Easter At Believers Center

Hey! What’s up, everybody? Great to see you. Will you stand up on your feet? I love a packed church. I know they say the only people that like packed churches are pastors, but I like it. I like it when you’re all here. So thanks so much for being here. I want to say welcome. My name’s David. I’m one of the pastors of this church. If we haven’t met, I’d love to get to know you. But we wanted to say happy Easter. And even if you’re if maybe you’ve been coming to this church, you come faithfully every week, or if you’re one of our CEOs, that’s what we say. Christmas and Easter only, CEO. If you’re a CEO, man, we’re still just glad that you’re here. We want you to make yourself at home. We hope that this place is an encouragement to you, a blessing to you, even a challenge to you in the right ways, but that this place makes you a better follower of Jesus as we follow Jesus together. So, man, just thank you so much for being here. I’m really excited. It’s been an amazing service so far. Do you appreciate our worship team and the creative team? And y’all. They’re amazing.

We’re gonna recite our believer center creed. Just stand your feet one more quick moment. If you don’t know what this is, it’s our confession of faith. We recite it often, and if you don’t know the words, they’re on the screen. Invite you to read along with us. Here we go. I am deeply loved and graced by God. His life is a gift to me. My life well lived is my gift to him. I am determined to live the life I could never deserve from the place of his grace. My faith is audacious, my spirit relentless. I will not be deterred. I will not quit until Jesus is fully honored and a hurting world has heard the good news. If not me, then who? If not here, then where? If not now, then when. I am deeply loved and graced by God. Can you give God some praise for His grace? Yeah. Amen. We can give a hug, high five, a handshake, welcome a couple people to church, and you guys can take your seat.

If you have your Bibles this morning, I’d like to invite you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah 11. And while you’re turning there, just a quick little update. So we have a ministry here at this church called Love ABQ. If you don’t know what Love ABQ is, it’s our mission to reach and meet the practical needs of the city. And so this is the ways that we care for what we consider practical needs, real needs in our city, and we’ve partnered with a lot of great organizations. One of them that we partner with is a super cool organization called New Creation Church, right in the international district, and they have a project that we partner with on with them, and it’s called the Refuge Safe Outdoor Space. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the first city approved safe outdoor space for the unhoused of our city. And so it’s a gate, they get gated, they do background check, they get a gate access, and they go in there when once they get in, they’re they are provided with a tent, provided with they have a hand washing station, bathrooms, shower, and laundry. So it’s a huge step up, no cost to them, and so that’s one thing that we fund. And so we have been working with them. They’ve had that going for maybe a year and a half ago, something now. An amazing ministry. But what they realized pretty soon is that these tents, while wonderful, they needed some shelter from the elements. So when it would snow, when it would rain, as y’all know it’s like to be in a tent in the rain or in the snow, it can be kind of hard, and in the heat as well. And so what we’ve been working towards is providing shelter shade or covered structures for this. And so this is something that our amazing church has partnered with them, and so we were in charge of all the concrete work and the footers and all of that, and so it’s almost done. But this is kind of what we’ve been building with them, so it’s an amazing blessing. We’re so grateful to be able to do that. And for all of our giving family, we want to know you to know that that’s one of the things that you all were able to take part in these coming or these last few months, so thank you so much.

Jesus did in fact die on a Friday, but now Jesus is alive

You know, I love Easter. A few years ago I preached an Easter message and I hopped off, and I always say, Hey, if you’re new, come and meet me. And so, or I want to meet you. And so I was hopped down here, and there’s a family that came up, and they had a young son, I think his name was maybe Joshua, and they came up and they introduced me to Joshua and I said, Oh, hi, little buddy, it’s nice to meet you. And he said, Jesus died on the cross. And I said, Oh, well, yeah, you’re right. That’s very true. And then I said this, and then what happened? And he said, and then the Easter bunny gives me candy. So true. But how many of y’all know that Jesus did in fact die on a Friday, but now Jesus is alive, and that changes everything. That changes everything for me. It changes everything for you, and it changes everything for us as humanity.

