Three Days - The Resurrection

Well, happy resurrection day to everyone here.  It has been lovely already too, as our brother Craig said, a communion to recline at the table.  And the sisters, what a beautiful song to add to that whole feeling that resurrection Sunday should bring.  You know, Friday was a dark, dark day, but Sunday was coming.

And we get to celebrate that today. My name is Forrest Versell. My wife, Mandy and I get to serve on the staff here in the PCC, as we call it, or Phoenix Church of Christ. And if you're new to us, thank you for joining us today. We hope this is not the last Sunday we will see you. We hope you will continue to be a part of our church family.

And there's no, no more important day to reflect on what Jesus was and is. Then, of course, what we call Easter Sunday. We as a church, have been studying, as you see on the screen there, a series called Three Days. And it's based on 1 Corinthians chapter 15,  the scripture there on the screen verses 3 through 5.

Paul the Apostle says, For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, That he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures. And that he appeared to Cephas, and the Twelve. And then he even goes on to say that Jesus, in the resurrected form, appeared to over 500 of the brothers and sisters.

And we've examined two of the three days so far, right? In our little Bible study. Friday we looked at the cross. A few Sundays ago, that theme of the cross. Jesus brilliance, His courage, and His love, that still impacts us and shapes us today, and Craig did a great job taking us to the cross today during communion.

Thank you, Craig.  Last week we looked at the, the, the Saturday, the, the often you know, forgotten about day in the three day story of Jesus death, burial, and resurrection, and how silence and confusion.  As Jesus body lay lifeless in the tomb can actually, can actually teach us and help us to reach further for God.

But today we end on the best day, the great day, the Sunday, the resurrection day. 

So yeah, sorry, I should have reviewed this with you.  That was kind of anticlimactic. But Sunday, the resurrection day. Today we're going to learn is a day of surprise, a day of victory, and a day of hope.  As with his birth, the announcement of Jesus's resurrection that Sunday changed everything.  Early that Sunday morning, some women who were his disciples, they found the stone rolled away at the entrance to the tomb and they found the tomb empty. 

And the angelic message that then follows were spiritual shots still heard around the world today. Amen. And that's what we celebrate. And it's, and it's really cool to look at what the angel said to the women on that day. For example, Matthew 28 verse six, they said, he is not here. He has risen just as he said.

Mark's gospel records the woman hearing the angel say in verse 6, chapter 16, verse 6, he has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him. And then Luke's gospel, chapter 24, verse 5, the angels say, why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here. He has risen.  And the world has never been the same.

Amen.  You know, accounts differ in details of who  Saw and said what, as you can see even from the three synoptic gospel accounts of what the angels actually said, but the angelic announcement. He has risen. The discovery of this fact of the empty tomb by his disciples is really all that matters.  You know, one day Professor John Lennox, who's a believer in Jesus and a, and a philosopher professor at Oxford University was debating Stephen Hawking.

And Stephen Hawking's Who's an atheist and loves to debate whether God exists or not said to him, religion is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark to which lettuce replied. Atheism is a fairy tale for people afraid of the light. 

The resurrection is a spiritual burst of light.  Right? It's a spiritual silver bullet. It's a spiritual nuclear bomb.  It's Jesus going viral or however else you want to say it in modern terms.  And like most trilogies, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, probably where they got that idea.  God saved the best day for last day, man. 

So let's attempt today to see the wonderful, powerful truth telling light of that Easter Sunday, the resurrection. Let's pray before we start. 

Father in heaven as I was praying to you this morning, I just thought There is no way any of us and certainly not me can shed the kind of light that the resurrection sunday brought  But god, we pray that you can get rid of our distractions personally that you can get rid of our our our concerns or cares about what's going to happen after this time today and help Us to really focus in on this historical significant  Beautiful, bright day, the day that the angels announced that Jesus rose from the grave.

The disciples saw the empty tomb  and the completion of the gospel of Jesus Christ began to spread all over the earth. Thank you for that day. Help us to learn from it today.  Get rid of me so I can do some justice to it Today. We praise in Jesus' name. Amen.  Let's just quickly review the facts that we find about the Resurrection Day on, on, on the,  on that Sunday.

