We got to you know, come alongside this local church called Faro de Santidad, which means lighthouse of holiness, and we got to see the the things that they’re already doing really and just partner with them. They go to these these rehab centers, these involuntary rehab centers, and some of them are voluntary. And they just love on these people there. And it you know, it can look like a very hopeless, broken situation when you look at you know, what these people are going through. Some of them have been admitted there by family un- un- again you know, unwilling to to go there on their own, but admitted by people they know.

And and it’s a tough situation in many ways because you look at the you know, the the faces and there’s kind of a lot of hopelessness on their faces. But it’s amazing how our God is so loving, so powerful that he can take these broken parts of us and he somehow in his power he he puts them together and makes something beautiful. And we could see that even in these prisons in Mexico, there was when we started singing, we started praising the Lord together, there was joy. And it was a beautiful thing. And we got to minister alongside this local church that’s doing that work.

I know that they were a blessing to us. This was a very spirit-filled, Jesus-loving, gracious, sweet church, just like Gracepoint, full of amazing, Jesus-loving people. And it was cool to partner with them for that time. And we knew you know, going into Matamoros, it’s along the border, so it’s it happens to be a strategic center for a lot of drug trafficking, a lot of criminal activity, cartel control, but I’m thankful to say you know, that whole time I felt and I think our team felt very safe. Like God had us where we were supposed to be.

He was protecting us. We knew all of you were praying for us back here. And and that really does make a world of difference knowing got prayer partners back at home who are asking God to send his angels and and guard our steps. So, thank you for doing that and partnering with us. And by the way, I just want to say thank you also because thank you to my wife Whitney for being such an amazing wife, taking care of the kids while I’m gone.

And and all of you, I had number of people reach out to me and say, “Hey, while you’re gone, if Whitney needs anything at all, let me know or have her call us.” And and just so you know, from the bottom of my heart, that means so much because I feel like you guys are just the family that has my back no matter what. So, thank you for that. We are going to have a more thorough explanation or report of our trip as a team in a couple weeks here. So, stay tuned for that.

This morning we’re in Luke chapter 7. So, if you want to flip to Luke chapter 7, next week we’re going to begin a series looking at some of the questions that you all have brought to us. And so, I’m really excited to tackle some of those questions. Some of them are pretty good, some very challenging and thoughtful questions. But this week we’re in Luke.

Luke 7. And this is a passage, as Kelly mentioned, that is all about the hope that Jesus gives us. Because of his defeat of death, because he has power over the grave, he can meet us where we’re at and he can give us this hope that can’t be found anywhere else. And we get to see this personalized in the life of this widow here in the town of Nain. And you know, when we’re traveling around the world and we see places that need hope, what I’m reminded of is how much each one of us personally needs hope in life.

It doesn’t matter what you might be going through right now. There might be in many ways many things positive in your life. There a lot of things you can be thankful for, but you need hope. I I guarantee that is something you need right now. On a personal level, you need hope.

And God is wanting to meet you even this morning by His Holy Spirit and by His Word and give you that fresh sense of His hope. And so let’s stand together if you would for the reading of God’s holy and perfect word. Luke chapter 7, beginning in verse 11. The big idea from this passage is that Jesus’ defeat of death guarantees a happy reunion in heaven for all who place their faith in him. This is verse 11.

It says, Luke writing, “Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain. And his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’

And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited his people.’ And this report about him spread throughout the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. Thank you. May be seated.

It is hard to imagine going through anything as painful as losing your own child. You know, if you think about this, this is This has got to be one of those test questions. Does the gospel hold up to the worst-case scenarios? Does it give hope even to people who have had to say goodbye to their own child. Here we meet a woman who’s in this little town of Nain and she has just gone through the worst of it.

I think this is right up there among the worst of human sufferings, worst human experiences you can imagine. Losing your only son. I can still remember my first realization of the power of death. I was in middle school and I came home and my parents sat me down and they said to me that that morning my Grammy had had a heart attack and she died. And you know, when I first heard that, I thought, “What do you mean Grammy’s died?”

It didn’t make sense to me. Grammy is someone I she’s known I’ve known her my whole life. I just saw her a week before. I heard her laughing. I talked with her.

We hugged. So, it didn’t make sense to me. What do you mean she’s gone? Like gone forever? And you know, I of course I knew in on one level about death.

I’d seen movies where people die. I’d seen The Lion King where Mufasa dies, right? I I’d watched Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller. Come to think of it, I think like every dog movie out there is designed to make you cry. So, I knew about death on the theoretical level.

