In this Fourth episode in our series on Resurrection, pastors Grant Dailey and Brandon Galford explore the concept of resurrection in the Bible, focusing on stories like the widow of Nain and Lazarus. They discuss how Jesus' compassion and authority can bring hope and transformation in the face of death. They reflect on the impact of loss on faith and the struggle to maintain belief in uncertainty. The conversation emphasizes the power of Jesus' resurrection in revitalizing communities and challenging believers to embody this transformative power. Ultimately, they encourage listeners to engage with the text and apply its lessons in their own lives.
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[00:00:09.75] - Mitchell Buchanan
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Sermon podcast for the community church for God. My name is Mitchell Buchanan. Maybe you've seen me, I don't know. I'm joined by two awesome people. Grant Daley, joined by Brandon Galford. We're going to talk about none of our sermons today. Just fantastic. We're going to talk through Gregg Garner's couple of resurrection sermons that he gave, which I think set the tone. When Brandon, I think, got up to speak his, he was like, greg set the tone in, like, the best way. So Luke seven, in all of these resurrection sermons, I see, like, little ties back and, like, little references to Luke seven, which is just so great. So really for this, we didn't give the sermon, but I think Grant is going to give us a little chunk of, like, an overview of like, hey, this is what was the main points. And then I think we're all just going to kind of chime in on how it impacted us and stuff that stood out to us.
[00:01:06.48] - Grant Dailey
Yeah. So for Luke seven, particularly the widow of, named Pericope, Gregg Garner, he started off by noting that, you know, though the concept of resurrection as it appears in the New Testament may not be like all over the Old Testament, the idea was present in other ways, particularly a visitation from God, that for God to visit and return to his people, particularly on the other side of exile, would be this resurrecting moment, which is worth note, because the widow of name pericope ends with the testimony of that community that God has visited his people. I had a note of something that really stood out to me that I thought summed up as his sermon. Not every point, but perhaps one of the central ones, that resurrection is not contained in the rejuvenation of a heartbeat. It is the stopping the trajectory of a community entrenched in death, transforming it by bringing it back to life. Death is a process of decay that exists outside the scope of a life with God, the predictable trajectory of all human life. And he was just talking about how, what the story really encapsulates in terms of resurrection, the resurrection power is that, yes, you have this widow, you have her son that has died. It tells us her only son has died, and it's like a double death. Right? Her husband is dead now her only son is dead. And this whole community is wrapped up in that and entrenched in that. They're all together in that effort coming out of the city. And the power of resurrection is not just that the kid breathes again and his heart beats again. The power of resurrection is that Jesus changes the trajectory of that entire community that was headed in a direction of just giving itself over to the power of death. But now they've experienced life, and now they're going a completely other direction.
[00:02:59.53] - Brandon Galford
Absolutely.
[00:03:01.03] - Grant Dailey
I thought that was a really powerful reading of that text, because then it gets me considering, like, okay, so how is the power of resurrection then? How do you evidence that in a community, right. Like, is it only present if people are literally coming back from the dead? Or is it present when even when a community has experienced the pain of death, like this community has, even, like, the widow has, losing her husband, losing her son, that they're the inevitable, predictable thing is that it's just death. That's our experience. That's our Lord.
[00:03:37.03] - Mitchell Buchanan
Right.
[00:03:37.62] - Grant Dailey
And now with Jesus, they. It transforms their experience, and they're going in a different direction where they.
[00:03:43.41] - Brandon Galford
He referred to it as a juggernaut.
[00:03:45.25] - Grant Dailey
Juggernaut, yeah.
[00:03:46.05] - Brandon Galford
Yeah. It's a good term for it. Just marching through history.
[00:03:50.00] - Brandon Galford
undefeated.
[00:03:50.74] - Grant Dailey
It's a comic book reference. The juggernaut, you can't stop. The juggernaut keeps going. Yeah.
[00:03:54.96] - Brandon Galford
Can't stop it.