Before we jump into just a few ideas here that I think are inspiring from Resurrection Sunday. First you know, it, it, it, all four Gospels, Matthew 28, Mark 16 Luke 24, and John 20, all say that, you know, he, he rose on the third day after he was killed. Different variations of women go to the tomb to check on Jesus body and continue to anoint it, because they think he's still dead, obviously falsely. 

The visions of angelic announcements we just read happen, whether it was one or several angels, we're not really sure. You know, people will say those are contradictions in the gospel account,  but, you know, they're just four different points of view. If, if you could imagine being a part of something so overwhelming and mesmerizing as an empty tomb and a resurrected Christ, if four of us were telling that story, we might not have to tell it quite the same way or remember it quite the same way.

And the lack of perfect agreement indicates a lack of making up a story. To try to get something false through that wasn't actually true, and so that actually gives validity not, not not devalues the gospel accounts of the resurrection on that day, and the, and the gospels say that, you know, Jesus first appeared to the Marys in Matthew 28, to Mary Magdalene in Mark 16 and John 20.

Then to Cleop Cleopas and his companion, Luke 24, which Craig alluded to in the communion time there. Possibly, Peter was before that or after Cleopas and his companion. We don't really know. As Peter's mentioned, has seen the Christ in Luke 24 and 1 Corinthians 15, raised from the grave. Then he appears to the apostles as they're meeting.

Midas Thomas  of all the meetings to miss Thomas  of all the what were you doing on that day? You know, man, man,  but Jesus in his grace and his goodness eight days later Appears to all the disciples again and Thomas is now there  You know there in John 20, you know, it records that and then over the next several weeks  He appears to seven disciples on the shore there in the Sea of Galilee in John 21 He appeared also to the apostles on the mountain in Galilee, where he gives, of course, the Great Commission in Matthew 28.

Some scholars think that's perhaps where also the 500 witnesses saw him too, because it's up on a mountain and it's very visible. And then, of course lastly, we know in Luke 24 and Acts 1, he also was with the apostles at the Mount of Olives. And that's where they think he ascended before them back to heaven in Luke 24 and Acts 1.

And Luke's Luke's two volume, you know, So, his two volumes is the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, and he says in Acts 1 verse 3,  and we'll just read it together here, it's on the screen for you, he says there in Acts 1 verse 3,  After his suffering, Jesus presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.

He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  And this is important because this wasn't a revelation or a vision to just one man or one woman in one moment. No, and many, many large religions are built upon such supposed revelations,  but it was many men and many women over a 40 day period  that said that Jesus rose from the grave. 

You know, David Young, a minister and author, I was reading an article on Renew. org this week about  Easter. It says the Christian religion is not grounded in ideology, psychology, or philosophy. It's rooted in historical facts.  And so hopefully our skepticism or questions around the facts of that day can be put aside for a moment.

And we can focus in today on the light shed on that Resurrection Sunday. And just three ideas here for the text, and then we're gonna have a, a few resurrection testimonies here at the end of our time today. The first idea here that I think the, the, the resurrection can bring to us today is the idea of surprise.

Sunday was a day of surprise.  You know, the angels appear at the tomb  to the women.  And Luke 24  verses 5 through 7  and ask a very good question.  Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He's not here. He has risen.  And just to reiterate, remember how he told you they going to say why he was still with you in Galilee.

The son of man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners be crucified and on the third day be raised again.  You know, the angels are, they're confused by the women. They're like, why are you at a tomb?  Where dead people exist because you're looking for a man who actually is now alive.  Did you not understand what he said to you when he said on the third day he was going to be raised back to life? 

They're, they're just not getting it. They're not getting it. And sometimes we don't get it, do we? 

And so the angels, they're not surprised,  but the women are, and I think we can relate probably more to the women, can't we?  And then Jesus, when he shows up Matthew's Gospel records, for the first time Jesus appears, the women hurry away after the angelic announcement, filled with joy, and ran to tell, you know, you know, his disciples.

Suddenly Jesus met them.  Greetings, he said. They came to him, clasped his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me. And that's in Matthew 28.  Verses eight through 10. You know what? Profound statement. What? What? What?

