Light on the Hill

Announcer: Today on Light on the Hill, doing what's right even when it seems impossible.

James Kaddis: I would venture to say today that more than ever in the world in which we live, this is the one characteristic that we lack overwhelmingly. We lack this characteristic. We lack the characteristic of the man or the woman who says, I'm going to do it because I know it's right, and though I discern a functional insurmountability with what I'm about to embark upon, I'm still going to choose to do it because I know that God wants me to, and I choose to rely upon him supernaturally to intervene, to give me the capacity to be able to accomplish what he's asked me to do.

Guest (Female): I have found that peace only comes from you. I have found

Announcer: When you're faced with what looks to be an impossibility or something insurmountable, what do you do? Well, today on Light on the Hill, we'll be encouraged by a group of women in that very situation. They're headed to the grave where Jesus was buried, knowing full well that a stone was in front of it and guards were beside it. They chose to obey God and take a remarkable step of faith. Here's Pastor James Kaddis in Mark chapter 10.

James Kaddis: This is super important, verse 2. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun, and they said among themselves, who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher? They're walking, they're walking to the place that they need to go in darkness, knowing that the sun is going to rise soon, and they're asking themselves an overwhelming question. How in the world are we going to roll this stone? By the way, if you went to the sepulcher of a wealthy man, that would not generally be perceived as a safe action, okay? Because keep this in mind, it was the sepulchers of wealthy men that grave robbers loved spending time in.

They would camp out, they would figure out ways to break in so that they could gain whatever it was that they wanted to gain and take, and then move on to the next grave. So it wasn't generally a safe idea for them to go to the grave, number 1, but number 2, they had a purpose that they had in their heart to accomplish something that was generally impossible to do. How are they gonna roll away a stone that is probably a thousand pounds? How's that gonna happen? Okay? It's extraordinarily difficult. It was designed to be impossible. And even if you could figure out a way to get enough men to roll it, how are you gonna do it without the Romans getting in the way?

How are you going to do it to be able to do what you've been called to do? As impossible as it is in the moment, these girls are still committing themselves in the direction of doing it because what they're anticipating here is they are anticipating the help of the supernatural, even though they don't completely understand how the supernatural will intervene. They have a partial plan, and the partial plan is predicated upon the desire to obey God, but the fullness of that plan cannot be realized because of the impossibility of what must be done. And I would venture to say today that more than ever in the world in which we live, this is the one characteristic that we lack overwhelmingly.

We lack this characteristic. We lack the characteristic of the man or the woman who says, I'm going to do it because I know it's right, and though I discern a functional insurmountability with what I'm about to embark upon, I'm still going to choose to do it because I know that God wants me to, and I choose to rely upon him supernaturally to intervene, to give me the capacity to be able to accomplish what he's asked me to do. It's the impossible mission. How do I go do the impossible mission when I don't know how to be equipped in order to do it? Well, the reason why so many are able to do that and do it effectively is because they've taken the time to consider who the commander in chief is.

And the commander in chief that's speaking to them is the one who can supernaturally make accommodations for literally anything in any moment to do whatever purpose he has set aside. That's the issue here. So they're taking an overwhelming step of faith. I think it's one that's quite remarkable. Look what happens here. It's very interesting. And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great. Now, can you imagine? They're having the conversation, how is the stone going to be rolled away? And as they walk up on the grave, they see the stone already rolled away.

Now, can you imagine the, just how deep their heart must have been sinking? They must have been confused. They must have been overwhelmed. It must have been shocking. There must have been a lot of things that was preventing them from being able to look clearly at what was happening in the moment. And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were frightened. You think? You think they'd be a little freaked out? They walk into the grave, they expect to see Jesus's dead body, and what they see instead is somebody they don't recognize, who's actually wearing a white robe, in essence, can you imagine how overwhelmingly scared they must have been?

