do it». When I finally realized, «Yes, Jesus is my Lord and Savior,» that was that breakthrough moment. It changed me. I started going all in. I did all three steps of the growth track. I quickly joined the production team. I met so many great people from my campus. I truly felt like I belonged. I’ve had a complete overhaul of who I was. He really took all the inky blackness out of my soul and washed it clean. I do thank God and gave me that miracle of a second chance. He helped me find the purpose when I thought there was nothing. I know it seems like there is no light at the end of that tunnel. I promise you, there is a light. The one holding that light, you will always have him there.

Come on. Let’s thank Dan for his story. It’s awesome. So today, we are in week number four and the conclusion of a series that we’ve been in throughout the month of March on the miracles of Jesus. And we intentionally left a resurrection story for this day because there’s this famous miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and there’s some important things that I wanna share with you out of that story. But I can’t resist. Every time I tell this story, I think about, I’m a Cajun from South Louisiana, everybody, and I can’t resist telling you a Boudreaux joke. Can I tell you one, everybody? Yes or no? Yeah? Okay. I’m going to anyway. All right? So, 'cause it’s just funny to me. And my kids pick on me. They say, «Dad, you’ve already told that». And I looked it up. It’s been six years since I told this story, and you even forgot it.

So here we go. Okay. But Boudreaux is kind of like the stereotypical person from South Louisiana. It’s a common last name. Boudreaux and Thibodeaux’s like Smith and Jones, okay? And so, anyway, Boudreaux, Thibodeaux, and this guy named Guidry were all going to this funeral with this, you know, a friend of theirs that had died, and the three of them walked up to the casket together. And Boudreaux just kind of looked into that box and just, he was kind of contemplating as they were paying their respects to him. And he looked over to his friends, and he said, «Man, one day this is going to be us. And when this becomes us, what do you want people to say about you whenever you’re, you know, it’s your time»? And Thibodeaux spoke up very quickly. He says, «Man, I want him to say he was a good family man, loved his wife, loved his kids, and they loved him right back». And he goes, «That’s what I want».

And then Guidry said, «Man, I know what I want. I want them to say, 'Man, he was very involved in his church, in his community. He was civic-minded. He made a difference, made contributions.'» And they said, «Boudreaux, what do you want people to say about you»? He says, «Man, that’s easy. I want them to say, 'Look, he’s moving.'» That’s funny. I don’t care what y’all say. I just love that. I love that. All right. Well, I’m gonna give you a «look, he’s moving story,» okay? There’s this great story in the Bible, and I’ll set it up by telling you a little bit about the players involved. So Jesus actually had a little retreat spot that he went to two miles outside of Jerusalem named Bethany. Bethany was the name of the town. And there, it was a brother and two sisters, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived there. And a lot of the stories in the New Testament are in that home.

In fact, the story of Jesus, you know, Mary anointing Jesus’s feet with perfume and then wiping his feet with her hair. You have the story in Luke chapter 10 when Jesus was over there for a meal and Martha’s doing all the work, and she complains. She was a feisty girl. She complained about her sister, Mary, sitting at Jesus’s feet while she was doing all the cooking and cleaning. There’s some cool stories in there. But in John chapter 11, the story of the raising of the dead of Lazarus is found in John chapter 11, and I want you to see something interesting in it. Because we’re in this series about miracles. And here’s the question of the day. It’s how do you get one?

And most people erroneously think that it’s a lot up to you. Like, you have to have faith for it. You have to have a great attitude. You have to make a great case before God. You have to really believe and be strong. And you’re gonna see in this story, of course, these people got the miracle. I’ll go ahead and give you the spoiler alert. Lazarus gets out of the grave, right? But I want you to see some of the dynamics that take place, and I wanna do it to build your faith and to encourage you. It says, «So now a man named Lazarus was sick. And he was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.