Amazing expression will capture this moment by Jesus. Greetings. It's 

kind of like, you know.  What's up?  Hi! That's it!  That's it, you know, no, no Surprise! Ta-da! You know, that's what we would expect, right?  That's what we would expect.  Mic dropped, you know,  something more than Hello!  But again, Jesus is not surprised.  They are and we should be amen.  You know, I love the Book of Acts.

It goes on You know the book of Acts chapter 1 and off the end of chapter 1 They're praying Jesus ascends and he says wait till the Spirit comes and an extra to the Spirit shows up and tongues of fire  And it rests on the Apostles and they're speaking in tongues Which means languages in the in the New Testament and everyone, you know The Jews that had gathered from all the diaspora were there and they're hearing the Apostles speak in their native tongues It gets their attention And then Peter preaches that first gospel sermon, and he proclaims publicly in Jerusalem, 50 days after Jesus was killed, that Jesus died, he was buried, but on the third day, he rose again. 

Right? And so Peter goes from the denier to the preacher, right, in just 50 days.  And again, it's, it's, it's blow away. 3,  000 people are baptized after they hear that sermon that day in Jerusalem.  And the world has never been the same, right? You know, since that day. But the resurrection is what started that process.

And we see that, we see Acts 2, 3, 000 people baptized and we go, Oh my goodness, that, that's incredible. But, but again, God is not surprised.  The Holy Spirit is not surprised. When His power shows up, things happen.  And that Spirit rose Him from the grave on that day.  You know, I love this about true Jesus rose from the grave faith.

For It should be surprising at times. It should be refreshing. It should blow us away sometimes. If we really get what we have in the resurrection of Jesus as Christians, we too often should be surprised. Amen.  Easter Sunday should remind us of the surprising and inspiring work of God that the earth is constantly full of.

But we, like the women that day, like the disciples, we often struggle to fully get it. I had an episode recently, I was sharing my faith with a young guy at an auto parts store, and he seemed really curious about Jesus and the Bible, and he told me where he lived. I said, oh, we have a little group in that area, and so, you know.

Got his number, reached out to him, I got nothing.  About a month later, I'm sitting in the living room of a sister who's just lost a loved one, and trying to comfort her in her grief, and then walks in that young man that I met a month ago. Turns out, you know, this sister in Christ is his mother.  And it was just like, he looked at me and I looked at him, and it was like, whoa. 

We were both surprised.  But is it surprising, really,  that God does things like that?  About three days after that event,  Brennan Shawshia and I were hanging out playing some pickleball.  And we were playing these two guys. We were trying to represent the church well. I don't know if we did or not. I don't remember.

We won or lost, Brennan might.  So, you know, we're playing pickleball with these guys. And we start talking afterwards. And, you know,  I'm a preacher. I'm going to share my faith if I get the chance. And I started talking to this guy. And Young guy named Ben. And it turns out, you know, he was just on a he was just on a layover in Phoenix.

He's actually from Milwaukee, coming back from L. A. Trip to L. A. And he literally flew in that morning, found the nearest pickleball court because he loves pickleball, apparently, and drives there. He was actually playing barefoot because he didn't have the right kind of shoes because he really love pickleball. 

And you know, and we're playing. And he was pretty good. He had game. I'll give him that. But, so I start sharing my friends with Ben. Well, Ben's from Milwaukee. And and I say, oh, we have a church in Milwaukee. I actually know the guy that leads it. His name is Kurt Ammons. He's a good friend of mine. And Ben and I start talking.

He says, well, where do they meet? And I'm like, I have no idea. So I look up where Kurt's, you know, church meets there. Our church, same church there as ours. And, and I show, and I show Ben. He's like, I got invited out to that church a month ago by a woman that I teach with.  Again, what are the chances of his layover? 

You know, he decides to play, although he's barefooted, and, and then Brendan and I get to play, you know. Again, it's just, it's the surprising work of God.  And the resurrection is, is, is the greatest reminder of that fact that exists every day, in every way, for those who believe in Him.  That's the surprise of Sunday. 

The second thing we get to talk about here is the victory of Sunday, amen?  We all like that part. We're like, yes! Victory! We're Americans. Americans, we're obsessed with winning in America. That's for sure.  The victory of Sunday. Jesus resurrection was ultimately humanity's victory plan. Right? It was ultimately humanity's victory plan.

