Jesus is being celebrated around the world and so many opportunities for people to come

to know Him exist.

So I get excited this time of year.

I told you that I had several messages over the last few weeks and moving on into next week that all kind of go

together.

They're not official series, but they all work together, just like all of scripture does.

So today I want to talk about the promise.

The promise.

I'll be in John chapter 11, verse 23-27, where I'll be today. So

you can go ahead and begin turning there if you'd like, but John chapter 11, 23-27.

So what is going to happen when you die? First of all, the Bible says, is a point and unto

man wants to die. So you're not getting out of it, right?

There's only one way you're getting out of it,

and that's if Jesus returns before them.

It's appointed unto man wants to die.

So for all mankind, most of the time,

we put that out of our minds and we try not to consider

that it's coming, one day it's coming.

So the question that I ask today is,

what is going to happen when you die?

What's going to happen? So for some people

When you ask them that question

They don't know. Perhaps you don't know

But this is a highly debated question. There are a lot of answers that people give when they ask the question

What is going to happen when you die?

So some people, when you ask them that question,

they say, nothing.

It's just the end.

You stop breathing, your heart stops beating,

you cease to live, and that's the end.

There is no more.

There's nothing else there.

There's nothing else there. Many people believe there's nothing else.

Although not only does Christianity say there's more, there are other scientific facts that

keep coming to light where they see that something still continues to happen after death.

But some say, "I'm not worried about all that," because whenever it happens, it just happens

and that's the end.

So I'll live however I want right now.

I'm not worried about it one day.

It'll all be over.

Some people will say, "Well, you know what happens is you come back to live another life."

So you die in this life and you come back to live another life. So you die in this life and you come back to live another life.

Some people believe when you come back to live another life, you come back in this earth

and you come back to live another life as sometimes an animal.

That's why a lot of people refuse to eat animals or do anything to cause any harm to animals

because it could be their cousin. I'm not saying that as a joke. I'm telling you that's what many people

believe. Some people believe that you come back as another person. That you may

live a whole another life as a whole another person doing a whole different thing.

So many people believe that at the end of this life you will come

back in another life on this earth, not as another life in heaven or hell but

another life on this earth. Some of you ask that question and they say, "Well you can

become a God. You can go on to become a God. If you do the right things in this

life and you check all the boxes and everything that happens when you cease to exist in

this life then you can come on to become a God and you can be God and you can have

all these people and you can create a whole new earth-type place. You can be a

God and so you have to do all these things in order to reach those

steps in order to be a God. Now that's a lot of different answers to that very

same question. We'll tell you why you tell us all these things. I mean most of

these things we already know. Some of them maybe you didn't. But most of these

things we already know because it's a hotly debated question. When you're trying

to talk to someone and tell them about Jesus, one of the questions

you can ask them, "What's going to happen to you when you die?"

And it gives you an idea of what they believe.

What's going to happen?

Well today I want us to look at what Jesus said and what Jesus said.

All these other things that people say and all the stuff that's going on, I want to look today at what Jesus said. All these other things that people say and all the stuff that's going on, I want to look today at what Jesus said. And so look with me to John 11,

23 through 27. Lazarus has died. Jesus has shown up.

Martha and Mary and he's having a conversation with them. Jesus said to her, "Your

brother will rise from the dead." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise in

the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies.

And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Wow, what a conversation.

She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, and He who comes into the world."

He asked her to question her, and she said, "Yes."

So there are several things we need to see in this passage.

We're going to kind of break it down and go through several things that I want us to see

and help us understand what Jesus says, the promise that He's giving us about this life

and what will happen at the end of it.

First of all, I want you to see the resurrection and the life.

I want you to see the resurrection and the life.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life."

He who believes in me though he may die, he shall live.

He who believes in me though he may die, he shall live. Many people say when you die, that's it.

There's nothing else.

Jesus says, "No, there will be a resurrection.

There will be a resurrection because I am the resurrection.

I am the life.

I am the way."

