Women's Bible Study - October 30th, 2024 - Living in the Power of the Resurrection
First B Jackson
2024-10-30

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning, ladies. Grab your goodies and find your seat if you would. We'll get started this morning. Let's stand together this morning. Let's worship together.

Let's sing together. He's a safe place this morning. His presence is a safe place. You know, in the world and in our daily lives, it's it's you know, we don't use language like being overwhelmed as a good thing. We see it as a negative thing, but when we are overwhelmed by the presence of God, he just takes all the worry, takes all the fear, takes all the anxiety.

Just let his the presence of who he is, the king of kings, the Lord of lords. Let his presence just overwhelm you. Let it in the midst of Just our hearts surrendered to him this morning. Are Maybe you've never experienced his presence before and you would just have the courage to cry out and say, Lord, I've never felt your presence in a tangible way. Let his Holy Spirit just come and speak to you today.

He is as close as your very breath. We sing Holy Spirit, you're welcome here. Just put your hands on your heart and just say Holy Spirit, you're welcome to come and speak to me today. To and the midst of the space today. Just right where you are, just close your eyes.

And if you are comfortable, just put your hands out just as a gesture that you are opening your heart to what the Holy Spirit has, to what the Lord has for you today. I'm just gonna have bee sing this this part over you. Just let those these words just wash over you and just let them be a prayer before we dig into the message today that we would be a vessel ready to receive from the Lord today. Lord, that's our prayer that our hearts would be open this morning to your word, to your revelation. We thank you for this study.

We thank you for Deborah. We thank you that you continue to speak to us something fresh, something new every day by your spirit that you're never finished with us. Let us be an open space today to receive from you. We pray all this in Jesus' name and everybody said, amen. Amen.

Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Bee. Thank you, Carl. Thanks, guys. Beautiful vessels.

Alright, ladies. Is it extra dark in here today? Where's the light? I'm bringing the light. I'm bringing the light today.

Alright. So does everyone have a handout? If you don't have a handout, where's Casey? Casey, always make sure we have our handouts. Does anyone need a handout?

Raise your hand. Oh, Casey. Barbara needs a handout. Okay. Compared to last week You know what?

I'm just gonna open in prayer because y'all are just so excited. This is the last day. So let's just ask the Lord to anoint his word. Father, thank you for this powerful message on the resurrection. Thank you that, we're gonna end today with a glimpse of heaven, and I just thank you for every soul in this room.

I pray you speak directly to each one of us personally because that's what you do. That's the kind of God that you are. Your word is alive and it's powerful and it changes us and may it change us today and form us more into your likeness. And we just give up this morning to you and we thank you for bringing us here. In Jesus' holy name, Lord, amen.

Okay. So it was very hard to figure out what to talk about today. The the crucifixion, the resurrection. Can I just see a show of hands? How many of you have seen the passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson Mel Gibson starring James Caviezel?

Okay. For those of you who have not seen it, it's streaming, so you can still see it. I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it even if you have seen it. It's a game changer.

It completely shifted my heart and just made me realize the depth of suffering that Jesus voluntarily did for us. But today, I'm not going to talk about the the crucifixion. We're gonna talk about the resurrection. And before we jump into it, one of the things that people will often say to me about the resurrection is, well, I mean, why was Jesus so special? Other people have come back to life, and that's true, isn't it?

Do you know what the distinction is though? When other people have come back to life, that's a resuscitation. They come back from the dead in their same body to die again But the resurrection was something completely different. Jesus came back to life in his glorified body, a different body to never die again in his humanness. He's still alive.

He's alive sitting at the right hand of the father interceding for us. Cindy Day is like, woo. And because of that, he tells us you and I are never going to die either. That's pretty encouraging news. And consider the fact that the resurrection was so significant in human history that it literally divided time.

Today, we still two thousand years later divide time by what? BC and AD. And this is a fun fact, I always thought BC meant before Christ, which it does, and I thought a d meant after death, which it doesn't. Do you know what a d means? It's a Latin word that means in the day of our Lord because we have to account for the time he was on earth, right?

So it's really from the time he was on earth forward. Tim Keller says about the resurrection, he says if Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept everything he says. You have to accept the entire Bible. The issue on which everything hangs is not whether you or I agree with the teachings of the Bible or even understand it. The issue on which everything hangs is whether or not he rose from the dead because that was something that was impossible.