All three days of Easter weekend, Jesus death, burial, and resurrection remind us, though, that it's a victory of surrender.  It's a victory of surrender. And we don't like that as much, eh, man?  You know, this idea of this victory of surrender defies, defies how we often see victory.  And somewhere, somewhere in America, this billboard was put up and it's embarrassing to me as an American, but it kind of is going to illustrate my point here.

Somewhere in America, this billboard was put up.  It says you drew first blood, but I'll be back. 

This is not made up. This actually happened. I didn't have time to research where it happened. I didn't want to shame anybody. Maybe it was in Phoenix. I don't know.  But if you zoom in, you see, you see the Rambo Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesus here on the cross.  I don't, I don't think he probably looked quite like that at that point. 

I mean, it might have been ripped. I don't know. But but you can see the cross is not, is not really breaking him. He's breaking it. He's actually broken off there, you know, with his right hand, part of the cross, 

you know, so the cross didn't break him, right? He broke it. It's kind of the picture, you know, it's a very American Messiah  to me. It's, it's, it's a very American Jesus.  But in reality, we know the cross did break him.  It was brutal.  But the resurrection teaches us that by submitting to death. In the end, Jesus was victorious over it. 

He found victory in his surrender, even to death. But again, that's the opposite of what we often think about and how the world operates. And Jesus actually talked about this concept in John 12,  verses 23 to 26. Before he died, as he's going into Jerusalem, he says, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, there remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  And then he goes on to make it practical to us. Anyone who loves their life will lose it. While anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am my servant also will be. My father will honor the one who serves me. That's John 12, 23  to 26. Jesus, yes, died, but then he resurrected,  which produced much more than he lost on that day that he died. you  You know, John 12, 24, you know, Jesus, the one seed is what he's referring to.

He's the one seed, right, that died in John 12, 24. And it will go on to produce many seeds.  Look around the room today. That's just one example of all the seeds  that that one death has produced. And how many people all around the world today,  how many seeds is that,  remembering his death burial?  But then, of course, He calls, you know, us to His path. 

If we're going to follow Him, He says we have to choose the same kind of life. We have to find victory in surrender.  As He says in verse 25 there, anyone who loves their life will lose it.  Anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  You know, are you living on the terms of victory that the world gives you or that Jesus gives you? 

I think it's so easy to live on the world's terms.  You know, if you lose, you know, if you lose, you lose on God's terms. If you lose, you win.  Spiritually speaking,  a lot of times we get fooled by the world and we start to think, think that losing for Jesus is actually just losing. When anything that we lose for Jesus, we always in the end gain something far more.

We are called as Christians to lose our life, deny ourselves for God's sacrifice for him. But in this, we give up something less and get something far more.  So if we are truly sacrificing for God, if we're that dying seed like our Savior and Lord, like Jesus three day story, it's a win win.  Friday was a win, Saturday was a win, and Sunday was a win. 

You know, there's an interesting account of David Livingston. David Livingstone was a 19th century Scottish preacher, doctor, and abolitionist. And he started to do a lot of missionary work in the continent of Africa.  And he's still considered very much a hero there in many ways for the work that he did.

Eventually he lost his wife, and then his own life, to disease, serving in this role in Africa.  One day he spoke before a group at Oxford University about, and they, and they, they talked about his great sacrifice. Serving all those years in africa, and he said this of his great sacrifice to the crowd. It is emphatically no sacrifice  Say rather it is a privilege anxiety sickness suffering or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences And charities of this life may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink But let this only be for a moment  All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us.

I never made a sacrifice.  What, what, what conviction?  What, what example of his life is of that idea that there is victory, absolute victory in surrender? How can Easter Sunday teach you the victory of surrender?  And do we have faith to see it as a win win whenever we sacrifice and  For Christ,  you know, I think this is a really important concept, you know, maybe today, you know, maybe today you're thinking about becoming a Christian you're here.