Can you imagine how difficult that must have been in the very moment that they had experienced that? Think about that for a second. Think about how shocking that must have been for them in the moment. I'm going to venture to say that when we choose to walk in obedience to God, oftentimes against the counsel of our flesh that seeks comfort, oftentimes against what our instinct would tell us to do, based on our desire to survive, based on our desire to, you know, obtain the easiest path, the path of least resistance. Every single time we express the intentionality required, the intentionality required, let me say it again, the intentionality required to complete what it means to obey God, to walk in obedience, we're going to get met with resistance.

We're going to get met with hardship. We're going to get met with difficulty. So much so that that resistance, that difficulty, that hardship will not only confuse us, but it will scare us. But with Christians, when we express intentionality in doing that which God has called us to do, and we experience disruption, we experience resistance, we experience hardship, that disruption, that resistance, that hardship was divinely orchestrated by God to create within us a supernatural result that we never thought possible. The problem is we don't view it like that because we are very adverse to difficult circumstances because we don't like them, and because we lack the ability to look through spiritual eyes to understand and know what's actually going on.

I oftentimes get spoken to directly by people who tell me they love their Christian walk, and one of the things they love the most about their Christian walk is they run into no problems. Their life is trial free. You know what they all tell me when anytime someone comes to me and tells me that, they all tell me the same thing. They don't read their Bibles. They don't do it regularly, if at all. Their proclamation of Christ is one that is very superficial, and they literally don't ever tell anybody about their belief in the Lord. Why would the enemy mess with somebody like that? What, if you can't obey God in the least of these things, how in the world can you expect for any disruption to take place?

Why in the world would that be the case? It'll never happen. You see, if you're doing what God is asking you to do, you're walking with him, you're serving him, you're believing in him, you're putting your faith and trust in him, you are going to be, in many situations, shocked by the pushback that you experience. The things that you may witness may actually scare you. They may induce fear. But every single one of those disruptions that God allows to happen in your life as a result of the expression of your intention with respect to your obedience in the Lord will always be orchestrated for the purpose of making you stronger, better, and by bringing you, accelerating you into the path that God wants you in, in order to accomplish all of his purposes.

You can't be successful without the difficulty. You can't do well without any of those things. I think it's a remarkable place to be in. I find myself wondering oftentimes as a pastor why I face the things that I face on a day-to-day basis, like, Lord, why? You know, I sort of complain, why do I deal with this? Why these people? No, I'm just joking. But, well, I do say that sometimes, not all the time. I do say that sometimes, you know. But, you know, why, God? Why does this have to be this way? And you learn as the years go by. I would not be able to be the man that I am today if I did not go through the hardships of yesterday.

You think about that for a second. The James of starting the ministry in 1994 would not know what to do if he got a phone call from a widow who just had her husband killed in the line of duty as a policeman. Would not know what to do while he was watching a baby being put in a body bag, or would not know, would not know what to do when somebody came to them just thinking that they're going to be home, they're 2 days away from being homeless. All of the things that God gives me the privilege of being able to be a part of, and to counsel people through and hold their hands through and walk them through, all came as a result of the disruption that immediately followed the intention that was created by a decision to put my faith and trust in the Lord and to obey.

These women are scared. Undoubtedly, they're fearful. They are full of fear in the moment that they are in, but keep this in mind. It's okay for them to experience that emotion because here's the reality of their circumstance. They chose to ignore their fleshly instinct and did what they knew they needed to do. So they've walked into the sepulcher, they're scared. Verse 6, and he saith unto them, look at this, be not affrighted. In other words, don't be afraid. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. Look at this, he is risen. He's not here. Behold the place where they laid him. Hey, it's really simple.

I know why you're here. You're here to seek Jesus. Guess what? He's not dead. He's alive. He's risen. Look, the place where he lays, there's nobody here. Let me make you a promise. This is based on biblical precedent. We can prove it again and again and again and again. It's real, it's true, and please do not forget this. When the expression of intention takes place through the decision to put your faith and trust in the Lord and walk in obedience, the disruption that follows will usher you into the place of revelation. Let me say that one more time. When the expression of intention takes place as a result of the obedience that you choose to give yourself to happens, it will always usher you into a place of revelation.

