1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; He has risen!” (Luke 24:1-6, NIV)

If you think about it for a minute, perhaps like me, you will find it interesting to note that a mustard seed is less than 1% the size of the average mustard tree or bush. God truly marvels and appreciates the granular details in life. All things matter to God, even the tiniest things. This is why by faith we can do all things through Christ. We serve an omniscient and omnipresent God who can see all, do all, and is the beginning and the end of all.
If you are like me, you have visions, dreams, aspirations, and goals in mind for how you’d like the future to come to reality. And, if you are also Type A, you have strong feelings about how you’d like the next two decade to end as well.  After all, our Bible teaches us that without a vision the people will perish. I’d take vision over perishing any day.
In Matthew chapter 17, the disciples also find themselves in predicament of hoping for a particular outcome. They are trying to cast a demon out of a little boy. Prayerfully, none of your goals necessitate rebuking demons, but per Jesus, all things are possible if one has no more than faith the size of a mustard seed. And per Jesus’ observation, the disciples’ failure to cast the demon out of the little boy rests on their lack of faith the size of a mustard seed.
Our visions, dreams, and hopes are like mustard trees. They are easily visible and accountable outcomes. However, the birthing, development, and harvest of our desires begins with a seed and labor. Seeds are granular and they require daily tending to once they are compacted in the earth. We must water seeds, and we must insure they get enough sunlight. We must also protect the soil we plant our seeds in from predators and toxins.
The harvest of our future rests in us tending to our faith as if it were a mustard seed. It is not enough to be faithful about the outcome of a thing. We must also be faithful in the details of our desires. We must apply our faith in a granular and specific manner. For example, if losing weight is a goal of ours, we must adopt daily eating and a weekly workout schedule. The loss of the weight is the mustard tree, and the daily control of portions and regimented exercise routines are the mustard seed.
In the finance world, there is a term, “simple interest,” which is financial increase applied to the principal amount of monies saved, invested, or loaned. Then there is compounded interest which is applied to all monies, principal and interest earned over the life time of the savings, investment, or debt account. Faith the size of a mustard seed is akin to compounded interests: it accounts for everything on a granular level.
Is your faith simple or is it compounded? In addition to being saved and being granted access to Heaven, do you also have granular faith that you will live well on earth as in Heaven? The more present and faithful we show up moment to moment, the more momentum we build towards our desired outcomes in life over time.

How often you apply your faith to the mundane details of your everyday life?
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Gracious Father, we thank You for the breath in our body, the joy in our hearts, for food on our table, and a warm bed to sleep at night. Lord, we thank You for being Jehovah Jireh. We yearn to experience more and more of You on a granular level. We know that by asking this we shall receive. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

​1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; He has risen!” (Luke 24:1-6, NIV)

The final verses of Luke 23 record the actions of several faithful women who had followed Jesus. After seeing where and how he had been entombed, they gathered spices and ointments to honor His dead body. They did this on Friday, but did not go to Jesus’s tomb until Sunday because they rested on the Sabbath “according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). On Sunday morning, the women brought their spices to the tomb, yet they did not find Jesus’s body. The body of Jesus, who died a terrible death on a Roman cross, was not to be found in the tomb where He had been buried. This was perplexing to them. But all of a sudden two angels appeared to the women, saying, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!” (24:5).

Here is the core of Easter truth, the reason for the Easter celebration. Jesus truly died and was truly buried. But He was not in His grave because “He has risen!” The Greek verb translated here as “has risen” is a passive verb. A more literal translation would be “He is not here, He has been raised!” Jesus did not raise Himself from the dead. No, God raised Jesus from the dead, thus breaking the power of sin and death. In this miracle, God vindicated His Son. God broke the bondage of sin and death. God began a whole new chapter of history, one based on the truth of the resurrection of Jesus.

For centuries, Christians have celebrated the resurrection by a traditional dialogue, the so-called Paschal Greeting. One person says, “Christ is risen!” The other responds, “He is risen, indeed!” There, in a nutshell, is the good news of Easter. There is the news that rewrites history. There is the news that changes everything.

Though the resurrection of Jesus happened almost two millennia ago, it still has the power to change everything. And it’s all based on the simple good news: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! It can turn unbelief into faith, pessimism into hope, defeat into victory. The resurrection reassures us that, no matter how hard things are in this life, there is a life to come. The resurrection shows us that God wins and so will we. Because of the resurrection, everything changes. What difference does the resurrection of Jesus actually make in your life?

So much more could be said about the resurrection, its meaning, and implications. But, today, I’d like to conclude by focusing our attention on the simple truth, the basic good news of Easter.

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Lord Jesus, You are risen! You are risen, indeed! What marvelous good news!
I praise you today as the One who died so that I might live.
I praise you for your victory over sin, suffering, and death.
I praise you for being the One who makes all things new.
All praise, glory, and honor be to You, Lord Jesus, the Risen One. 

16He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has trampled me in the dust. 17I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.” 19I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 20I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. 21Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:16-23, NIV)
One of my favorite rides in Disneyland is Space Mountain, a high-tech roller coaster. I first rode it in 1979 when my family had just moved to California. The twists and turns and drops of Space Mountain, which happened mostly in darkness, were thrilling for me as a teenager. Space Mountain was, and still is, a wild ride. The third chapter of Lamentations is also a wild ride. If you haven’t read it, consider yourself warned. The opening verses of chapter 3 include some of the most personal, painful laments of the whole book, “[The Lord] has broken my teeth with gravel; He has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.” (Lam. 3:16-17). In utter discouragement, the writer confesses, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD.” (v. 18). Then he adds, “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.” (vv. 19-20). You just can’t get much lower than this!
But then, as the text rushes at full tilt toward utter despondency, we come upon a stunning change of direction. Verse 21 reads, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” Wait! What? Hope? Where did hope come from? Lamentations has been utterly hopeless so far. But now? What? Hang onto your seats, for the shock has just begun. Following the shocking mention of hope, we read this: “The Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (vv. 22-23). One minute, the Lord has ground the teeth of the writer into the ground. The next minute, he celebrates the ceaseless love and endless mercies of God. Talk about a wild ride! Surely, this is one of the wildest rides in the whole Bible.

