Pero si lo hizo — Rich Wilkerson Jr.

We came in with some amazing news today. On Thursday, I went out and got to meet with the officials of the city of Miami, of the south of Miami, those who have been on this path with us, they know that we have plans here in the south of Miami to do a little more, to build a big building of more than 30 million dollars that can have an auditorium for 1,300 people. But it has been a work of love, and we are not there yet, but I do have good news. On Friday, Holy Friday, yes, we got the permits to build, yes. Come on, I need someone to go a little crazy today because on Holy Friday they gave us the permits. I saw a meme the other day that they were trying to get permits, and it's like a Mario Bros game because it has been ups and downs, but we want to celebrate with you today because it puts us in a much better position, waiting for us to start being able to build here in the south of Miami, in the third room, so we are just one step closer to this great day. And right now, if you have been with us at this time, it is a project of 30 million dollars, and we have 6.2 million in the bank so far. Thank you. We say thank you. But we believe that we are going to get to 15 million dollars before we start building. So now with us, we want it to be a great update, and we want it to be soon. And I think God's time is perfect, but we are playing the long game. We are grateful that all of you are making room for more people to receive and accept Jesus. And I think that is the message of Holy Week. When they laid him in the tomb, they didn't know that life was around the corner. In fact, I think that last year, I didn't know I was pregnant, and I didn't know the miracle that God was doing in our family, that I was pregnant. And that's how it is with all the children of God. It is so intentional in our lives that we continue to trust him.

He provides each step of the way. Yes, beautiful. Say hello to Don Sheree while they go down there. Say hello to the people around you. Tell them, Happy Easter. Tell them, I like you. Dress up. You look incredible. If you are in a tent out there, we are sorry. If you are not here with us, we are sorry. But we are happy that you are here in the church. If you have a Bible, go to 1 Peter. That is where I want you to go. I love Easter. And I love to see God's house full of people. This is going to be an incredible day. I just encourage you today, if you don't have friends here, invite people. Sometimes we have to invite people through the day. I have a message in my heart. This is 1 Peter chapter 1. We are going to start in verse 3 today. And the Lord has been speaking to me in this passage of Scripture. In fact, I sat down with Luke Berry and Caroline and Don Sheree, our worship team. And we started writing a song this past week. And it is rooted in this passage. So I know what I am preaching for Easter.

But this is 1 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 3. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3 says, Blessed be God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for His great mercy has made us be born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ among the dead so that we may have a living hope and receive an inheritance that cannot be destroyed, contaminated, or marched. Such inheritance is reserved in heaven for you. To whom the power of God is shielded by faith until salvation comes that has to be revealed in the last days. This is for you a reason for great joy. Even though you have had to suffer various trials for a time, the gold, though perishable, is crumbled to the fire. So also

the faith of you that is worth much more than the gold being crumbled by the trials will show that it is worthy of approval, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. You love Him even though you have not seen Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an indescribable joy for you are receiving the goal of your faith which is to salvation. If you believe that passage, say Amen, Amen, Amen. Today I want to take a moment and I want to preach from the title says, but if he did, but if he did. That's my attitude today, but if he did. I really do love this Easter season. This is one of those days that everybody shows up and I think that's fine. I don't know how you got here, maybe you're a little Christian which is like a Christian that comes just for Easter. We're glad to have you back, really, really glad to have you back. I love how people come with that spirit of optimism and open to faith. But what I understand today is that beyond all of these colors, pastels, and these clothes, there's a whole lot of pain here in this place.

Whether you're in this location or in another location or you're looking online, there's a lot of people that come here today that look good on the outside, but inside, this has been a year or a season that has been marked by pain, by suffering, maybe by dreams or maybe you've lost hope in some category or you've lost confidence in yourself. Maybe you're here today wondering, can I ever even get it back? And that's what I love so much about Easter is that Easter is not just a story about what happened to Jesus but it's a story about what happened to you. And maybe you're here today and you feel stuck. I've learned in life that sometimes when we go through a season of despair, sometimes that hopelessness doesn't feel dramatic. Sometimes it feels like, ah, I can't move forward, like I've lost that speed, like I'm stuck in the same place. I'm breathing, but not truly living. I want to encourage you today to come to the right place because in this house today, I believe in the good news of the gospel. I believe in the power of Jesus, that anything is possible when it's your situation and it's your story. Is there faith in this place? Is there a little faith in this place?