But when you know someone and you love that person and you look forward to the next time you get to spend time with them and then you find they’re dead. They’re gone. They’re no longer here in the body. It’s painful. I remember thinking about all the memories with my Grammy.

You know, she was the sweetest lady. Not only her personality was sweet, she had an amazing gift for making sweets. And she I remember one time she was watching us kids and she we lived next to a strawberry patch and the owner said, “You can pick as many strawberries as you want.” And she watched us for this week and she said, “If you pick enough strawberries, I will make strawberry shortcake every single day.” We picked more strawberries that week than ever before in my life.

That was who she was. And and to know that she was gone was so jolting. I remember that. And that is the pain that death brings. That’s the pain that this widow of Nain felt deep in her soul, this this longing to see her son again.

But he was dead. The Bible doesn’t shy away from the real-world issues of life. >> [snorts] >> It invites us to enter into this emotional devastation that this widow would have been experiencing at this time. She was walking through the the dark night of the soul, the the valley of the shadow of death. And this is what we see in our notes here.

Death is not natural. Death is not natural. It is the tragic result of our rebellion against God. The question, why do we die? Is important.

It’s important that we have an answer to that that is grounded in the word of God. Now, there’s an answer you can give to that that speaks to the scientific factors of why we die, why our biological systems break down, and why that happens to us. But there is a deeper, far more important reason for why we die, and the Bible explains this to us. See, many times when people lose a loved one, they see their spouse or their child go through the ravages of disease and then eventually death, it’s so easy in those moments to think, “We should blame God.” “Like God, why did you let this happen?

Where were you? Isn’t it your job to answer prayer? Isn’t it your job to save people? Why did this person have to die? But we need to understand what the Bible says about this.

Our world that we now inhabit is not in the same situation as it was when God originally created it. God had a design for life. The Bible says that it was not God and his fault, it was us and our rebellion that brought death into this world. And to his good world. Paul says that death is the last enemy.

That doesn’t sound natural to me. Death is not natural. It’s the last enemy that one day Jesus will destroy forever. That’s how we need to think about it. Steve Jobs was you know, the man responsible for the gazillion iPhones out there.

Some of them are in your pockets right now. And late in his life, he was facing this very aggressive form of pancreatic cancer and his biographer, Walter Isaacson, in his book asked him about what what’s next. And Jobs expressed this this hope, almost like this longing for something more after death. He said this, “Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s 50/50 maybe.

But ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more and I find myself believing a bit more. Maybe it’s because I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn’t all just disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated, somehow it lives on.” You know, he said, “At other times though, he thinks maybe it’s just like this on-off switch, like click and then you’re gone.”

He said, “Maybe that’s why I never liked putting on-off switches on any Apple devices.” Some of you have looked all over for that elusive on-off switch on your iPhone and now you know the story behind it. The fact is, whether or not there is life after death is one of the most crucial issues you can answer. What comes next? When this life is over, you know, we all know that that date is coming.

If the Lord should tarry, that date is coming when we will have to face death. And if we’re not settled in our mind and we don’t know for sure what is coming next, where will I spend eternity? We haven’t answered the most important question of existence. And I’ve discovered that most people don’t like talking about death, but I believe that Christians, I really believe this, Christians have the hope, the answer that the world is longing for, but sometimes struggles so hard to believe is possible. People need to know Jesus came to set us free from the fear of death.

Everybody comes into this world enslaved, the Bible says, chained up basically to this fear of death. Jesus came to set us free from that. And here Luke tells us that Jesus and the disciples that were with him traveled to this little town called Nain. Now, what we know about Nain is this, it’s only mentioned one time in the Bible. That’s significant.

Only one time, right here. And not only that, but it’s about a half day’s journey, 8-plus miles away from the nearest town of Nazareth up in the mountains. And so, the question is, why did Jesus go out of his way and travel up into the mountains, walking all day to go to this town of Nain? Luke tells us Jesus went there with a mission. His mission was this, he was there to meet with this woman.

This grieving, heartbroken, devastated woman, he was going to meet with her and her young son. In your notes, to be like Jesus is to draw near to those suffering and grieving. At this time in Israel’s history, the custom was to bury the dead on the day they died. And they would often do a funeral procession where they would put the dead wrapped in cloths on this stretcher and they would carry the dead through town. And even in a small town, many of the townsfolk would feel obligated to join in that funeral procession to honor that person’s life.

And it says that they went through the town, they were going out of the gate. A lot of times they would even have professional mourners hired to wail for the dead. And so all this was happening and and the leader of that procession would be the surviving family. In this case, it seems it’s only this one widow. She was all alone in life.