[00:03:55.56] - Grant Dailey
It's very apt. 20
[00:03:56.31] - Mitchell Buchanan
20 minutes later. All right, so juggernaut in issue 23. No, I think that that point and even of considering, how does this, you know, community resurrect? Because he kind of gave that disclaimer from the beginning of, like, this is normally considered an individuative act, where it's like, particularly Jesus or the resurrection of Lazarus, whatever is happening, or even in this story, it's like, you would just think resurrection of, like, the actual son from the widow inane. And it's like, no, no, no. Like, there's so many more things at playdead of, like, death versus, I think, the activity of Jesus in the kingdom of God. And it's like, how do we see this entire city recharacterized, brought out of, you know, the effects and even just the draw of death where it's like, hey, this is, you know, where, like you said, like, the mindset or, like, the. Where they've existed for so long, and to see it changed on a level that is beyond what most people, I think, would see as an exceptional act from Jesus. Hey, this was an act that is not going to be duplicated outside of Jesus doing it. And it's like, when you think of an entire community being resurrected, it's like it forces you to think, this is beyond one person. Right. And it's like, it requires the participation of so many people. That's like. It is so. It's really challenging. Think through, not just like the practicalities of it, but I think a faith that sees, a faith that sees how we engage with Jesus, engage with the word of God, that extends past a singular moment. Hey, there's this funeral coming out. I'm going to raise the son. The implications from that act and how they extend out of like, hey, what this means for not just the widow and her livelihood and how she's gonna be taken care of and their family's gonna be restored, which I think Greg really hammered home. Like, this is a restoration of family. What does the restoration of families do for this entire community? Because that's like the far reaching extent of it. It's like this singular act can have such, like basically planting a tree that's gonna grow and actually see like the whole turn, turn around of the society is like, amazing.
[00:06:15.80] - Grant Dailey
Yeah.
[00:06:16.08] - Brandon Galford
I think it changes people's mindset. Like, if I could conflate the two sermons that Greg gave here, you know, you've got this community at Nain coming out carrying death, and it's all they've known. Death is what they know and they know it intimately.
[00:06:31.83] - Mitchell Buchanan
Right.
[00:06:32.43] - Brandon Galford
And then you have, you know, like Thomas with having lost his brother.
[00:06:36.76] - Mitchell Buchanan
Right.
[00:06:37.32] - Brandon Galford
Death is, you know, Greg makes the good observation in teaching the gospel of John that the phrase come and see in chapter one for Jesus, come and see, means come be discipled by me. That phrase reappears in chapter eleven, the Lazarus story. And the idea there is that death is inviting you to be discipled by it. And so are we discipled by Jesus or are we going to be discipled by death? And you have these pictures of having been discipled by death. And so when a community of people see resurrection, you know, they, there is a hope that is generated that wasn't there before because death has been our teacher.
[00:07:21.82] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah.
[00:07:22.54] - Brandon Galford
And I think it's just incredibly powerful.
[00:07:25.06] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah, absolutely. And I think something that stood out to me and rewatching it and the way that Jesus, I think the way Jesus approaches us and really starts this whole chain of events in this resurrection act is telling the widow, like, don't weep. And I can, you know, read a quote since Greg isn't here to talk about it. The reason Jesus can say don't weep is because with his presence, with his authority, what he's able to do, he can do something for this person that is changing their trajectory that they believe themselves to be on, which, you know, it can seem, you know, Greg talks how revelatory it is for Jesus to have compassion for this widow, you know, like, it says he has compassion on her, but says, don't weep, which can feel just so callous. So, like, it's an affront. It's offensive.
[00:08:13.64] - Brandon Galford
It's offensive.
[00:08:14.48] - Mitchell Buchanan
It's truly offensive.
[00:08:16.62] - Brandon Galford
It is.
[00:08:17.49] - Mitchell Buchanan
Hey, old lady.
[00:08:18.76] - Brandon Galford
Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:20.22] - Mitchell Buchanan
I don't know. We don't need to make it more offensive. He could be very polite on that. But just saying, hey, like, in this life shattering moment where you not only are losing the person closest to you, you've already lost your husband.