Yeah, maybe I need to become a Christian. Maybe I need to get right with the Lord  and and then you hear something like this. You mean I have to die to myself. I have to die to my sin. I have to I have to sacrifice something to become a Christian. I'm not sure I'm ready for that.  And if you're feeling that way, I totally get it.

That's how I felt when I started to hear these kinds of teachings from Christ. And I thought, if I lose, I just lose. But the resurrection says no, it's the opposite. When you lose in the end, you win with God. You win with God. And I hope that if you're struggling with that concept, you can sit down with us and study the Bible. 

And see how you can find victory in surrender through Christ. And see how you, yeah, you have to give some things up. But what you're gonna gain is gonna be far, far better, amen?  And if you are a Christian, you know, I wanna speak to those of us who, you know, Yeah, we proclaim to be Christians, but we know we've been wandering. 

We know we haven't been here in a while. We know we're showing up here, but we're not really living the Christian life. We know we're one way on Sunday, and we're another way on Monday. For those in the room who are in that category, again, I don't judge you. I don't look down on you, but my question for you is where are you going? 

And why are you doing what you're doing?  What is it based on? In my experience, it's usually based on operating in the ways  the world operates. And living by the rules of the world and how it tells you to live. And you got to get, get, get, get, get, or you will not win in the end.  And, and my Lord and Savior showed us the opposite of that.

And if you know Him as your Lord and Savior, what is He trying to say to you today? Through His death and His resurrection.  And are you saying to Him, yeah, I know, I know, you know, that was tough, Jesus, but, but my stuff is way tougher. A  lot of times that's why we, that's why we wander, and that's why we're wayward in our journeys. 

As people who understand what Jesus really did for us, and who even have received that gift, and have become a Christian, and have the Holy Spirit inside of us. We want it because we, we lose a grasp  on the victory in surrender. And if that's you, today's a great day to, to open up, first and foremost, to God.

But to find brothers and sisters who are in this room, who would love to help you to get back on track and find that victory again in Christ. It can be done.  And church, have you been slipping?  You're here every Sunday, you're, you're a committed member of this church, but have you been slipping?  Thinking that, you know, when you lose for Christ, it's just a loss in the end, and forgetting that, no, it's win win every time, and Jesus, so whatever we gotta face, whatever we gotta give up, it's gonna be a victory in the end. 

So there's the victory of Sunday,  and lastly here, there's the hope.  There's also the hope of Sunday.  There's a biblical pattern of hope in Jesus being raised on the third day. And it's actually a really quite interesting biblical pattern that I, I, in my, in my studies, I, I came across and I thought was quite striking.

There's these third day stories in the Old Testament.  You know, Abraham is told to sacrifice his one and only son,  and he goes and journeys up to the mountain. And then, and then on the third day, a ram appears in the thicket. Stuck by its horns, and, and God says no, that's the sacrifice you're to make to me, and Isaac is saved. 

You know, Joseph puts his brothers, who had betrayed him in prison,  he's a little mad at them, we get it.  But then in mercy, he releases them on the third day.  When Esther hears that there's a plot to slaughter the Jews, her people, as they're in exile, she fasts and prays, and then on the third day, approaches King Xerxes,  and receives a completely reversal of fate.

Of her people  the israelite spies show up in the promised land checking it out and they're hid By the you know The prostitute rahab in her home  because they're looking for them to kill them  and then they're safe to go on the third Day,  it became such a pattern that the prophet hosea said this on the screen here in hosea 6 Verses 1 through 2 come let us return to the lord.

He has torn us to pieces But he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will restore us that we may live in his presence. That's Hosea six  versus one through two. This Easter Sunday, we must remember, we must remember with God.

It may be Friday or Saturday, but the third day Sunday is always going to come.  If Jesus is your Lord, it's going to come sooner or later.  But the challenge is, is we don't know when. The  challenge is we don't know how. The challenge is we could be in a Friday, spiritually speaking, or a Saturday, and we don't know when that third day's gonna come.

And that's why we have to hang on to our hope in Him.  And the resurrection teaches us a lot about hanging on to hope.  Because it was dark, it was bleak, it was confusing, it was silent. But on that third day, hope was restored.  One of the Greek words where we get the English word moment, And we'll see how we're gonna get to that in a couple of minutes.

