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00:00:00 good morning everyone um today's scripture reading is taken from um 2 Corinthian chapter 4: 6- 12 verse 6 for God who said let light shine out of Darkness made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ but we have this treasure in Jars of Clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us we are heart pressed on every side but not crushed perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not abandoned struck down but not destroyed we always
00:00:46 carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body for we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body so then that death is at work in us but life is at work in you this is the word of God friends this morning we have an exciting speaker Among Us it is his first visit to FBC but not first visit to Malaysia uh dashing young men for more than 25 years John hurry has been serving local and Global church
00:01:35 first as a pastor and as a church planter and now at the West Coast and East Asia as director for C Jesus Ministries it is a global global discipling missions John thoroughly enjoys training pastors missionaries and churches in the US and Asia John and Sonia Sonia his wonderful wife of 25 years currently reside in Southern California with their four children friends let us put our hands together and welcome John [Applause] Horry thank you so much for having me here to share God's word with you it's
00:02:20 my pleasure it's uh as was mentioned it's my second time in kale I I came here in 2019 and uh was always wondering when the Lord would allow me to return never thinking that it would be 5 years later um but it is my pleasure to be here uh as you're looking at me uh you're probably wondering uh I I get a stare a lot especially in Asia and I know what you're thinking you're wondering what is he and in America that might be considered a racist question but here I don't consider it I know a few of you
00:02:59 asked me are you Chinese are you mixed uh are you Korean and I'm none of those I I I'm Japanese by ancestry but I'm fourth generation in America and so I don't speak Japanese and I'm I'm a very shameful Japanese I I I I barely speak English and so uh that's sometimes that that helps people cuz sometimes when I'm preaching that's all they're thinking about they're wondering what is he um I wanted to start our time with a story uh the title of the sermon this morning is longing for Resurrection I was a few years ago I was
00:03:42 in Phoenix Arizona and I was with a group of leaders and we were doing a training and toward the end of the training I asked uh kind of opened it up and said are there any questions and so there were a few questions that were were pertinent to the training but uh there was one that caught me off guard because it was a an older gentleman a very respected leader in the room who is sitting in the back and he stood up very humbly and he said I have two questions for you he said number one where do you
00:04:16 think the American church will be in 50 to 100 years and that question wasn't the one that stunned me what shocked me the most was the second one he said do you think there's hope do you think there's hope uh it wasn't just what he was asking but it was the way he was asking he was not asking in an accusatory way but an Earnest way and this was a man who had been walking with the Lord and serving the lord and leading uh many others for many years and so my f response to his first question was I don't know where the church will be in
00:05:02 50 to 100 years only the spirit does and to answer your second question I said is there hope my answer is absolutely and I went on to explain how the resurrection of Jesus changes everything and so you need to know that this man was not losing his faith he was just weary a little fearful and in need of some reminder of the truth and maybe you too feel the same way this morning maybe you're not losing your faith but there have been some times more recently that you felt like you were you're you're
00:05:42 exhausted maybe a little fearful maybe you're wondering the same thing in the quietness of your own heart is there hope and if that's you then my answer to you is absolutely and so let's pray and let's find out why father we come before your word and we pray that we would bring that you would bring by your spirit not only the truth of your word but but the hope that your word contains and so that can only come by the movement and the grace of your presence here and so we ask that you would move freely
00:06:23 joyfully challenging at times and yet ultimately with great hope and Jesus name amen now before focusing on the Apostle Paul's words in 2 Corinthians I first want to make sure that we remember where he came from the Bible introduces us to Paul in Acts 8:1 and it says uh Saul approved of his execution and there arose on that day great persecution against the church in Jerusalem and they all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles the very first thing that we learn about
00:07:02 Paul is that he approved the execution of a man named Stephen just to give you an idea how bad this is keep in mind that Paul killed a man that the Bible describes as having a face like an angel so imagine putting that that on your resume killed a man with a face like an angel now after Steven's martyrdom the church in Jerusalem scatters throughout Judea and Samaria but that wasn't good enough for Paul because we see in verse three that Paul was ravaging the church and entering house after house he dragged
00:07:49 off men and women and committed them to prison after Steve's martyrdom the church in Jerusalem scatters throughout and this was not good enough for Paul in verse three we see he starts going door too throwing them in prison and then suddenly if you're familiar with the book of Acts Paul then disappears from our eyes in the rest of the chapter he kind of drops off the scene and he doesn't reappear in the book of Acts until Acts chapter 9 and so he reappears in the pages of scripture and it and it reads but Saul