And did he do it? And don't you think it's crazy? Like I was thinking about this. Okay. Two thousand years later, there's this one horse town that pretty much everyone has heard of especially in the Western world.

Have you heard of Nazareth? Yes. Well, have you heard of Timurah or Iqsal? They're much larger towns near Nazareth. You and I have never heard of those towns.

I mean, I live in a one horse town of Kelly. Most people outside of Jackson, even in Wyoming, have never heard of Kelly. But two thousand years later, you and I know about this little tiny Kelly of a town called Nazareth because that's where Jesus was from. That's where this resurrected God came from. Paul, when he was Saul, the Pharisee, who was persecuting and killing Christians, saw the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus and became Paul, the sold out follower of Christ who gave think about this.

He gave everything up. I mean, if today the Lord said, Paula, I want you to sell your house, you're hitting the road for missions for me, you have nothing but the clothes on your back, you're gonna depend on the body of Christ to support you, you give up your title, which was being a pharisee was a big deal. Paul gave it all up and this is what he wrote in first Corinthians 15. He says, I passed on to you what was most important and what had been passed on to me and these are the hills that we die on. Paul said, I passed on to you that Christ died for us, for our sins, he was buried, he was raised on the third day.

And then Paul said, and he went to Peter, and I love how Paul first mentions Peter because Peter was struggling. He betrayed Jesus in the worst kind of way and he hated himself for it. He's one of the first people that Jesus went to. He went to Peter and then he went to the 12 and then he went to 500 of his followers at one time and then he went to James. I love how Paul calls out James.

Who was James? He was Jesus' brother and we're told in other parts of scripture that Jesus had brothers but they didn't believe he was Messiah. Another brother was Jude. Jude wrote the book, a book in the Bible. James wrote a book in the Bible.

So why is Paul telling us that he went to James? Because when James saw the resurrected Christ, when Jude saw the resurrected Christ, there was no question in their mind that this was God, that everything he said was true. And they got a glimpse of Jesus in his glorified body of what was coming for them. And nothing in this earth mattered anymore compared to that. And James and Peter and all the disciples gave their life for Jesus after that.

It changed everything. Paul was on trial in Acts chapter 23. He was on trial for following Jesus and Paul looked out and he saw his friends, pharisees, his former friends and he says to them, he says, brothers, I get you. I was a Pharisee. I was a descendant of Pharisees.

We're from the same tribe. I understand you, but you need to know I am on trial today because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead. Paul's like, we're never gonna die. There's such hope in this resurrection. Paul saw Jesus on that road to Damascus, and Galatians one tells us when Paul converted, Jesus sent him out to the desert for three years, and Jesus himself taught Paul.

So Paul is saying, yeah, I'll go on trial. I'll give my life because I can't unsee what I saw. I can't unsee the Lord is alive and we know he was dead. He was buried three days and he walked out of that grave. So the question is, have you thought about the importance of the resurrection and the power that's in the resurrection?

Before I get to that, I wanna tee it up with just some evidence for you because I know we like evidence, don't we? I mean, I always say we have to live by faith but our faith as followers of Christ is not blind. It's not blind faith. We have a lot of evidence. I'm just gonna slightly touch on this this morning because last year in Root It, I really unpacked this.

So if you need more evidence, if you're the kind that just likes a lot of evidence, go back on jacksonholewomen'sbiblestudy.com and you can watch the teaching from the first teaching in September and root it for more evidence. But the evidence I wanna unpack with you first today is we have no body. We have no remains of Jesus. Now think about this, ladies. The Pharisees did everything in their power to discredit Jesus.

And remember, I just thought it was so interesting how Matthew brought out exactly what we see today. They couldn't deny his incredible miracles and how good he was, so what how did they attack him? Personally, they're like, well you're the devil. And he's like, well that doesn't even make any sense because I'm casting out the devil in people so I'm definitely not the devil. And don't we see that today when we can't come up with a good argument, we just attack personally.

But we have no remains, we don't have the body. Don't you think that the pharisees who had the Roman government on their side, they had money, they had power, they had every resource available to them. Do you not think they would have gotten Jesus' body as evidence that he really wasn't God? Because he told them, I'm gonna raise them the third day. If you read Matthew, the end of Matthew this week, you know that the pharisees went to the soldiers and said, he said he's gonna rise again.