So the sisters,» because their brother was sick and it was a sickness unto death, «sent word to Jesus». Because they know he can do miracles. He does it for people he doesn’t even know. «He says, 'Lord, the one you love is sick.' And when he heard this, Jesus heard this, he said to his disciples, 'This sickness is not gonna end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.'» In other words, I have a plan. People can’t see it, but I have a plan. «Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus so much so that when he heard the news, he didn’t do anything».

So, he actually doesn’t respond to the requests of someone you would think he would actually respond to, «he stayed where he was two more days». And you’re gonna find out later, this really irritates Martha, and it disappoints Mary. But they’re not happy about that. «And after he said this, he said to his disciples, he went on to tell them, 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, '» now of course, he’s speaking in spiritual language here. Because God sees things differently than we do. We think the man’s dead, but Jesus just saw him as temporarily. So he says, «He’s fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up».

And I say that to you to tell you that God sees things in ways you cannot see. And there’s a reason why I’m telling you that, and just hold on to that thought. «His disciples replied, 'Well Lord, if he’s sleeping, let him sleep. Won’t he get better if he stays asleep? And in bed, he’ll get better.' And Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told the disciples plainly,» so now, he comes down out of spiritual terms to plain terms and says, «No, guys. Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I’m glad I wasn’t there, so that you may,» say this word out loud, so that you may, «believe».

Now, this is where this is all going, just so you know. So how do you get a miracle? It’s not what you think. And how do you get a resurrection? How do you have a Dan story? How do you have something that you really need God to respond to? You’re not as involved in this story as you think you are. You just have to believe that he can do this. And so, he said, all right. Let’s go to him. Then Thomas, this is so funny to me. Because I’m from South Louisiana, I have a sense of humor, and this is fun, like, not many people have laughed when I’ve read this, and this is really funny. Because one of the disciples was a real Eeyore, you know what I’m saying? And he said to the rest of the disciples, «All right. Let’s go and when we get there, we can just die with him».

I just think that is so funny. Like, I’d wanna slap him, be like, «Dude, Jesus just said he’s getting up». No, we all gonna die. Anyway, there’s always that one friend who’s like that, you know. And on his arrival, thank you for the ten people who had a sense of humor with me. All right, appreciate that. «And on his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days,» now this is a critical point, probably not to us, but it was to Jewish people. Because in the first century, they actually had a superstition that they believed that the spirit of a person hovered over the dead body for three days, but after the fourth day it was gone. Like, it’s really over over.

And so, Jesus actually waits to that point to do something. «And Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come,» to the wake, basically, «to Mary and Martha’s house to comfort them because they lost their brother». So now, a wake is forming at the house. Watch this. «And when Martha heard that Jesus was coming,» to the wake at their house, remember, she’s fired up about this. She’s not happy, she’s not happy that Jesus didn’t respond when she sent the telegram while he was still alive. «So she goes out to meet him,» and you’re gonna see in a minute, she rebukes Jesus. I picture her in my mind. By the way, one of the best ways to read the Bible is like picture the stories in your mind. So, Jesus is coming to the wake, and I see her going outside like, «Seriously? You’re gonna come now? I mean you were on time when I was cooking, but you’re late when I’m crying».

I can see her. I don’t know. I can just see her like, «Oh yeah, right. Yeah». But Mary’s the opposite. She had the opposite kind of personality, and she just stays at home. In fact, she was still in the room just, the Bible says sobbing, just, she was just a hot mess in the house, just so upset but in a tender way. So here comes the rebuke. «And Martha says, 'Lord, '» now she’s telling him why he did stuff wrong, «If you’d have been here, he wouldn’t have died. And I know even now that God will give you whatever you ask». Now she’s fired up about this. And Jesus said to her, «Listen, your brother’s gonna rise again». And she says, «I know he’s gonna rise again in the resurrection at the last day».

In other words, she was thinking about heaven. And Jesus said to her, «No, no, no. You’re missing it. I am the resurrection and I am the life. And he who,» and there’s our word again, «believes in me will live, even though they die,» in other words, people who believe in me never experience death. They go straight to heaven, but then he flips it and says, «But the people who haven’t died, whoever lives and believes never has death experiences here on earth either. They live». And then he says the word again, «Do you believe this»?