In fact, on this day, I don’t know if you know this, 2.38 billion people across the globe are celebrating what I consider to probably be the most significant event in human history. 2.38, not million, billion, 2.38 billion people across the world are celebrating today something that is so significant. In fact, it’s so significant that even our calendars are divided into two halves. All around Jesus, BC and AD, and every event that’s dated either before or after Jesus. And there is no movement, there’s no philosophy, there’s no empire in the history of the world that has had the impact that Jesus Christ has had and is still having. Reverberating 2,000 years later.

And to answer that, I want to take you somewhere that you might not expect. I’m not going to take you to a tomb, at least not yet. I’m going to actually go 700 years before a tomb to a prophet and a promise. And just to give you a heads up on where we’re going at the end of service, we’re going to give people an opportunity to come to Christ, maybe for the first time, or maybe to come back to him again, and many will do that. And the people that come to this church, I’m going to shock you with what I’m about to say. But I don’t got any points this morning. I don’t have my three points, as some of y’all are with that’s because you got five. No, no, I don’t find my nothing. No points. And I won’t keep you long.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse

So Isaiah chapter 11, the story of the Old Testament, if you don’t know it, it’s basically it all centers around a covenant that God makes with this man Abram, gives him all of these amazing promises. You will be a great nation, you’ll be a light to all nations, your family and the nation that will come from your family. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you. And the story of the Old Testament is that God is incredibly faithful despite our unbelievable unfaithfulness. But God is still with us, God is still pursuing us, He rescues us from Egypt through Moses, and really the high point for Israel was during the reign of a king named David. He’s who I am named after, King David. But this was a time in Israel’s history that they weren’t under oppression. They had their own king, and he was actually a good king. Some of the most beautiful poetry in all of the Bible centers around God’s goodness during the reign of David. It’s like if you could think back maybe in your own life, like when is the best season of your life? When was like everything clicking for you? The family was good, job was good, everything was going good. Well, that’s how it was for Israel during the reign of David. And it almost was going so good that it almost seemed like these promises that were given to them that they’re gonna be known all over the world and that everyone is gonna worship their God. It seemed like it was just a matter of time before that all happened because it was going so good.

Well, if you know the Old Testament, you know it doesn’t work out that way. And if you’re not familiar with the Old Testament, welcome. Happy Easter. Well, we’re glad you’re here. Buckle up. So following the reign of David, life gets kind of complicated for the Jewish people. They had a series of kings that didn’t serve the Lord, and Israel ended up in exile. And you can kind of see this slow descent of this amazing group of people, and they slowly descend farther and farther and farther. They’re once on the top, and then because of their own selfishness, by the time they you reach Isaiah chapter 11, it seems like all of this promise has been chopped down. And all of these things that God says were going to happen, it just seemed like they were going nowhere. And the idea of Israel being a great nation, it just seemed like it was like a million miles away.

So, Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1, look at this verse. Here’s what the prophet Isaiah sees. He says this a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.

So Jesse is David’s father, and all this like hope and promise, it’s all wrapped up, if you know, the Bible. It’s all wrapped up in the lineage of David. And it just seems like all of this is gone. And so it seems like there’s it was like this towering tree that was the people of God, and it just seemed like it had been cut down. And then what Isaiah is seeing is not a great tree, what he’s seeing is a stump.

Right? And I don’t know how much stump watching y’all do. Right? I don’t think that’s a thing. You know what I mean? That there’s books you can watch birds, you can collect, you can look at insects. But people don’t, you know, it’s like pull over on the side of the road, honey, look at that one. It’s gorgeous. Look at that stuff, let’s see how it turns out. Like what, like once something is a stump, nothing good comes from it. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? It’s like there’s no life in a stump. There’s no beauty in a stump. My wife and I, we had an old tree in the front yard years ago, and it died. Old age, probably. I don’t know. And so it was just, and so our neighbor, you don’t know if you remember this, on 9th Street, our neighbor, because it was a big tree and it was hanging over his house. And so he said, if any of those branches fall into my living room, you’re gonna have to pay for it. And we’re like, uh-oh, okay. So we had to call a company and they had to carefully come with all of their cherry picker stuff and take down this tree. But by the time a tree is cut down to a stump, listen to me. That’s the end of that tree story. Do you see what I’m saying? Right? Like the best thing you can do when something has been reduced to a stump is to get somebody to come and remove it. A stump isn’t like a seed. Because a seed is full of potential and life and opportunity, and it can grow to, but like a stump, like once a great tree has been reduced to a stump, it’s past having anything to look forward to. All of its memories, all of its life, all of its fruitfulness is not looking forward, it’s all looking back.