All her surviving family is gone. She’s out in front by herself. And Jesus is on a mission to meet this funeral. This is not an accidental encounter. It’s not as though Jesus said, “Oh, look what we have here.

I didn’t see that coming.” No, he knew exactly what was coming. He went there 8 miles to meet with this woman. Each of us has an appointment with death. Jesus had an appointment with death.

Only here he is there to show his power over death. All through the gospels, we see Jesus reaching out to the hurting, the brokenhearted. Luke likes to highlight the way he he reaches out to women to specifically. And here we see he’s he’s reaching out. And notice, Jesus didn’t just look like a man, he really is a man.

Which means he experienced the full range of human emotions. Everything that you can think of, anger, sorrow, joy, satisfaction. He experienced this. But the most common emotion attributed to Jesus across all four Gospels is compassion. Very interesting.

Compassion. Now, in the Greek, it’s a really fun word to say. It’s splagchnizomai. Can we just all try that one time? Splagchnizomai.

There we go. That sounded beautiful. Okay. Now, this is This is your free Greek lesson for the week. Splagchnizomai is a word that means basically kind of like what it sounds like.

It’s It’s a The sense is this emotion welling up from your gut that you feel for somebody so strongly that it it’s like your guts are poured out for that person. And so Jesus here is not just feeling this passing emotion, you know, a little bit sad, a little bit upset. No, he is from his guts, from his viscera, he is feeling the strong connection for this woman. And you need to know that this morning, you may be going through something very difficult, very hard. And you need to know that this is how Jesus relates to you.

He doesn’t just pass you by. He doesn’t just ignore your pain. He knows what you’re going through. He knows your full story. He knows all about it.

And he reaches out to you with compassion. Because that’s who he is. Luke says Jesus looked at this woman. He didn’t avert his eyes. It could be really uncomfortable to look at someone going through that grieving process.

Jesus looks right at her. And he speaks this word. He says, verse 13, “Do not weep.” So often when we speak to someone who’s grieving, we kind of get tongue-tied. It’s hard to know exactly what to say.

We’re worried we’re going to say the wrong thing. Well, here Jesus models for us the right approach. The what matters is that we be willing to hurt alongside that person. Just to be present. Just to be available.

Just to let them know I’m hurting for you. The pain you feel, I want to help you by being with you. And Jesus is doing this all through the Gospels. Now, he tells her not to weep, which you know, at first glance, that might sound a little callous of Jesus. Why shouldn’t she be weeping after all she’s been through?

She’s lost her husband and she lost her only son. Of course she’s weeping. But we need to see that Jesus is speaking here with resurrection hope. He is speaking to her with this word of anticipation of what he’s about to do for her. One day Jesus will say this to each one of us.

He’s going to wipe away all the tears from our eyes, all the accumulation of the grief, sadness, devastation we felt here on earth. He’s going to wipe it all away and he’s going to say, “Weep no more. Don’t weep because I have won the victory over sin, death, and Satan. Enter into the victory I’ve won for you. Enter into the joy I’ve purchased for you with my own blood.

When I died on that cross, it was to make this grief-free, death-free existence available for you.” That’s who Jesus is. So, think of that moment. One day you’re going to have no reason to weep. No reason at all.

Today we mourn. We feel the weight of loss and regret. But one day, that’s all going to be washed away. It’s all going to be cleared away because Jesus and his presence and his peace will be all we know. And we’ll be reunited with those we’ve lost.

Everything’s going to be made new. All those who knew and know Jesus will be reunited. And remember, this is God in human form here. This is not just Jesus, you know, posing as God. This is God.

And he’s showing us what God is like. God is one who draws near to the suffering and the hurting. He doesn’t stand back. He’s not a god who delights in people’s suffering. His heart goes out to us and he feels compassion for what we’re going through.

But don’t miss this because it’s not enough to just feel compassion. We need someone who is powerful. We need someone who doesn’t just feel what we feel. We need someone who can break the power of death. That’s why Jesus makes the difference.

Luke says, “Then he came up and touched the bier.” That, by the way, would be a big no-no for Jewish people because that would make you ceremonially unclean. But with Jesus, it’s the other way around. You don’t become unclean. Whatever Jesus touches becomes clean.

And this is that time. The bearers stood still, verse 14, and he said, “Young man, he’s talking to a dead man. Young man, I say to you, arise.” Get up out of there. Come on.

