What God Said About Resurrection
By: Dr. Bryan Cutshall
Resurrection: the act of causing something that had ended or been forgotten or lost to exist again, to be used again; to revive something that was dead.
Philippians 3:10-11 NIV
“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
If you have even been revived from a state of suffering, you understand the power of resurrection. Yes, you can be resurrected from a dead body, but you can also be resurrected from a dead end job, a dead relationship, a dead marriage, a dead heart, a dead business that failed, a dead dream or from dead hope.
a. Carrying something dead is heavy. Something that is dead is much harder to carry than something that is alive. I see people all the time pulling something dead behind them – a dead dream, a dead marriage, a dead job. Just pulling.
1. You can be Resurrected from your losses – Philippians 3:1-9
A. The grief cycle is not about death, it’s about loss. We go through the grief cycle every time we suffer a loss, the same way we do when someone dies. We mourn. We get depressed. We feel hopeless.
1. It can be a job, a house, a car.
2. It can be a rejection.
3. Maybe someone judged you wrongly and made you feel diminished.
B. The good news is, that you can be resurrected from losses.
- A man with a dream to build a car company failed and went bankrupt five times before he finally succeeded. His name was Henry Ford.
- A young man handled the violin so awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer. His name was Ludwig Von Beethoven.
- An old man who was divorced and broke started making chicken in his home after he retired on a social security pension. He eventually opened a small struggling restaurant. But the construction of a new road put him out of business in 1967. He went to over 1,000 companies trying to sell his chicken recipe before he found a buyer interested in his 11 herbs and spices. Seven years later, at the age of 75, Colonel Harland Sanders sold his fried chicken company for a finger-lickin’ $15 million!
- A cartoon artist was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. He dreamed on anyway. He had the dream to build a theme park, but went bankrupt two times before he built. He finally succeeded and called it Disneyland.
- A little boy was thought unintelligent because he did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school. He struggle through school and pushed on to write his doctoral thesis. But even then, the University of Bern turned down his Ph.D. dissertation as being irrelevant and fanciful. This mans name was Albert Einstein.
Never give up believing in yourself!!!
There is resurrection after losses.
2. You can be Resurrected from your past
Philippians 3:12-14 “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. (I’m not there yet) But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”
A. You can get into your future until you can let go of your past.
The Disney movie “Frozen” has popular song, called, “Let it Go.” It’s a great song about a girl whose heart had become frozen. That same thing happens to us, not in a fairy tale, but in real life.
LET IT GO!
There are people who can walk away from you.
When people can walk away from you: let them walk. I don’t want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone.
When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left.
People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can’t make them stay.
Let them go.
And it doesn’t mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. And you’ve got to know when people’s part in your story is over so that you don’t keep trying to raise the dead. You’ve got to know when it’s dead.
You’ve got to know when it’s over. Let me tell you something.
You need the gift of good-bye.
It’s not that I’m hateful, it’s that I’m faithful, and I know whatever God means for me to have He’ll give it to me.
Stop begging people to stay.
Let them go!!
If you are holding on to something that doesn’t belong to you and was never intended for your life, then you need to……
LET IT GO!!!
If you are holding on to past hurts and pains…………
LET IT GO!!!
If someone has angered you.
LET IT GO!!!
If you are involved in a wrong relationship or addiction……
LET IT GO!!!
If you are holding on to a job that no longer meets your needs or appreciates your gifts and talents
LET IT GO!!!
If you have a bad attitude because life is unfair…..
LET IT GO!!!
If you keep judging others to make yourself feel better……
LET IT GO!!!
If you’re stuck in the past and God is trying to take you to a new level in Him……..
LET IT GO!!!
If you are struggling with the healing of a broken relationship…….
LET IT GO!!!
If you keep trying to help someone who won’t even try to help themselves……
LET IT GO!!!
Let the past be the past. Forget the former things. GOD is doing a new thing!!
3. There is life after death!
“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior…, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
A. Lazarus
A crowd gathers at a man’s house named Lazarus. There is standing room only. People are pushing to get it because he has a story to tell that no one has ever heard before. He was resurrected. He had died, they had his funeral and he had been buried. 4 days later Jesus, who was his friend came and called him forth from the grave. He said, loose him and let him go. He lived out his life for The name Lazarus in Hebrew means, “God is my help”.
Years later, Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha set sail on a ship to France and ended up in the city of Marseilles, which was the second largest city after Paris. Here he converts many to the Lord and becomes their pastor.
B. In 1968 the Olympics were in Mexico City. There was a runner from Tansasia was John Stephen Akhwari. He had a chance to win the race. He was that good. Somewhere around the 12th mile, he got his feet tangled with another runner. He tore a hole in his leg hand dislocated his shoulder. Some wanted to take him to the hospital. He wrapped a rag around his leg. The race had ended about an hour and 10 minutes earlier. All the runners had crossed. Only a few people left in the stadium. Lights were being turned out. The word got out that one more runner was coming in. He was limping. The lights were turned back on. The people started applauding. He limped across the finish line. The next day, they ask him, why didn’t you quit, 18 others did. That day, he inspired millions.
“He said, my country didn’t send me 5000 miles to run a race, they sent me 5000 miles to finish the race.”
John Stephen Akhwari
The resurrection is not just about a dead body, it’s about anything in your life that has died. It’s about LIFE AGAIN!
God did not send His son so you could start a race, God sent His son so you could finish the race.