All right. So this is where the tension of the story is because they’re wanting something, right? And obviously, I would bet most of us in this room, if not all of us, have some area of our life where we’d love to see God move in some area of our life, but we don’t know how it actually works. Now, I’ll tell you the end of the story, okay? Lazarus gets up out of that grave, right? But what I want you to see is that the players involved weren’t people of great faith. They were getting miracles while they were mad, doubting, you know, they had all these issues going on, and I want to show it to you one at a time. And I’m saying this to build your faith and to encourage you.

The first one, the one that I think is so funny, is Martha, because she feels like Jesus missed his appointment. He was supposed to come at a time when he didn’t come. And there are some of you in this room, you’re thinking, I don’t have a problem believing in God, I just don’t like the way he treats me. Because he’s not working in my life at the speed that I want it. And by the way, you’re not responding to him at the speed he wants it either. Okay, just so you’ll know. But you need to know that whenever God is delayed in something, it’s not because he’s not interested. So that would actually be bad theology to think, well, the reason why he didn’t respond is he doesn’t care. No, no, no. He’s working in ways you cannot see.

Now the people who just said «amen,» okay, there’s only a few, but the people who just said «amen» is because they’ve been knowing the Lord for a long time. And they have enough history, like I do, where you prayed for something and God didn’t do it. And then he took a few years, and you learned something, and then he did it. And you’re so glad he actually did it the way he did. And by the way, I didn’t plant anybody in this room. But if that is your story, you know that’s how God operates, and now, you actually appreciate it. Say a good «amen» right now. Okay, there they are. There you go, okay?

So, for those of you who are here at Easter 2024 and you have a disappointment with God, it’s not that you don’t believe, you just don’t like the way he operates, I’m letting you know that God is at work in your life in great ways that you’ll actually appreciate if you could see it the way he sees it. Because our God is an intentional God. If he’s doing something, he’s doing it intentionally. And if he’s not doing something, he’s not doing it intentionally. So when God is doing something, he’s doing something. And when he’s not doing something, he’s doing something. I’m waiting right now for something that I’ve been praying for for three years, and I don’t understand why God doesn’t do what… I actually complained to Tammy this week. I’m really frustrated by it, honestly.

And I know God can move in this particular area, and I’m pretty sure that I’m right. And he needs to do it the way I want him to. But I’ve been serving the Lord a long time to know too that I actually don’t stay there in my disappointment because I know God. I don’t like it, but I know he’s working in ways I cannot see. And you need to know that as well. So, the second player in the story, he’s my favorite because he’s just Eeyore. He’s just whining, complaining Thomas. And he even has a word attached to his name now forever and ever, for thousands of years, «Doubting Thomas». Even people who aren’t Christians use that to describe somebody who’s a skeptic. Oh, you’re just a doubting Thomas. In fact, he’s famous for after the resurrection of Jesus, telling the other disciples, «I know y’all think he rose again, I don’t».

Now this is a disciple who says, «I don’t think he did, and I’ll never believe it until I can actually put my finger in the hole in his hand and see it for myself». When, all of a sudden, Jesus, after the Resurrection, pops through the wall, he’s just in his glorified body, this is before he was ascended, and just shows up to Thomas and goes. And what I want you to see in that is how God treated the doubter. By the way, the end of Thomas’s story is he actually… you ready for this? He actually so believes at that moment that he actually goes and evangelizes the nation of India, and he died as a martyr being speared to death. So he was more than a believer, but what I want you to know is that your doubts won’t keep Jesus away from you.

Let me say it this way. He’s not discouraged by your doubts. In fact, your doubts don’t bother him at all. And what he does… and you need to know this because I think people have a wrong view of God. They think, «Well, I don’t believe». So you think that God’s gonna say, «Well, then forget you»! No, no, no. He puts his hand out and says, «You take steps at your own pace whenever you’re ready to see it». And some of you, you’re at that place. So you’re not mad at God like Martha. You just have doubts. You have questions. And I’m asking you, at your own pace, reach out and touch and see for yourself, and you’ll realize it, but you need to reach out and see. You need to see for yourself. There’s a guy who sat in the bleacher section right there, okay, right in that section. And I watch. I know people. Like, I scan the room.