Have you ever experienced faith as a wild ride? Have you, for example, gone through times of joyful trust in God, only to be turned quickly into doubt and despair? Or perhaps you were sure God was calling you into a certain job or relationship, but for reasons that made no sense to you, what you anticipated didn’t work out. Do you ever find yourself praying like the man who said to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24)?
If you’ve been on that ride before, you know how crazy it can be. Perhaps you’re on that kind of ride right now. Or maybe you will be in the future. No matter when it comes, you should know that what you’re experiencing is common to God’s faithful people, like the writer of Lamentations, for example. You should also know that, no matter how wild the ride might seem, God is in control. God is utterly faithful and worthy of our trust. Therefore, we do not need to be afraid no matter how scary things might seem.
When I rode on Space Mountain over 40 years ago, I was not afraid. I did not feel even the tiniest bit of fear. Why not, even though I was hurtling through the dark? The answer is simple. I trusted those who had made Space Mountain. I knew that, no matter how unexpected and abrupt the turns might be, and even though I had no idea where I was heading, I would be okay. So, it is on the wild ride of faith. As crazy as it might be sometimes, we don’t have to be afraid because we know God is sovereign, and God’s steadfast love never ceases. God’s mercies never come to an end.

Thank You, Lord, for being with me always, even when I’m on the wild ride of life.
Help me to trust You even when I don’t understand You,
even when it feels as if my life is topsy turvy.

​Grace and peace to you, sisters and brothers. I want to take this opportunity to share a few thoughts with you. The departure of our Senior Pastor, even under the best of circumstances, brings a measure of unsettledness to our church family. That is natural and expected. In this time of transition and unsettledness, we can experience uncertainty and anxiety about what is on the horizon for us. Indeed, we are entering a season of change unlike any we have ever experienced together in the history of our church. It has been one month since Pastor Lao retired, and yes, although we are about to enter a season of change, there are many things that do not change. First, the Gospel message of Christ crucified is always the same. Second, our mission to expand the Kingdom by becoming and developing a loving family of wholehearted, fully-engaged disciples of Christ does not change. Furthermore, we know that God is intimately aware of our situation and more importantly, He has a good plan for our church.
During this transition, the life and work of the church must go on as it has in the past. I am so grateful for the Pastoral Staff and Board of Directors that God has placed over our church during this time, and I want to assure you that both groups are working together diligently to make sure that our church’s ministries move forward without interruption or compromise. As a matter of fact, in each weekend service, you will see a familiar face faithfully preaching the Word of God. In other words, for much of our work and ministry, it will be business as usual. 
During this time of change, it is normal for us to want to focus on the past and what we have lost. While appropriate time and attention needs to be given to the past, I want to remind and invite you to focus on the future that God has for us and how we are to prepare for it. As much as I am praying against them, I am aware that disagreements may arise among our leaders as well as members, which the devil can use to divide us and disrupt our church’s ministry. Given that possibility, I want to remind us of the Holy Communion which is a clear call of unity for us: “16Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.” (1 Cor. 10:16-17)
If there is a silver lining in the occasional dark clouds of transition, it is the renewed desire of the church family to seek God in new and deeper ways. Sisters and brothers, I want to invite you to pray even more during and through this season of change. At the Fullerton campus, last Sunday (3/27), we started a 21-Day Fast and Prayer to pray for our church and our Senior Pastor search. I will be working with the Pastoral Staff to see whether we can set up something similar for Cerritos, Oakland and East Lansing campuses. I want to invite each and every member to personally pray daily for our church during this season of 



change. What a powerful act of worship before God when hundreds of our people endeavor to pray each day during this transition.
I also want to remind you that this time of transition is not a time to retreat or to enter a holding pattern, but a time to move forward with God’s Kingdom purposes. This is particularly important for the Pastoral Staff and Board of Directors. We are still on task; our mission is still in play and we are not throttling back. Whether it is through the World Vision 6K for Water, the National Day of Prayer, “Love Fullerton,” our ministry to Afghan refugee families, or community involvement through sports, we will continue to bring the hope of Christ and more importantly, to rebuild lives and hearts of those who so desperately need the Gospel.
During this time, it is human nature to fill in the proverbial blanks of life with a narrative that is faulty or jaded. As the Executive Pastor, I want you to know that I am available to openly and transparently discuss any issues or suggestions you may have. I would love to grab a cup of coffee or a meal with you. You can call the office or email me to set up an appointment. As the Executive Pastor, my focus this past month has been on execution and making sure that things are running smoothly. But in my time of prayer this past week, the Lord reminded me not to forget the Pastor portion of the title. Indeed, I must not forget that as a Pastor I am here to shepherd and minister to the church body as well. As such, I also want you to know that I am available for any pastoral and spiritual need you may have. I also covet your prayers for me, as I navigate uncharted waters myself. I need godly wisdom and discernment as we navigate through this transition time. 
In short, first, I want to rally us around a renewed commitment to unity and prayer as we move forward with the work of the Kingdom that God has entrusted to us. And second, I want you to know that I am available for you. I am praying for you and I invite you to pray for me as well.
Whatever future the Lord has for our church, I want to invite you to be a part of it. Join us as we move forward with confidence, knowing that God wants to take this, our season of change, and transform it into a season of great significance. For His glory, Amen!