[00:08:31.88] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:08:32.37] - Mitchell Buchanan
Now, like Gregg Garner points out, like, you have no covering in society. It's like she has, like, in a free fall to the most vulnerable person in their world. And so, you know, Gregg Garner highlighted, she's not just weeping for this moment, which truly, it is heartbreaking. It's like she has no direction, nowhere to turn, no ability to have provision. And, like, Jesus is telling her, don't weep. And I think that's what starts this whole progression towards resurrection. It's like when we talk about having compassion with, I think, people in our church or with friends, it can often feel very effusive where it's like, hey, I want to comfort you in a way that is not offensive on any level. And it's really just to make sure that you're heard and I'll pray for you. But it feels like Jesus revelatory act and, like, no having compassion, you know, how Gregg Garner put it, is being able to do something that changes the trajectory they believe that they're on, which she's on a trajectory of death, which we talked about. And it's like Jesus can do something to radically change that. And I think it's a challenge. Cause if we all have the word of God and the spirit of the Lord, like, we all have that ability to change the trajectory and perspective because we want to embody that and live it out.
[00:09:49.28] - Grant Dailey
Sure.
[00:09:50.54] - Mitchell Buchanan
But I think him, like, reiterating that, that do not weep and how that moment of Jesus interjecting is entering at a moment of offense and to the way he turns of like, hey, this isn't offensive to be offensive. It's not like a shock word to jar her out of her moment. It's like, no, no, I'm having compassion. Cause I can literally show you how I'm gonna change your perspective on it is a really, really great reading of it.
[00:10:19.65] - Brandon Galford
Yeah, I think that's a good point. It wasn't offensive to be offensive. It's the reality of God's visitation itself. There's an offense there when he shows.
[00:10:27.80] - Grant Dailey
Up it's also rooted in the faith that he has that the resurrection power of God is real, that he can say that, which I find important to stress. Like, kids, if you're watching and you think you're Jesus, don't haphazardly tell someone that lost a loved one. Don't weep unless you are full of the spirit of our lord and savior who has authorized you to do that.
[00:10:56.91] - Mitchell Buchanan
This could be a christian version that can feel like kids. We're not saying to literally tell someone no.
[00:11:02.86] - Grant Dailey
I am saying no. I think this isn't to say that we can't do what Jesus did. He gives an example, but it comes from a position that it is a hard one to get to.
[00:11:14.58] - Mitchell Buchanan
Well, it comes from a position of authority for Jesus to be able to do that. So, like, if you're just trying to mimic and it's like, hey, don't be sad because God is real. And it's like, there's not weight behind that. Like, you're not demonstrating an authority of the word of God, demonstrating authority of even, you know, embodying God's spirit. You know, to be discerning, to be able to live that out and to be able to affect change where it's like, hey, I'll go to, like, you know, I am connecting with you. Like, even I think the. I had brought up the. The positionality of everything in the text. You know, where it's like, the crowd is coming and then, you know, Jesus and his disciples, and even the physicality of, like, touching that briar of, like, what that meant for Jesus to do that in their society, what it denoted to being unclean. And it's like, even seeing it as this forceful act of like, hey, I am, like, affecting change, getting myself, you know, dirty, getting myself unclean in this manner to, like, really, you know, if we. I think if we extrapolate that out, it's like, when we are being compassionate with people, when we take that authority, if we really are in that place, it's like, it requires us to get unclean to like, hey, I'm going to help you. Like, oh, crap, like, your life is in shambles. Like, oh, this. This is hard. Like, my wife is wanting to know where I'm at right now because I'm helping you. It's like, it doesn't matter. I'm here to, like, really be compassionate because I can change your circumstances.
[00:12:36.54] - Grant Dailey
Yeah.
[00:12:36.73] - Brandon Galford
So, Terrence, I quote, God gets his hands dirty.
[00:12:40.02] - Grant Dailey
I like Trump.
[00:12:41.22] - Mitchell Buchanan
Thanks for taking something. I took probably one and a half minutes to say and then doing it in, you know, 5 seconds. Because I'm not a red man. I'm not as learned as you. I'm just joking.
[00:12:52.87] - Grant Dailey
I think between this text and then also Gregg Garner's resurrection Sunday sermon on Thomas Didymuse, I think one of the things that had me thinking was, like, what does it look like for a community to be discipled by death or tutor by it, or also in a position where the trajectory they're on is just the inevitability of death? Because I think, like, if we were to speak in that language, we'd be like, no, we're not like that. We aren't tutored by death. None of us walk around and be like, death is my teacher or death is my lord. I don't think we would use that kind of worship. We're not like, I worship death. But then it gets evaluated in the practicality, right? Like, you know, death messes with you. And the way you start thinking about the future or, like, whatever visions you had for the future, like, death alters those and it changes your outlook. It find it leaves you, like, maybe a little more paranoid or a little more afraid or, like, a little more hesitant to commit to things.
