Christine Caine - I Can't, But He Can, Part 2
There's a lot of bad news going around these days. Sometimes, it's hard to find anyone talking about anything positive. When Jesus came, he didn't come to condemn the world or to talk about all the bad things going on in the world, but to tell the good news. What does that even mean? What exactly is the good news, and how does it affect us? Well, I think it's time to dive into this headline story and find out. I'm Christine Caine, and I have a personal mission to Equip and Empower people just like you to connect with your God-given purpose and potential. I am so glad that you're joining us today.
Hey, everyone, I am so excited to be with you all today. Thank you so much for joining me today on Equip and Empower. I am thrilled about the word I'm ready to share with you. We are talking about the fact that there are lots of things that we can't do, but He can, and that gives us life and hope. We're in the book of Mark, chapter 16, and we're reading a portion of scripture that normally, we connect with Easter, but for us Christians, every day is a resurrection Sunday, so we are talking about a resurrection Sunday.
The Bible says in Mark 16:1, when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? Last week, we talked a lot about that, who will roll away. Here are these three women. Jesus had been crucified on the Friday, all the pain of the crucifixion, waiting for the sabbath to pass so that they could immediately go and prepare his body for burial. And the women have got their spices and their perfume and they're ready to go, and then they suddenly get this awaken, who's gonna move the stone? This huge, you know, a few hundred pounds stone that at least 20 people couldn't move, this stone that was keeping Jesus locked in darkness that they said, who can move this stone from the entrance of the tomb?
And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back, it was very large. That's an understatement. I love the Bible, it just sort of throws things in there like it was very large, that means 20 people couldn't move it. But anyway. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him? But go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them. I think that's hilarious. Both trembling and astonishment had seized them. Okay. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
You know, a chick, when she's not saying anything to anyone, she's afraid. That's the whole bottom line. And we've been looking at the theme in this series about how, with God, the immovable is movable. The stone seemed immovable. This huge stone that was there at the entrance of the tomb, it's like, who is going to move this?
And we've all got those stones in our life. We've all got the miracles that we need. Who's gonna pay this bill? This marriage seems like it's over. Those kids seem like they're far away from God. It seems like I'm never going to get married. It seems like I can't conceive children. This disease seems like it's just got its way with me, and it's incurable and it's terminal. It seems like I'm just, this torment is never going to end. It seems like that destiny and that dream is never come to fruition. This business is never gonna take, oh, we've all got our stones where we're like, you know, who's gonna move, it's impossible, it's impossible. How is this circumstance going to turn around? And the Bible says that they looked up. And last week, we looked at the fact that we've gotta not look down. We've gotta stop looking back. We've gotta stop looking around, and we've gotta look up.
The Bible says, and I particularly love this scripture in the book of Psalms 121, I lift my eyes to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Where does my help come from? And we saw that there is no stone that is too large, no tomb that is too cold, no hell that is too dark that God cannot move it, warm it, or light it. So we're gonna stop talking about the stone and look up to Jesus who still moves stones today. That's what we have got to do. We've gotta move the stone. And they go on, and they look at the angel, and man, how they didn't have to change their incontinence pad right then, but anyway, it's like, there would have been skiddy marks.
Anyway, so at the end of the day, right at that moment, and the Bible, like, just understates everything. It says, then the angel of the Lord came, and they're like, oh, and I'm like, what do you mean, oh? How did you not drop dead or change your underwear, either, anyway, either or. But right at that moment, the angel said, and I love this line, verse six, he is risen, he is not here. No wonder the women were gripped with fear right at that point. They had gone to anoint the body of a dead man, and there was angel in the tomb, and there was no body. Just picture this, but we all just go, oh, that's all really nice and sweet. And I'm like, no, you'd be dead. Okay, so that's it. There is no way that these women were expecting a resurrection. Because if they were expecting a resurrection, they would not have been going to anoint the body for burial. I need you to understand this. Every resurrection comes too late, every resurrection. There has to be a death for a resurrection.