Jesus tells us this, that there is a resurrection after the life. I am the way Jesus tells us this that there is a

resurrection after the death. That will happen for Martha. She said,

"Well, I know at the very end he's going to come back." Now Jesus in this

case was going to resurrect Lazarus a little early. He was going to bring him

back to life now. But she claimed something that we all today should know there will be a resurrection at

the end.

We will be raised up again.

We'll be raised up to spend an eternity with our Father.

Jesus tells us so.

So as we go through this life and all the things that we do and all the things that we see in

this life, it's not about do it now because there's going to be an end and then that's the end.

Some people look at that and see what they do as they say, "Well I'll just live however

I want to live now because when it's over it's over."

Jesus said, "Live for me now while you have this time on this earth."

He gave us the commandment to go and tell others about Him.

He gave us that commandment that we would go even into the ends of the earth

that we would tell others about Him, that we would baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Our mission while we're here is to serve Him. See, here's the thing.

Anybody here retired? A lot of people here retired, right? But you worked a career before

you retired, right? So you worked a time then you came up a retirement. So for us in this life, this whole

life is our work from cradle to grave. This is our work. Our retirement is when we step

into glory with Jesus Christ. This is the time that we work and you know you say, well it's

a long time. For some people it's a very long time. 80, 90, 100 years. It's a long time.

Eternity that 100 years is like that. It's really not very long if you know Jesus is

Lord and Savior. He said, "I am the resurrection and the life." Listen, in this life, you serve me.

You serve me. You call upon my name. You accept me. You serve me. And then when the end comes,

you'll be resurrected. And you'll step into heaven with me. There's a resurrection in life.

He's promising that. He didn't just say that. It was a promise. He's letting Martha know that it's going to happen. He asked her even more questions. The second

thing I want you to know is believe in Jesus. He said, "Do you

believe it?" He's known her. He's been with her. She's been a

disciple of Christ. Yes, there were female disciples. She was a disciple of Christ.

She's been working with Jesus and all of these things. He knew her, he knew all about that.

And yet he says to her, "Do

you believe this? Believing Christ, that's how He said, it's going to happen. He said,

He who believes in me, though He may die shall live. What does it take? Believing Jesus.

Oftentimes I've had people say, "Well what you're saying can't be true because it's

too easy." It's too simple. You're saying all I have to do is believe in Him. Well, the

Scripture says, "If you confess with your mouth and believe that Jesus, or God's Son, He

raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Right? It says, "If you confess with your mouth,

Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from dead you shall be saved. That's what the Scripture says. That's

it. It's a short path. It's all that says. That's too easy. I've got to do stuff.

I've got to pay so much money and and climb the mountain and I've got to do all

these good deeds and I've got to completely do all these things I have to do in

order to be saved. No? That's not what Jesus said. He said, "Believe."

He said, "Believe in me. Confess me as Lord." That's what it takes. It's a promise. "Believe in me. You'll be saved."

All those other things come after you believe. After you believe in Him, then you want to do the good deeds. You want to serve Him. You want to do all those things because you believe

in Him. He said, "Believe in Me." There was no 12-step process that's impossible, complete

in order to be saved. He said, "Believe in Jesus." That's what you need to do. Believe in Him.

During this time of year, we're talking about Easter Sunday next week, we're talking about all these

things. There were people that were waving their palm branches and their coats

and doing all those things and calling them, "Hosanna, King of Kings!" But they

didn't believe. They didn't really believe. They were just going with the crowd. They didn't believe. They

stood there doing all of that and then turned around a week later and said, "Cursify him."

Because they didn't believe in the first place. Jesus said, "Believe in me. Believe in

me." That's what it takes. Today there are people that think, "I can be good enough. I can

do enough good deeds. I can give enough money and I'll be okay.

There's nowhere in God's Word that it says that you'll be okay

if you do those things.

In fact, He says, when someone says, I did all these things in

your name, He says, "Depart from me, I never knew you."