[00:13:53.29] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:13:53.79] - Grant Dailey
Because why would you commit when people die? Or, like, it leaves you not trusting people because they might be gone from your life. And I appreciated the Easter Sunday sermon because Thomas in John Eleven, he gives voice to that perspective. Let's go to Jerusalem and die with him. And Greg's reading of that as Thomas the twin, having lost a brother, you know, and learning that, and I think it's a great interpretation. It is that, but I think it's a helpful one. Like, this guy, he's been tutored by death. Like, it shapes his worldview. It changes his perspective on things. He's like, he sees it as the inevitable outcome of life. You're gonna die. That's what's gonna happen. Might as well hasten this. And the thing I appreciate in that is that Jesus doesn't in that moment rebuke him. And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't say something to counter that to him directly. He doesn't shut him down. Even his request at the end of the gospel that he won't believe unless he sees and puts his fingers in the scars. Jesus allows it. He acknowledges it. He makes room for people that have gone through that.
[00:15:10.30] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah.
[00:15:10.80] - Grant Dailey
But at the same time, like, is not content with us staying there. So I think for me, the question was like, how do you know that you're in a place where death is now teaching you or leading you, or that's a trajectory, because while we may not say explicitly that it's the way we behave, it's way we talk, the way we think about life, we have a filter now that you see things where you're like, well, this is what happens.
[00:15:35.48] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:15:35.95] - Grant Dailey
So this is what's going to happen.
[00:15:37.39] - Brandon Galford
It's what's going to happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:40.14] - Mitchell Buchanan
Well, I think, yeah. My question is, hopefully you can give your thoughts, is it a natural progression for, you know, Thomas is close to death? You know, or he has a closeness with death.
[00:15:53.61] - Grant Dailey
He's been touched by it.
[00:15:54.37] - Mitchell Buchanan
Is it a natural progression to go from John eleven of deterministic, hey, we're all gonna die. Like, really just, like, too comfortable with death where it's like, it kind of clouds your judgment. To John 14, Greg highlighted, like, a confusion when it's, like, presented, you know, with, like, hey, we're not just gonna die. Like, I don't know what's going on. To John 20 where it's like, hey, I need, like, extreme affirmation. Like, is that even, like, a progression we can draw when a believer becomes close to death where it's, like, kind of deterministic, all, you know, from. From soil we came to soil will return. Like, kind of like, everything's fine. To the John 14, like, confusion of, like, I don't know what's going on in my world, in this life, to the, you know, John 20, where it's like, okay, I'm not necessarily confused, but I need, like, an extreme affirmation on what is God doing? Is he here? What? Prove it to me. I don't believe. Like, is that natural or is that just Thomas not really having the faith he should. Should be having?
[00:16:58.03] - Grant Dailey
Yeah, I mean, in John 20, Jesus is going to tell him that the blessed are those who believe but have not seen. So he does seem to highlight there that there is a capacity for us to have greater faith, perhaps than Thomas in that we can believe and not see. But at the same time, like, Thomas was his student. He was a disciple. He wasn't just some stranger, outsider. He was with Jesus, and he was learning from him. He followed him for that period of his life. And that doesn't make us immune to thinking that somehow something other than Jesus could now give us direction. You know, like, I don't. Having. Having lost a spouse and having gone through it, it does. It affects the way you think about stuff, and it's not even. I don't even think that it is like, intentional or conscious. Sometimes it's just in experience. It happens and it comes through. Like, I deal with things by joking about it. I think I might have taught my kids that, which is the correct path.
[00:18:07.02] - Mitchell Buchanan
If we can all take, it should happen.
[00:18:09.73] - Grant Dailey
If Jesus is option a, the only other option B that's acceptable is laughter.
[00:18:16.30] - Mitchell Buchanan
I say Jesus is the best comedian. What if we. What if we take that anyway?