So just if he's not there, we're gonna pay you to tell a lie that the disciples came in and stole the body. But that's crazy, the Pharisees had the resources to get that body, and they would have gotten the body. I mean, think about today, you can go to Saudi Arabia and see the remains of Mohammed, you can go to India and see the ashes of Buddha, and I think this is so weird, but apparently you can go to Sri Lanka and see a tooth of Buddha. We do not have a tooth of Jesus. Why?

Because Jesus is alive. He's not dead. There are no remains. And isn't this so interesting? There's 260 chapters in the New Testament, and within those chapters, there are 300 verses on the resurrection.

The early church focused on teaching the resurrection, and I thought that's so interesting. They didn't focus on the crucifixion, they focused on the resurrection because that was the big game changer. In Acts chapter four, we're told that Peter and John were getting in trouble with the temple guards and the Sadducees because what were they teaching? They were teaching that through Jesus, there is resurrection of the dead. They were teaching this and the Sadducees says, stop teaching that.

And did they ever stop? They they couldn't be stopped. In Acts chapter seven, Paul's in Athens and he's with the Ivy League of Intellects. He's with the group of Epicurean and stoic philosophers and they're like, Paul, do you know how crazy you sound? They called Paul a babbler, which apparently back in the day meant crazy.

And they're like, you sound so crazy. You're talking about this God that you worshipped that was killed, buried for three days and now he's alive. That's crazy talk, Paul. And Jesus gives us this promise in John 14. He's talking to his followers.

He says, before long, you're not gonna see me anymore. I'm leaving the earth but you will see me. You will see me because I live and you're going to live. Why would Jesus say that? Because as followers of Christ, we have something inside us.

We have a piece of him called the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit inside us which brings the power of Christ into our lives. The second, evidence that we have because when you're especially if you're talking to a non believer, they don't care that there are 300 verses about the resurrection in the Bible because they don't believe the Bible. Right? So I think it's really important to point out that we have non christian evidence.

We have Josephus, the Jewish historian. And what did Josephus write? He said there after the resurrection, we have his writings where he said there are just these multitudes of people that claim this God, this prophet that they were worshiping who was crucified is alive. And Josephus is like, this is very unusual that there are so many of them claiming this. We have a Roman governor, we have his writings, his name is Pliny.

And Pliny wrote to emperor Trajan and he said, I'm not sure what you want me to do here because we have these people and there are so many of them that will not worship you as God because they claim they saw their God alive after death and they will not deny him even with the threat of death. So should I keep killing them? What should I do? There were so many of them. We also have thousands and thousands of eyewitnesses whose eyes were changed forever.

I love how the Lord set up the crucifixion. He set it up during the Passover time, which meant we know from historical writings that a minimum of a quarter of a million pilgrims would ascend upon Jerusalem. Some historians believe it was closer to a million pilgrims would come to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, and this was the time that Jesus was crucified. And we know that thousands of those pilgrims saw him, and it changed their life forever. I mean, consider what it did to the disciples.

We're told in scripture after the crucifixion, and you can imagine this, they were terrified. They went back into the upper room, and they're like, oh my gosh, this isn't how we thought it was gonna play out. He's dead. It's over. It's it's over.

We were wrong. What are we gonna do? And we're told they were afraid. And then Jesus just walks through the door, like without the door open. He just walks through, and he's like, it's okay, I'm here.

Okay, the impact that had on even doubting Thomas, every single disciple, is unbelievable. They hit the pavement. They didn't care what happened to them after that. They were stoned. They were starving.

They were beaten. They just would not give up on that message because they saw a glimpse of eternity before them. They saw the hope of eternal life. They saw their risen Lord, and they would not be silenced. And it wasn't just the disciples, millions of Christians were brutalized during this time, and they would not give in.

I think that's a powerful testimony. John Mark Comer says, people who are not afraid of death are a threat to the power brokers of our world, both the spiritual and human power brokers of our world. What are you and I so afraid of? We should be a threat to the dark forces of our world. What do we have to fear?

What is the worst thing that could happen to us? We die and go to be in this beautiful heavenly place with Jesus forever? Peter wrote, we are not making up stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own two eyes. So why does the resurrection matter so much?

