Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 20 & 21, 2019 | Easter Message - Re-Purposed

Transcript

April 20 & 21, 2019 | Easter Message - Re-Purposed · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Happy Easter.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I know the last five or so rows here won't be able to see this, but the rest of you, would you turn around and look at that stained glass window up high?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're celebrating this morning.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: The Capitol Journal has put that.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if those of you in the overflow downstairs can see that.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the camera got that for you.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: But the Capitol Journal's put that on their front page a few times during my tenure here.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: So happy Easter.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I heard that.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's Happy Easter in infant language.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: So a couple nights ago, Good Friday, we called purpose.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Our thing today is repurposed.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was purpose two nights ago, and I shared with you half a dozen purposes or reasons that Christ died, that he came to the cross today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Empty tomb, resurrection, it's repurposed.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and for those of you primarily of the male gender who've never looked at Pinterest or don't know what repurposed means.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Repurposed is when you take something that has an old purpose and it's worn out, let's say, and old or whatever, and then you repurpose it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I picked six uh pictures of things that I thought were really cool and repurposing, and I want you to see those, like taking a grand piano that's old and worn out and repurposing it into a bookshelf.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is that cool or what?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or taking an old tire and making it uh doggy's TV chair.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Or uh, I like this one, though.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'd need about four or five, six ladders, you know, to turn a ladder into a bookshelf.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh or who doesn't have these antique tennis rackets lying around that you could turn into a uh I'm giving you ideas, Tony, I can tell.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm not sure about the whole suitcase turning into a medicine cabinet thing, you know, our bathroom's small enough that, you know, anyway, but uh anyway, it's kind of cool.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now we have that.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Bottom one, you know, there's an old Topeka Bible Church pew that a friend of ours turned into a love seat uh that we have, turning a church pew into something like that.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's repurposing, and it's pretty popular today, real popular today.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I've gotten some of you guys into trouble because your wife's gonna go home and go, let's repurpose that thing.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you go, I really wanted to just throw it away.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: But we're talking this morning about repurposing lives, okay?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And the resurrection has everything to do with that because God can repurpose our lives because of the resurrection.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: So what I'm gonna do is I want to tell you a story about a repurposing that happened in the Bible, and then we'll show you a repurposing that happened, uh, we'll show you a video, okay?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that'll be what I'll do for the next, we'll do that for the next 20 minutes.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the clearest pictures of repurposing in the Bible is found in the life of the big fisherman, Simon, who became the great apostle Peter.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, up until today, starting when Simon or Peter, whatever you want to call him, was a teenager, up until the resurrection, his purpose, his identity was all caught up with his larger-than-life personality and his innate intelligence and his native ability at leadership and his self-confidence, which at times bordered on cockiness, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Simon pretty much had something to be cocky about.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: He sort of had it all.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: He was the kind of guy that other guys kind of wished that they were, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: He was an expert fisherman among all the fishermen around the Sea of Galilee.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: He was an expert.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: He was a big guy, big physical guy, and he had a temper, and so even if you were a Roman soldier, you didn't want to cross him, or you might lose an ear or something worse.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he was fearless.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: He was scared of no one and scared of nothing at all.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus, you're gonna walk on top of the water?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'll walk on top of the water.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And he had such a strong personality that none of the other disciples giggled, laughed at all when Jesus said, Okay, you, I'm gonna nickname you the rock from now on.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're Rocky.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: No one giggled.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: He was.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what he was.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: He was a rock, kind of a rock star.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he was sure of himself, Simon was.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus, you know this plan of yours about going to Jerusalem and dying?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Forget about it.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Really dumb idea.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, you dying is not gonna happen.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: I guarantee it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he's the kind of guy who uh who felt like his ideas were all big ideas and they needed to be heard.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: One day, Jesus took him, invited him and a couple of other buddies.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: He said, walk up to the hike up to the top of this mountain, we're gonna pray up there.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: They get up to the top of the mountain, Jesus begins to radiate, begins to glow, begins to transfigure, they call it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: He begins to look like the majesty of the universe, the king of the world, you know.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, as Peter and James and John are looking, all of a sudden, you know, materializing beh beside Jesus are Moses and Elijah of all things, and the three of them begin to chat like old buddies who haven't seen each other for 30 years or so.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then an idea pops into Pete's head, and he's just so sure that this is a good idea, and better by far than whatever those three guys up there are chatting about.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: That he interrupts them.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: He says, Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey guys, to honor this event, let's build three lodges, three chalets up here, each one named after one of you, huh?