The story of Jesus doesn't end with death on the cross, but it ends with resurrection in life, that he got out of that grave so that you could find life in him, that you were born to live. And today, we're seeing a passage in the scripture that was written by a guy by the name of Peter. And I know that today, maybe you've never been to church before and you don't know about the Bible, but Peter was one of the disciples of Jesus. And to be honest with you, he is my favorite disciple. The reason why I think he's my favorite disciple is because he is the only one that is easier to relate to. You know that he was not perfect, he was pretty imperfect. Peter was the guy who walked on water and he sank on water. Have you ever stepped out with a lot of audacity to find yourself drowning? Peter understands you. Peter was the guy who, when they came to arrest Jesus, he took out his sword and I think he was aiming at the head of the Roman soldier, but he misses and cuts his ear off. Look, he was trying to defend Jesus,

but he didn't even do a good job at that. He actually missed the mark, and Jesus was like, no! And Jesus takes his ear off and he heals him. Peter was bold before the cross, but after the cross, he denied Jesus. Not that he denied anybody, he didn't deny Jesus to anyone, but he denied Jesus to this man who was a runner, who was a runner, who looked at Peter and said, on this rock, Peter, you, I'm going to build my church. And let me modernize this, what he says to Peter. Jesus looks at this guy, this imperfect, disqualified guy, and says, Peter, I'm going to start a movement that will last forever, and I'm going to start my movement building my church on you. Friend, that gets me excited, because if God can work with Peter, something tells me that God can work with you.

If Jesus can build with Peter, he can build with you. These are good news. And this is what I think is amazing about Peter, is that at the cross, he was a coward, but after the resurrection, he became courageous. We see him enjoying that feeling of fleeing. to run, to preach, to hide, to proclaim. He goes from denying Jesus to dying for Jesus. Now, today, I don't have enough time to explain all of Easter to you, so I'm going to do what the Gospels say. I'm going to be foolish believing that the wisdom of God will move, that although I don't have time to explain Easter to you, I'm going to take every minute I got and I'm going to proclaim Easter to you. And let me just start by proclaiming this. One of the reasons why I believe that Jesus Christ came out of the grave is because of Peter. Because when Peter saw him die, he was like, you know what, I'm leaving. I guess this wasn't real. No, a little girl, I'm scared. No, I never knew Jesus. I never went out with him.

But after the resurrection, Peter saw Jesus with his own eyes and a boldness and a courage comes over him. He goes from being a fearful to being a fearless. And when he comes to Jesus for Peter, they're going to crucify him at the moment of his death. And the historians say that Peter's like, I'm not worthy to die for my Savior. Crucify me upside down. But what happened? I'll tell you what happened. Peter saw something. Peter saw something. And my hope is that you may see something today. My hope is that you may not see with your physical eyes, but in the eyes of your heart you may wake up that you serve a God who's alive, who's active, who's moving, who knows what kind of confidence, who knows what kind of boldness and courage is going to come upon your life today. That's the power of Easter today. And so the writer of the letter today is Peter. And let me tell you who he's writing today. He's writing a group of Christians that are not full of courage. In fact, a lot of them right now are breathing, but they're not living. They're afraid, they're being scared, they're being persecuted. And that persecution has paralyzed the church. They're stuck, they're stagnant.

They've heard the gospel, but now they're going, what's going to happen to our lives? And notice that as Peter begins to write it, he doesn't offer them sympathy. He offers them good theology. He says, praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what Peter is writing is about living hope, writing about the resurrected Savior. He doesn't offer them sympathy. He offers them resurrection power. He doesn't say, oh, God bless you, which by the way is the Christian way of saying, well, you're an idiot. I grew up in a church, and if you're doing something dumb, they go, oh, God bless your heart. No, he doesn't say, God bless your heart. He points them in an empty tomb, because what he's saying is the fact that Jesus Christ rose up, that you too can rise up, that what happened to Jesus actually becomes part of your story. It's not just his story, it's our story. And he points them in there and says, I want to give you Easter energy. You can already sense the Easter energy today, because when you get there, you see cars everywhere.