Because Jesus is saying, I'm gonna give you some of that power that brought me back to life because you see that today? We are in war for our marriages. We are at war for the soul of our country. And I was thinking about this, I've gone on many missions trips. I've been to Asia, to Africa, to Mexico.

And you know what's interesting? Outside of our borders, the rest of the world looks at America and thinks we're a Christian nation. They think we're a Christian nation, and I think it's because we're still a nation like no other nation who shows up to help with aid when people get in trouble, and we're also a nation that sends out more missionaries to share Jesus than any other nation. So they still view us as a Christian nation. Do you think the enemy is gonna be like, oh, that's great.

That's okay with me. Maintain your values. Maintain your your Christian roots. No. He is digging a way to uproot those roots.

But here's the thing, if I really believe who Jesus says he is, if I believe he's sovereign, he's good, he loves me, and that he's alive and that his word is alive and powerful, then I'm gonna pick up my sword of truth and I'm going to war against these dark forces. And I will just tell you this is gonna take two things from us. It's gonna take commitment and it's going to take courage. Okay? It's gonna take some courage because you're not gonna see answers immediately.

So you have to stay committed. I was in the small group I sat with last week. You know, one of the things is the ladies were like, well, we're ready but our kids aren't ready. And I said, I'm I'm in this battle with you. I have a daughter who lives in LA who works in Hollywood and she claims Jesus but I don't see her following Jesus.

And I know it's there, I know it's there and I'm going to war for her. I I'm going to war for my grandsons to grow up and follow Jesus. And sometimes when the war is is up on us because the dark forces have been emboldened in this country because so many people just invite them into their house, they don't care. Okay, so sometimes prayer isn't enough, we have to fast and pray. And I will tell you what I've started to maybe encourage you because I hate fasting as much as anyone else but every Sunday night, Sunday after lunch, I'm not eating until Monday morning and I'm taking my verses, I'm taking Acts 17, I'm claiming this over my kids.

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on your descendants, your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Okay, I'm gonna see that in my lifetime. Do you believe that? Take it and and take it as a sword of truth and say, Lord, I'm going through the dark forces. Julia will prophesy.

Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. And we need to pray this for our old men. Our men retire and then what do they do with their life? They need a new dream. They they their retirement's not in the Bible.

God still has purpose for them. Okay. And for you and me, this is my prayer for me that I pray. Acts twenty six eighteen, in the last days, I will pour out my spirit on my followers, men and women alike. And this is a promise, they will prophesy to open eyes and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ.

That is our job, ladies. And I was texting friends yesterday saying second Chronicles seven fourteen, write this down, second Chronicles seven fourteen. That prayer is on repeat for me. Okay? Because throughout scripture, God says, if you, then I will.

If you, then I will. He says, if my people will humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, what will God do? I will hear you from heaven, I will forgive your sins and I will heal your land. That is a promise. Are we gonna fight for that?

We're gonna fight for that. John Stott says, you know, Matthew talks about being salt and light. John Stott says, God intends us to penetrate the world. Christian salt has no business to remain snugly and elegant little church salt sellers. Oh my gosh.

Hallelujah. Thank you, John Stott. Our place is to be rubbed into the secular community as salt is rubbed into meat. Why is salt rubbed into meat? To keep it from going bad.

And when society goes bad, we throw up our arms in horror. Instead, we should ask ourselves well, me back up and say, we throw up our arms but should we rather not reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad because it can do nothing else. Right? It can't.

The real question is, John Stott says, where is the salt? Where is the witness? Where is the fragrant aroma of Christ? Are you praying? Greg and I pray together every morning.

Well, sometimes we skip some mornings, but pretty much every morning, we pray together. Lord, give us an opportunity to plant a seed today. Bring someone into our life either by phone, by text, or by person, and give us an opportunity to say something that would draw them to you or encourage them in you. Is that your prayer? You wanna punch the devil in the face?

Yes, someone said yes. Well, hallelujah. Well, we do that by getting on our knees. Okay? And then we get up and we be the salt.

That's how we do it. Okay. So last week, the question was, does Jesus know you? Does he know your name? That was the week the question last week.

Do you know what this week's question is? This is something we have to answer. If we're saying we're followers of Christ, am I living out of the power of Jesus Christ alive within me? Am I living out of the power of Jesus Christ alive in me? And I know some of you are thinking I'm not sure, I don't know, how do I know, how do I know this?

