By REV. TIMOTHY L. MELTON, PASTOR
(Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate)
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
Conclusion, having read: Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-20; John 20: 12, 18-23.
Pastor Tim, began adding, “I remember one time being asked to pray for a miraculous thing and I always knew it was something I could not ever have done, but I did know God could do it.” I began to pray. I remember also after that Church service, someone asking me, “Do you really believe that?”
“Brother Tim?” he then asked me, “Did it happen?” I answered him, “You’d better believe it did, for God is faithful. God is Great. God is able. God can do whatever He wants to do!”
So, here’s what we’ve found out. Peter ran to the sepulcher, probably thinking to himself, “What if He’s really, God? What if He really did do what He had said He could do? What if He really did Arise?”
Here’s what I want to say to this congregation, “He’s the God of second chances. I serve a God who’s not only of second chances, but third and fourth chances! The Bible says, “When Peter heard Jesus was no longer there, he got up and ran to find Jesus.”
“We also find, Jesus met with him on the way back. Jesus had a conversation with him. The Bible says, the whole way from the sepulcher, all the way back to the house. Peter was overwhelmed, that the One walking and talking with Him, was the Lord.”
Know that people’s situations are never as bad as one may think. Life is not over as soon as the enemy would like to think it is. God has a plan for every one of us in this house. God has a plan for everyone’s life. Even if one thinks they’ve had or led a terrible life, “I have good news, because the worse one has been, the better God is. There’s a better way.”
“Paul, who wrote over two-thirds of the New Testament, was just such a man. A man recently told me he couldn’t listen to the Bible being read. He said, “It was written by murderers and liars. Jesus still set Paul free and changed his whole life. There’s a better way.
I grew up in a real pastor’s home. I saw miracles at home, and I saw them repeatedly. Crippled people started walking. However, one day I woke up and I said, “I don’t want any more of this. I want to see what the world is really like.” And I did, but I also found it wasn’t as much fun as people kept saying it was. One day, I woke up and said, “There’s a better way, and found Jesus was real. I’ve never looked back. I knew what I did, and one also must know, I’m not the same, and neither are any of us.
One’s situation may seem hopeless, even look like there’s no way out, but I can say, “There’s a risen Lord, Who can cause dead things in one’s life to live again. Aren’t we glad He can take things in one’s life that need to die and settle all of it for eternity?
So, on this Resurrection Sunday, I’ve come to remind us, the world doesn’t have the answers. It’s getting worse, turn on the news. Even the worst stations are telling everyone how bad things are getting. It won’t get better. I don’t care who gets elected in 2024. There won’t be time to get better. We are now living in the last days, and Jesus is coming for those who’ve prepared.
We have an amazing opportunity to run and find Jesus if one doesn’t know Him. Come and see what He can do. Time is running out. I shared this a while ago and heard, “Aw-w-w-that’s what my grandmother and my mother said.” It may have been, but still, we’re closer now than we’ve ever been. Jesus is the answer. He’s alive and well. Whatever one deals with, or goes through, or is attacking one’s life, Jesus is the right way. We can sit in our dark, concealed houses, in a dark and messed up world, in a place of brokenness and despair, or we can run this morning to the God Who can fix this.
“Pastor Tim, will it all be “sunshine and roses?” No, I’ll never promise anyone that, but here’s what I found, as long as He goes with me, whatever I go through, He’ll go through it with me. I can handle it through Him. Amen.