There's a lot of people in Miami-Dade County, there's a lot of people in Miami-Dade County, there's thousands of people coming here. This Easter energy is incredible, I love it. That's what we also saw yesterday while we were in the park, as we threw 60,000 eggs from a helicopter. That was chaos, I think, but nobody talked about safety and responsibility, but we said, yeah, for Jesus' sake. But what Peter says today is that that's not just a holiday. You don't just have to wait for one day of the year, but at any moment, you can see the empty tomb, and you can sense the energy of the real Easter that we're feeling today, and you can experience it for the rest of your life. It's not just for one day of the year, it's for every day of the year. There's something about that. I believe everything about your life, everything about your life, hinges and hangs on this moment about what you believe about the resurrection. All of the Christian faith, all of the Christian faith, all of the Christian faith is about this event on this day that Jesus Christ didn't just die, he wasn't just a good teacher,

he wasn't just a good philosopher, he wasn't just my friend. No, the cross shows us. that Jesus was a man, but an empty tomb declares that He is God. And the Apostle Paul says it this way, 1 Corinthians 15, 16, 17, he says, because if the dead are not resurrected, Christ has not risen either. And if Christ has not risen, look at this, the faith of you is illusory and you are still in your sins. What the Apostle Paul is saying here is that everything about what we believe hinges and hangs on this event that you believe about Jesus. Because you too might have some optimism or you might have a dream, but listen to me, you're always going to feel stuck and you're always going to feel like you're dragging and you're always going to live a life that projects something on the outside, but something on the inside is missing. And it comes back to what do you believe about this story? In fact, I'm going to say it this way, if Jesus Christ did not rise, we are all wasting our time. I don't know why you came here an hour before the service, I don't know why you're giving me 35 minutes to say what I'm going to say. Why don't we have brunch? Why are we not at the beach right now? What are we doing if this is not true? This is a waste of time. We have gone crazy, we have lost our minds, we should not be here. We should drink, eat, get married because tomorrow we're going to die. It's like, get rich or get lost in the attempt. Believe what you believe. Make money, whatever. If he's still in that grave, this is a waste of time. But he did it.

Oh, I can feel it. But if he did it, if he resurrected, if he came out of that grave, what on earth should we be doing more than this right now? If he resurrected, better is one day in the house of God than thousands outside of it. Come on, someone. If he resurrected, I'm going to spend my entire life, depositing my life for his kingdom and for his gospel. Someone give him applause in this place. But if he did it, if he did it, nothing is more important. But someone say, but if he did it, but if he did it. If he resurrected, there may be something more important than this right now, than knowing God and spreading his message. If he did it, what does that mean for me? I want to preach quickly today. I want to help you today. I can't explain everything, but I can try to proclaim it. If he did it and he resurrected, everything changes. Today is the day of change for many. Today you might have arrived here in one way, but I believe that by the power of the gospel and the good news of Jesus, you're going to go different. You're going to go transformed. I'm going to make some observations of Peter's writing as he starts writing. He says in this way, the first thing, if he resurrected, I want you to notice this, is that hope is not dead, it is alive. Hope is not dead, it is alive. And he says it in this way. He says, look, in verse three, Blessed be God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his great mercy, he has given us new hope into a living hope.

The resurrection of the living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Notice how Peter is going to connect resurrection to incubation. He's going to land on this. There is a new birth that is happening. There is a new birth that is happening. It is something that is alive. The gospel, in a little sentence, is that Jesus Christ came to take everything that you deserved, so that we could take everything that he deserved. That we are all falling short of his glory and his standard, and that the payment of our sin is death. So Jesus Christ came on a rescue mission to save us from sin. Sin not only makes us bad, it separates us from God. There was no way to go to God. That's what the song said as we said, Holy Jesus, when we could not go to you, you came. This is called grace, this is called the pursuit of God. Some people think they've found God, that's the wrong vocabulary, God has found you. God was never lost, you were. But what Peter is doing is not going to let you know that you're forgiven, he's going to say when he got out of that grave, when he resurrected with it, came about a new life, and this is powerful, that an empty grave promises you something, that you're not just getting a second chance, you are getting something bigger, you're getting a brand new life, you're getting a new nature. In fact, he says it like this, it's a new disease.

