Living in Light of the Resurrection

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth asks, “Can the lost around you tell that you’ve been brought from death to life?”

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The gospel will not be received if it cannot be seen in the lives of those of us who profess to believe it.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Incomparable, for October 20, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

The resurrection was a glorious event—but it wasn’t only an event. It’s something we participate in as Christ-followers. Wild, right?! Romans 6:4 says, “Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” This is our reality. Newness of life! Do you feel it? Do you love it? Do you live like it’s true? That’s what we’re talking about today as we continue to explore Christ’s earthly example. Because He came as the Resurrection and the Life, we can truly live. 

Speaking of the Resurrection and the Life—isn’t that an incredible name of Jesus? Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth to show us where it originated —and what it means for you and me. This is part of a message she shared in the series “The Wonder of His Name.”

Nancy: I want to invite you to turn in your Bible if you would today to a place where we get hope from God’s Word. That’s where hope comes from for every situation of life. The Gospel of John, chapter 11. We want to look at a familiar passage there today and see what it has to tell us about the Lord Jesus.

We’re going to join Jesus and the disciples here in John 11 in the village of Bethany. There we’re going to see a close-knit family with their friends, who are grieving the loss of their brother and their friend, Lazarus. It’s four days after Lazarus has died, and Jesus finally arrives on the scene.

And you remember how Jesus had often visited this small village before. Bethany had been for Him a haven, a place of sweet friendship and fellowship. But now, Bethany had become a place of heartache and despair. In fact, the word “Bethany” is an Aramaic word that means “house of misery or affliction.”

How’d you like to live there? House of misery or affliction. Now you may not live in a place called “House of Misery or Affliction” but maybe you are living in that kind of setting or someone you know is in that kind of setting. And it’s against this dark background and setting, that Jesus reveals to us one of His most lovely names.

Beginning in verse 21 we see that Lazarus’ sister, Martha, has heard that Jesus has arrived in town and here in verse 21 she goes out to meet Him. And she says:

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. (vv. 21–22)

So here is Martha, the sister of the man who has died. She doesn’t understand Jesus’ ways at this moment. She doesn’t understand what He’s up to or why He wasn’t there when her brother died when it appears He could have been. She believes that Jesus could have healed her brother when he was sick. But she thinks it’s now too late now for Him to do anything about her situation. It doesn’t enter into her mind, I don’t think, that this situation could be changed at this point, death is after all final, right? So she’s not thinking that she will ever have a chance of seeing her brother again in this life.

But what I love about this verse is that she still hasn’t lost confidence in Jesus, even though she doesn’t understand, even though His ways are incomprehensible to her, even though things are really a muddle right now, she still believes in Jesus.

She says in verse 22, “Even now I know . . .” Even now. Even now when life has ebbed away from the one I love, when his body is in the grave and is going to rot there. Even now I know. She knows that Jesus has a unique and close relationship with God. She knows that whatever He requests of the Father will be granted, even when there is no human hope.

Well, verse 23:

Jesus [says] to her, "Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (vv. 23–24)

So think about this for a moment. Martha has revealed already that she has faith for the past. She believes that if Jesus had gotten there before her brother died, Jesus could have healed him. And she has faith for the future. Right? She believes that Jesus will raise her brother one day, down the road, way out there in the distance. So she’s got faith for the past, faith for the future, but she doesn’t have faith for this moment. She can’t imagine anything happening in the here and now after her brother has been dead for four days.

Now, think about this. She knows that Jesus can raise her brother from the dead decades or centuries down the road. But he’s been dead four days, and she doesn’t think anything can change. She needs faith for her present situation. And this is when Jesus reveals another of His great “I AM” names. Verse 25:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die [looking at Lazarus who had just died] yet shall he live, and everyone who lives [Martha, Mary, your friends, everyone who lives] and believes in me shall never die.” (vv. 25–26)

So whether you’ve already died or you are still living, the key is that you believe in Jesus and that determines your eternal destiny.

So here Jesus reveals Himself as the “I AM”—the eternally existent Yahweh that we talked about some days ago. She had hope for the future, she believed in a resurrection that was coming “on the last day,” at end of the age, but she lacked hope for the present. And this name of Jesus means to her that resurrection, which she’d hoped for down the road, resurrection has come. Resurrection is right here, right now. Present hope.

Now, knowing Jesus as Resurrection and the Life has a lot of implications for our own lives and our own faith. Let me just mention a few of those.

First of all, as we’ve said already, Jesus is the Source of all life. He gave us physical life. He regenerates our lifeless spirits by His Spirit. He gives abundant, eternal life to those who place their trust in Him. And to have this life we must believe in Him, place our faith in Him.

One question I would ask today is do you have eternal life? Do you know that you do? Have your placed your confidence, your faith in Jesus who is the Resurrection and the Life? If so, then you know that you have eternal life.

