Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Coming up on this Good Friday edition of Light on the Hill.

James Kaddis: The reality of it is the victory that we've been given because of the power of the resurrection has served to be the very tool that will change our eternities, not just our lives but our eternities. That's the faithfulness of God. And to that we say, He is risen. And we all respond with, He is risen indeed. That's the power of the God that we serve.

Guest (Male): It's time for Light on the Hill online at LightonTheHillRadio.com. Pastor James Kaddis will be wrapping up our series called Prophecies That Changed the World Forever. This Sunday, we'll be collectively celebrating the resurrection of Christ. The power that rose Jesus from the grave is the same power that God wants to use to empower us to do the things He's called us to do. Here's Pastor James to explain from Romans chapter eight.

James Kaddis: He says, "Oh wretched man that I am." If I could translate this from Greek to English, let me just tell you what he's basically saying. I am completely jacked up. I'm a mess. I'm a complete mess. In modern-day vernacular, what he's basically saying is I'm broke and there is no way to fix me. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put me back together again. That's basically what he's saying in modern-day vernacular.

But look what he goes on to say. "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Translated from the Greek language, who can deliver me from this death trap? That's the word that he uses. By the way, it's really interesting. When I was a young kid, I was invincible. I see that in my precious little boy. Two years old running around, he is invincible. I mean, there is nothing that can stop that little guy. He jumps over on everything and he's about all boy. And about as much boy as boy gets. You all know what I'm talking about. When your young sons are that way, you get the idea.

As I grew older, a lot of that began to change as I became more and more exposed to death around me and I began to see things that really truly describe what mortality really looks like, especially on a human level. The invincible aspect that I used to carry in my own personal thought life has diminished pretty rapidly. I recognize that my mortality is something that is a reality that I'm going to have to contend with.

Now I'm in a place in my life where I recognize each and every single one of us are living in death traps, aren't we? Because every day that goes by, we're getting closer and closer and closer to death. That's the reality of it. Many of you have even experienced that. Many of you have experienced near-death type situations. Many of you have gone and undergone very difficult situations physiologically speaking, and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The Apostle Paul was taking it a step further. The Apostle Paul was actually saying that his body was a death trap even for his very soul. That what was inside of him, his thought life, everything about his insides, the very spirit that he knows will live forever, the body he was living in was a death trap. It was a place that was designed to destroy the very soul, at least in the current state that it was in. God designed it completely differently, but man in their sin destroyed it.

Look at his answer. "Who can deliver me from this death trap?" Look what he says in verse 25. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin." It's pretty heavy. What he basically says and what he describes to us is in essence what has happened. Now the Spirit of God lives in us, He takes residency inside of us, and if we will put our faith and trust in Him, then the next verse is profound. The next verse changes everything. The next verse completely brings freedom to you in a way you never thought you could experience it.

Look what he says in verse one. "There is therefore," that "therefore" being meaning tying into everything that we just talked about in Romans five, six, seven, and eight. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

That's a pretty heavy thing because what does that mean? First of all, for anybody that says the Old Testament is not valid anymore as a result of what Christ did, you are grossly mistaken. You do not understand the scriptures and your error in your understanding of the scriptures keeps you from understanding the power that's available to you today. The Old Testament is uniquely and remarkably valid, especially the law of God.

Why? Because Christ would never have the authority to forgive you of your sins or forgive me of my sins if that authority was not given to him by the fulfillment of the law. Jesus said it. I didn't come to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it every jot and tittle. What that basically means is this. The justification that God has to forgive us of our sins comes from the fact that he lived the law of God perfectly. What does that mean? It's really simple. It means that when you go to heaven, the only way you can go to heaven is by fulfilling the law of God perfectly.

If you have broken the law of God at any level, then you are worthy of hell and you cannot enter into heaven. You must go to hell and suffer that effect for the rest of your eternity. So when you go to heaven, what ends up happening is this. Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life on this earth, never failed, lived it absolutely perfectly, did not break a single law, fulfilled the law of God exactly the way that God intended. Matter of fact, he was the living Word of God. He literally was the embodiment of all, the full encapsulation of everything the law was about.