It's a hope, I love the language, but in Greek, it's this word called sosan, and it means alive, active, breathing, pulsing with life. Meaning, we don't just have some kind of hope that's like, oh, it's a good desire, or something optimistic, no, no, no, no, no, it's deeper than that. This is a hope with a pulse of life. This is something that's alive and active, that when Jesus got out of that grave, when you put your trust in him, something inside of you, you might not feel good today, you might not feel good today, you might not look different on the outside, you might not have a new haircut, you might say, you look the same, but when you put your trust and your faith in Jesus, who's alive, your spirit comes alive, your soul begins to sing. Something you can't see on the outside begins to change, that my faith and my story is connected and anchored with an empty grave. It's anchored to a place of resurrection, that that new life begins for me. And I just want to encourage you today that that time coming through that's stuck, I'll tell you what, when you put your faith in Jesus, everything begins to change, because you are now living with a living hope, not with a desire, not with a desire, not with a desire, not with a desire,

not with a desire, not with a desire, not with a desire, not with a desire, I believe the hope of Jesus, things are going to change, but even if they don't change, I know that Jesus is telling a bigger story, one that will result in his glory. Look, your resurrection follows your crucifixion. Your resurrection follows your crucifixion. A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip for myself, it was my sister-in-law's birthday in Mexico. We were there for a couple of hours, in a resort where everything is included, we were eating a lot, and we said, we're going to eat a little bit more, what else are we going to do? Oh, we should eat, yes, of course. I was there less than 24 hours, and I ate a lot. I tell you, Don Cherry, we went to our room, and there was a scale and a weight, and I said, let's go eat this, and I got on that scale, and the number that showed up is a number that I've never seen in my 41 years of age. I was shocked by the weight that was on that scale. And instantly, when I saw all this news, shame, and insecurity, and fear, I said, oh, did you let yourself go? You want to talk about condemnation? I tell you about like, I just couldn't sleep that night. I go, Don Cherry, what's wrong with you? I go, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Couldn't even tell my wife that I was so embarrassed. I go, when we come back, I've got to really work, I've got to start working, I've got to start training. How dare you call yourself a minister of the gospel? If the church knew, this is my psychotic thinking, but the next week I get up, do you want breakfast? I go, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want it, I can't. Do you want lunch? I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to eat lunch this Holy Week. Two weeks to go, and I'm having breakfast, you know? I get home, it's 24 hours, it was a quick trip, and I get home to Miami, and I'm ready to go to bed, and I'm like, I can't believe the news that they gave me in Mexico. I'm going to start the day, this is a new Rich, a new me, so I got to put myself on the scale, and as soon as I put myself on the scale of Miami, I said, you've got to be kidding me. It was 10 pounds lighter. Mexico gave me a broken weight. I'm not going to do it again. I'm not going to do it again. I'm not going to do it again. You've never seen someone rejoicing in the way I rejoiced when I learned that I wasn't as heavy as I thought. And it made me think that a lot of us are dealing with a broken weight. You're carrying the weight of your past. You're carrying the shame of your past. You're carrying the condemnation.