[00:18:20.98] - Grant Dailey
I say that to save my daughter. My wife Kaylee went to. She went to, like, the grocery store or something the other day, and the kids didn't know, and the kids don't. My kids don't care about me. They, like, I could be gone. I could be gone for months, and they won't even notice. But if my wife is gone for 20 minutes, they're like, where's mom? Where's mom? And it's not hard to imagine why they'd lost their. Their mom. They lost their birth mom six years ago. So, you know, they're always. Every time she leaves, they're like, where's mom? Where's she at? Where's she at? And I was like, I told all this Nadia. I was like, she went to the grocery store. And then Nadia, as a joke goes, we lost another mom. You know, and. Which I just had so much appreciation and respect for that she can make a joke about that. I hadn't heard her do that yet. I was like, all right. I see something developing.
[00:19:09.52] - Brandon Galford
Yeah, yeah. But, like, it's her daddy.
[00:19:12.41] - Grant Dailey
I didn't sit down and, like, explicitly teach them that. Yeah, it's what happened to them. And they're like, that really happened. And I would say, like, it just feels like that's where you inevitably go. You inevitably start thinking, people are gonna leave you. They're gonna die. Like, how long will it last, you know? Like, can you really think about the future when you've been touched by death like that? Like, it's hard. It's hard to contemplate the future and imagine what it could be like when you know that out of nowhere, it could be cut short. And the remedy to that is the resurrection power of God. It's Jesus. It's letting him speak to you in a revelatory way and having him point you in a different direction. Yeah, I like the imagery of Henry. He gets in the mess. One of the things I love about Jesus is he's not bothered by our questions or our problems or our issues, you know? Like, I think sometimes in Christianity, we're afraid to say things that they say in John eleven. Right? Like, if you had been here. He doesn't rebuke. He doesn't rebuke either of the sisters.
[00:20:36.43] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:20:36.75] - Grant Dailey
He listens to him.
[00:20:37.53] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:20:37.90] - Grant Dailey
But then he does something different, and I like that imagery that he puts his hand in it. He's not. He's not. We're not going to mess up Jesus.
[00:20:45.47] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:20:45.80] - Grant Dailey
Right. He's gonna get in our mess with us, but we're not gonna mess him up. And that's a great point, but I think it is a natural progression. It happens. And I think that even, even for people like myself, like, studying the Bible, like, most of my life now, like, it's still there and I still have to pay attention to it and be conscious of it and catch myself.
[00:21:10.53] - Mitchell Buchanan
You're saying kind of like the unnatural coloring death can have on your lens of life.
[00:21:15.66] - Grant Dailey
Yeah. Just. Just because we're, like, we profess Jesus as Lord, just because we study the Bible, just because we preach the Bible doesn't make us immune to feeling the reverberating impact of death. Right. It does. It just affects you. And you have those things where you're like, I think Greg testified to it in his resurrection Sunday sermon that it makes you afraid or paranoid when that person doesn't answer the phone or like somebody's gone for a while or like.
[00:21:42.82] - Mitchell Buchanan
He really, he really, like, emotive. Like, it's. I think you just, like, highlight it. It's real. You know, it's like.
[00:21:48.03] - Grant Dailey
It is.
[00:21:48.63] - Mitchell Buchanan
I'll testify. It's a real thing, which is what you're saying. It's not like, in your mind or it's not like, hey, that this is something I'm like, you know, trying to get my. It's so real that it's like. It is visceral. You know, it's something that can't be avoided just from praying another. Another ten minutes in the morning. It's like this whole thing is like taking me on a trip that I needed back.
[00:22:11.81] - Brandon Galford
Part of that reality is the simple fact that, you know, we can talk about Jesus resurrection power all day, but the fact is that person is not raised.
[00:22:22.42] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:23.35] - Brandon Galford
I mean, it's just real. You know, our hope in that regard is the present power of God at work in our midst. But ultimately, this eschatological end, that we will be with them again, that's our hope. But that in the present doesn't change the fact that that person's not there.
[00:22:42.76] - Mitchell Buchanan
Right.
[00:22:43.09] - Grant Dailey
Which. That's the tension we live in.
[00:22:44.70] - Mitchell Buchanan
You have Thomas contending with the real resurrection of Jesus while his twin is not resurrect. Like, he's.
[00:22:50.71] - Brandon Galford
Yeah, good point.
[00:22:51.47] - Mitchell Buchanan
Holding both in that moment, I'm like.