00:08:30 still breathing threats and murder against the Disciples of the Lord that's an eloquent way of saying he's still really mad and he's still really mean terrorizing Christians in Jerusalem was not good enough so in 92 he asked the high priest permission to go and pursue Believers in Damascus as well and so at this point it's natural to wonder Paul what's your problem what's your problem have you lost your mind why are you acting this way are you crazy or is he simply acting on what he believed to be
00:09:15 true you see Paul was a Pharisee and Paul's father was a Pharisee if we see in Acts chapter 8 uh 23: 6 and so Paul naturally wanted to become a Pharisee and we remember that the Pharisees were passionate people because they were a people who were actually obsessed with the resurrection and so when you see Pharisees and Sadducees sometimes they teamed up together to go against Jesus but usually they were at odds with one another and the main thing that they disagreed about was the Resurrection the Pharisees were consumed
00:09:53 with Resurrection they believed there would be a final day of final judgment that God would raise up the righteous from the dead but they also believed that God was going to restore things right now in other words the Pharisees believed that they could experience realtime Resurrection not just a future one and so the Jews called it shalom shalom was the restoration of human flourishing at every level of society this included financial prosperity a booming economy business conducted with integrity and private uh
00:10:32 property ownership and living in Surplus it also included religious Prosperity there would be people who would worship the only true God with righteous leaders and a people who would live with faithfulness it included political Prosperity God would use the nation of Israel to lead the rest of the world to worship and Obey him so Shalom was what Resurrection Life looked like for the Pharisees this was their deepest longing it was what motivated everything that they did it's what dominated their studies it's
00:11:07 the what dominated their teaching it's what they sang about it's what they prayed for uh this trip to Asia for me is the first trip that i' I've taken since the pandemic started and so the last trip I took was to Bangkok and this is a picture of me and and and a young man that I'm I'm discipling Nathan and we're in Bangkok March 2020 and so uh we were uh uh thinking at least I was thinking this pandemic thing at least in America didn't seem like that big of a deal and it would probably be done in a month or two and so why not
00:11:50 go to Asia so we end up in Bankok uh we make it out of the country about two weeks before they shut everything down and and when I returned three days after I returned my wife Sonia got sick now try to remember three years ago when there was not a lot of known about covid and so uh she she didn't qualify to get tested at that time so we didn't know what it was and what was going on and uh there was a lot of fear and so what we did is we we self-quarantined her in our our bedroom she said I could show this
00:12:26 picture as long as I don't show her face um and so uh you can see she she's on her phone she's not feeling well um uh the kids were were bringing up kind of as as love offerings uh some of the her favorite chocolate here uh and then food was being served to her daily and taken away um and then I would join her for meals but I would I would eat outside the the door there of the bedroom door and so uh she would remain in that room for roughly the next four weeks now she claimed she only should have been there three weeks and I kept
00:13:09 her in an extra week but her cough was just persistent and so I have four children at the time one of them was in college and so suddenly she came home and so we have all four children at home we have two rambunctious disobedient dogs running around the houses as well and so I'm beginning to worry I'm worrying about the the well-being of my wife I'm worrying about how to lead and love my children through this season I'm worried about my own finances as a support raising missionary and so I realize at the end of every day I go to
00:13:49 sleep exhausted uh because I was washing dishes and trying to care for the family and then I my mind would just wander into worry and anxiety I wanted Resurrection Life now I wanted the healing of my wife I wanted things uh in in the world to be made right at least in my little world brothers and sisters what's the Shalom you're seeking today in your life maybe like me you're not that much different from the Pharisees after all don't we all long for some kind of Resurrection now is it economic stability maybe we're hoping that there
00:14:35 would be a shift in our community or in our country to God's greater good or maybe it's not that broad maybe we just long for Resurrection in a tumultuous home situation or maybe even deeper for Resurrection in the anxiety of our own hearts maybe like that leader in Arizona you too like me are wondering is there truly hope now do you realize this is exactly how the Pharisees felt now they get a really bad rap for very good reasons but but this is exactly how they felt because they had a deep longing for a
00:15:21 better future and the reality of what they were experiencing was the complete opposite at that particular time the Jewish people were living under the oppression of the Pagan Roman Empire they were mistreated and and mosts suffered in harsh poverty the Jewish and religious political leaders were grabbing for power and money as they sold out to the Romans remember a guy named Caiaphas or pilate in the Pharisees Minds the main problem of why the resurrection why the Shalom was not coming was because of a