Well, I say this with complete tenderness and absolutely no condemnation. Okay? Just know my heart in this. I've just had too many conversations for thirty years with women in Bible study to know this. You are not living out of the power of Christ.

If you are stuck under this cloud of shame and guilt and condemnation and doubt, you are not living out of the power. And how do why do I say that? That's what the cross was about. Jesus overcame all of that on the cross And he's not on the cross anymore, ladies. He's alive.

So why are we stuck at the cross? Nail it to the cross and believe what Jesus says about you. You too are an overcomer. Merriam Webster says an overcomer is one who succeeds in dealing with or gaining control of some problem or difficulty. So how do we do that?

Okay, how do we do it? I will tell you, I was raised I was raised knowing the truth, but it was kind of legalistic, not a lot of love and mercy and grace. That that was just nonsense. I mean, that that wasn't part of it. So when I came back to the Lord in my early thirties, I had a really hard time with the narrative in my head that was guilt and shame and never good enough.

Okay? That was the narrative that played. So you know what I did? Because I wanted to be an overcomer. I wrote down verses about how much God loves me and how worthy I am and that he died for me, he died for me.

Okay, I love you guys but I don't know if I would die for you. I mean, he died for me. And I said those verses until that was the narrative that began to play in my mind. And I don't struggle with that anymore. I don't struggle with that.

It starts in our mind. You might be thinking, don't feel worthy. I don't feel valuable. Okay. I get it.

But if you wanna change those feelings, you've gotta change the narrative. The narrative changes the feelings. It might take a minute, but it will change the feelings. Jesus says in John 16, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace and the world, you're gonna have trouble, girls. Some translations say tribulation, and I wanna just go back to next week.

I believe the timeline I gave you, but I understand not everyone follows that timeline. And so I just wanna repeat what I said. If we see a temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem, if we see Israel sign a peace treaty with some smooth talking charismatic leader who promises peace to the world, then we're going through some of the tribulation, if not all of the tribulation. That is a possibility. Okay?

But just know that everything in the Bible is a foreshadowing of what's coming. So when Jesus says in the end times it's gonna intensify earthquakes, wars, famines, these things are gonna intensify whether we go through the seven year tribulation or not, it's going to get ugly on earth. And he says, you can have peace in me because I overcame it all and he tells us how in first John five four. First John five four says, everyone who's been born of God, are you a born again believer? Do you have the spirit of Christ in you?

Okay, if you do, then Jesus says, this is the victory, This is the victory that has overcome the world. It is your faith. It's your faith. It's not some good work. It's your faith.

You've got to learn to trust him. And I know of only one way to trust him. Only one way, you have to put him to the test. I've been married to Greg Buckingham for forty years. I trust Greg.

I trust Greg with my life. Why? Because I know him, and we've had a lot of experiences together. There's only one way you're gonna trust Jesus, you have to know him. Do you spend time knowing him?

You've gotta put his narrative from the word of God into your mind. That's how you're gonna trust him and then put him to the test. Ask him for a promise over whatever issue you're dealing with. Take that promise and visualize it and say, Lord, this is your promise to me. I'm believing you for it.

I'm believing you for it. He is faithful. He is so faithful. You can trust him. But you're not gonna trust him if you don't put him to the test.

And I'm not saying you ever arrive this side of heaven where you're not struggling or you don't go through a dark night of the soul of going, what the heck is going on here? This hurts. We're we're all gonna have that until heaven, but we claim the promises over our doubts, and we put them to the test. Philippians one six says, I am certain that God who began the good work within you, the minute you received him, you said, yes, Lord. I want you to be my Lord and savior.

I invite you into my life. It's not me behind the driving behind the driver's wheel anymore, it's gonna be you. Paul says the minute that happens, he began a good work in you, and he will continue his work until the day it is finished when Christ Jesus returns. Now, whether or not Christ Jesus returns before you die, remember the point from last week that the the wise servants, the faithful servants, they understood this time as a human is short but it matters. It's we're all gonna die.

I mean, I hate to be the bearer of that news but we we are all going to die. I know you guys know that whether Jesus comes back or not. I mean Erwin Lutzer tells a story of a pastor who said, raise your hand if you'd like to go to heaven. And everybody raised their hand except the lady up front and he's like, what? You don't wanna go to heaven?