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Good idea, right?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And he's about to explain the details, he's going into it until God the Father throws up and and drops a cloud on top of him and says in a voice that probably sounded a little like Morgan Freeman's stop talking and just listen.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: This is the son I love.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Listen to him.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now, were I Jesus, I might have gotten tired of this big, cocky guy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Might have told him to take a hike.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Come back when you've grown up a little bit and calm down a lot and when you're not so full of yourself.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus didn't do that.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus took him on as a project.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: He let him be part of his inner circle with John and James.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And once in a while he would knock Peter down a little bit.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like when Peter walked on the water and began sinking, I think Jesus let him go under a little bit and breathe a little bit of lake water for a while before extending a hand and pulling him out and then saying to him, Hey, big guy, your faith is a little faith, unquote.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: That was embarrassing.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Or, like that time Jesus had talked about going to Jerusalem and dying, and Pete had told him to scrap his Jerusalem plan.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus said to him, Get thee behind me, Satan.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: That shut him up for a few minutes.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Satan was not the name he wanted on his name badge in heaven.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it all came to a head during Passion Week, Holy Week, the week we're in right now, when they were eating the Passover dinner in the upper room the night before the crucifixion.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: So the disciples were back in their old boring squabble over who would be the greatest in the kingdom and get to sit at the head of the table.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure Pete was right in the middle of the whole thing, claiming to be Jesus' right-hand homeboy and all that, because, well, because of what he's gonna say in just a minute.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus interrupts them, he tells them to cool it, you know, about who's gonna be the top dog in heaven, because the you know, bottom chihuahua on earth is gonna be the top great dane in heaven, because after all, don't they realize that servants down here are kings up there, and haven't they noticed that's what he is after all?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: He's not a king on earth, he's a servant on earth who's about to suffer and die for them.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then, says the Gospel of Luke, he looks straight into Simon's eyes and he says to him, Simon, Simon, you especially need to watch out because Satan is out after you.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: That was too much for Simon to take.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus worried about him, so he said, Jesus, listen, I see you're serious about the suffering and dying thing.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just want you to stop worrying about me, okay?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've got your back.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: If they take you to prison, I'll go to prison right beside you.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: And if they kill you, I'll die right beside you.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can count on me, I'm your homie.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus sighs, Jesus shakes his head, Jesus says, and I quote, Peter, Peter.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: This very night before the rooster crows to announce the dawn, you'll be swearing to people you don't even know me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Not just once, but three times.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: That, I'm sure, took the air out of his tires.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: But what would happen in the next few hours would flatten him completely.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because, first of all, when Jesus took them to the olive grove saying, Let's have a prayer meeting, Peter fell fast asleep.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he had to hear Jesus say, What?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: You couldn't stay awake with me for even one hour?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Then he falls asleep again, and he wakes up groggy when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: He wakes up and he freaks out and he pulls his sword and he swings wildly at a head somewhere and he misses the head, but he lops off an ear, so that Jesus has to paste it on and tell him to sheat his sword.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then it gets worse because as they're marching Jesus back to town, instead of doing as he promised and hanging right next to Jesus, going with him, Peter quote, followed at a distance, like a scaredy cat.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like a guy who's thinking, this has turned worse than I thought.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: This could be dangerous.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: So then he sneaks up in the middle of the night and he joins the crowd around the campfire outside the courthouse where they're trying Jesus.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: So he tries to, you know, the big guy tries to act small, tries to hide out, but a woman sees him, a young woman sees him, points at him, and says, Wow, he's one of them.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Peter goes, Whoa, not me.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not I'm not one of them.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: But the girl doesn't back off.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: She says, No, I've I've seen you with him.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And again, Peter denies, he says, You got the wrong guy.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not one of Jesus' disciples.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: But as he loudly denies it, we're told that the crowd around hears his accent.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: His accent gives them away.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: His accent shows that he's one of those hicks from up north, that he's not from around there.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so all of a sudden the crowd starts joining the girl in accusing Peter of being a disciple of Jesus, which does it, which makes Peter lose his cool.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he cursed and he swore, we're told, and denied that he even knew this Jesus guy.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: In that hour of crisis, Peter betrayed his good friend.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you or I had been there and we'd heard Peter utter a string of proof profanities to deny Jesus, would we have still thought he was part of the team or would we have written him off?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if a friend did that to you, would you forgive her?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then the rooster crows.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And Peter comes to his senses and he remembers what his friend had predicted, and something breaks inside of him, and it breaks irretrievably.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in that moment of supreme failure, we are told that Peter went outside and wept bitterly.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Peter went out into the dark.