[00:22:53.76] - Grant Dailey
John eleven is like one of the most offensive passages in the Bible for me. I just. I teach it and I love it. I also hate it because it's a hard text to wrestle with. It really is. Because how do you, you know, Martha gives a voice to that. She's like, I know that I'll see him at the resurrection. She's speaking to that eschatological event, and she has faith in that. She believes it. But then Jesus is like, I'm the resurrection life, right? And it's like now in the moment, and then he does it and then. Yeah. Could you imagine being Thomas over there, you know, where you see that and you're like, but what about me, Jesus? Like, it still doesn't because then at the end, he still has a hard time accepting it because it didn't change his reality. And I think that we have to continue to contend with that. Like, we can't so easily just give in to the direction of inevitability, whatever we want to wave, like being realistic or just pessimism or having death now be our Lord and our teacher and the experience of a community, too, you know, because I feel like these things, they are individual things, but they can come to characterize a community, too, right? Where now we find ourselves saying things like that and we have a hard time thinking about the future. And we find ourselves just in survival mode because that's what you do after you experience death. You just try to survive. You're not trying to push forward and thrive. There's a lot there, but, yeah, John Eleven, it's very offensive in that way, but at the same time, I feel a lot of grace from God in that passage because he is Jesus in that text, is so. He is very gentle with all the people that give voice to these differing perspectives, and he makes room for it. But he also doesn't let us stay there in the text. He doesn't let us just stay into, like, deferring hope to some future event that only God knows.
[00:24:53.74] - Brandon Galford
Yeah, he centers it all in.
[00:24:55.13] - Grant Dailey
Yeah, it's on him. He also doesn't. He also doesn't just let us stay in the. Let's die with him. I mean, this is where it all goes, right? He gives us something else, which, again, is a challenge. When Lazarus was raised from the dead and in our own experience, people around us may not be and haven't been. So then you have to make the decision, are you going to let death teach you or you're going to let Jesus? I think that is a process that's not going to be solved in just one verse or one text or one sermon. Has to be something we struggle with and work through continually and talk to each other about, you know, or have the confidence and the authority to speak to somebody like, hey, I think you're stuck in this moment.
[00:25:44.10] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah.
[00:25:44.61] - Grant Dailey
And I understand grieving, but this is different. This isn't right. You know, Jesus is calling us to something else. I don't know. There's a lot there.
[00:25:56.67] - Mitchell Buchanan
I know. Brandon, you need to get out of here.
[00:25:59.05] - Brandon Galford
I got a minute.
[00:25:59.97] - Mitchell Buchanan
Okay. Because I know exactly what you're talking about, is Jesus is very, very understanding in a way, that John eleven deal. He sits in the midst of everyone's confusion on not understanding what resurrection him embodying him having resurrection power. No one understands what that means and he explains to them, but he is very, I think, willing to allow people to catch up to that kind of, in a way. And he takes all himself. You know, it's like Jesus wept is like where it came to. And it's like, I think he really processed through that of, like, even those moments of, like no one here understands. And it's like everyone is stuck colored by, like, this. This tutor of death. And it's like, I have to demonstrate, but it's like, it's not in a way where it's like anger or it's like, hey, you know, kind of like pushing people. Like, you're. You need to get past this.
[00:26:56.69] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
[00:26:57.32] - Mitchell Buchanan
So I think there is like, almost when people kind of get in that place where it's like grief is. Has overtaken them or it's hard for them to get out. You know, like the situation of Thomas, like, Jesus is kind of like, almost like allowing, like, I want to be so full of life that it's like you're going to need to contend with me.
[00:27:14.10] - Brandon Galford
Right.
[00:27:14.40] - Mitchell Buchanan
You know what I'm saying? Where it's like, I'm going to be so filled with life, like we're going to raise Lazarus. Like, even if you're confused right now, like, your confusion is going to have to contend with this life, not necessarily be comfortable with death over and over.
[00:27:27.50] - Brandon Galford
Yeah, I agree.