Remember what John told us? He said that the law was given to us by Moses, grace realized in the law through the life of Jesus Christ. It's a very interesting picture. We're not talking about a comparison mechanism that's being deployed to cause us to look at something differently from the way it was originally in one place. What we're actually looking at is we're looking at something uniquely remarkably substantial. We're looking at something that's completely different from anything we've ever experienced.

Your works don't get you to heaven. By the way, praise God for that. If only you looked at the last four hours of this day prior to this Bible study, I'm going to hell already. Literally, I'm going to hell. That's just the way it is. Right down to the most basic level, even my drive in, I'm going to hell. Jesus's finished work involves the fact that he lived on this earth perfectly. He did through the law what none of us could do. He fulfilled the law perfectly, which means we take credit for his perfect work, for the perfect life that he lived. That's a pretty remarkable picture when you think about it. He gave us credit.

We find the victory of the perfect fulfillment of the law and experience the reward of it because we get credit for the work of Christ. He did the work. I think that's remarkable. "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

This is an interesting thing. It's something that I talked about a few days ago and has kind of been a big thing. I have a very, very dear friend who is pretty well known on the national level. I have many of them, so you can't guess who this one is. He sent a text to me in a group of other friends that are in ministry, and he said, "How in the world is this happening?" He forwards me a text that says that kids in droves are leaving Protestantism. They're leaving the Protestant church and they're going to more liturgical style churches, specifically the Catholic church.

Especially the young college-aged kids, they're all leaving these what we see typically in Calvary Chapel. They're leaving it and they're going to places like the Orthodox church. Depending on where you come from, the Greek Orthodox church, they're going to the Catholic church, they're going to the Coptic church. He's asking me how in the world is this happening? I said, I know the answer. The answer's really easy. It's not hard to be able to explain this one. Here's the answer. The answer is this.

We live in a world that's getting more and more demonic every day. We're living in a world that's getting more and more evil. We are living in one of the most spiritual times to be alive in the sense that the spiritual warfare that we see today is the highest it's ever been in human history, second only to the time that Christ was crucified and resurrected and the time that Adam chose to sin in the garden. I think there's been no other times of more spiritual intensity than right now.

Keeping that in mind, the one thing that you have to understand is the church, as these kids have seen it, is filled with a group of carnally minded men. When I say carnally minded men, I'm talking about pastors. Men who are not looking at spiritual things, men who are looking to keep up a specific image that they might be accepted in their social media worlds, the YouTube trophosphere, whatever it might be. I see it all the time. I told you guys about this time where I was at this very big conservative gathering and there were three tables that were VIP tables that were dedicated to pastors that were pastors for many of the people that were there that were famous.

The sad part about it was I was the only pastor and my wife, who's not a pastor but my wife, as well as another pastor, Greg Denham, really wonderful man if you know who he is. We were the only two pastors that were sitting at three tables that were not inebriated. We're the only ones that weren't drinking. They were all drinking, including some Calvary Chapel guys. I think in my mind, this is the reason why kids are running away in droves. Kids are looking at what they see as a lack of sincerity. They see a lack of authenticity.

They see men who stand behind the pulpit and are lazy. They're not studying the Word, they're not spending time understanding it. They're more busy trying to study pop culture and how to blend in, and these kids are sick and tired of it. What's happening is these young kids are looking at the liturgy that's in the Catholic church and they're conflating it with authenticity. They're conflating it with knowledge. They're conflating it with something that's actually spiritual, and they're soon going to be disappointed to find out that they're not going to find it there either.

The reality of it is what these kids are desiring is they're desiring a sincere and close walk with God. They're desiring to understand intellectually and emotionally and spiritually what it means to be a follower of Christ, and they're not finding it with men that are sitting behind the laziest pulpits in the country. They're not finding it amongst people who choose not to walk in reality. That's what we're seeing. We're seeing it by the way, coming out in droves. Why? Because if you're carnally minded, you're not going to be able to please God.

Look what it says in verse nine. "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." That's very heavy. It's one of the other. The Spirit of God either lives inside of you or He doesn't. But this right here is the core. What the verse I'm about to read is really why now I look like one of those giddy people on Easter morning. It's the reason why I'm saying He is risen indeed.