And it's weighing you down. And the gospel of God is the best news they could have given you. Because Jesus doesn't just forgive you. No, he says, I'm going to lift the weight off your shoulders. And I'm going to carry that which you cannot carry. Look, there's no such thing as good news without understanding what bad news is. What's bad news? You're heavier than you should be. Bad news are things that your sin could have caused more than you could imagine. Bad news, if you stay in your sin, it's going to take you down, down, down. But the good news, the gospel, Jesus says, you don't have to carry that weight. I came to break some scales and to lift them all. I came so you have a living hope. What if he did? If he resurrected everything, everything changes. Everything changes. If he did it, then hope in death is not living, it is full. My God, I conquered death and hell. But if he did, second passage is this. My pain is not useless, it is purifying. Somebody says in verse 6, he says, in all this, what is all this? It's all the things, all the things, all the things you're facing, all the things you're facing, all the things you're facing right now, in all this, you greatly receive joy. Though now a little while, say a little while, you may have suffered from all kinds of trials, ye have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even by fire, and honor, Jesus Christ is the honor of the world. Just because you start following Jesus, doesn't mean that you're going to face problems. Just because you put your hope and your trust in Jesus,

doesn't mean that all the pain and all the obstacles and all the challenges are going to leave you alive. No, in fact, if I can talk to those season saints that can maybe be with me, sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes you start following Jesus. Some of you are going to make that decision today, and the pain does not go away, it intensifies. It shouldn't really harm us, right? Because once you start following Jesus, now you're in the game. Now you're stepping out and you're going against the flow. You don't double team somebody who's riding a bench. You double team a player. You blitz the quarterback. Something tells me when you put your faith in Jesus, now you're carrying a call, you're carrying a purpose, you're carrying value. Many of you think I've been picked on. You're not getting picked off. You're not getting picked out. Nobody goes and robs a man who has nothing. No, you're going to rob something that has value. It could be that all the pain and all the trouble and all the opposition, that fire you're under right now, not because you're going in the wrong direction, but because you're going in the right direction. Maybe, and maybe you're just carrying potential, and you're carrying purpose. And the enemy is not scared of your past, he's scared of your potential. Of course you're being attacked. Of course you're dealing with thoughts of anxiety.

Of course there's pain coming from every direction. You have a purpose. You're carrying light into darkness. But here is the great thing about our God, that when I start to follow Jesus, and I recognize that he was resurrected, now my trials teach me something. And I can preach it, and I can excite you, but let's stop for a moment, because many of you, this has been a hell of a year for you. Maybe it's a sickness. Maybe it's the loss of a relationship. Maybe it's a business that fell apart. Maybe it's someone you were walking close to. He's accused you, he's betrayed you, he's left you. And here you are right now, you're unpacking. You're saying, yes, I believe in Jesus, but it still hurts. Yes, yes, I believe in the resurrection, but still hurts. I'm still under fire, what Peter is saying here is that the fire has a purpose that when I go through a trial, God is not punishing me, God is not trying to break me but God is using this pain to build my life because the trials according to what Peter is saying don't just improve my faith, but test my faith Look, when it comes to faith, faith is not developed in comfort, it is developed in conflict and the analogy that he uses for us is that he recognizes that he is going to make our faith like gold and if you don't know anything about gold, gold is refined to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, sometimes to 2,000 degrees because what happens is that when the fire is lit, it begins to melt the gold and all the impurities begin to rise, all those impurities are removed so that you have pure gold and that's what happens with your life, that you have to go through the fire sometimes hell tried to unleash fire on you, but hell doesn't understand that heaven appears and changes that fire into something that transforms you and builds your faith

it's building your faith, and you're coming out like pure gold, you're being developed, you're being built you're being strengthened, healed, God is trying to build your life I love what Peter says, known as the rock, and that's what he says to the Christians at that moment Peter, the rock, says the rock is at the bottom, it's a rock that is a foundation for the rock of all times to build someone who has this revelation, maybe you're down in a well, but it's a moment to start for God to begin something new in your life The pain for the resurrection has been redeemed, the pain now has a purpose Jesus on a cross is the image of God's love what you see is this, this proof of all times, maybe the most painful it's a photograph of someone who understands the message and understands this this is communicating that God loves you so much that he died for you Remember when you get a photo and you take it and you have it on a Polaroid and you shake it and you shake it like a Polaroid, that's something for the millennials but you're waiting for it to develop, and that's how the cross works at first we see Jesus and it looks like the worst day but as the photo develops, oh this is how God loves us that he took our pain on that cross and that thing that hurt Jesus now is being used to heal everyone around us this is the beautiful message, that where I'm going, everything has a point I have a friend, his name is Justin, maybe he's in this service Justin, if you know him, he's like, how do I explain this, he's like he never has a bad day, this type of person he's physically like a phenomenon, he has muscles on muscles, protein on protein if protein on muscle had an image, it would be him the other day he's running here in south Miami, he's happy and he's running here in south Miami and he gets hit by a car Justin is the only person that can get hit by a car and he doesn't get hurt, the car gets hurt the car, he damaged the car when he sees the car he says, what happened?