It’s time to stand up. Third in your notes, miracles are possible because Jesus holds the power over life and death. Throughout the gospels, there are many healings and powerful demonstrations of Jesus’s power, but there’s only three times where we see Jesus raising the dead to life. Jesus raised a little 12-year-old girl right after she’s died. She he raises Lazarus after he’s been dead for 4 days.

And here he he raises this young man right in the middle of his funeral. People are in the middle of mourning for him, and he says, “Get up. It’s time to breathe in the breath of life.” Now, what’s interesting is that the testimony to Jesus being a worker of miracles and raising the dead is not just found in the Gospels. This is not only in the Bible.

You need to know this because it’s important that so many people today think that, you know, if if it’s found in the Bible, then that’s one thing, but what about real life? It’s like what the skeptic David Hume said. He said, “I can’t believe the New Testament because it’s full of miracles.” And so, we live in a culture that is just pervaded with this bias against miracles. We we tend to just think automatically, you know, “Well, miracles, you believe in those if you just don’t have knowledge of science or you just don’t understand how the world works.

You You know, it’s like a fairy tale for grownups.” That’s the bias that our culture continually pushes on us. It’s this secularism that says, “God does not invade our world. He’s If he’s there, he’s way out there.” Instead of saying, “God is here and he’s with us, and he does work new things.”

But think about this. This view does not work because what other movement out there was founded by a group of guys who said, “We’re willing to do anything for our leader who was executed because we saw him alive from the dead.” They said, “That changes everything.” No, no, it’s not something where, you know, our philosophy or, you know, the teachings he gave just changed us. No, we saw him.

He was dead, and now he’s alive. Now we’re willing to go anywhere and do anything for him. We’re willing to give ourselves over to death for him, which is what they all did except one, because he is alive from the dead. They refused to stop telling people Jesus is Lord. See, it’d be one thing if it was just a group of, you know, Yahoo’s out in some commune somewhere that were saying Jesus did miracles, believe us.

But no, these are substantial public events that multitudes witnessed. In fact, the evidence was so clear that even critics, even those who did not believe in Jesus, did not believe he was the Messiah, admitted later on, “Yeah, he did some amazing things.” There was Josephus, for example, a Jewish historian in the 1st century. He’s not a follower of Jesus, but he said, “Jesus was a doer of surprising deeds.” Another critic named Celsus, he was a critic of Christianity.

He said it was all by Jesus doing work through the demonic. It was dark forces working through him. But what he could not deny is that Jesus did supernatural feats. Even in the Talmud, the Jewish Talmud, another hostile witness, it says, “Jesus practiced sorcery.” Now, you think about that, if even the critics of Christianity at that time could not deny Jesus did supernatural feats.

He did things that nobody else can do. If even the critics are saying that, that’s powerful evidence. One of the most well-known quotes is by this Christian named Quadratus. He was writing to the Emperor Hadrian. And he said to Hadrian, “Look, you want to know that Jesus is Lord?

You want to know the evidence, the proof? You can come over and you can see some of the same people who were healed by him and raised from the dead 60-plus years later. They’re still alive. They’re still here. Come talk to them.”

He was probably referring to this young man and to that little girl. They were still alive. And he’s saying they’re They’re here as evidence. People saw them raised from the dead. As the Apostle Paul would later say, “These things were not done in a corner.”

So, Jesus didn’t just fool a handful of people with some magic tricks. These were powerful displays of God’s glory. And it was done in front of multitudes that couldn’t deny what they’d seen and experienced. All this points to what the gospel writers say all along, which is that Jesus is God in human form. Jesus could do all these things because he had the power over life and death.

He can do all things. There is no limit to what God can do. Look again at what Jesus does here. And just think about the weight of this moment. Jesus stops the funeral procession.

And it’s like he’s confronting death itself. He He walks right up to death and says, “You’ve come this far, but no farther.” It’s this collision between life and death, between the king of terrors and the lord of life. It was as though an unstoppable force was about to meet with what people had always thought was an immovable object. Jesus told this dead man to get up, and Luke says, verse 15, “And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”

In your notes, one perfect day in heaven, Jesus will both welcome us and give us back to one another. According to the Bible, human beings are composed of a body and a soul. There’s a physical part to us, that’s what we all can see, and then there’s this immaterial, spiritual part of us. At death, our soul and our body is split apart. The body goes into the ground, the soul lives on.

Paul says, “Knowing this gives us confidence when we’re facing death.” He was talking about the soul when he said in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “Yes, we are fully confident. We would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. Home.” That’s where he wants to be.