00:15:58 lack of faith fulness of the people thus the solution for was faithfulness to God's law of the Torah therefore anyone they thought was that was breaking the law according to their own interpretation was the problem and needed to be stopped that's why they kept plotting against Jesus in their minds he was preventing Shalom from happening he was was being unfaithful he was preventing realtime Resurrection isn't that ironic and so Paul gets permission to pursue Christians in Damascus and let's pick up the story in chapter 9 verse
00:16:48 three and following and it says now as he went on his way he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from Heaven Shone around him and falling to the ground he heard a voice and saying to him Saul Saul why are you persecuting me and he said who are you Lord and he said I am Jesus whom you are persecuting but rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do the men who were traveling with him stood speechless hearing the voice but seeing no one Saul Rose from the ground and although his
00:17:24 eyes were open he saw nothing so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus and for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank Paul has a real and personal encounter with the resurrected Jesus this was not just a miraculous moment it was a complete GameChanger you see up into that point Paul knew who Jesus was but he saw him from a human point of view as he would later say in 2 Corinthians 5:16 what is the human point of view mean for Paul it means that he saw Jesus as a
00:18:05 lunatic and a heretic and so when Jesus was crucified in the most shameful way Paul assumed Jesus got what he deserved not just from the Romans but from God himself so on that Damascus Road this was not just a mysterious encounter with the supernatural being this was turning Paul's world upside down if if Jesus is the Messiah if he's the righteous one then is the faithfulness of Israel no longer the answer to the problem is Jesus truly the answer you mean his faithfulness his righteousness and his
00:18:58 resurrection brothers and sisters the good news of the Gospel is that Shalom total peace with God and in all of life is not dependent upon government's stability economic Prosperity or your faithfulness it is dependent upon the Prince of Peace the prince of Shalom Jesus Christ he is fully human and fully God unjustly crucified on a cross to pay for the sins of people like like you and me God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day and that same Jesus lives today and like Paul you too can fall
00:19:42 before him cling to his feet and trust him as Savior and many of you in this room have placed your faith in Christ yet you're maybe quietly wondering well why does my Christian Life not look more like Resurrection life right now yes you know all things someday will be restored but until then I deep in my heart I'm I'm wondering shouldn't it be at least a little better it's a good question glad you asked it let's take a look at how Paul sees his life after he comes to Christ 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and
00:20:26 follow uh verse 7 and following but now we have this treasure in Jars of Clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us we are afflicted in every way but not crushed perplexed but not driven to despair persecuted but not forsaken struck down but not destroyed always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies for we who live are always being given over to death for the Jesus's sake so that the life of Jesus Also may be manifested in
00:20:58 our mortal flesh so death is at work in us but life in you skipping to sorry uh skipping to verse 16 which I don't I realize I don't have a slide for so we do not lose heart though our outer self is wasting away our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light momentary Affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of Glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen But to the things that are unseen now when we read this passage before even talking about the passage the reason why I wanted to even
00:21:38 stop and go back to acts is because we needed to know where Paul came from and now when we read this in 2 Corinthians this is about 20 years later and so Paul's Life as a Christian has has grown but it's not that perfect so we know that he he recognizes I'm a a jar of clay and uh I mean a Afflicted crushed persecuted struck down carrying in the body the death of Jesus given over to death and death is at work in us so let's assume that Paul since that original Day on on the Damascus Road has been growing as a Christian 20 years
00:22:44 later his life still has this it's still not perfect it's still not fully resurrected does this describe your life right now if so we may be T in touch with with living in the reality of a broken world and so it's a healthy thing to recognize this world is broken but if that's all we focus on if that's all we see then life begins to look and feel like this all we can see is that we are broken Jars of Clay and all we can see is being hardpressed on every side and perplexed and persecuted and carrying the body the the death
00:23:29 Jesus and always being given over to death and death is always at work in us and outwardly we're wasting away and there's troubles and what is seen only and what is seen is temporary is that what your life feels like or looks like right now Paul's did and yet he was not stuck in death he was not stuck in seeing the entire world as one that is broken and hopeless and so how does he not get stuck right before this section of scripture he gives this little lens in verse six and he says for God who said let
00:24:18 light shine out of Darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the of the glory of God in the face of Jesus what word seems to be predominant in this little verse it's very clear it's light light where's the third one there's supposed to be three lights that was shown I guess there there's a sense that as you look at the passage the the the light begins to narrow and focus so for those of you who are photographers and you have a zoom lens you start super wide and so there's this sense of the the