oh I hit you with my car, what happened? and Justin says, it's ok, it's ok, it's ok hey, hey, look, I'm ok I'm ok and he's like, go in peace woman and don't fart anymore and he sends her and my friends are with him and they're like, wow man, you're different because we would have gotten a car with this incident and Justin is like, yeah, I know, but I'm trying to be like Jesus and I'm like, yeah, I've heard that story in the ministry, but Jesus, but Justin you know, Jesus is better than that, right? what do you mean? Jesus, not only forgave the woman but he said, hey, let me repair your car you hit me but I'm going to make sure I repair your damage I want to repair what is damaged when it comes to resurrection He did the damage, He paid, and He redeemed the pain and the hurt. And He said, everything I took on that cross, I can use it to restore, to heal. He's better than what we can imagine. And please listen, because I have to preach the whole message. He says, the trial is just for a moment. Someone say for a little bit longer. I don't know what kind of pain you're up against, but when it comes to God, God tells time different from how you tell time. The Bible says that a day is like a thousand years to God, and a thousand years is like a day to God. So what we call forever, God says it's just a moment. When we say it's so difficult and it's never going to end,

God says this is just a moment, this is just a day. Maybe you're here and you say, Rich, when will the breakthrough come? I'm just going to quote the apostle Peter. Just a little while. When the tears fall from my eyes, I say just a little while. When will I get the report I'm looking for? It doesn't take a while. Just a little while. When will He see the skies open for His church? That's just a little while. If He has resurrected my trials, they're teaching me something. And if He came out of that grave, my pain has a point. God can redeem it and He can use it. If He did resurrect the last thing today, my future isn't fragile, it's forever. And this is what the passage says in verse 4, that we are receiving an inheritance that can never be destroyed, contaminated or marched. This inheritance is reserved in heaven for you, to whom the power of God protects through faith until salvation arrives, which has to be revealed in the last days. The resurrection not only deals with your past and not only redeems your present, but it assures your future. It totally assures your future. And I want to encourage some people out there today that heaven holds, holds an inheritance for you. The very fact of when we hear the word inheritance, there's something that's waiting for you. There's something that's waiting for you. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 6,

don't store treasures here on earth, but in heaven, where mud and dust don't destroy it. Jesus always tells us a bigger story, one that's eternal. Everything else in this world is kind of like right now, instant gratification, subscribe, buy, sell. Jesus says, there's a bigger story than you can imagine. And you need to know today because Jesus came out of that grave, there's an inheritance waiting for you when you put your trust in him. This is hard for us because we all understand that in this world things get damaged and rot. Have you heard the story of the man who won the lottery and he has 100 million dollars and three years later, he's broken? I bought them all, man. I bought this and that. We've all got that guy who, they say, took the whole family's inheritance and put it in cryptocurrency and they say, oh, this is called the dove coin. Oh, maybe that's going to fly. And we're used to watching things disappear and rot and go. No, no, no. But Peter says, this inheritance is waiting for you. It's reserved. It's secured. Nothing can rob it. The enemy can roar and make noise. They can threaten you. They can lie about you. But this inheritance, this future, this future glory that we're going to spend with Jesus,

