Matt Chandler - The Resurrection of Our King

As the heat of life turns up, the aroma of death becomes all the more obvious. But eternal life is available, and we don’t have to wait until heaven to get it. Christ said to Martha that those who live and believe in Him will never die. The sting of death has been swallowed up in His victory. Death has been defeated. Christ is risen. Indeed, He is risen!

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If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. If you don’t have one, there’s a hardback black one somewhere around you. We just want to look at a couple of verses here on Easter Sunday, marveling at who Jesus is, what He has promised, and why we can believe it—especially today as we celebrate His resurrection from the dead. My plan is to show you two things from this passage: one is the person of Jesus—who are we talking about here? —and then the promises of Jesus—what does it mean that He is that person? Then we’ll be done, and you can go grab some lunch or whatever you have planned.

In 2006, Lauren and I, she was just up here singing, moved to this area. We first bought a house in Corinth, but we wanted to be on this side of the bridge; this is where the church was. We wanted to be near the church and live in this community. We finally found a house for $24,990. We didn’t cross the lake yet, so back then there was only one way to get to this side, and we wanted to live where we ministered. Finally, we were able to buy a house, and I don’t know your background, but here’s what I married into: I married into a family that buys houses based on their dilapidated state, spending three or four years getting them just the way they want them, in time to sell and buy another fixer-upper and start all over again. I didn’t hear that as part of the vows on our wedding day, but apparently I said yes to that, and that is what we have done in every house we have ever lived in.

We got this house because we could afford it, but it needed some work. So, we went to work, wanting it to be a place of hospitality and ministry. I don’t know if you picked up on this, but I’m a total extrovert. I wanted to hang out, to get to know the congregation, which back then was about 168 people. Things have changed; I can’t have you all over now, but that’s what we wanted—a house to do ministry from. We did all the necessary renovations, moved walls, and got ready to create a home where we could host people, love them well, ask God to move in power, and then watch Him do so.

We got it all ready, and the first summer came along, and the house began to reek—as if something had died in the walls or in the attic. The smell of death permeated everything. Listen, I don’t know what you know about this, but there isn’t a candle or a spray bottle of Febreze that can do anything to mask the smell of death and decay. We lit candles and sprayed Febreze, but it literally grounded everything to a halt. You don’t want anyone coming over when your house smells like there’s a dead cat in the wall. You’re not exactly saying, «Hey, come over and hang out; you can have a burrito on the front porch.» You can’t invite anyone in under those circumstances.

So, we dealt with it, saying, «Hey, it’s 170 degrees outside; two weeks from now this thing will be gone, and we can move on.» But two months later, it still wasn’t gone; it just persisted in stinking. By the end of the summer, as we moved into fall—here in December—it finally stopped smelling altogether. We were like, «Oh, praise God!» Life kind of resumed, but then the next summer came along, the temperature spiked again, and the smell returned. We couldn’t believe this was happening two years in a row!

So we tried to identify where the smell was coming from. It seemed to be coming from the attic. We pulled down the attic access and went up there, fully expecting to see something horrific, but we found nothing; we dug around and discovered no dead animals at all. I was left wondering if we should start ripping out sheetrock or what our next move should be. My father-in-law reassured us, saying it would be fine; we just had to endure it for a while. So, we did—bought about 70 candles and lit them all, trying to survive it.

If you live in that environment, it hits you in the face when you walk in the door, but after a while, you don’t smell it as much. So, I’m not trying to be offensive today—it’s Easter—but your house has a smell. I could walk into your house and pick up on things about you because of the scent. Our house had a smell too; people could tell, «Oh, these folks must have something odd going on in their attic!» Finally, at the end of the second year, the smell went away, and we thought, «Okay, praise God!» Then the third year rolled around, and it got hot again.