And then, knowing Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life delivers from fear of death. It brings hope where there would otherwise be only despair. It means that death is not final. Death has been overcome. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. He put death to death. Isaiah 25 tells us, “He will swallow up death forever” (v. 8). That’s what Jesus did through His death and resurrection.

Back in 1986 I sat in the funeral of my youngest brother, David, who had been killed in a car accident—had been on life support for a week and then he was gone. I’ll never forget something that one of the ministers said at David’s funeral. They said, “We think of David as having gone from the land of the living to the land of the dead.” He said, “The fact is, David has gone from the land of the dying to the land of the living.” And that’s the truth if you believe that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life—that delivers us from fear of death.

It also assures us of the resurrection of our bodies. On that the final day, our bodies will be raised, thankfully not these exact same bodies but glorified bodies. I don’t know what that means, what that looks like. I don’t know if I’ll still be this short. But our bodies will be raised, and they’ll be united with our spirits to live with Jesus forever. We are part of His body. He is our head, as we’ll see later in this series. He has redeemed us, not just our souls but our bodies. Every part of us will share in His resurrection life.

Philippians 3 says, “[He] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (v. 21). That is one of my all-time favorite verses. I love it. First Corinthians 15 says, “This perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (v. 53). The fact that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life assures us of the resurrection of our bodies and the bodies of those we love who have died in faith in Christ.

And then finally, knowing Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life can infuse life into hopeless situations where there is no life—situations where humanly speaking, there is no hope of life. There’s a great illustration of this in Ezekiel 37. You don’t need to turn there but let me just read to you a paragraph. You remember this is the vision of the valley filled with dry bones, a picture of death. And then God says to the prophet,

Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off." [lifeless] Therefore prophesy, and say to them, thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. . . . And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live." (vv. 11–14)

Now, in its immediate context that’s a promise of coming national revival for Israel—dead bones will live again. But that’s the same power, the power of the resurrected Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life, the same power that can breathe life into lifeless structures today: life into your marriage, life into your family, life into your church.

Do you feel like saying sometimes, “Our bones are dried up. Our hope is lost. We are cut off.” Then you need the Resurrection and the Life. And he can breathe hope and life into situations that seem lifeless.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25–26). Do you?

Dannah: Let’s sit with that question for a moment. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is challenging us to live in light of the resurrection. Do we just kind of drift through our days, or do we live as though we’ve been brought from death to life. We have, my friend. Really and truly. 

You can find that full message linked in today’s transcript at ReviveOurHearts.com. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is going to help us make it practical. What does it look like to live out the gospel—to operate as women who are truly alive? The book of Titus has some answers for us. 

Nancy: Titus 3:3, Paul says, "We ourselves were once foolish.” In our unbelieving state this is what we were like. We were “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another."

Paul says that is the portrait of who we were.

You may be thinking, But I was saved at the age of four, as I was. I didn’t do all those things. Was I "foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another"?

Boy, I don’t remember doing all that stuff before I turned four. Maybe I threw my bottle at my sister or something, I don’t know.

Those of us who have been raised in the church and who have grown up in good homes and maybe came to know the Lord as younger children, was this true of us? Paul says we ourselves were once this way. That was the bent of our heart.

We may not have had the fullest opportunity to express all of that, but that’s who we were. Apart from God’s grace that’s who we would be today, apart from the transformation that the gospel brings about in our lives. Paul says that’s what we were apart from Christ.

Go back up to verse 1 in chapter 3. Paul says, "This is what you should be." Verse 3 describes what you were, what we all were at one time. But Titus 3:1–2 says, This is what you should look like. This is how believers should be described.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

Do you see the contrast between verses 1 and 2 and verse 3? Two kinds of people—those who are unbelievers and those who are believers. Now the question is—and we’ve been hinting at it all along—what makes the difference?

Is it just that some people are better than others?
Is it just that some people try harder than others?
Is it just that some people have been raised in better homes than others?
Is it just that some people have been socialized better than others?

No! That’s not what makes the difference.

There’s a woman sitting in this room today who’s been very open about her testimony that she spent, if I remember correctly, twelve years in a prison on a drug charge with a background that could match probably anybody else in this room. She was once living out some of the things we just described in verse 3.

But today, she is a picture of verses 1 and 2. She is a believer. Her life has been transformed. It wasn’t the prison system that did it. It wasn’t books that she’s read. It wasn’t mentoring. It wasn’t some social program.

What made the difference? What has made the difference in your life? What will make the difference in anybody else’s life that will take them from being that unbeliever we described, to being the picture of the believer who is like Christ? What makes the difference? One word: it’s the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 4 as we continue in chapter 3 here. Paul says this is what you should be. This is what you once were. Look at verse 4.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared.

God our Savior, He appeared to us with goodness and loving kindness. What did He do?

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (vv. 5–7)

That passage describes the whole point, the crux of the matter. It’s salvation. It’s the saving work of Christ. That is the gospel, the good news that Christ came into this world to save sinners.

The grace of God has appeared that takes us from who and what we were, which is following after the course of this wicked, fallen world, and makes us into someone and something that is totally different. Not just reformed, but regenerated—a new person!