So if you are facing a dead situation, I want you to know you're poised for a resurrection. Sometimes we are waiting for God to resurrect something that's not dead, and then we think you can't resurrect it 'cause it's dead. And he goes, do you have a problem? Because the only way I can resurrect it is if it is dead. That's what happens, every resurrection is too late. If you're saying, Chris, it is too late for this relationship, it's too late for this dream, it's too late for this financial breakthrough, it is too late for my kids, it is too late for my, I'm here to tell you, too late is where God starts. Every resurrection is too late. That's where it begins. Why do we disqualify God from being God? Because we couldn't do it. He's like, I never thought you could. He goes, oh, hang on, let me understand this. Because it's dead, I can't, oh, so you're saying I can't be God? You're disqualifying me from my own job proper because it doesn't fit into your human, natural, scientific, rational, mathematical abilities?
He goes, I'm not confined by that. I was never confined by time and space. Remember, I'm infinite, you're finite. If you're tryin' to understand God, I wish I had a whiteboard and I drew a stick figure on it. And God says, uh, that's like what you are to me, and you're tryin' to understand me, like really, really? That's exactly how it works. And so you have to understand that all resurrections happen too late. Something has to die before God can bring it back to life. And I need to tell you that these seven words, he is risen, he is not here. I need you to touch your neighbor, wherever you are. Touch someone in your lounge room right now. Tell them he is risen, he is not here. I'll tell you why that is powerful. Because that is the linchpin of the Christian faith. Right there, he is risen, he is not here, that's why people write dumb books trying to disprove the resurrection. I'm like, were you there, no.
Okay, so the point is, I think it's absolutely hilarious because if you can disprove that, you disprove the very foundation of the Christian faith. Otherwise, Jesus would have just been, like, you know, another martyr, at best, if he did not rise from the dead. Thousands of Jews were executed under the Roman Empire, thousands of them. So what would have made him different? He would have been just a good martyr. He would have been another good teacher, and he would have been full of good advice. So if Jesus did not rise from the dead, today, I would be giving you good advice. But because Jesus rose from the dead, I'm giving you good news. This is news to be proclaimed.
This is not advice, this is news. That's why I love this stuff. The Gospel is good news, not good advice. This is not five tips on how to have a nice life, sweetheart. I'm talking about, we were dead, and now, we are alive. This is news to be proclaimed. This is not advice to be given. It is good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what makes it good news. The resurrection is the vindication of every one of our hopes. That's what it really is. It's a sure sign that the promises of God in Christ Jesus are fulfilled. The resurrection, that's why the Bible tells us that all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, yes, and in Christ Jesus, amen.
This is a sure sign that they are fulfilled. The resurrection shows us that death has no power over us any longer. We were dead, but now, we're alive. Death has lost its sting because Jesus rose from the dead. You know, my mother passed away recently, and even when I remember when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer a couple of years ago, and everyone's like, are you freaking out, you know, what if you die? I said, what do you mean, I'm gonna die one day. Like just live long enough, and you're gonna die. You know, I don't know why Christians freak out. I'm like, it's gonna happen to everyone. All you have to do is live long enough. I have never known anyone that has got out of life alive. Everyone that I know, at some point, is going to die, so we all act like, we're not gonna die. We are gonna die.
Here is the awesome news, though, that death has lost its sting. Death has no power over us because we are born again, filled with the Spirit of God. We have an eternal hope, we have an eternal life. Death is just what I pass through on the way to Jesus and heaven. You know, for most, I don't think, I said, well, I guess how I'm gonna get to heaven is through death. I'd like to be translated, that would be awesome, but I don't think that's gonna happen.
So we gotta get comfortable with the fact that it's gonna happen. You can prolong it as much as you want. You can raise me from the dead. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. People have been raised from dead, but guess what, they died. And so at the end of the day, all I am saying is death is how we enter eternal life. That's how it works, but it has no power.