She goes, oh, I do. I I thought you were gathering a group to go right now. And and I think that most of us feel that way. We're like, yeah, we're in. We wanna go to heaven.

We just don't wanna go right now. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So I need a drink before I go into this next session.

Luke, can you put my friend Jane up there? I've showed you all this picture before. Jane wasn't ready either, and I have not shared this with her family. But this is my friend I I shared about earlier how last summer twenty twenty three, she came to visit, and she had had this limp for, like, four months. And I said, what the heck?

Why why haven't you healed? Like, she was in really good shape. And she said, well, Deborah, I'm going back to Orange County and get the test results, and the doctor thinks I have ALS. And I just was like, I'll never forget it. I was on Gros Ventre Junction Road, and I said, Jane, that is crazy talk.

You do not have ALS. And she said, Deborah, I think I do. She said, have you noticed how I'm slurring my words? And I was like, yeah, I I have noticed that. So we pulled over in Antelope Flats at this spot right here, and we prayed together.

And it it the sun was, like, shining so beautifully. You know one of those epic Jackson days? I said, Jane, you've gotta get out of the car. I wanna take your picture. And that was the picture I took.

Well, over the next year, I was able to visit Jane several times, and she digressed very quickly. Every, like, three months, I would go back, and my heart would just stop because it was now she can't walk, and now she can't talk at all. And a week before we started Bible study, I said to Greg, I have to go back one more time. And he's like, okay. He goes, okay, I'll go online and get you a ticket.

And then I started making dinner and I felt this anxiety rise up within me because I was like, Lord, okay, I'm scared because she can't talk, she can still move like one thumb. So she would text, and then she had an app on the phone that would speak a voice. I'm like, what am I going to say to her? Everything is going to be okay? I mean, I know everything is going to be okay, but it's not going to be okay until it's okay.

And I was so stressed out, and I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, Deborah, you tell Jane what's next. And I spent the entire weekend buns in the chair, researching heaven, every question I could think of to share with Jane. I went back, and we had spent, like, several hours just talking about great memories. She was my first mommy friend. She was my friend of many firsts, my first time to Hawaii with her family, first time with Halloween praise with our kids.

We had both gotten away from our faith in our twenties, so she was my first friend I went back to church with before my husband was even a believer, and our family stayed at that church until we moved here. So we talked about all that, and then through her app, Jane asked her husband and daughter who were with us if she could have some time alone with me because she was getting tired. And I had been praying that whole time. I was like, okay, Lord, you guys know me. I have 10 pages on heaven to share with Jane.

And what do I do? Just rip this out? Like, I need an open door. You you have to give me an open door. So when Jane said that to her husband and daughter, I'm like, okay, this is the open door.

But I was like, Lord, can

you just make it really clear that Jane wants to hear this? Like, I I hope I got this right. The second they walked out on her app, she looks at me and she says, Deborah, I need to know all this is real. I need to know heaven is real. I said, oh my gosh, Jane.

Well, Jesus loves you because he told me to prepare this for you. And we went through the whole thing, and then I sent it to her, and before I left, we had a real heart to heart, and she was sobbing. And through her app, she told me, I'm not ready. I'm I'm really angry, Deborah. I don't get to see my grandkids.

There's so many unrealized dreams. I mean, I'm just in my early sixties. This is when you get to have fun in life. I get that that's been taken from me. And I grabbed her and I said, Jane, I get it.

I get it. I promise you one thing. If you seek the Lord, if you cry out to Jesus, he's gonna meet you in this place, and he's gonna ready you. He's going to give you peace about this. I said, do you promise me every day you're gonna do that?

I came back home, and I texted her every day, and she would just give me a heart most days. Then a week later, on Tuesday, the day before Bible study started, she texted me, and she said, I want you to know, I'm ready. I am at total peace now, and she passed the next day. And it just left such an impact on me because Jesus met her in that place and readied her, and that is his promise to all of us. And I wanted to share a couple things about heaven that I shared with her because of time.

I want you to have some time in your small group. But later, Julia is going to send you I did try to condense the 10 pages down. She's gonna send that to you via email so that you guys have it. But one thing that Jane was worried about is what is the transition to heaven? And I said, Jane, it's just a very thin veil.