And I want you to appreciate how complete this image is that he’s saying Israel, the people of God were once this full tree full of life and beauty and hope and promise. And it was like God’s people, he’s saying, have been reduced to a stump. And the question is like, how on earth can anything good come down, come out of something that’s been sawed down to a stump. And but what’s amazing is this Isaiah, what he sees is he sees a stump, and from the stump comes a shoot. What does that even mean? What is a shoot? It just means like a tiny little branch. I don’t know if you can picture like a huge stump. And from this huge stump, there’s just there’s just a tiny little branch with a tiny little leaf. You know what I mean? It’s not, it’s not like it doesn’t mean everything goes back to how it was. It doesn’t mean it’s small, it’s unglamorous, it’s unimpressive. It’s not a vibrant huge tree yet. It’s just it’s just a tiny little sprout. But it comes from the stump. And the picture that Isaiah gives is that God comes and He takes things and people that have been sawed down to a stump, and one day you walk by and you’re just like, huh. There’s just a little bit of green there. You know what I mean? Like nothing to get excited about. You barely even notice it, but you’re just like, huh, where did that come from?

This is also a picture of you

And so this passage of tiny growth coming from a stump, it’s about what do you think it’s about? It’s about Jesus. Right. 100%. That is He’s the coming deliverer who’s gonna restore what was lost. So 100% it’s about Jesus. But I want you to know that this is also a picture of you. And you learning how God works. I just it it is always the case that when we find ourselves in like places and moments in our lives where we have every reason to think that hope is gone. That’s right. See what I’m saying? That there’s just times in life when it seems like you had something that really mattered, that was powerful and wonderful and pure, and you loved it, and now it seems like you look back and what you see is a stump. And you know, it’s like you’re looking at these scenarios where there are no possibilities. You don’t have any reason to be encouraged, you don’t have a good report from the doctor. You know what I’m saying? Nothing, nothing good is happening at work, your relationships are fragile, everything’s going bad, and you’ve got no reason to hope whatsoever, except for the fact that the Spirit of God can come and blow at any time and any place.

And I just think, but like here’s what we do as humans. Like, as long as there’s like still a tiny little piece of fruit on the tree. You know what I mean? There’s still like a little bit of green. Then what we do is we try to resuscitate the tree. You know what I mean? Like when our tree died, we tried to water it. Like we gave it so much water. We’re like, it’ll be fine. Water, water, you know, fertilizer, like, please just, you know what I mean? And it’s like we’re trying to, you were like, it’s gonna bounce back. And we try to like nurse the old tree back to health. But you can’t resuscitate a stump. That’s right. Like it’s past resuscitation. And as long as I think for us as people, as long as you think you can fix it, manage it, hold it together, you never get to the place where you’re saying, like, look, I can’t make this thing grow. Come on. Only God can make this thing grow. You know what I mean? Like a stump doesn’t need resuscitation, it needs resurrection. And that’s what God does.

God special, I don’t know if you know this. God specializes in the impossible. You know what I mean? Like God can manage a five percent raise for you. And he does that, but he specializes in stuff that you could never do. Like when you have no reason to hope for anything. When it seems like this is dead, this is over, it’s never gonna happen. That’s when God does his best work. Look at what Paul says it like this in Romans chapter 4.