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: And his story could have ended there.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: If Jesus had stayed dead after the cross, if it had been the end of Jesus' story, it definitely would have been the end of Peter's story, but it wasn't the end of Jesus' story, was it?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so it wasn't the end of Peter's story either.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Peter had, you know, had no future at this point.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: He was broken, he was washed up.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: His purpose and identity were as tired and worn as an old church pew or a broken down piano.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: But now he gets repurposed because of the resurrection.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Stage one, resurrection morning, that's stage one of two.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: The women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: They find the tomb empty.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: They meet an angel outside who gives them a message to take to the disciples.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they run back.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: They burst into the room where the disciples are hanging out.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, I'm assuming, in a huddled mess, a lump of failure at the back of the room.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Mary yells out, the angel said, He is not here, he is risen, but go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Did you catch it?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: It went by pretty quickly.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think with a smirk on his face, the angel said, Mary, don't stay here.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Go tell the disciples, oh, and especially Peter, that he's going before you into Galilee.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: When the message went across that room, my guess is that Peter's head popped up.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Did I hear right?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I was done for.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thought I was destined for the trash heap.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: I thought my life was over.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Has God got a new purpose for me?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Has he got a use for me, really?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Stage two, up at Galilee, Peter and six others are out in a boat.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: They're fishing all night.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: They're having no luck.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: They haven't caught a thing.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I hate that when that happens.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus comes to the shore.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus builds a fire, builds a campfire.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I believe that he built a campfire that looked exactly like the campfire where Peter denied him.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's the only other time in the entire Bible that that Greek word is used, just those two times.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Only this time the campfire will be a campfire of restoration, of renewal, of repurposing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so when Peter and the others get to shore, Jesus says to Peter, Take a walk with me.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: They began walking around the lake.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And now Jesus asked them a question.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, do you truly love me?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: He asked them the question not once, not twice, but three times, just like Peter had denied him three times.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: The old Peter would have said, Give me a break, I'll die for you.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: The new transformed Peter or broken Peter humbly replies, Lord, you know all things.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know I love you.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And in reply, Jesus repurposes Peter, picks him up off the trash heap, strips off that old glossy veneer of self-assurance and self-confidence and self-reliance.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: In his former life, Peter had been a rock, even a rock star.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: His purpose in life was to lead and to talk and to command.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now he's repurposed from being a rock into being a shepherd.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know I do.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Then feed my lambs, Jesus said.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know I do.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Then shepherd my sheep.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know I do.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Then feed my sheep, Jesus said a third time.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the rest of the New Testament records that Peter did exactly that.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: He became the shepherd of the early church.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Once upon a time, he'd been a rock.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: His admirers thought of him as a rock star.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: From now on, he would be a shepherd.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And listen, the resurrection is your opportunity to be repurposed, to be stripped of that old identity which has been weighing you down all these years.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: To be stripped of the glossy veneer of those old purposes that have always caused you failure and embarrassment, so that Christ can replace that with something better, something greater, transform you, repurpose you.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Last Easter, right here, we showed you a video that featured the stories of three TBCers whose lives had been transformed by the risen Lord.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: One of those stories pierced the heart of a woman who was sitting right here that morning, a TBC woman.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: God used that story to transform and to repurpose her.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: She came and told us the story.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Remarkable story, so we turned it into a video.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: We showed it at the Premier Women's Event over Christmas.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: We call it LOL.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to show you that video right now, eight-minute video, because it perfectly illustrates what I think God might be saying to you this morning.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Watch this video.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started selling on eBay.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd go to garage sales or estate sales and find items that have treasures and um sell them on eBay.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But more things the more came in, uh the more I started stopping out.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So on the inside, um there was trouble because there was problems in our marriage.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I had to keep that look on the outside like I was together when I I wasn't at all.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it just it just seemed like mountains.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just easier to shut the door than deal with it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So every time I would pass something on the curb, I would think of what it could be instead of what it was.