This is the this is the mathematical explanation of the word atom. So So, So, learned 

how to split an atom,  the smallest unit, you know, of matter. And when they learned how to split that atom,  it unleashed incredible power.  And that power was sadly used to kill a lot of people. It did it in World War II, the atomic bomb. But it killed a lot of people. Today we hopefully have better uses of it, like powering cities instead of flattening them. 

But that moment of splitting that atom unleashes incredible power.  In a similar way, Jesus and His one body resurrecting in that one moment created atomic hope for us all.  Romans 6, 4 describes it. It  says in there, in Romans chapter 6, verse 4, We were therefore buried with him, referring to Jesus, through baptism, into death.

And know that just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  You know, baptism. It's what Paul's describing here is where we first find this new resurrected hope and where we first get to encounter this new resurrected life.  But this hope continues once you're baptized for, for all Christians.

First Peter chapter one, verse three, the other scripture on the screen there. Peter says, praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Amen.  That hope begins  when you're buried in Jesus name in the waters of baptism and you come out, it says, a new person.

But that hope is a living hope, Peter says. It should continue. It should be increasing. That atomic hope should be growing and growing and growing more in our lives the closer we get to Him. Some of us Easter weekend, you know, need to really seek and find. Our third dates, our resurrections, our new lives.

Friends, if you're here with us today,  you know, please send the Bible with us so that you can find this atomic hope.  You, you, you find it through saving faith and saving repentance and saving baptism.  And we hope and pray that we can sit down with you and teach you how to really find that atomic hope.

Because no matter what you're going through, no matter what you've been through, what you're going to go through, Jesus, his resurrection can give you great hope. It can give you a new life and church Easter Sunday shouts to us,  no matter what you're facing,  no matter what you're going through. No matter how you feel,  Easter Sunday shouts hope to us all.

Your third-day story, just like Jesus, it will come if you are a disciple of him.  And I hope we can all find this and renew this hope today in small or large ways. You know, may we find the surprise, victory,  hope of Easter Sunday. And, you know, to end our time, to connect Easter Sunday to our stories, I thought it'd be great today to hear from a few other brothers and sisters stories.

So Charlie Husted and Gail Ssciscia are going to share their personal resurrection stories at this time. I'll invite Charlie up to the stage first. 

Good morning My name is Charles. I also go by Charlie and I became a disciple last month. 

One of the hardest lessons for me while becoming a disciple was Surrendering my life to Jesus.  You see the Marine Corps taught me that surrender was something we just didn't do. You  In all of our long history, Marines have only ever surrendered three times.  Each time though, it was under the orders of a non Marine officer and we burned our colors instead of turning them over to the enemy. 

So we didn't really count those.  Eventually with some help from some brothers, I came to understand that surrendering to Jesus wasn't about giving up.  It was victory in a different way.  Looking back on my spiritual journey, I realized that every time that I felt close to God,  I had surrendered myself to him. 

Like the Marines. This had happened three times,  but also, like the Marines, I didn't really consider it surrender.  The first time I really let go and surrendered to God  was when I was young and my dad was dying of cancer.  He had a very aggressive brain tumor,  and in his last few months in the hospital, he was barely himself. 

One day, my grandfather and uncle visited, and my dad was really out of it.  I can remember being so frustrated.  I just wanted to enjoy our time together  as a family so badly.  I wanted it so much that I was hugging my dad, praying and pouring my heart out to God.  Then the next thing I knew I was out like a light. 

When I woke up, I found out that right after I fell asleep, my dad had suddenly become clear headed.  He recognized my grandfather and my uncle,  and they spent all night talking and remembering old times together.  My dad passed away a couple of months after that. And we never got another night like it.  I knew God had answered my prayers, and I was so grateful. 

The second time I really leaned on God was several years ago, when my mom, Melvina,  had all of a sudden lost her voice. Her doctors had no idea what was wrong.  If you know my mom, she's a bit of a chatterbox.  She loves to talk. She's actually here today. Hi, Mom. 

I have many childhood memories of not so patiently waiting for For her while she talked on the phone with a friend,  spoke with a neighbor in the yard,  or sparked up a conversation with a stranger in the grocery store line.  So when she visited me and she couldn't speak anymore, it hit me really hard.  I don't cry a lot, but I cried for her. 