People used to come to me a lot because I used to take these appointments a lot. I don't take them much anymore, and they would tell me how in trouble their marriage is. We need help. Our marriage is in shambles. We need help. Okay. The only promise I want you to make is that you'll do whatever I tell you to do. I'm not going to tell you to do crazy things. I'm not going to go tell you to, you know, do anything that's unbiblical or anything like that. You just got to promise me that you're going to do what I tell you to do. Virtually every single time they come in to talk to me, I give them homework, and they don't do the homework I gave them.

Almost every single time they get a one-day grace period. This is serious. You promised me you would do this. And when they come back to me and they tell me they didn't have the time, they didn't want to do it, any of that, I tell them the same thing. Your marriage is in shambles because you've done with me what you regularly do with the Lord. You see, the work that I give you is not busy body work. It's not you shoveling dirt for the sake of shoveling dirt. It's not you doing something that's backbreaking just for the sake of you saying you did it. It's something that will guarantee, something that will guarantee to create disruption and pushback.

And that disruption and pushback will force you into walking into a space of revelation, and that revelation will wake your heart up to what is actually wrong. You do the work, which involves obedience. You embrace the disruption that that work creates, and all of a sudden you become enriched because you develop knowledge, you develop revelation of things that you would not have known had you not done the work. So if you do the work, you will find the thing, but you can't find the thing if you don't do the work, and you won't do the work if you choose not to obey God. You have to welcome the disruption.

You have to. It won't work if you don't. By the way, these are principles that carry themselves into every aspect of life. This is not just a principle that relates to what you do spiritually in your interaction with other people or your interaction with the Lord. It relates to how you run business. It relates to what you do in your personal finances. It relates to your relationships. It relates to literally everything. I want to see God's wisdom in what I'm doing. I'm going to faithfully pursue it with the expression of intention through my obedience, and I'm going to embrace the disruption because I know the disruption will bring me revelation.

The disruption will teach me something new. Verse 7, look what they say. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter. By the way, isn't it funny how he points out and Peter, right? I think it relates to the person who's actually writing the gospel, by the way. I think there's a part of that. I also think there's a part of the fact that Peter sees the story of redemption so clearly through the resurrection. Why would that be so incredibly important? Because Peter was the one that denied Jesus pretty substantially as Jesus was on his way to being killed. And then if you think about who he became, the revelation that he got from the intention expressed through his obedience brought him to a place that was unbelievable.

Thousands of people were saved through the ministry of Peter. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall you see him, as he said unto you. So now they're being reminded of the word that God had given. They're probably really, really realizing what God had said very slowly. I mean, it's kind of what, it's all coming back to them, you know what I mean? But then this is where things could be grossly misinterpreted. And this is, this is important because I want to spend just a few minutes on this. I want to focus on this real quick. Look at what it says here in verse 8.

And they went out quickly, notice this, and fled from the sepulcher. They ran from it. For they trembled and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. Now, when you read this, the impression that you immediately get from an initial reading of this is that they ran away, they were fearful, they ran away, and they didn't do what the angel told them to do. They chose not to talk to anybody. We're not talking about this to anybody! That's not what's happening. That's actually not what's being said in the language, understanding original language here can be very useful.

Because what's happening here is so critical to you understanding how your walk grows in the Lord. Okay? Okay. Let's walk through this together. They invest, at the bare minimum, 3 years of their life with Christ. They're part of the caravan that's cooking for everybody. They develop a camaraderie. Their lives have been changed. They've experienced the direction and the discernment and the wisdom that comes from all of the instruction that Christ was giving. And their lives were completely impacted. They would never be the same. Christ is now gone. And there's this thing inside of their hearts where they feel like they've invested so much of their life into him.