I see people. I see you right now. Just want you to know that, okay, everybody? I look around, and he always sat, like, right there. And I thought he was one of us. And one Sunday, he came after the service. He said, «Hey, heard you like golf. Love to take you to play golf». I said, «That’d be great. Let’s go». And so, we went to play golf, and about the fourth hole, he pulls me off to the side. He goes, «Oh, by the way, I’m not a member at Highlands. I’m not even one of y’all. I’m not a Christian. I just», I say, «You’re not»? He goes, «No». He goes, I said, «Well, why do you come»? He goes, «I like the way I feel when I leave Church of the Highlands every Sunday». I was like, «Seriously»? He goes, «Oh yeah». He says, «It’s the best hour of peace that I have all week long». And I said, «Well, next time you’re wanting that hour to extend into your whole week, let’s talk».

And I saw his face change, like, oh my God. I saw him pondering this all day. I don’t think he hit a good shot after that, and I beat him. Come on, everybody. All right. And on the 18th hole, took my cap off, shake, you know, everybody’s hand. And he goes, «We need to talk. We need to talk». I said, «Okay». And I thought he meant one day. He meant, «No, no. I need to talk right now». And I said, «Well, where you wanna go»? He says, «Let’s go sit in my car». Now, it was a hot July day, and he had a black SUV. Jesus help me. It was like, it was 200 degrees in there, so I talked about hell. No, I didn’t. I just, we were in it, but I didn’t talk about it. But anyway… and I just, I vividly remember, I was just pouring. It was so hot in there, and he cranked it on, turned the air conditioning on, and just started sobbing.

And he starts telling me about his religious background that was all based on works and how much he felt like, «Man, I’ve done so many bad things. God could never come close to liking me». And he’s almost treating me like a Catholic priest. He was just like going through a confessional of his whole life story, and he’s just sobbing, saying, «I’m a horrible person. God could never love somebody like me». And I said, «That’s why you’re doubting»? He goes, «That’s why I doubt». And now, of course, I explained the gospel to him, that Jesus came for the worst, and he loves you just the way you are but too much to let you stay that way. And he’s already, he’s already paid for it. You just need to receive it. And then that man gave his life to Jesus in that hot car that day.

See, your doubts don’t drive God away. It draws him to you. And then you have this last character, old Mary. Remember, she doesn’t even come out. She’s in the house by herself. Her response to bad things, some people get mad, some people doubt, but some people just get extremely sad. And this is Mary. In fact, it goes on to say that Mary came out, but she just fell apart in front of Jesus, just sobbing. And it wasn’t out of anger, and it wasn’t out of doubt. Her heart was broken. And for some of you, I just described to you. So you’re issue isn’t with God. Just, like, you’re just, your heart’s sick because your life’s been tough, and your heart’s broken. And by the way, Jesus didn’t go, «Man, you lack faith. How in the world is your brother going to get up if you’re going to act like that»? No, he didn’t do that.

In fact, the Bible says, shortest verse in the Bible, if you ever want to memorize a Scripture, this is your Scripture, John 11:35, «Jesus wept». He wept with her. He wept with her. Because when you’re discouraged and heartbroken, that doesn’t drive him away. It draws him closer to you. I’m trying to let you know how faith works. I think people think, «No, no. I gotta be un-mad, gotta be full of faith, and I can’t be sad». And Jesus did a miracle with all those people. So what’s the key? Like, what’s the key to miracles? How do we actually get one? Let’s go back to the text. Jesus said to her… notice the next word in you, like, you need to stop being mad. Or you need to, like, bro, what else do I have to do? You need to believe. He didn’t say that. He has «I».

