Wingfoot Church

If you've ever tried to read the Bible, chances are you found yourself confused more than once. For a book that's so important to Christians, it can be hard to understand. That's why it's so important that we understand what the Bible is and what the Bible really says in order to experience all that the Bible has for us. Once you see it, it'll change your life forever.

In this series we're tackling the questions you submitted or we've been asked during our first year as a church. This week we tackle a big one: Is it crazy to believe the resurrection of Jesus actually happened? In one word: Yes. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul stakes the entirety of the Christian message on Jesus' bodily resurrection. It was crazy to claim then and it's crazy to claim now, but as we'll see, it's crazier to believe it didn't happen. And if it did happen, it would be the most important event in human history.

John's story of the resurrection of Jesus starts in a confusing, hopeless place. Mary and the disciples aren't sure what's going on. Then John says this: they didn't understand that Jesus MUST rise from the dead. Why MUST Jesus rise from the dead? John leaves us a clue. When Mary see's Jesus, she thinks he's the gardener. This one twist unlocks the whole meaning behind the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus MUST rise again because God is the God who brings life from nothing in Genesis 1 who is now bringing life from death, recreating the world through Jesus. 

Life is hard, and when life is hard we carry sorrow, a deep emotional weight within us. But the world and often the church can tell us we need to keep going, keep growing, keep having faith which leaves us feeling stuck in our sorrow unable to talk about it, maybe even considering walking away all together. That was Jesus' concern for his disciples. They had a Palm Sunday view of God - that God is here to fix my problems and pick me up out of the hard places in life. But Jesus is a Good Friday God, a God who works through life, death, and resurrection. And it's only by entering into our sorrow with him that we can find true healing and resurrection life.

Most religions have in their origin story someone having a connection to God - Abraham on a mountain, Buddha achieving enlightenment, Joseph Smith seeing a vision. The problem with every religion, however, is that that connection to God is private and temporary, leaving later followers to have to build a religion around the founder to get back to that connection. When Jesus is talking with his disciples in John 16:1-15, he tells them he's leaving them, which sounds like every other religious founder. But instead, Jesus says that he is sending the Holy Spirit. When you know God through Jesus, God's personal presence is permanently available to you. What does that mean and how does he work? That's what we dive into here.

We have a hard time with obedience. In our culture right now the idea of obeying someone other than yourself is even considered oppressive. But when Jesus says "if you love me, you will obey me," he's not as concerned about what we do as much as he's concerned about why we do it. The root of obeying Jesus is trusting in the love of Jesus. And his love is the most trusthworthy love you'll ever find.

In John 14:27, Jesus tells his followers he is giving them a peace different than what they can find in the world around them. The peace around us is often based on a lack of trouble around us. But what Jesus offers us is a peace greater than our circumstances - a peace that comes from knowing that God overcame everything for you. This changes how we face trouble, both now and forever.

What is eternal life? Everyone has some opinion. Religion will provide some answers, but Jesus defined it for us. Eternal life is knowing God through him. If that's what eternal life is then it's accessible to us right here, right now, not just when we die. 

In John 14:15-26, Jesus says he won't leave his followers orphans but will adopt us into his family. We can experience in Jesus a family that will never fail us through the status Jesus secured for us and the experience the Holy Spirit brings us.

We tend to only share parts of ourselves with others - our work self with co-workers, our family self at home, our friend self when we're out with friends. But this leaves us unknown and with parts of our lives that no one sees. It's in these places that hypocrisy can grow - where we present as one person but in reality we're someone else. The Letter to Philemon challenges us to put all of our lives on the table because Jesus is King. And if Jesus is King, then he's not just our personal, private Jesus but a King who invites us to rearrange all of our lives to follow him.

Who has power and how are they using it? This is a big question people outside the church are asking. It's also a question the Bible and the Letter to Philemon have good answers to. In Philemon, Paul names the power that he has over Philemon, yet he chooses to use that power, not to force Philemon to do something, but to challenge Philemon to give up his power over Onesimus who has no power. The way of Jesus is the way of using power not for ourselves but for the sake of others. Because when we are weak, then we are strong.