Today, when Christians die, they don’t go into soul sleep. They don’t go to purgatory. They are ushered immediately into the presence of Jesus. They’re with him in heaven. And the Bible says there is this great family reunion that we get to look forward to.

And this is a family reunion you actually want to go to. All of those who have died in the Lord, every soul that has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus is going to be there. We’re all going to be reunited. We will be welcomed back home. Jesus tells this dead man to get up.

Who has that kind of power? I mean, even if he was just saying the words and didn’t have the power, who would have the gall to tell a dead man, “Get up!” Jesus. And this is a preview of things to come. I love how it says, the man just got up and started talking right away.

You wonder what he had to say. Like, “Mom, you’re not going to believe where I’ve been.” I wonder if it was like those best selling books where the guy goes to heaven and comes back to tell everybody about it. You know, I don’t know, but what I can tell you is that he was just as shocked as everyone else there. He was amazed.

“I was dead, and now I’m alive.” But, notice Luke says, “Jesus gave him to his mother.” And that’s like a little teaser trailer of things to come. We will be given back to one another. We are going to be welcomed by Jesus, and we’ll be given back to those who have died, the loved ones who have died in Jesus.

It’s going to be the greatest party of all time. But even that is not the end. Because there is something even more amazing, even greater than being souls reunited, we are going to be raised to physical bodily life. We will be raised and have these glorious new resurrected bodies just like Jesus, modeled after him. Listen to this amazing promise from 1 Thessalonians 4.

And by the way, if you want to write this down and and just read it on your own time as well. 1 Thessalonians 4, I’ll begin in verse 15. It says, “We tell you this directly from the Lord. We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.

First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. They get to go first. Then together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.” And he says, “Encourage each other with these words.

Build one another up What one another up knowing this is your future reality. This is what is coming for you. Believe that. You’re not going to die and stay dead. You are going to rise from the dead.

And if you belong to Jesus, you get to meet him in the clouds. Just picture that scene. That is going to be awesome. And that’s our hope. This is the hope for everybody who has stopped trusting in themselves to make themselves right with God.

Stop trusting in religion and has stopped trusting in I need to be good enough for God and instead has put all those false hopes aside and said, “I’m going to put all my trust in Jesus and his blood and his righteousness alone for my standing with God. It is only those who put their faith in Jesus alone and know that they’re saved by grace alone, they are the ones who get to be in that party in the clouds. Now, notice what happens to the people. Verse 16, Luke 7. Fear seized them all.

Yeah, I think so. And they glorified God saying a great prophet has arisen among us. God has visited his people. He hasn’t left us alone. It looked like we were all alone here.

God has come and this report about him spread throughout the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. They’re telling everyone because who wants to keep news this good to themselves? Finally, in your notes, we have a joyful duty to tell others about our resurrected king. See, Jesus has defeated death. There is no greater news out there.

There is a lot of bad news that you can read about and you can watch on your TV and that can bring you down if you focus too much on that. You need to get your eyes on Jesus. You need to remember that he is coming back for us, that he really will raise us from the dead. These bodies that are subject to disease and break down over time, they’re going to be made new. They’re going to be caught up into the clouds.

We’re going to be reunited with loved ones. I for one want to stake my eternity on the word of a man who has gone through death and come out the other side. See, the reality is everybody is putting their faith in something. It’s going to be in the word of someone or something. It’s going to be in themselves.

My money is with Jesus. I really do believe that he came up out of that grave on the third day. And because of that, I’m throwing in my lot with him. I’m trusting that he is going to do everything he promised, that he was right about everything, including what comes next. And if you believe that Jesus has defeated death, then it’s your privilege.

It’s your privilege to tell others about him. Because this world is aching for hope. This world is mired in so much hopelessness, so much suffering and sin and sadness. People need to know this, that there is a king who has defeated death, and they can get in on that resurrection hope. This is what the story of Nain is really all about.

It’s why it’s in your Bibles. The whole Bible is really a story of death and resurrection, what Jesus accomplished for us. And this is the story we have to tell. I’ll leave you with this question. When did you last tell someone about the resurrection of Jesus?

You think about Mary Magdalene on that first Sunday, how she was just exploding with joy. She couldn’t wait to tell people. You think about the apostles, all that they were willing to give up to tell others about Jesus all over the world. And we have opportunities right here in our neighborhood, in our community. We can tell people that there is a resurrected king.

People need to know. That’s our hope. Let’s pray together. Awesome heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the God of life. That no matter what grief, what loss, what regret we’re feelin

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 5,674 words.