Salvation is transformation. It's not just a new creed that you get in your head. It's not just something you sign. It's not something you join. It's not putting a new exterior on the same old, rotten person on the inside. It's becoming a whole, new person.

If you have been saved by Christ Jesus our Savior, you are not the same person you once were. You have been transformed. You are a new and different person. Salvation makes all the difference in the world. We become according to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, a "new creation, old things have passed away, all things have become new" (v. 14).

There ought to be a huge difference between believers and unbelievers. You say, “You’ve already said that fourteen times.” I want to say it again because there’s something wrong with the picture of twenty-first century Christianity and that is that there are millions and millions of people who can claim to be believers in Jesus Christ, but their lives give absolutely no evidence. There is something hugely wrong with that picture.

As you read the book of Titus, you say, “Apparently these people have not really experienced the gospel. Apparently they have never come face to face with the saving, redeeming grace of Jesus Christ. That makes a difference.” There is a difference between believers and unbelievers. And that difference will be evident.

Paul is concerned that the Christians who will be reading these words not only profess to know God but that they actually live out the implications of the gospel. He’s concerned that their lives present a vivid, distinct, stark contrast to those who do not follow Christ, those who have not been saved.

Look at chapter 2 beginning in verse 11. Here you see another paragraph that describes the implications of the gospel, the implications of the grace of God.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

So Paul says the grace of God, if it has come into your life, if it has brought salvation to you, what does it do? It disciples you; it disciplines you. It trains you to say no to those things that were part of your old life—ungodliness, worldly passions—and to say yes to those things that are a part of your new life, to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

And it gives you something to live for, he says in verses 13–14, “Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us.”

Why? Why did Jesus Christ come to this earth and die on that cross? Why? To redeem us from all lawlessness.

How much? Just to clean us up a little bit to make us socially acceptable? No. He died to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works. That’s why Jesus came.

So throughout this book Paul says, I want you to have the knowledge of the truth, which is the gospel and the grace of Jesus Christ. I want you to see that if you have ever experienced and received and encountered that grace, it will change your life. 

The gospel is powerful. The gospel is transformational. But the gospel will not be heard and received by our culture, by our generation, by your children, by your neighbors, by the people in your workplace; the gospel will not be received if it cannot be seen in the lives of those of us who profess to believe it.

That’s the point.

You can call yourself a Christian, but if your life doesn’t bear witness to the implications, the transforming implications of the gospel in:

• how you talk
• in what you eat
• what you drink
• how you live
• your habits
• how you use your time
• how you treat other people
• how you open your home in hospitality

All these many practical issues that are the outflow and the overflow of the gospel in your life. If your life doesn’t show those, then there’s no basis on which the world can look at our lives and say, “I believe the gospel.” We can’t just tell them it’s true. They need to see and feel and experience that it really is true through our lives.

Father, how I pray that You would help us to capture the heart of this book and all of the Scripture that says it really does make a difference to be a Christian. I want to thank You for the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for the grace of God our Savior that has appears, that teaches us and trains us to say no to sin and yes to righteousness.

I pray, O God, for a revival of true, biblical, gospel Christianity in our world, in our churches, in our listening audience. Lord, may my life reflect the implications of the gospel. May my life adorn the doctrine of God. May my life make the gospel believable to those around me this day. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Dannah: Amen. What a glorious gift it is to be alive in Christ! To join him in His resurrection! To walk in newness of life! I don’t know about you, but this conversation has really just made me want to worship. Let’s be sure to spend some time doing that today. He is worthy.

Now, speaking of worship, I’ve been keeping a secret—and it has not been easy! I’ve been dying to tell you who is leading worship at True Woman '27, and today is the day! So drumroll please. We are going to be singing alongside thousands and thousands of women, led by . . . Keith and Kristyn Getty! If you’re not familiar with this precious couple, they’re the writers of modern-day hymns like “In Christ Alone,” “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death,” “The Lord Is My Salvation,” and so many others. So needless to say, our hearts are going to be richly encouraged and our eyes directed straight to the Savior as we sing together. If you haven’t registered yet, you can do that at TrueWoman27.com. I cannot wait to see you there!

Also, don’t forget! You can get Nancy’s Advent devotional, Consider Jesus, when you make a donation of any amount this month. It’s our way of saying thank you for supporting us in this way! We hope it will be a sweet addition to your Advent rhythms this year, turning your eyes upon Jesus day after day in December. To give and request your copy, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Now, we talk a lot about true womanhood here at Revive Our Hearts. It’s a core message of ours. But tomorrow, we’re branching out to consider true masculinity. Maybe you’re married and you want to know how to encourage masculinity in the man you love. Maybe you have sons and you’re seeking to encourage them toward Christlikeness. Maybe you’re a single girl wondering what qualities you should prize as you pray about marriage one day. Considering Christ’s example during His time on earth is going to help us in all these areas. We’ll do that tomorrow.

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