Believe in Jesus.

How do you get there?

Believe in Jesus. How do you get there? Believe in Jesus. That

belief in Jesus is what it takes. The third thing I want to

see here is he said, "He who believes in me though he may die, he

shall live." Though he may die, He shall live, eternal life."

You know, I think that one of the reasons people have such a hard time with that is they

can't comprehend eternity.

They can't comprehend that.

For us time seems long in our days.

We know people in our own church that are in their 80s and 90s.

We've had people in our church that broke 100 years old.

We know people.

We have friends and family that have lived and we say, "Oh, that is so incredible, it's almost incomprehendable.

Eternal life.

No death.

No death.

Eternal life.

Jesus said, "Believe in me.

If you believe in me, even though you may die in this life, this flesh, this blood, it may

cease to exist.

Your body stops working, you stop breathing, your heart stops pumping, all of those things

happen.

And yes, your pronounce dead.

But even if you die in this life, if you call upon His name, you believe in Him and you

confess to Him as Lord, you will have eternal life.

You will live again."

You will live again.

He didn't just say that. It's a promise.

It's a promise. He said, "If you, He who believes in me though He may die, He shall live."

And nowhere in there did He say, "He might."

He could. If He does these ten things, He said,

"If you believe in Me, you will." That's pretty straightforward. Why do you say it's a promise

because there's no

in there, he said maybe. He said, "For sure, for certain. It's a promise. There is no doubt.

There's no doubt." You know, when you hear someone speak with authority,

you just believe it, right? Someone stands up and speaks with authority. You just tend to believe

that because they have that authority. If a police officer was in the road and you came up and he said,

you can't go this way, there's a bridge out,

go this way, you say, okay, and you go that way, right?

You don't say, nah, get out of my way, I don't believe you,

I'm going that way.

Well, he has authority.

And he told you to do it, you know it's true.

We have all this opportunity to believe that yet we still tend

to doubt that Jesus has told us the truth. Jesus, the greatest authority of all, has told

us the truth. He's given us a promise. We have eternal life. We simply believe in Him,

confess Him as Lord. Eternal life. Eternal life. I've heard people say, well, you know, I don't want to live

to be a hundred. I don't want to live to be a hundred. That's just too long. I don't want

to live to be that long, to be that old. But you know what's kind of weird is that you may hear a 80-year-old say that,

but you know a 99-year-old doesn't say that. A 99-year-old doesn't say, "I don't want

to live to be a hundred. They're counting the next year." They're looking for the next

year. For some of us we say, and I've said myself, I don't think I would want to live that long in this world. Because in this world, your body begins to fall apart.

Your mental capacities may suffer.

There's a lot of suffering and a lot of things that happen

in this world.

There's so much evil going on.

I don't think that I want to stay in this world that long.

But it's because I believe in Jesus and I trust want to stay in this world that long.

But it's because I believe in Jesus and I trust that when He said,

"If you believe in me, you will have eternal life," that no matter when He decides that my time here is up,

I will step into eternity.

Eternal life is something that we all need to look forward to, but we need to make sure that we understand that's what's going to happen. We need to be able to tell others about

it because when people say, "Well, I've lived my life bad the whole time." And so

there's no hope yet for me. I've heard people say, "Well, there's no hope for me

when I die on bus hell wide open." Okay? I heard you say that. Do you know what that means? I suppose it means I'm

going to hell what does hell mean to you? Well, probably a bad

place, a bad place. Listen, brother sister, it's not a bad

place. It is the absolute worst nightmare that you can't even

dream right now. It is so bad that you can't even dream right now.

It is so bad that it can't even fully be described.

The Bible says that you will burn for all eternity, that the worm will never die, that even

though you will cry out, that your life to end, it won't.

It's not just a simple, you're going to a place that you don't like.

Now that you know that there's an eternity in heaven.

There's an eternity in heaven. Do you know how you get there?

And even though all these things that you have done,

Jesus got on that cross.