Swiss banks have nothing on Jesus. It's secured. It's waiting for you right now, right now. I'm going to put it this way. What God protects, hell can't take away from it. Some of us, we just need to open our eyes to a bigger story. And when I put my trust in Jesus, I believe he died for me, but I also believe he resurrected for me also. And in his resurrection, he has secured an inheritance, a future that is for me. I love what Peter says, because Peter says it this way. He says, though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him, you believe in him and you are filled with an inexpressible glory and joy. And it's powerful that Peter writes this, because Peter did see Jesus die and he saw Jesus rise. But now he's talking to an audience that has never seen Jesus physically resurrect with their own eyes. And he's encouraging them that faith is not merely about what you know, but what you trust in. That's why, like, you don't have to wait to know everything about Christianity, but you trust that Jesus is God. And Peter says, you haven't seen Him, but you love Him. And that reminds me of what Jesus says to the disciples, you believe because you've seen, but blessed are those who believe that are resurrected even though they don't see it with their natural eyes. Why does he say that? It's because Paul tells us that we don't walk by sight, we walk by faith. And faith doesn't come by seeing, faith comes by hearing,

and hearing the word of the Lord. And what is Peter saying? He says, even though you don't see it now, you're still filled with this inexplicable hope. If you study the Greek and its language, you come down to this place where you find yourself with this joy that you have no words to describe it. And that's what I believe in your life for Easter. It's about this energy that you feel. It's not joy despite my circumstances, it's joy inside of my circumstances. It's not joy because pain has been removed, it's joy in the pain. No, no, it's not a joy that takes me out of the valley, it's a joy that's in the bottom of the valley. And somehow God is there, and we know that he's with us in that trial. Maybe it doesn't end today, but that trial is for a moment. And when is a moment? I don't know, a moment more, but I have a living hope, something is alive inside of me. I'm not the same, I'm different, I'm changing. I believe in Jesus. And friends, today as we finish, we finish as we started. We are happy that you are here, you are always welcome to this church. This is a church that says, you can belong before you believe,

and we are grateful that you are in VU today. But if Jesus did not rise again, I think you are wasting your time. Why bother? But if he did, if he rose again, then I can get up again too. If he did, I don't want to stay up. I don't want to be trapped and stuck. I can dream again. If he rose again, my shame, my past, I don't have control over my future. If he rose again, all my trials and all my pain, I can put purpose in them. If he rose again, I don't have to bother with the fears of the world, I can put attention to a heaven that is in front of me. God loves you, and he loves you so much that he died for you. But he not only wanted to die and forgive you, but he wanted to rise again so that you can be healed, so that you can get up again. But if he did it, if this is true, there is nothing more important than knowing and worshiping God. Today, on Easter Sunday,

we have a moment to give you that opportunity, to believe in your heart and merely confess with your mouth that salvation is not about obtaining and reaching, you can't lose enough weight, you have a broken skin, you have a bad news, you are heavier than you think, but the good news is that God wants to lift this burden off your shoulders. Eyes closed and heads bowed, Lord, thank you for all these people who are in VU, thank you for working, and ministering, and acting here in South Miami, in Design District, in Miami Gardens, online, in tents, outside, in the parking lot, wherever you are listening to my voice. God, I can never explain Easter enough, but Lord, I can stand here and proclaim your love, believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, repent, be baptized, follow Jesus. Today, with your eyes closed and heads bowed, before we leave, if you are here,

and you want Jesus to be the Savior of your life, and he wants to give you an opportunity to be brave, to extend your faith, to put your faith in him, not faith in faith, or faith in good things, but faith in a living hope, a hope that has a pulse of life. Jesus is alive, he is working now. On the count of three, you can be bold enough to raise your hand, so that I can see it. I want to pray a prayer of faith with you. The Bible says that today is the second day. It's not about who you have by your side. This is between you and Jesus. Are you ready? 1, 2, 3, raise your hand and say, It's me, Rich. It's me. It's me, Rich. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. There are raised hands all over this place and I trust that the hands are raised in the other locations, in the other spaces. And there, in your hands, you can raise your hands to receive and I want you to pray with me loudly and say, Dear Jesus, today I give you my life and I ask that you forgive me. I repent. I turn my ways to yours. I believe that you died, you were buried, but you rose again. And today I put my trust in you, Jesus. I want to walk with you. I want new life. I want to be born again. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Come on church, we can clap and celebrate.