Watch this. Verse 11. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." In other words, guys, catch this, this is critical. Pay attention. The same Spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the dead is the same Spirit that now has taken residency in your body and can give you victory over sin. By the way, it's not just victory over sin. It's victory over so many other things. It's the ability to overcome many of the physical frailties that we face day in and day out. This is not me preaching a health and wealth message. That has nothing to do with that.

But it has everything to do with the fact that when God calls you and He fills you with His Spirit, He can supernaturally empower you to do the very things that He's asked you to do. He says, therefore, verse 12, "Brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if we live after the flesh, you shall die. But if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

Perhaps one of the most entertaining things that happens to me when I go and meet a new doctor, every single one of them ask me the same questions. Every single one. They all ask me the same thing. With the exception of one doctor I spoke to one relatively recently. She didn't ask me any of those questions, but that was because she was really weird with me for the first two or three minutes. She was looking at me weird. She was talking to me kind of weird. It was very awkward. Then finally she just said, "I can't take it, I just have to tell you, Pastor James, I watch you every day, I love you, me and my husband," and so on. That makes more sense. You realize I'm a human.

Every one of them asked me a series of questions that are along this line. How do you make a living? Because their assumption is because of the condition that I'm in, they assume that I can't have a job. One of the other questions that they ask me is, who is my daily caretaker? Those are very common questions I get. They wonder if I'm still living with my parents. I mean, there's all kinds. It's just absolutely hilarious. Why? Because every single person that they've ever met who has been diagnosed the same way I've been diagnosed literally do not function on a day-to-day basis.

I have lost count of how many times I've had doctors try to convince me to go on narcotics. You will not feel any more pain if you go on these narcotics. The problem is, yeah, I won't feel any pain. I'll be a walking zombie. Like literally, I will have no pain, but I will not be available to the people that God's called me to minister to. It doesn't work that way. I can't do that, sorry. I would rather be in pain for the rest of my physical life and have my wits about me to do the work that God has called me to do than to feel no pain and not be present. That's especially true now being a father of three children.

The doctors are astounded by it. They do not know how I can do what I do in the condition that I'm in on a day-to-day basis. Look, people that know me and are with me on a regular basis don't know how I can do it. They don't understand how I'm up all hours of the night. Like how in the world can you juggle so many things? How in the world do you do this? How do you get yourself into that? How in the world does any of that kind of stuff happen?

The answer is simple. It's the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The same Spirit that has raised Christ from the dead is the same Spirit that lives in my body that gives me the ability to destroy the deeds of the flesh. It's a supernatural empowering. That's the way it goes. You know how many times I've walked up to the pulpit feeling like I'm going to completely fall apart, being so lost in my head because of the way that I feel that I can't even remember my own name?

Only to not be worried because I know the moment I pray, God will give me the supernatural insight that I need to be able to speak the way I speak and to do the things that I do. I memorize every word that I share with people. I don't use notes to teach. I never have. I did very, very early on when I started teaching, maybe the first couple of years, but after that, my feeling has always been if I can't own it, then I'm not worthy of teaching it. That's just been my case. And it's just the way that God made my brain.

There have been many, many times where I've had to do memorial services or I've had to do Bible study and I forgot to bring my Bible up with me and I was able to still quote it that way because my brain works that way. But what you don't know is I oftentimes before I go up to share the word feel like I have nothing in here. I don't remember anything. My brain doesn't work. But I've been walking with God long enough and I'm aware and understand how God works long enough to be able to say the moment I pray, God will give me the insight and will remind me of everything.

It's one of the most hilarious moments of any time that I speak where I say amen and it all just gushes in. It's hilarious how that works. It's supernatural. There is nothing, nothing that's done here of my own self and in my own flesh. There's none of it. Why? Because the Spirit of God that rose Jesus from the dead is the same Spirit of God that gives me the supernatural ability not just to overcome sin, but the supernatural ability to do the things that I would never be able to do outside of God's help. That's how it works. That's the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. That's the difference between somebody who is status quo and somebody who blows status quo out of the water. How much are they willing to bring God into the picture?

And before I read the next verse, let me just simply tell you that this verse has so many meanings to me on so many levels that it's very hard to describe. As a matter of fact, I have a hard time not being emotional when I read this verse. Because the one thing that I should note is really simple, and that is because becoming a father completely changed the way that I look at this verse. For those of you that don't know, which I think all of you know, all three of my children are adopted. We hope to adopt a few more. We think that the Lord might open the door for that in the future.