He allowed himself to be placed on that cross.

And even though all those people that put him there were doing all the things they were doing as he stood on that cross with his

arms stretched out, dying, he said, "Father, forgive them. Forgive them." He died for you,

no matter how bad you've been. He died for you, no matter how good you

think you've been. He died for you, no matter what has happened in your life, no

matter what the past has brought. If you're still breathing today, you still

have the opportunity for eternal life in heaven. Because he died for you. He said,

"I am the resurrection in the life." He who believes in me, though He may die, He shall live.

Jesus said in this passage, "I am."

He said, "I am."

I want you to understand this. Jesus is letting the world know, including Martha. Jesus said to her, "I am." Stop.

Jesus said, "I am."

I am. So even the sound system agrees. Jesus said I am. I am is the name of God.

Jesus said I am. He declared God's name. He said I am the resurrection and the life.

Listen to a pastor one time and he was preaching through a passage. And I'd

read the passage many times and it was, Jesus was talking and saying whatever and he said,

I am this or I am that or whatever. And the pastor said, I am and he stopped and every hair on my body stood up. And all of a sudden this power just came across me

and I read that verse completely different

because now I understood the name of God

was contained in that verse.

It wasn't just a passage saying whatever was going on.

It was the name of God.

And when you reread that passage, understanding,

that was the name of God.

Oh, it made so much difference.

Jesus said, I am the resurrection in the life. I am. God told us that's His name. He said, He's a resurrection in the life.

He is the one that gave that to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

He is the one who sent Jesus, His Son, to down that cross for your sin and mine.

For God so loved the world.

We're all the world.

That He gave His only Son. He didn't have to do that. You know, God

could have just as easily, and He almost did it at one point. He could just as easily

wipe us all out, start it over again. But He loved His creation. And He said, "I'm going to give Jesus."

He already knew before we got to that point,

making no mistake, it wasn't a backup plan.

God already had that planned out from the beginning

because He gave us free will

and He already had the four knowledge to know

that we were going to be sinners.

Even in Scripture it

tells us we've all seen them falling short. Well how does he know that because he already

knew us? He gave us that free will so he gave away that we could accept Jesus as our

Lord and Savior. We could have that salvation because of him. He gave his son. There's an assurance. There's an assurance.

He says, "Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." There's an

assurance that this is going to happen. He told her your

brother will rise again. There was an assurance. He is assuring her that it's

going to be that way. Not only did he assure her that he made sure she

understood it. It's an assurance of resurrection. You don't have to hope. I talk to

people who tell me they know Jesus is Lord

and Savior and I say so you're going to be in heaven one day

they say I hope so. I hope so. You hope so. Do you know that you

can know some? There's an assurance of the resurrection. You can

know if you gave your life to Christ he said you will be with

him in heaven. You don't have to hope so. So then the question becomes, if you just hope

so, do you really know Jesus? Do you know Jesus because He tells us we can

have the assurance that we will spend an eternity with Him. That we will have an

eternity with Him in heaven. We can have that assurance. It's not,

I called on the name of Jesus and I hope that I did enough that one day I'll wake up in heaven.

Listen, if you're living your life every day, uncertain that you're going to wake up in heaven,

then I want to tell you today you need to call on the name of Jesus today. You need to call on Him today. You need to accept Him truly as Lord. You

see there are people who came down to Iowa when they were 10 years old in vacation, Bible

school, only because they were following little Johnny. And they came down front and

preached to ask little Johnny and little Johnny said, " said yes I gave my life to Christ yes I know that I'm a sinner yes except in Jesus my Lord and Savior

and they say how about you is the same thing okay wonderful news great we'll baptize both

of you and send you on your way the problem is a little Johnny may

He gave his life to Christ, but his friend didn't know what he was doing.

He just followed him up there.

And now he's trusting in a baptism.

He's trusting in a moment, an emotional experience.

He's never given his life to Christ.

Jesus says, "You can have assurance of the resurrection, and if you don't have that,

then question your salvation."