I am the… notice the direction of the whole story isn’t around us. It’s around him. Let me say it this way. God doesn’t do what he does out of our love for him, but out of his love for us. He says, «I’m the resurrection. I’m the life. And he who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in,» it’s just «believe in me». You don’t have to have your act together, just believe in me. «You’ll never die. Do you believe this»? And watch what the angry person in the story says. This is Martha. Okay. Okay. If that’s what you’re looking for, I believe. And I love that. Because he didn’t wait for her to get un-mad and didn’t wait for Thomas to get more faith and didn’t wait for Mary to get un-sad. He said, «I’ll do it all for you if you’ll just believe I can».

And I say this to every person in our church and everybody who hears from you. Listen to me. You want to what faith is? It’s not a feeling. It’s a choice. And I say that because I believe somebody’s been waiting. This was my whole thought. Somebody’s been waiting. Like, I’ll come along with you guys when I feel better about it or believe better about it. But listen to me. Believing’s not a feeling. It’s a choice. We just choose to say, «Okay, I don’t get it. I don’t even know if I like it, but I trust you, and I’m going to follow you».

So I’ll close with this little illustration. Even if you’ve not been in church or Christian circles, you may have heard of this famous book that’s one of the all-time, it is one of the all-time bestsellers in the Christian space. It’s called «The 5 Love Languages» and it’s written by a guy named Dr. Gary Chapman, and his thesis was the best way to love somebody is not the way you like to be loved, but find out how they receive love and love them that way. So he teaches, you know, acts of service, quality time, gift giving, physical touch and closeness, and words of affirmation. And so, you find out what your spouse or whoever and serve them that way. Like, mine is acts of service. If you do something for me, it’s the greatest. I’ll love you. Tammy’s is quality time.

So, we’re on two different wavelengths. So, she wants to talk, and I want to change a light bulb for her. You know what I’m saying? Like, we’re always, we’re always on the wrong space there. So what would be God’s love language? Like, if you’re going to love God and express love to God, what’s the best way to do that? And I’ve been studying this book for 45 years and preaching it for 40, and I’m going to tell you what it is. God’s love language is trust. Because he knows you can never see what you cannot see. He is so beyond us. And he knows what a dilemma that creates for you. But when you trust him and just say, «All right, okay, yes, I believe,» that’s when he moves in your life, and that’s when you’ll get a miracle and a resurrection.

So normally, this is where I would say, «So every head bowed, every eye closed,» but I don’t want you to do that. This is the one service of the year, only at Easter, do we say, «We’re gonna let you respond a different way». I want everybody, as reverently as you can, please no moving around, grab the card one more time. We’re getting ready to leave, but let me just close this way. Would you grab it one more time? Again, even if you’re not gonna fill it out, just play along with me, all right? But there’s one more question I want to ask you, and it’s in the form of those four boxes, A, B, C, D. You see at the bottom of the spiritual survey there? And those four boxes, let me say it this way. You are one of them. You are one. And I would love for you to let me know which one you are.

And let me show you what they mean. The first one is: The A stands for «I’m already there». I trust him. I love him. It’s not perfect, but I am a Christian, and I already am in a real relationship with God. The B stands for «I’d like to begin that». I’m ready. I’m ready to give him my life. I’m ready to put my faith and my trust in God, and I want to begin a real relationship with him right now. And for some of you, it’s because you want to begin again. It’s because you once were a Christian, you walked away, and you’re ready to come home. The C is like my buddy who I played golf with. I don’t know if I’m ready yet. I’m just here checking it all out. I need to consider it a bit more.

And again, once again, you are so welcomed here. And the last one’s a little more serious. It’s that I don’t ever intend on making that decision. By the way, I just got a card texted to me from one of our other campuses. My campus pastors know how much this blesses me. But it was a person who had checked B, and they say, «I’ve been a D my entire life until today». And if that’s where you are, have the guts to check it. We’re gonna pray for you. But I want you to fill out your card if you wouldn’t mind, please. And when you’re done, just bow your head right there where you are, and that’ll let us know you’re done. And then your campus pastor’s gonna close the service. So take just a minute. Close your eyes when you’re ready.