The God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

Isn’t that interesting that he gives life not to unborn things, he gives life to dead things. That means it used to be alive and now it’s dead. And his specialty is he gives life, he calls things into being. That’s the shoot, the tiny little branch coming from the stump. Something that was not becoming something that is, and only God can do that.

Addiction has taken everything from me

You know, a few years ago I was doing a funeral, and it was a graveside funeral. So we were there in the cemetery, you know, and I did my little thing, prayed with the family. And funerals are funny because you always see funerals and weddings, they’re interesting because you see people you wouldn’t otherwise see. It’s kind of like Easter. You know what I mean? You know what I’m saying? So it’s is so I was there and I saw this guy, like I had known my entire life. And like loved him, great guy, great heart, always admired him, always looked up to him. And he had like this great family, an incredible job, kids were super well behaved. And I saw him, I hadn’t seen him in years. And I could tell like when I saw him, he looked different. Like he was sunken in, you know, and I could smell alcohol on his breath. And he came and he hugged me, and he started to cry, and he said, he said, addiction has taken everything from me. He says, I’ve lost my job, I’ve lost my family, I’ve lost my kids. And you never know exactly what to say, you know. You know? But we prayed together, and I was just thinking, man, that to me that’s the picture of the stump. Amen. That it’s like this this was a life that used to mean something. And now it’s a life that all of its memories are in the rear view mirror. You know what I mean? All of the joy is in the past. And I was just thinking how the enemy wants to come and take what’s beautiful. You know what I mean? Like he wants to take what’s spiritual, but he also just wants to steal what’s beautiful. And I think a lot of us, maybe if you could even think of it like this, that we all have things in our life that we feel like for one reason or another were a promise from God that now have died. You know, and then you look at it and it’s like, where did that thing go? What happened to that? God, what happened to that? Where did you go? And so I was looking at this guy, and I was just thinking, man, this is a stump.

What’s cool is I saw him earlier this year. The reason I thought of this story is earlier this year he came to church. And he looked awesome. He was in shape, he was buff. I said, my God, how you doing? How are you? He said, he said, man, that was he says that was the darkest season of my life. He said, he says, but God turned it around. And I just think that there’s never this is my encouragement. It’s a simple message. There’s never a reason to be totally without hope. You know, that because God can always come. And I think sometimes people will see themselves and in like a bad situation, and they just think it’s too far God. But I want to tell you that God does his best work when things are impossible. And like, you know what I mean. And some people think you people think their own stupidity is the one exception. You know what I’m saying? It’s like, well, yeah, that’s pretty, but I did this to myself. It’s like, what, which even makes you more like the Israelites. You know what I’m saying? Right? Like this didn’t happen to them. They happened to themselves. They were there. They had no one to blame. But even then, in their life and in your life, God is still at work. There’s no reason to for total despair. You know what I mean? There’s no reason to give up hope. There’s no reason to quit believing that God come. You’ll never mess up your life so bad that God can’t come in and do something beautiful and surprising and redemptive. Right? It doesn’t mean that it might not take longer than it otherwise would have. But he’s always working.

Before he went in, he already knew he was coming out

And like, to me, that’s Easter. That’s one of the things that Easter means to me, right? That you go back and like this is the perfect example of this. Right? You want to talk about a situation that was hopeless. You know what I mean? That Jesus literally, he was the stump. He’s the stump and he’s the shoot coming out of the stump that Isaiah saw. He was the promised one. Isaiah saw him coming 700 years before he came. But he left earth, right? Came, okay, left heaven, came to earth, and for three years, like turned the world upside down. And in response, we murder him. You know what I mean? Like that, that’s falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, put him in a tomb. And on that day one, Friday, it looked like it was finished. Right? It says the moment was over, the leader is dead, the tree has been cut down one final time. It’s like, it’s like the credits had rolled. You know what I mean? Like you’re in the movie theater, and it’s like the credits roll, then there’s the Dolby, you know, thing goes up, and then the lights turn off, the people start sweeping the popcorn. Like that’s where the story was. The story was finished. Right. And for the people that like loved Jesus, they weren’t waiting for a surprise. They weren’t, you know what I mean? Like for all of us, like yesterday, if you don’t know, it’s called Holy Saturday. On Holy Saturday, we’re all like, yeah, but you know, it’s gonna get good again. It’s gonna get that’s not where they were. Right? That for them the story was over.