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I was I was justifying this whole process by, well, that's what God does with people.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he doesn't see trash, he sees what they can be.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I had four lifetimes of repurposing in on our property.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had medicated with junk, and it was just like an alcoholic or someone addicted to drugs.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: That fix goes away, and you need to get another one.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Walking into Easter service, I was um just excited that my husband was there with me.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Jim's service was just so moving, and then there's the testimony of the three individuals, and one was similar to what my husband had gone through and in our marriage, and so I kind of wanted him to focus, you know?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then God got my attention through Erica's testimony and said, I'm talking to you.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was in complete darkness, I was empty, I was alone, I was just lost.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I turned to drugs, men in the streets to fill the void and make me happy.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it did not work.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was abused, taken for granted, and I had nowhere to turn.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was gonna die any day from either being beat to death or a drug overdose.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had no help.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I fell to my knees, and I cried, oh my god, for the first time, and he said, Help me, and I swear I could hear him say that I am all the something inside of me began to change.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: That void was being filled for the first time in my life, and there was hope, and that hope came from God.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have learned that God is not the punishing God that I thought he was.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: His touch is so gentle, and I can literally feel him hold me.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he took my past and my shame and my mistakes, and he paid the price for me.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he says that I am more than enough because he paid the price.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Price for me.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am no longer empty.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I knew this was real.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that it wasn't about my husband.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't about my kids or the person next to me.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: God was speaking directly to me.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it was as they gave their cardboard testimony that I realized I was gonna do this too.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And just put it out there.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And just be transparent.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as I um left the service after I felt so convicted and God moving in my heart of being transparent and sharing with others what he's doing in my life.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't, I was excited to get home and take the pictures.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we did after Easter service in my nice dressy clothes.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: We go into this mess around me.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: In this full room.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I hold up my board that's empty.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: 75 days.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We decided to sell both houses and purge, and we had a two auction, two-day auction, two rings each day, and we were moved by that end of the middle of June.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So my afterword, I didn't know what it was going to be, and God kept revealing hope in so many different things, and the mission trip that I was going on was Project Hope to serve at Project Hope Worldwide.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: On that Sunday, when I saw the video testimony, the following Wednesday, I was at church for a Bible study, and Connie Hall introduced me to Erica, who had given her testimony, and I told her I don't know what my final word is.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, But God keeps bringing hope to mind.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she opened up her shirt, which had hope on it, written on it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I knew that's what the word was gonna be.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully in an empty room is because that's what I felt like.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And with my hopeful sign in an empty room, and it was not by my own, but by God's grace that I was able to do that, that he was able to do that through me and the people he provided for me.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you are struggling in your marriage, or you're focusing too much on the collection, the clutter, or if someone you love, if suffering from depression, is to just give it to Christ.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ can take that away from you.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't always mean that the problem will go away, but he will give you the peace.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you focus on him, what I've learned about my Heavenly Father, he loves you where you're at, and he will help you get through those tough times because he sees what you can be and have the potential, and he'll love you, but he'll meet you where you're at.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to change.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: He comes to you.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Peter got repurposed.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you this.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Would you like to get repurposed?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you come to the cross, burdened down with the guilt of your sin, and you look at God's son hanging in there, and you go, your heart just cries out, you're hanging there for me.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: I believe in you.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's my Savior.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And in response, God the Father gives you the gift of eternal life and forgiveness of sin.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: You go through life, you feel worn out, run down, the veneer cracking, you know, the reliance on self crumbled, you feel like you're just an inch away from the trash heap.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: You come to the empty tomb, you see the risen Lord, you feel the power of the resurrection, you hear the stories of repurposing and transformation in people's lives.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: You say, would you repurpose me, please?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Let me give you that opportunity to whisper that to God right now.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Join me in a word of prayer.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Father, there are people here who would like to have a story like Judy's or like Peter's, a story of having a new purpose and a new use in life, a new vibrancy, a transformation, a repurposing.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: I pray that you would answer their prayer today.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: They stop by the cross, walk to the empty tomb, as they ask you for the power of the resurrection in their lives.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Answer their prayer, Lord.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.