“I Am the Resurrection and the Life”

John 11:25-26

Jim Davis

“What does your belief in Jesus Christ mean to you personally?” I was asked this question a few days ago. I thought it was the most appropriate question asked of me in a long time. It is a question every person who proclaims to be a child of God should be able to answer. 

We are all afraid of living a life of insignificance. There is a voice telling us we can have it all. I think this voice is the voice of God. It is a recording loop continually playing over and over in our heads to remind us we were created for greatness—to be a child of God. I believe he preprogrammed us with this recording when he stamped his image upon our hearts. 

It’s no wonder we dream of greatness. We were created with a divine destiny. We’re designed for a unique purpose.  Christ is calling us to live out God’s dream for our lives. Christ desires to translate us into an entirely different dimension of living. Jesus says, I am the door,” “I am the gate” to that new dimension. Christ has come to liberate us into an entirely new dimension of living. 

Foot Washing Slide

Have you ever looked at your past and noticed a special moment that changed your life forever? It was a defining moment. 

How many of us look back to such a moment and feel eternally trapped by a mistake we made in a moment of weakness? 

If you could capture one moment from your past to relive, which one would it be? What if you knew that out there somewhere there was a divine moment where God would meet you in such a way that nothing would ever be the same again? If there was a moment you could capture and squeeze out all that is available in it, shouldn’t it be somewhere in your future rather than the past? 

Christ Offers Us A New Life

I see a sign each time I come out of Tri-city Plaza on the corner of East bay and U.S. 19. It says, “You only get one chance at life? Abstain and Gain!” It is a sign encouraging young people to practice abstinence before marriage. It is encouraging young people not to mortgage the future for the present. If you do, you will be locked into a life of regret.

When Jesus walked this earth, his disciples had to keep up with him. If they were to stay close they had to choose to leave the life they lived without him and go wherever he would go. The path was thick with mystery, danger and the unknown. The quest is to live the life God created you to experience.

The English word moment comes from the Greek word atomos. It is a perfect picture of the power hidden in a moment. Something powerful happens when we value every moment as a divine moment that we are stepping into. It begins to unleash God’s full potential for our lives.

The journey begins right now—in this moment. And whatever you do, don’t underestimate what you may find when you step out of your past. 

John 11:25-26
25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"  NIV

Jesus simply said, "Lazarus, come out!" If that was the moment for a new life for a dead man, why should you feel trapped in a moment from your past? Jesus can give you a new life this very moment. This is your moment; if you blink you will miss it. You may have another moment; you may not. This moment is the one you should grasp. What you do with the present moment will affect every other moment in your life.

Matthew 9:20-22
20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed." 

22 Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment. NIV

Jesus asked the invalid of 38 years at the pool of Siloam “Do you want to get well?” It was a divine moment. He picked up his mat and walked when he responded to divinity in that moment. 

Later the man at the pool experienced another divine moment.

John 5:14-15
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." NIV

I would assume Jesus saw him sinning. Jesus would be the last person to tell someone to stop sinning if they weren’t sinning. Jesus had salvaged him physically, but he had to stop sinning before something worse happened to him. Each temptation to sin offers us the choice to recognize it as a divine moment. 

Christ always offered those he met a divine moment in which was bound a new life. The rich young ruler came to Jesus looking for such a moment. He asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” No one exemplifies this more than the woman Jesus met at the well.

John 4:4-15
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"  8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 

10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."  

11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" 

13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." NIV

Actually, she didn’t understand the life Christ offered. She was simply tired of drawing water. Jesus offered her living water. I am sure she knew the difference in “living water” and bad water. Bad water might smell like our sulfur water here in Florida; not something you would want to drink. I grew up in the country on a farm. Wells were often dug that produced bad water. Farms were often noted for the quality of water found on the farm.

It’s hard for us to imagine, but drawing water was a demanding chore in those days. Providing water for family and animals wasn’t as easy as turning on the facet. It was demanding, for life requires water. This woman was thinking in terms of not ever having to draw water from a well again.

Jesus turned his request into a spiritual conversation. It is amazing how Jesus took every opportunity to talk to others about their deepest need. 

John 4:15-18
15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." 

16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."  

17 "I have no husband," she replied. 

Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."  NIV

The woman is shocked by what Jesus knows about her. Later in John 4:29 she tells the towns people "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 

Initially, she tried to deflect Christ’s spiritually inquiry by saying “I have no husband.” Jesus didn’t stop there. He says, “. . . you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. [notice how Jesus makes the conversation even more personal] What you have just said is quite true.” He is simply pointed to her spiritual condition. 

Notice how she tries to turn the conversation into a religious discussion. We love to discuss religion and politics. They are topics that create a lot of heat. 

John 4:19-20
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." NIV

A religious discussion is much easier to have than a spiritual discussion. People like religious talk; it makes them sound spiritual. This question was like asking, “Your church teaches you are right, and my church teaches I am right, what do you think? Is it my church or your church? Questions like this are only a diversion from the real issue.

John 4:21-26
21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."  

25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." 

26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."  NIV

Jesus turns the religious discussion into a personal challenge. “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” 

Each moment becomes a divine moment as I respond to God in spirit as I am guided by his truth. In that moment I discover the resurrection power of the risen Christ.

Conclusion:

Decisions without Christ leave us hopeless.

James 4:13-15
13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." NIV

Now is the day of salvation.

2 Corinthians 6:1-2
6:1 As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2 For he says, 

"In the time of my favor I heard you, 
and in the day of salvation I helped you." 

I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.  NIV

Today is the day to hear his voice.

Hebrews 3:7-8
"Today , if you hear his voice, 
8 do not harden your hearts NIV