But Jesus was different because Jesus, before he went in, he already knew he was coming out. That’s just a word. That’s just a word for somebody. Right? That like you can go in, and before you even go in, you know you’re coming out. And it’s what’s ironic with Jesus is he told his followers this is gonna happen. Right? He said, I’m gonna be delivered into the hands of sinners, I’m gonna be crucified, and on the third day I’m gonna be right. I think it’s hysterical that he literally told them the plan. I I just love that. And they had no problem believing that he was gonna come out until they saw him go in. Right? Which to be fair is extremely human. That we all we you know, God tells us like he’s got it, and we believe him until it gets hard. Right? It’s like, yeah, God’s my healer, and then you get sick. Right? Yeah, God’s my provider, and then you get fired. Right? It’s easy to believe God, or at least think you do. When things aren’t going bad. You know what I mean? Like you can believe no weapon formed against you shall prosper. That’s a lot easier to believe when there’s no weapon formed against you. But when the weapon comes, right? And so that’s where they were at. They weren’t, they were believing for something amazing to come, but then Sunday came. And the grave couldn’t hold him. And because he got up, we can get up. Yeah.

See, I am doing a new thing

Look, Isaiah chapter 43, it’s my last verse.

See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the waste.

Hear that? Now it springs up. What a new thing springs up. So for dreams that seem long dead, for hopes that seem sawed down, God is wanting to grow something green and beautiful. Even if you’re there because you did it to yourself. It’s like, look, even then, God is still fulfilling his promises. Right? And when your natural eyes look at something and it looks like a stump. Right? When your marriage looks like a stump, when your health looks like a stump, when your purpose looks like a stump, when your relationships look like a stump, just know this that God is always moving. And new life is always on the way.

A few years ago, a lady came up to me after service. You know, we kind of do the prayer line thing where people will come and talk to me, and her story was I didn’t know her. She was visiting, but she told me that she had just found out that her husband was cheating on her and was leaving her, and she had two young kids that were in BC Kids, and she hadn’t told them yet that dad was leaving. And she just said, I don’t even know how to even process that. And you know, this one thing that’s kind of funny about being a pastor is sometimes you know, it’s like one, you know, every person is different, and it requires a different response from you. It’s kind of because like the person right before them might say, like, I got a new girlfriend, you know, and I gotta be happy for that, and then like instantly enter into all these different seasons. But that one caught me off guard because I was trying to think what I would do, you know, as a parent. And so I wasn’t even sure what to say. We prayed, and then I and then I just felt like God, you know, put something on the inside of me to say to her, and I said, I said, ma’am, I know the situation is dark, but I want you to know you’re still here. And the very fact that you’re breathing right now means God is on the move. Right, and I just felt this I felt compassion for her, but I also felt like this sense of hope. You know what I mean? Because it’s like this right here, ma’am, this is when God can come and do his best work. When it seems like it is beyond hope. When you have no reason to wake up in the morning and believe that God is up to something like the situation doesn’t look like that. That’s when God can come and he’s his strongest. Paul says, I rejoice in my weakness. Right? God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness.

So I don’t know what parts of you feel dead this morning, but I want you to know this. You’re still here. Right? And the fact that you’re here, the fact that you got up and you came to church or you’re watching church online, the fact that you did just shows that God’s not done. And this morning, what I want you to do, I want you to hopefully I want to encourage you to put your trust in a God who brings life out of day. A stump doesn’t need resuscitation, it needs resurrection. And God specializes in bringing life when there’s no reason to expect it. When they laid Jesus in a tomb on Friday before he went in, he already knew he was coming out. The grave wasn’t a surprise, it was a setup. And that same God is at work in the places in your life that feel cut down and done. Because he got up, we can get up, and new life is always on the way. Amen.