I mean, we gave him so many years, and he's gone. And then this attachment develops to a symbol of their defeat. They have an attachment to the location of the grave because there's perhaps maybe something inside of them that's going to find closure through their willfulness to still take care of the Lord when there is no reward in it for them. They get to the grave, they find something they completely did not expect to find, and get told what's actually going on. They're told that Jesus has risen and that they needed to go to inform people about this because eventually they're going to meet up with him.

The picture that this is drawing is remarkable. The picture that this is drawing is a picture of a group of women who saw what they saw, heard what they heard, and were so determined to take the next step that they immediately, as fast as they could, ran back to the place that they needed to go to inform the disciples, and we know that they did that because Matthew tells us this, right? And then, of course, I believe it's the account in Luke that also tells us that they did this. They went back and they did tell Peter and the disciples, but they were so blown away with what they had heard that they ran so quickly with such enthusiasm to the place they knew they needed to go, that they refused to talk to anybody along the way.

That's what that's saying. It's saying that as they ran back, as they ran away from the grave to go to tell the news, they didn't stop to have any conversations with anybody. In other words, they were so focused on the next step that they did not allow any distraction to keep them from accomplishing the purpose that God had called them to. I think there's something really special about that. I think there's something really, really special about that.

Announcer: This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis, and we're currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at lightOnTheHillRadio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at OnePlace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well. When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We'd love it. It's encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners' lives, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing. There's a place to contact us at our website, LightOnTheHillRadio.com.

We've been blessed by the feedback we've received thus far regarding Pastor James's new book, The Last Book. If you haven't ordered a copy yet, we'd encourage you to do so. This guide to Revelation covers the first half of the book, giving you what you need to know about the rapture and the end times in a clear and concise manner. Request your copy today at LightOnTheHillRadio.com or through Amazon. If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there's also a place to make a donation at LightOnTheHillRadio.com. Throughout the week, you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events with a biblical worldview.

Look for these at JamesKaddis.com. Reflecting on today's passage for a few minutes, here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: This story is powerful, and it's powerful because it shows us how God works. It shows us how difficult things oftentimes erect, and how God has called us to do it. You'd be shocked if you knew the backstory of some of this. We even have people in this church right now that have lost loved ones, probably within the last 30 hours. Close people. And what are they doing? They're serving. Why? Why are we going to search? Why are we going to search for the living amongst the dead? What else is there to do? Where else do we go? We put our faith and we put our trust in the Lord. And we say, God, no matter what happens, I believe, I believe your word to be true, and I'm going to carry it through even when it doesn't make sense.

So here's the exhortation. Are you ready? Here it is. It's important. Be intentional about your obedience to God. Brace yourself for the disruption. Embrace it when it happens, and stand by for the revelation that comes. The revelation that comes to you as a result of all of that will give you amazing clarity for what comes next. Try me if you don't believe me. Try me. You'll understand by doing the work. Put in the work. You'll get it. It's real simple. When you're able to understand that process, you'll begin to find victory in ways you never thought you could ever see. And then you get to say with real conviction, because he's done it, to God be the glory, great things he has done, and even greater things he's going to do.

Amen? Father, we just thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you, Father, for your goodness and your faithfulness to us, Lord. The things that you teach us, Lord, are very real, and they mean so much to us, Lord, because of your faithfulness. So, Lord, help us to develop this conviction that we would, as a result of the process we give ourselves to, find ourselves in the same position as these women, that we would not allow ourselves to be distracted even when the revelation has come, that we would run that race and never, ever stop. We love you, Lord. Go before us. Give us conviction, understanding.

Help us to recognize what it is you're saying to us in the moment, and keep us looking to you. We love you, God, and thank you. We look to you, and we ask these things now in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Announcer: Remember, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Female): I have found that peace only comes from you. I have found that joy only comes from you, 'cause all I need is you.