The resurrection, fear is banished. The resurrection shows us that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, that good does triumph over evil, that all our needs can be met in Christ, that all obstacles can be removed in Christ, that any sin can be forgiven in Christ, that hope can be restored in Christ, that bondages can break in Christ, that shame can be lifted in Christ, that diseases can be healed in Christ, that hearts can be mended in Christ, relationships can be restored in Christ. Peace can prevail in Christ, joy can reign in Christ, sadness can be comforted in Christ, captives can be set free in Christ, failures can be redeemed in Christ, new beginnings can commence in Christ. This is good news! This is good news. This is the hope of the Gospel. Sometimes, it is good to slap yourself and remind yourself, there's some good news, seriously.
Faith is not calling those things that are as though they are not. It's calling those things that are not as though they are. We don't go, I'm not sick, I'm not sick, I'm not sick. If you're sick, that's called lying. What you do is you call forth your healing that's not yet manifest. And so what we need to do is understand that. And so the blood of Jesus doesn't give us amnesia. I was abused, I was abandoned, I was adopted. Nothing's gonna change that. I bear the scars. But they're no longer scars of shame that I'm hiding. Because of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, now, I'm like, you know what? Man, Jesus rose from the dead, I'm forgiven for my, I've got some, I've got some scars. Some stuff did happen to me. But those very things, these scars that the devil tried to kill me with, now, they're trophies of the grace of God.
And let me tell you about some of these scars and the same Jesus that brought healing to me can bring healing to you. The same Jesus that brought freedom to me can bring freedom to you. There's some resurrection power in here. I don't just have to come to the cross where I bring my sin. That's not where it stops. Three days later, he rose again from the dead, and that same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives on the inside of me. So I can live in victory with resurrection power. I am not fighting for victory, I'm fighting from victory in the resurrected power of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we are doing. That's what we're doing. Too many Christians are just, oh, I'm a worm. I'm just so negative. And I'm like, really, 20 years later? Can there be some victory?
I'm not minimizing anybody's pain, I'm not mocking or ridiculing anyone's pain. There's not much that I haven't felt or been through, I'm telling you. But I do wanna testify that there is resurrection power in life, and you get to choose life or death, blessing or cursing. You get to choose. You get to choose. Because of this one act. He's not here anymore, he is risen. And because he is risen, and he has filled me with the same spirit, the scripture says, that raised him from the dead, that's resurrection power. We need some Christians walkin' in some resurrection power. We need some Christians walking in some resurrection victory. It is one thing, every week, to come to the cross every week, every week. Yes, okay, thank God for the cross.
Where would we be without the cross? But there is a life beyond the cross. It is the resurrection life, and we are living between the two advents of Christ. We must remember, as the church, where we are. We are living between the first and the second coming of Jesus Christ. He has died for all of our sins on the cross, he rose again from the dead so we could live in victory and point the way, 'cause that sky's gonna split, he is gonna come back. We need some resurrection power in between the two advents of Christ to remind people that Jesus is comin' back. That's what we need. Not just to walk around defeated and negative and depressed our whole life, as if Jesus didn't rise from the dead. This is good news. I hope it's good news for someone else besides me. This is good news. It's good news, and if it's good news, it means there must have been some bad news.
And for some of us, we gotta understand that, because sometimes I think we don't truly understand what the Gospel is. We don't really understand why someone like me is so excited today because if there is good news, you have to ask yourself, what was the bad news? So let me tell you what the bad news was because there was bad news. In Ephesians chapter two, verses one to six, it says, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Jesus Christ. I wanna read this to you from Eugene Peterson's message Bible as well, and I hope you're listening on the other side of the screen because this is good news. This will turn into good news, and sometimes, you gotta know, hang on a minute, what was the bad news? And then that makes me appreciate the good news.