[00:27:29.70] - Mitchell Buchanan
And I think something else after Grant was talking that Greg brought up in the end of his Luke seven sermon was that you see this position Jesus has of lifting this son that he's raised to give to the mother. And I think Jesus said, you see this restoration of family even pictorially, where it's like the father had passed away. She's a widow. You see Jesus in this position of a father to the son and a husband to this woman, of, like, showing this restoration. It's like in the place of a wife who's passed away. That's like God should be able to fill, not in a way where it's like, hey, just trust in the Lord. But I think that is kind of what Greg left us with is like, you know, we should be understanding that God is able to restore families even in the midst of loss, where it's like, hey, we have. I've lost my husband, I've lost my wife. But it's like, great kind of challenge, I think, in that Luke seven of, like, Jesus literally puts himself in that position of, like, taking the place of that lost, you know, family member, showing that restoration is possible. And it's like, I think trusting that in the text, which is so hard to do. I'm talking to you, it's like, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:43.39] - Brandon Galford
Let me read a quote from, from Greg in that first sermon.
[00:28:46.04] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah.
[00:28:46.82] - Brandon Galford
God reverses the dying of communities by reconstituting families. Evidence of God showing up is when we see families being restored. I love that element of resurrection power. It is this raising of families and communities. And I just think that that's, I think, an aspect of this resurrection teaching that is not commonly even considered within the evangelical world that we've seen it. We've witnessed it. We've not only experienced it, but like we for ourselves, but we've seen it around us and friends and brothers and sisters abroad and even right here in our midst, we've seen God, you know, resurrecting families in that way. And that's, you know, that I am the resurrection of the life, he says. And we see it.
[00:29:49.70] - Mitchell Buchanan
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else we want to touch on or. I mean, I think we probably summed up everything Greg was saying, so I don't have.
[00:30:02.63] - Brandon Galford
I'm confident that was a good summary. Grant. Grant's a good summarizer. He's a very good suburb.
[00:30:07.67] - Mitchell Buchanan
And I think kind of, you know, I felt so much of the main thrust which we've said, you know, kind of to close the restoration of families. Like in all of these resurrection stories, Luke seven, it's literally, you know, putting this family back together. We know in John eleven, there's Mary and Martha with their brother Lazarus there, which Jesus, you know, is very close to them, like, restoring that relationship, you see, all the way to Jesus's life where on the cross he's bringing together a mother with a son on the cross. You see, when, you know, even towards the end, who is my mother and brother? But those who do the will of the father, like you see him, like, resurrect to send out these people, extending that work. And I think we get a tradition even, you know, talking with Thomas and his twin, like, that is a family dynamic. And it's like, I think if we think as a church community that we're going to push forward in doing, I think, the work of the Lord and that we're going to have incomplete families or even that we don't, that, you know, seeing the restoration of our families and seeing those at a healthy place is so priority because that is how we change societies, communities around us. It's built on no more than healthy, healthy families. So I think even recently, people extending, like, hey, I request prayer for, like, my, my, you know, parents in this situation, or like, hey, this person's sick. It's like, that is a real way that our whole church community, I think, can step in because that's what we're called to do. Yeah, we can't predict if someone could be, like, made, well, you know, from sickness or if they're going to pass on, like, but the resurrection power is saying, like, hey, we want to make sure that your family is restored in a way that we live out, you know, God's spirit moving forward and it doesn't become, hey, I had a mother pass away. And we lose you in, like, this ministerial way. We lose you in a faith filled way for six months, a year, two years, three years. It's like, it's our collective responsibility to step in and say, like, hey, how can we restore you? How can we change this trajectory you're on?
[00:32:16.61] - Brandon Galford
That's a great point.
[00:32:17.30] - Mitchell Buchanan
To be tutored by death and to really to be raised to newness of life. If we can go with real baptism.
[00:32:25.13] - Brandon Galford
That was a great summarizing communication there.
[00:32:28.90] - Mitchell Buchanan
Maybe next time you'll say, Grant and Mitchell are both great at summarizing. No, this was a fantastic time. If we had another hour and a half, we could probably talk about resurrection. It is so rich and deep, and I was so blessed by, I think, every sermon in the month of march to talk through it. Hopefully this. Bless you all. Wherever you're listening to this, make sure to give us feedback. We hope this is really done well for you to dig into the text. And Greg wasn't here. I'm sure if you catch him around, he'll have immeasurably more thoughts in ways that he can continue teaching through this text. But thanks for listening. Take every sermon we do, take this word of God into all your homes, with your families, friends, conversations because we want to make sure that we're extending these sermons. That's the purpose of this. Like, let's talk about God's word. Let's change our perspective through digging into the God's word. Thanks so much. Until next time. We'll see you at church.
[00:33:25.51] - Brandon Galford
Yeah.
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