00:25:10 same God who at creation said let there be light and and and then light broke through the entire darkness and so you have this wide angle and then the verse begins to narrow you begin to turn that zoom lens and it begins to focus and the light begins to be focused and shining directly into our hearts and so it's really really personal all of a sudden really pinpointed and and if that's not personal enough then the light is known and seen in the very face of Jesus and so specifically how do we know the light of
00:25:56 the glory of God in our hearts we recognize it in the very face of Jesus over 20 years later the same resurrected Jesus that confronted Paul on that dusty road is still shining brightly in his life Paul is still enthralled with the radi Alan is not dead he is alive and so the face of Jesus is almost like a a vibrant lighthouse my wife always gets nervous when I start drawing but she's not here so I'm going to do it anyway try to imagine this verse as the light begins to narrow and for for for Paul as well as
00:26:56 us we see that light not just in a broad kind of of historic way but in a very personal way in the very person of Jesus as we abide in him then when we see Jesus we cannot help but see Jesus at work in life and so that very light begins to shine and cast light into the darkness of this world and so there's this sense that as we walk and look and see Jesus he begins to show us his resurrection and and what he is doing in our lives and so while Paul recognizes the Brokenness of this world simultaneously
00:27:45 he sees that we have this treasure and it's to show that the surpassing power is from God and not from us and so we're not crushed we're not in despair we're not abandoned we're not destroyed so that the life of Jesus may also be real revealed in our body we who are alive so that his life may also be revealed but life is at work in you therefore we do not lose heart inwardly we are being renewed day by day achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all so we fix our eyes on what is unseen since what is
00:28:23 unseen is eternal that vision of reality of the world as it really is in other words broken world with living Jesus in active way in our lives is the reality that Paul sees that prevents him from getting stuck in the death Paul sees the resurrected Jesus at work all throughout his life he sees Life coming out of death everywhere he works lives and prays why because the spirit of Jesus is actively and repeatedly bringing life from Death you know sometimes we we we assume and we don't believe this but we
00:29:09 assume that the power of the spirit that raised Jesus on that first uh Easter morning is the same power that saves us resurrects our hearts and saves Us by faith and then somehow that power kind of goes like a groundhog underneath the ground and goes dormant we I'm not saying we believe that but we live as if that power is of the spirit is kind of in the ground and at the end of time he pops back up and resurrects the dead and so we live as if we just have to hold our breath and make it and try
00:29:43 to be faithful until the groundhog pops up someday do you realize the same power that raised Jesus from the dead on that Easter morning the holy spirit is deposited as a gift not in a building but in you as the temple of God and that same power of the holy spirit is actively bringing Resurrection in your life right now yes in a broken world yes in a broken body yes in broken relationships but he's here he lives and he's not done yet so I get on the ground night after night during that time in the pandemic
00:30:41 and I am just completely fried and I begin to just lament cry out to Jesus and beg for mercy and help about my finances about my family about my wife and night after night after night I'm just asking Jesus help me and so a funny thing kind of happens go on with daily life and all of a sudden I see these little strange gifts and funny wrapping paper begin to emerge so my youngest who's both our most tenderhearted and and our toughest uh uh fighter like he's literally a Jiu-Jitsu champ he he can't he's kind of in that
00:31:27 tween state age at that time and he's trying to figure out who he is and all of a sudden I I I see his tender heart begin to emerge the the resurrection of the Salvation that was planted in him by Grace begins to show itself because he just wants to serve mom so I'm keeping him out of the room I'm trying not to get him sick but he he he helps make the the the conji and brings it up and even I don't know where he got that flower it might have been from the neighbor's yard and so I'm like oh Lord please help me that night and
00:32:05 please continue I'm so stressed and thank you for for the way that you're working in in Jar's heart and then one day I come down and all four kids are home my my my oldest is home from college I see them playing games they never play games like that unless we go it's family game night and they do get along well but I mean they're all at were all at at kind of those awkward stages and then one one one morning I I come down I'm giving you a window into all the messiness of my life in my house my my boys during the
00:32:39 pandemic decided they were going to let me sleep in their bedroom so I wouldn't get sick while I was serving mom and they uh sacrificed to come down and build a fort or a tent in the entire living room and so at the beginning they were like no girls in the tent and then one night I come down and they're all in the tent watching uh some video on a movie on online Lord please help me please I don't know what's going on and but but thank you thank you for the way they they seem to be getting along and and even
00:33:16 enjoying it and then I'm I'm going into my work training pastors I'm not traveling anymore and so all this online stuff starts and all of a sudden in this this looks kind of professional but it's really not because if we zoomed out you would see I'm in a a tiny little closet underneath our staircase and then because of that and because everyone's home the opportunity to begin to train even more pastors and leaders in more places in the world began to expand by the grace of God I was just in awe
