weekly sermon4-4-10 Happy Easter
Every Christian that comes to a church service, on Easter Sunday comes, expecting to hear about the resurrection of Jesus. But I want us to step back and look from the beginning to the end to the beginning. Jesus knew from the moment of his birth that there would be a time for Him to die and shed His blood so that a cruel world could find salvation. But He also knew there would be a resurrection to an inheritance beyond comprehension.
I want us to start, in our story, in Luke 22 & 23, if you would like to follow along, back to just before the time when Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate. Jesus has had a very hard time emotionally with all that has been happening. He knows He is about to die and it is weighing heavy on His heart. Judas has just betrayed Jesus with a kiss thereby telling the High Priests that He was the one they were looking for. The soldiers then took Jesus before the people to be judged. The men held Jesus, hit Him, mocked Him, blindfolded Him and struck Him in the face. These men hated Jesus and wanted to see Him dead, so you know that these were not little love taps. They tied Jesus to a scourging post and beat Him with cat of nine tails ripping His flesh into hamburger. After they had beat Him, they placed a purple robe on Him to mock Him as a king. They then took Jesus before Pontius Pilot to be judged. Pilot could not find any fault in Jesus and wanted to let Him go, but he had heard that Jesus was from the land of King Herod, so he instructed them to take Jesus to Herod to be judged instead. Herod could not find any fault in Jesus either so he sent them back to Pilot. Pilot, again finding no fault in Jesus and wanting to let Him go, asked the people what they wanted. The people asked for the release of a murderer and to crucify Jesus. They then took a crown of thorns and nailed it to Jesus' head and ripped the robe from His back. I say ripped because the robe had now been on His back long enough to have dried into His ripped blood soaked flesh. All this did was reopen the wounds causing them to bleed again. They then made Jesus carry His own cross up to the top of Golgotha. There Jesus' hands and feet were nailed to the cross and the cross was dropped into the hole, jarring all of His insides. After they had dropped the cross into the hole, they mocked Jesus telling Him to save Himself since He had so much power, offered Him vinegar to drink and punctured His side with a spear. Jesus was so low on blood by this time that water flowed from His side. After all that was done to Him, Jesus asked God to forgive them for they did not know what they were doing. Jesus then commended His spirit into the hands of God and died. What a terrible way to have to die.
After Jesus had been confirmed to be dead, they took Him down from the cross. Joseph, a counselor, wanted a proper burial for Jesus so he begged for His body and buried it and sealed it shut with a boulder. Now this is where the story gets really good.
Early in a morning, when it was still dark out, several women came to the grave and saw that the stone had been rolled away and that Jesus was gone. Two men dressed in white with an angelic aura around them, asked why they were there, in a place for the dead, looking for someone that was alive. What a great Sunday morning.
We have just walked down the path of one of the most horrific ways to have to die. We walked, in our minds, up Golgotha and watched Jesus hang on a cross to die just for us.
This story can be found in all four of the Gospels, I chose Luke just for his compassionate ability to write. Now that we have walked through the complete story and hopefully now have a good understanding of what took place on the day that Christ died and the day He rose, I want us to look at one other passage of scripture. Turn with me if you will to 1 Peter 1:3-5 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
Our Father, a loving Father, of the Lord Jesus Christ was so gracious to give us a flesh of Himself to come and die for our sins. But as most gracious as He was to give us His only Son to come and die for us, His resurrection was our real hope for the eternal life we want with Him in heaven. It says here in 1 Peter, that begotten us again through His mercy unto a lively hope. The word begotten here means, "to produce as an effect", meaning produced because of an effect of His mercy, a lively hope by the resurrection. Notice how it is written here, that it was a lively hope, right here at the resurrection. We have our Saviour in a tomb and we are talking of a lively hope. The word lively meaning "full of life". Do you see this? Something once dead now coming to full of life. Our hope is now a "full of life" hope, and a resurrection of a "full of life" Lord Jesus Christ. This has got to excite more folks than just me here. Talk about living water flowing, it was flowing from every direction right here. A full of life hope. A full of life Christ. This is the reason Jesus came to us, to make us full of, and to give us, LIFE.
He shed His blood on the cross and died there for our sins, then resurrected as it says here in 1 Peter to reserve an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance for you and me. But this is only for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. You really have to look at this sinless man called Jesus. He came into a cruel world that mocked and betrayed Him to die for them. He was born of man, lived as a servant, died as a sacrifice, BUT rose as a King. And here we are, sinful man, as an heir to the throne of the Father. I tell all I am a son of God, I'm not THE Son of God, but "A" son of God. A son or an heir because of the resurrection. Jesus died and rose again to reserve a spot for us as sons of God. All we must do is really understand what the resurrection meant. Yes there is a true miracle that one man could come and die for the sins of this world. But to KNOW that He rose and defeated death and sin, that is what we really need to be looking towards. I totally love Jesus Christ for coming to die in my place so that I don't have to, but to know that He lived so that I could live, that is what our Bible was written for. Everything in this book that we so cherish points to one thing, the living God, the God that might have died for our sins, but who rose that we could live. The death would have been nothing without the resurrection, that is what it is all about. "I came to give you life and give it more abundantly". Why? because it is the central nerve of what this is all about, LIFE. Now as it stated in 1 Peter, this is ONLY by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Don't wait and go to that "last time" not understanding the faith unto salvation part. This resurrection of Jesus was for a reason, that you might seek your salvation and collect your incorruptible, and undefiled, inheritance. Come to the Father where true living water flows and is full of life.
Earlier I told how the soldiers had pierced Jesus' side and that He was so drained of blood that only water flowed from His side. Not only is this recorded as to what happened but is something of great significance. In John 4 it is stated that out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water. Even when Jesus was hanging on the cross, knowing He was going to die, He was offering us hope by giving us a sign of the living water that flowed from Him.
God came to this earth, in the form of a man named Jesus, for one purpose, to defeat sin and death. Yes, Christ lived a sinless life, loved and healed everyone He met, died a terrible death on a cross, but He rose on the third day proving to us that He had defeated death and sin. Through all the torment that Jesus had to go through, He loved us so much that He came to die for us. Christ said that He came to give us life and life more abundantly. We just read in 1st Peter that Jesus rose that we may be the heirs to a kingdom that is incorruptible and undefiled by any other. The life that we can only imagine until He reveals it to us.
There is an amazing contemporary Christian singer that has a song called "Sundays on the way". In this song Satan is so happy because Jesus has died, but he is also very nervous. Satan keeps in close contact with grave to make sure that Jesus is still there and dead. Grave constantly keep reassuring Satan that Jesus is still dead. Satan knows of the promise that Christ would rise on the third day. Naturally on the third day Christ did rise, defeating Satan and death. The whole purpose of the song is, not to tell the story of Jesus death and resurrection or how nervous Satan was about it all, but to let us know that, when everything seems to be totally defeating us, remember Sundays on the way. Well Sunday is here, Christ has risen to give us life. All you have to do is want to accept that life.
I never close without giving you the opportunity to look in the window of heaven and see your inheritance. If you have never seen your inheritance then just say dear Jesus come into my life and become my personal saviour and change my life that the old me may die and the new me may be resurrected in your likeness. Amen.
If you said this simple prayer and now understand a little more about the resurrection or the Christ that defeated death so that you could have life, then please drop me a line in the shout box or through my email address. We would love to rejoice your salvation with you, and send you a few things to help you with your new walk in Christ.
With Love in Christ,
Pastor Stone
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