There's no waiting period. There's no long dark tunnel. Scripture tells us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and that verb to be is a connective verb. Do you know what that means? It means there's no disconnect between my dying body and my living soul.

I am immediately face to face with the Lord in eternity. And I said, Jane, you've moved so many times in your life. This is just another move. It's you moving to a new location, but it's you. That's another thing that kind of weirds us out as human beings.

Are we gonna still be the same us? A 100%, yes. Without the sin. Hallelujah. Death is just a relocation of the same person to a new location.

Second Corinthians five eight says, we are confident that we'd rather be away from these earthly bodies for then we will be at home. We'll be at home with the Lord. And you know Paul wrote that after the Lord gave Paul a glimpse of heaven and you know what Paul said about his glimpse of heaven? He said, I cannot put to words what I saw. It was just so incredible, and this always stuck with me.

Paul said, I can't even put to words what I heard. It was so glorious and amazing. Tim Keller says, the resurrection of the body means restoration of it. That's the hope we have from Jesus being resurrected. We not only get the bodies and lives we had, but we get the bodies and the lives we always wished for.

That is amazing. And this is the other thing Jane was worried about, would she see her family again? We have memories in heaven, ladies. There is no indication anywhere in scripture that we get a memory swipe. Thanks be to God, we get a sin swipe, but we do not get a memory swipe.

We will know one another. We will recognize one another. David wrote of his son. I will go to him, but he will not return to me. David knew he would recognize his son.

That's the whole story of the transfiguration. I think it's interesting, Moses and Elijah were not told they had name tags on. How did James and John and Peter recognize them? Because they knew Torah. They knew what Moses and Elijah were like, and they knew they were Moses and Elijah, and they're still called Moses and Elijah because there's still Moses and Elijah in heaven.

Will we experience emotions in heaven? Absolutely. We are made in the image of God and we're told in scripture that God himself laughs and takes delight in and rejoices over us. Revelation twenty one four says that we will have emotions, but there will be no sad crying, that Jesus will wipe away all of our tears. And David wrote, in my eternity, I will be filled with joy and pleasures.

And I just had to include this one because I personally love this one, that we're gonna eat and drink in heaven. I love that. I love that. And how do we know? Because Jesus in his resurrected body, he ate with the disciples.

And Isaiah 25 is a vision of what's to come. Isaiah wrote, on this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all people, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats, and the finest of wines. And you know what's gonna be so great about it? No more tummy aches, no more being worried about being overweight or underweight. We will be perfectly healthy and perfectly whole.

And the other thing about heaven, we have this misconception that it's just so boring because we're just floating on white fluffy clouds singing boring old hymns. That is not heaven at all. We will have purpose in heaven. Randy Alcorn says, the smartest person God ever created in this world may have never learned how to read. The most musically gifted person may have never touched a musical instrument.

The greatest athlete may have never competed in a game. The sport you're best at may be a sport you've never tried or your favorite hobby, one you never even thought of. Living under the curse living in this world means we miss a lot of opportunities. But the reversing of the curse, the resurrection of our bodies and our earth, means we regain it all, all the lost opportunities and we inherit so much more. That's what we have to look forward to.

I'm gonna close with first Peter one. Peter wrote, all praise to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we've been born again. Because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, now you and I should live with an expectation that we have a priceless inheritance that is preserved for us in heaven. So be happy, my friends, because there is wonderful joy ahead.

Even though you're gonna suffer on this earth, these trials only show us how genuine our faith is. So when your faith remains strong through all these trials, it's going to bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. So you hang in there because there is heaven awaiting us and you have the power to get yourself there through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen? Amen.

Great word, Deborah. Let's just wrap all that up. And let's just close our eyes and let's just ask the Lord just like Deborah's friend like she had to do and allow the Holy Spirit to do a real searching. Am I ready, lord? Am I ready?

And then just ask him. Ask him to make you ready. Ready for you. That's our time. We you thank time.

Office waiting where we're just sitting there idle, bored, and whenever we get called, we get called, but waiting, anticipating, ready, looking with our lamps full of oil because of the time we've spent in intimacy with you. That's the only way that we can buy oil. Thank you, Lord, that it doesn't matter if we've been walking with you for fifty years or we surrender right now in this moment. You fill our lamp with oil when we ask. And I feel like as just like Deborah said, as the days get darker, the tribulation begins to come in our own lives, that the exchange for oil is the best deal going.