Then I prayed for her.  I gave up my heart to God and I asked for his mercy.  I pleaded with God. It was too cruel to take away her voice.  The next day, on her way home, she got into a terrible car accident.  It was brutal and she took a long time to recover.  I don't blame God for the accident. I blame her niece that was driving.

She needed more practice.  But the crazy thing was that due to the crash, they had to intubate her.  And after they did, she could speak again.  It turns out that her vocal cords had gotten tangled up and somehow with procedure, it sorted it out.  Even in that horrible accident, God found a way to show his mercy. 

I was so grateful to God.  Then about a year ago, my mom got sick again,  and I turned to God for a third time.  I came to visit her one day, and she was completely yellow from head to toe. She had jaundice.  We got her to the doctor right away,  and they told her that she needed surgery. They suspected it might be cancer,  but they couldn't be sure until they had operated. 

The night before her surgery, I came to God again, in complete surrender.  I prayed, and I asked for more time with my mom.  I didn't question his plans.  I just wanted a little bit more time to show her that I loved her.  Then after surgery, the cancer test came back negative.  I felt so grateful to God  this last time I prayed, something changed.

My heart was so full of gratitude to God that I wanted to be closer to him.  The only problem was I had no clue where to start.  I hadn't been to church in years.  But I had an idea of the church I wanted.  And I spoke to God over the next several months about it.  Denomination wasn't important to me, just the people. 

People who would be kind, loving, and welcoming.  People that wouldn't care so much about my past, but would help me find a future in Christ.  People who could help me to really understand who Jesus was,  and what his sacrifice meant.  Then, one day, not too long after I started looking, the church I had been praying for found me. 

I've been blessed to study the Bible with great brothers like Adam, Guillermo,  Forrest, Ryan.  I'm blessed to have been with a few brothers and sisters, Summer, Tanner, Isaac, and Connor.  I'm blessed to know all the inspiring disciples that I've met at church.  Your faith is an inspiration to me and I look forward to meeting the rest of you very soon. 

You all have helped me to understand what it means to be a Christian, a disciple, and a believer. And God's plans for me.  So finally, I made the decision to surrender one more time,  but there would be no burning of colors like the Marines. This surrender counted.  I surrendered my life to Jesus on February 4th, 2024. 

Thank you. 

Wow. Good morning. I'm Gail Shush. I love hearing stories like that. It's just so inspiring of what God can do in a person's life. And so I'm going to share about how. I've had to surrender different character aspects like dishonesty and forgiveness and my life plans and how God has turned those into victories both in building my character and in developing just a much deeper connection with God. 

So I grew up going to church, believing in God. I was baptized at 13. I played the piano for our church choir, much like my son Brennan does here sometimes.  But in high school, I wanted to start doing the bad things that my friends did.  And then my life just started not to reflect the things that I said that I believed about God. 

I was living in Korea at the time because my dad was in the military. And I just remember making a promise to God that if he got me out of Korea unscathed, that I would promise to seek him.  And so he did, and I did. And I,  I started to read the Bible on my own for the first time. And then as well, I got connected to a campus ministry.

God completely orchestrated that as well. I went to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Anybody from Charlotte, North Carolina here? Probably not, but,  but it was a wonderful school, wonderful campus ministry experience that was there. And it was there that I learned that I needed to change my life to become a true Christian.

Like I needed to really live out the Bible. And one of the, the  number one things that I had to surrender was dishonesty.  I would lie all the time, and it was mostly because I just was a people pleaser. It worked better that way, especially in high school, and it's just something that worked for me. But then, you know, the Bible teaches that we have to be honest.

And so I had to learn to trust  that God's way  was a better way.  And this did not happen overnight. What would happen is that I would be in a situation and I would lie. And so I'd have to go back and say, Oh, I lied in this situation. Well, eventually that became so humiliating that I just said, I'm just going to tell the truth from the very beginning. 

And so I did and it started off with small things like  what I really liked or what I really didn't like. And then deeper things such as, you know more vulnerable things. If someone hurt me or if I disagreed. And I began to see that God's way was a much better way. Yeah.  This also helped my character to become more courageous and more bold.