00:34:00 and so let me close with this we need to learn to be Resurrection Hunters that doesn't mean that you try to look under every Rock and find what God is doing the way you you become a resurrection Hunter is not by your faithfulness and your strength of Faith it's by your weakness your dependence remember the story I told it wasn't my faithfulness that that that allowed me to see Jesus at work it was my weakness Jesus I'm anxious Jesus help me I don't know how to fix this I don't know what's going to happen Jesus help
00:34:41 me and then seemingly nothing happens and then the next night Jesus help me Jesus help me and then little by little I see God at work not in ways that I was exactly planning for you know evil has a a kind of a sticky quality to it it's like a a coin in the sense that if you look at the sun uh and you you take a coin and you you actually bring it close enough to your eye it can block out the sun evil can be like that it it has a sense that somehow it's overpowering and can block out the light of Jesus well if
00:35:22 you let it get close enough and just stick upon everything you see yes in some ways it can and so so we need we need to abide we need to come to Jesus and then resurrections are often subtle and they happen over the course of time interestingly enough in Isaiah 43:1 18 when he actually says at one point oh don't remember what I did in the past and it's such a strange thing cuz God always says remember remember remember and part of what you see in that passage is he gives the imagery of the Red Sea and what he was talking
00:36:04 about was don't get stuck hunting for Red Seas in our language Red Sea resurrections because if you do you're going to miss the new things I'm doing and we know in Isaiah he was referring to not The Parting of the Red Sea but he was referring to the new thing of the savior of the world that would come and so don't get stuck waiting and looking and hunting for the immediate parting of the Red Sea resurrections they happen occasionally but most often they unfold over the course of time and as we abide
00:36:44 and as we walk and as we we beg and talk and and pray with Jesus then then he begins to to to give us a glimpse of his light at work so what if the Jesus that you met many years ago still lives today what if he still is full of power and Glory what if he still cares about you and me what if he still breathes new life into dead people and Resurrection Life into dead spaces what if he's not done yet if this is all true then there is hope we may not despair we cannot despair The Best Is Yet To Come is there still hope
00:37:39 absolutely because our Savior Lives today let's pray Lord Jesus we thank you that we talk to you today because you live you died at Calvary but you were raised from the dead and you Reign on that throne and so we speak to you we we walk with you we cry out to you and through your spirit and so Lord we recognize that we live in a broken world and we confess sometimes we get stuck that all we see is death all around us and so Lord Jesus would you help us by your grace as we come to you in our greatest weaknesses and and and
00:38:25 worries that you would begin to fix our eyes in a way that would not only see you but you at work in our lives Lord I pray specifically this morning for those who are who have been longing for Resurrection in their marriages I just ask that you uh would would begin to cast light in the dark corners of those marriages to see that you have not abandoned those marriages and that you would give a sense of hope as well as a sense of movement by by your spirit Lord if it be a red sea may it be a red sea but if it's not I just pray
00:39:04 for patience and endurance I pray for even joy in the midst not because everything is perfect but because you are there and you are at work so have your mercy we pray trust you with this in Jesus name amen thank you Pastor Hy shall we all stand we want to thank you for what a wonderful message the resurrection and he's alive in us let's declare our love for our God and he's here Everlasting [Music] we all created on God allm Mighty through your Holy Spirit conceiving Christ the son Jesus our I believe in God our Father I
00:40:27 believe in in Christ the son I believe in the Holy Spirit our God is three in one I believe in the resurrection that we will rise again for I believe in the name of Jesus [Music] our judge and our defend suffered and crucified foress is in you descended Into Darkness you Rose in glorious life forever seated High I believe in God our Father I Believe In Christ the son I believe in the Holy Spirit how God is fre in one I believe in the resurrection that we will rise again for I believe in the name of Jesus
00:41:59 I believe in you I believe you Rose again I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord I believe in you I believe you Rose [Music] again I believe that Jesus Christ is [Music] G I believe in God our Father I believe in Christ the son I believe in the Holy Spirit how God is true in one I believe in the resurrection that we will rise again for I believe in the name of Jesus I believe in God our Father I Believe In Christ the son I believe in the Holy Spirit our God is fre in one I believe in the resurrection that we will rise again for
00:43:42 I believe in the name of [Music] Jesus I believe in life I believe in the Virgin birth I believe in the saunion and in your holy church I believe in the resurrection when Jesus comes again for I Believe In The Name of Jesus for I believe in the the name of [Music] Jesus for I Believe In The Name of Jesus now receive the blessing of the benediction may the Lord bless you and the Lord keep you and may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you and may the Lord lift up his his countenance upon you and give
00:44:59 you peace may he give you Shalom now and forever more amen and amen [Music]