I got this news 30 years ago, and I have not been able to stop sharing it ever since. It says, it wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us, but I agree. And instead, I love this, instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us, he took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own with no help from us. Then he picked us up and set us down in the highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Whoa, we're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're born sinners. We're all born dead on arrival. You ever seen that in movie? They're coming in, they go, he's dead on arrival. I need you to understand. I'm telling you what the bad news is so that you know what the good news is. We are born into this life dead on arrival. We were dead in our sins, verse four says of Ephesians, we were dead in our transgressions. But here's the good news, it says, but because of his great love, but because. What a powerful word but is, I need you to understand that.
See, what you have, old school, negative, judgmental preachers, we were dirty, now sins, you're all goin' to hell, but because they forget the but, they forget the but. I remember when my doctor said, Christine, you have thyroid cancer. You think, whoa, death sentence. But this one is highly curable. But changes everything. When Nick called me, Chris, we had a car accident with my daughters in the car, but we're all okay. There is a powerful but in the but.
Christine, oh no, we gave away your hotel room when I checked in here, but we've upgraded you. There is power in the but. The bad news is that we were lost, but the better news is that God made us alive in Christ. Do you understand that? We were born dead on arrival, and we have been made alive in Christ. Christianity is not by, about, it's got nothing to do with making bad people good. It's about taking dead people and making them alive. That's what the great news of Christianity is. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The exile is over, the covenant is fulfilled, God has done what he said it would do. This is not the end, this is the beginning. That's the power of this. Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead, the rightful Lord, the power of love reigns supreme. God defeated all of the rulers of this world to establish his kingdom.
Sin is defeated, evil is defeated, something happened that changed everything. That's why we're still talking about it 2.000 years later. Something happened on this day that changed everything for every day for everyone, Jesus Christ is alive, his grave is empty, he is not here. You don't think that's a big deal? Just go to the grave of Muhammad and tell me if he's still there. Just go to the grave of Confucius or Buddha.
See, you wonder why I'm so excited, because if I go to any muslim on planet earth today, and I say to them, you know, is Muhammad alive? And they go, Christine, don't be ridiculous. We follow the teachings of Muhammad, he was a cool dude, but he's dead. If I go to a follower of Confucius, and I say, is Confucius alive? They'll say, Christine, we follow his teaching. But he died. If I go to a follower of Buddha and say, is Buddha alive? They'll say, well, he had a weight problem, and he died. You know, it's like, I don't know, but we follow his teaching, but he's not alive. But you go to any country on planet earth anywhere right now, and you find me a Christian, and you ask them if Jesus Christ is alive, they're not only likely to say yes, they're likely to tell you they just finished having a conversation with him because Jesus Christ is alive.
Jesus Christ is alive, and because Jesus is alive, you and I can have forgiveness for our past, a brand new life today, and a hope for the future. The center of the good news is simply that God is love, that Jesus Christ is alive, that Jesus Christ loves you, that he has a plan and a purpose and a destiny for your life, that there is nothing that you have done that is too big to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. We are proclaiming good news because there was bad news. But you, your news does not have to fall into the bad news category if you make a decision to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life.
If you simply decide to invite Jesus Christ into your life, ask him to forgive you for all of your sins, give you a brand new start today and a hope for the future, you can go from death to life. That is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm not talking about some kind of life insurance for when you die. I'm talking about life assurance here on earth. The hope you're looking for, here on earth. The peace you're looking for, here on earth. The joy you're looking for, here on earth. The love you're looking for, here on earth. The forgiveness you're looking for, here on earth. This isn't just good advice. This isn't five tips to health, wealth, and great living. This is good news. We were dead, and we were now alive, praise be to God. Jesus Christ is not here, he is risen. In Jesus's name, in Jesus's name. Let me pray for you.
Father, I thank you for the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, it is good news, it is good news. We just take a moment right now to just thank you. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you not only died on the cross for our sins but you rose again from the dead so that we could have a victorious, overcoming Christian life here on earth as it is in heaven. Father, let everyone walk in the power of that resurrection truth, I pray in Jesus's name, amen, amen.