There's one situation where I was working and my boss had told me that he was home, he was at the office, but he said, some salesperson called and he said, tell the salesperson that I'm not here.  And I said,  because I had decided not, that I was not going to lie, that I said, I'm not going to tell him that you're not here.

here, but I will tell him that you're not available. And so this really was a very brazen move for him because he had been going around the office talking about what a devout Christian he was. And so my stance challenged him. But he took it very well. And so again, it just helped me to be bold. So over the years, I've had to mature and learn to temper some of that honesty with timing and wisdom. 

And it's an area that I still work on. But surrendering the habit of dishonesty has benefited my character immensely. 

Another area was in  becoming or letting go of forgiveness, letting go of non forgiveness. When I was younger, I didn't really have many conflicts, either in the church or outside the church, especially in my teens, twenties. But when I got into my thirties, just relationships started becoming more complicated  all around.

And I had to learn that I had to desire, had to surrender my desire to hold a grudge.  So I've been in relationships where I've been hurt. I've been in relationships where I've hurt other people.  Sometimes the conflict was not a clear right or wrong, but oftentimes just a difference of perspective.  But still, the hurt was real and sometimes very deep.

In my mind, I would want to curl up with that unforgiveness and anger and just like a blanket and just nurture it and feed it. If you've ever struggled with unforgiveness, you know exactly what I'm talking about. How you want to just hang on to that. For some reason it felt so good to feel so horrible. 

But unforgiveness feels safe. Like a shield because it's very protective.  Whereas forgiveness felt very vulnerable. And like I was letting the person get away with something. But the Bible calls, calls us to forgive the way Jesus forgave. And forgiveness is hard. And I'd say even after making the decision to forgive,  you know, the feelings are still there.

Amen.  You know, only God can bring about forgiveness of the heart. So it's also surrendering control and trusting that he will bring about healing in his time.  And what I've gained  from deciding to forgive is just a humility that allows me to see my own failings and need for grace. So they're much more willing to extend that to others. 

And then lastly, it's surrendering my plans.  You know, the Bible teaches that we need to trust God with our plans.  When I was younger, I felt so much more confident of what God would do in this or that situation.  And I was overall pretty happy with the way that God was leading my life. It made sense.  But over time, again, over years, I've been a Christian almost 40 years now.

And so over time, I've seen God do things that I'm,  that I just can't believe have happened good or bad. And I've seen his silence, you know, in, in very desperate desperate situations in my own life or in others. And I just sometimes just don't understand. And this is just one example, but I had a previous job that didn't go the way I wanted.

I begged and I pleaded with God and worked hard, but I was not able to master skills to get the promotion that I was really wanting.  I was disappointed.  But what I gained from that whole experience was resilience and a deeper understanding of what was. My part versus what is God's part.  One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3  3 through 5 and it says trust God from the bottom of your heart.

Don't try to figure everything out on your own  You know, I love it. I know that God loves me deeply. I know that he loves you deeply He works for our relationship with him and for our benefit. His goal is for us to become more like Jesus  And we have to grow. And a lot of times that growth takes pain. We have to go through the pain. 

So what seems like sacrifices have definitely been powerful life changing and growing experiences for me. I've become a more honest, forgiving and resilient person.  I am more dependent on God. That's a good place to be and although it's uncomfortable, it is a place that I want to be. 

Well, thank you Charlie and Gail for, for being, you know, walking resurrection stories for us this morning because these are wonderful ideas, but we got to make it practical. I hope each one of us today can, can think about their stories and think about these beautiful truths that the resurrection teaches us and apply it somehow to our lives and walk up this room changed.

In some way or determined to change by the wonderful story of Jesus resurrecting on the third day. So, you know, friends,  thank you for coming with us today. Please join us again soon. Church, let's continue, you know, let's continue to look for the surprising ways God works in and through our lives.  Let's continue, you know, to find that the ultimate victory in life is found through surrender in Christ. 

And no matter what we're facing, let's never lose hope. The resurrection teaches us to to never lose hope, no matter how dark or confusing life can be. Our third days will come.  Thank you so much. Have a great resurrection Sunday. God bless you. Amen.