My children are completely Kaddis children at every level. They look like they're our flesh and blood, they act like they are flesh and blood. If you look at a picture of my son in his infant state and you put his face in front of a picture of my grandfather, the one who had blue eyes, white skin, and red hair, they are dead lookalikes. It's unbelievable how much they look alike. Funny how God does that, right? I've always said it, it's never about DNA. It's something completely different.

But let me just go back to the moment where we started the process of adopting our children. I hated it. I hated it because it was terrible. It was a terrible process. The lawyer, God bless the lawyer that we've used, he's a great man, really, really special guy, but he was wrong when he said it's easy to adopt children. That's not the case. We live in a world today that will pay a woman thousands of dollars to abort a baby, but then will require parents to spend in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars to adopt that baby.

Is that crazy? That's the kind of world we live in. They put me through every kind of background that you can think of. Listen, I have been through federal backgrounds doing the work that I do as not only a police chaplain but as somebody who was the Chief Information Officer of a local municipal police department. I've been through every kind of background that you can think of. They're knocking on doors, every kind of background check, polygraph exams, all that. It was way easier to go through that than it was going through the process of being qualified by the state to adopt a child. It was miserable.

At one point I remember sitting at the dinner table and telling my wife I hate this and watching a few tears coming from my wife's eyes as I was saying that and then I realized okay, I can't say that anymore. But I just could not stand it until I read this verse. And when I read this verse, something happened. Something clicked in me. And what happened was this. Although I hate the process and could not stand it, I came to embrace it and I came to really appreciate it because when the time comes for me to have a deep-rooted conversation with my kids, because it will happen when they have this conflict in their mind where there needs to be some de-confliction regarding the difficulties that they're having with the process of adoption and so on and so forth, I will be so overjoyed to tell them that unlike a natural-born situation, me and Mom had to move hell and high water to be able to bring them into our lives and that shows how valuable they are to us.

And then I get to tell them this. You know who else did that? You know who else went through a much more significantly harder time so that we could be adopted? Our Lord. You know we're all adopted. This is why I think it's hilarious when everybody says we're all God's children. That's a lie. We've never been God's children. We only became God's children when God adopted us. That's when we became the children of God. Before that, no, we're not God's children. No way. We're enemies of God. We're foreigners. But we were grafted in. Look what it says here.

I love this. "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit," notice this, "of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father." I love that. We've been adopted by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords because of His resurrection. But then this is where it gets remarkable. Look what he says. I'm going to read this. Very interesting. It's another question that he asks. It's an important one. Verse 35. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written for thy sake we are killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." He's quoting the Psalms, by the way. Interesting.

But look what he says. "Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Listen, we just haven't beat this thing. We're more than those who have beat this thing. God's given us so much more because of the resurrection. The culmination of it all is this. Look at this. Verse 38. "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." No separation. It's over. God did the work for us. It's finished.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Pastor James Kaddis on Light on the Hill and part of our new study Prophecies That Changed the World Forever. Pastor James will be back with more. There are a few ways you can listen to today's message or the entire five-part series again. We post all our programs to LightonTheHillRadio.com as well as OnePlace.com. You'll also find Light on the Hill on most major podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google.

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Pastor James is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill, and we'd love to have you join us for our Good Friday and Easter services either in person or online. For more information, visit CalvaryChapelSignalHill.com. Now with these final thoughts, here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: Folks, if you want to understand why so many people are happy about the story of the resurrection, this is why. We have salvation that will carry into the ages forever and ever, and we have victory in the day that we live, both physical and spiritual. By the way, the spiritual victory is the greatest part of it all because those of us who refuse to engage in the war that is spiritual will become the first casualties of it as Christians.

The reality of it is the victory that we've been given because of the power of the resurrection has served to be the very tool that will change our eternities, not just our lives, but our eternities. That's the faithfulness of God. And to that we say He is risen, and we all respond with He is risen indeed. That's the power of the God that we serve. Amen.

Guest (Male): Next time on Light on the Hill, we'll continue our study in the book of Exodus. Have a blessed Easter and remember Jesus is alive and because He lives you can too by His resurrection power. This program is presented by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.