Do you know Jesus as Lord and Savior?

You can have assurance of the resurrection.

It's a promise that He's given us. And all these things, Jesus asked this question

after He did all of it. He said, "Do you believe?" He's talking to Mark, the

whom He knows. He's talking, she's the one that said, "I know I'm gonna see Lazarus

again at the resurrection. I know that's going to happen

that he will rise up again at the end of things. I know all of

this. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection." He said, "Do you believe?

Do you believe?" And she said, "I do." She let him know. Yes, I do. I do

believe. He said, "Do you believe this?" She said to him. Yes, I do. I do believe. He said, "Do you

believe this?" She said to Him, "Yes, Lord. I believe that you are

the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world." I

believe that. But today I ask you this, do you believe it? I ask

you today, do you believe it? I ask you today, do you believe it?

Well, you know, preacher, we've been going to church here for a really long time.

You know all of us.

You've seen us here before.

Well, this question is being asked daily.

It should be. You should be answering that question every day. Do you believe?

Yes I do. Well yesterday was a really bad day. You still believe today? Yes I do. You know,

these other things happen. You weren't expecting. Do you still believe? Reenforce your belief in Christ, reinforce your understanding that all things come from Him,

understanding that He's promised all this to you.

Do you believe? Have you truly accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

Jesus promised if you believe you will have eternal life.

And that day Jesus taught some things that a lot of

people found hard to listen to. They found hard to listen to it. They just

really weren't sure. But Jesus promised if you believe you will have eternal life

I want you to look with me over to John chapter 6 verse 53 and 54. John chapter 6 verse 53 and 54. It says this, "So Jesus said to

them, 'Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and

drink his blood, you have no life in yourself. The one who eats my flesh and

drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise

him up on the last day. Understand there are people who read that verse and they

don't understand. What do you mean eat his flesh and drink his blood? Jesus is

saying, "Do you truly believe that he died for you? Do you truly accept that flesh that he gave? Do you truly accept that flesh that He gave?

Do you truly accept that blood that He gave?

Have you absolutely consumed that in your life?

And you stand here today believing that He is the salvation,

that He is the resurrection in the life?

Have you done that?

Have you done that in your life?

He gave all for you. He gave His flesh, He gave His

blood, He gave His life for anyone who would call upon His name, for anyone who would

receive Him fully. So today I ask you this question, "Do you believe? Do you believe?

You know, many will say, well yeah, I believe,

but then when things get tough and things happen,

then they begin to wonder, maybe they,

or one of those that says, I believe,

so you're gonna be in heaven, I hope so.

Do you really believe?

Have you fully received the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ?

Have you fully accepted that death, that barrel, that resurrection that He gave for you?

Have you given your life over to Him?

You see, Jesus said, "He who believes." But when we read the passage and we understand

the context, it's not just believing, even the devil believes, it's believing and giving

your life to him. That's why the passage says, "If you believe," in Jesus it says, "If

you confess, we are

mouth Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.

So you believe and confess.

Have you done that?

Do you believe?

Have you confessed?

Have you given your life to Christ?

Have you fully received the flesh and the blood?

And you've accepted that and you know 100% you're going to wake up and heaven.

Why do you keep asking that preacher? Because I don't know how much longer we've got? I don't know how much longer

we've got. Listen, I can sit here and just assume that everybody here knows Jesus

and you know what if that's what I'm doing then I need to go ahead and resign and

leave now because I don't know that everybody knows Jesus. People put on a face for you to see they don't show you the real thing.

I've been a member of the church for 40 years.

I was baptized when I was 12 years old.

I've all these things, okay but that doesn't tell me do you believe?

Do you know Jesus?

Have you given your life to Him?

Are you certain that if you walk across that road

today and somebody drives down there and kills you, that you're going to open your eyes

and heaven and see Jesus? Are you certain of that fact? If you're not certain of that

fact, then today I ask you give your life to Christ.

Transcribed by https://soundwise.ai