Lord, thank you that you are so gracious to us, that you do not withhold from us. I just pray right now over everyone in this room peace, a healthy cross, And we would put our fear and our anxiety. Just like Deborah said, pin it to the cross and believe what you say about us and then walk in victory. Close to you always. Close to you.

Get us ready, Lord. Get us ready through intimacy with you. We tell you we love you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.

Can I just say something really quick? I I don't know how many of y'all have been, like, to I'm

to

to changing my life forever. And,

like,

I used to place so much emphasis on community where and I'm like, yeah, God works through the body and whatnot, but this group has pushed me to to just let Jesus be Jesus. You know, let him be my savior and let him be my safety and when I think of before when I'm like, oh, I need to be ready. I'd go and do it on my own and then when I'm ready to for the Lord to see me. I'm like, okay, here I am. I'm like, I guess I'll I'll receive it but that's but I was going to wash my hands in muddy water.

But he's like, whatever emotion you're feeling, whether you're angry or hurt or sad, heartbroken, lost. He says bring that to me because he is the one who can fix it all. Because in the earth, in this world, we can only put band aids on bullet wounds. And he's like, no. I wanna heal you wholly and entirely and completely.

And it's so much more work to go and get yourself ready for him. And he's like, I just need you to come as you are. And I've learned to take all of the negative stuff I felt like this time, like, I feel like every day I woke up, I'm like, God, I wanna be grateful, but here's a list of things why this season sucks. I'm like, here's what's making it hard right now. I don't have a job.

I don't have a place to live. Like, all of the things, and you're telling me to stay right here. But he says, even when it doesn't make sense, he's still working. And being in that special place of where you're not in the driver's seat is incredible because I've been trying to walk the middle of the road like, hey, God. I'm just gonna do my thing.

And if you, you know, choose to do a miracle, that'd be awesome, but I'm still gonna try to make it work the best way that I see fit. And he's like, girl, get in the back seat. He's like, you don't get passenger seat prince oh, like, passenger seat privileges anymore because you're just reaching over and be like, let me just get on the gas real quick. But hopping in the back seat and letting him take it was just the best thing. Amen.

But thank you guys for that.

Amen. We need community. Amen? Amen.

Okay. I'll just oh, there we go. Alright. Ladies, just a couple quick announcements. First, thank you, Bea.

That was just wonderful testimony. Thank you. And let's also give Lisa and Bea of all the weeks and work they put in. Thank you, ladies, so much. So on September 4, I opened the study assuring you that you were attending the Bible study because you felt moved to do so, and the act of showing up was one of obedience.

You listened. You trusted. You kept coming back, and and you got yourself here every time that you have attended since that first lesson. And by doing so, I know that you've grown in your faith, you've grown in relationships, and that you've come to know Jesus better. And those meaningful relationships that you're building in your small group now will hopefully continue during this break we're going to take.

So please reach out to one another and keep in touch. Don't let that enemy cause you any doubt that you should come back during the winter study, please. I hope that you have built some new disciplines studying the word, making it a priority to seek to know God better and grow closer to him. The study has certainly brought us all encouragement, so please don't let it slip away. And continue to practice meeting, use that Lectio three sixty five app, be conscious of the audiovisual going on in your world, and stay centered on Jesus.

I'd like to thank many of you for your generous love offerings. Those go a long way for us, and we are very, very appreciative. And then I'd also like for Ann Marie Trawick, who was out there every week. Is she still in here? Anne Marie, where are you?

Oh, there she is. Hi. Stand up, Anne Marie. And Susie B, where are you, Susie, who made the coffee along with Casey every week for you to come in and enjoy. And then I'd also like our small group leaders to stand one last time.

These women have been so faithful, true disciples, and we we this is your church. This is how the church is supposed to work. So thank you, ladies, all of you. Last thing, please mark your calendars for the annual Christmas luncheon, which will be December 11. It's a Wednesday.

You, by being in this room and study, will get the invitation a day before everybody else. So watch for it. And when you see it, please go online right away and RSVP. The seating will be limited. It always is pretty tight.

So if you want to make sure you have a seat, get right on that because the next day, the RSVP is gonna go out or the invitation will go out to about 500 people. So get yourself your little seat. Okay. That is it for now. At this time, please go directly to your small groups, and thank you again for all attending.