Sermon Tone Analysis

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Today is Resurrection Sunday.

We are celebrating the fact that Jesus rose from the grave, his identity is proven, our salvation is real.

Tomorrow is Monday.

The holiday is over.

Our daily life resumes, back to the grind.

And unfortunately, too often the celebration dies.

It’s not that we forget, but we act like we have forgotten.

So, today, let’s talk about what we should remember tomorrow.

Today, we are going to talk about God.

Which is what one should talk about in church.

As we talk about God, we are going to spring off of John’s account of Resurrection Sunday.

This morning, we discussed the beginning of John 20.

Now, we are going to continue that account.

Pray

Let’s talk about God.

1A.

God

Jesus told Mary that he was ascending to the Father, our God.

1B.

We believe that God is the creator of the universe.

Moses records for us the account of the beginning of time.

When we speak of God, at the beginning of time, as the creator, we are saying that it was the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, together, at the beginning speaking everything that we know of into existence out of nothing.

Paul in Colossians 1, specifically speaks of Jesus Christ creating the world:

God is the creator of the universe.

2B.

We believe that God is the sustainer of the universe

Paul continued talking about Jesus in Colossians 1.

In 1802, a guy by the name of William Paley wrote a book: Natural Theology.

He wrote about a watchmaker who made watch, wound it up, and walked away.

He believe that, yes, an intelligent designer created the universe.

But, this divine being just stepped back and allowed it to run itself, to its doomed end of destruction.

However, Scripture teaches that our creator is intimately involved in his universe.

As Paul said: he holds all things together.

As the children’s song says: He’s got the whole world in his hands.

And as one child said to another: Jesus holds us all in his hands.

He’s got big hands.

From Genesis, to Psalms, to Isaiah, to John, to Revelation, Scripture details the ways that God is active in this world, holding it and guiding the strings of history to the glorious end that he has promised.

He is the creator.

He is the sustainer.

3B.

We believe that God is the judge of the universe.

Paul writes,

When Jesus was on this earth, he taught that God has a standard by which everyone must live, a standard by which God will judge.

One of his famous sermons is the Sermon on the Mount.

Throughout this sermon, Jesus says the phrase:

“You have heard that it was said… but I tell you.”

Jesus lays down a standard for life that is more stringent than anything his hearers had heard before, because it is a standard that is not based upon the culture but upon the holiness of God.

The creator and sustainer of the universe has a standard that he demands his creation follow.

And he will judge his creation on whether they have met that standard or not.

He is the creator.

He is the sustainer.

He is the judge.

4B.

We believe that God is the savior of the universe.

Back to Colossians.

Paul writes about Jesus.

Every single person who has ever lived has sinned against God.

We have not met that standard of his holiness.

We haven’t even gotten close.

We were created to be an image of God, but every day we shatter that image through our actions and our conversations.

Because of what we do, we will be judged one day.

We will be sent to an eternity apart from God.

If God is goodness, and hope, and love, and all these attributes that we really like.

Just think of what an eternity apart from goodness, hope, love, and everything else will be.

We call that place Hell.

God looked down at us with mercy and said that he loved us and did not want to be separated from his beloved creation for eternity.

So, he sent his son, the creator of the universe to come and live among us, bringing pictures of eternity everywhere he went as he taught and as he healed.

He brought hope and confidence and love.

He brought dignity to those society kicked out and he brought humility to those who lifted themselves to far up.

And then, he died.

The creator of the universe.

The sustainer of the universe.

The judge of the universe, hung on a cross, dying the most painful and humiliating death imaginable, just so he could pay the penalty for our sins.

He suffered judgment for us, so that we might be reconciled to him and have a personal relationship with our creator once again.

That is my God.

Is he yours?

Let’s talk about God.

He is the Living God

That is what we celebrate today, and hopefully everyday.

He is not dead.

There is no tomb somewhere that we can go and plant flowers and little crosses.

Yes, Jesus died on the cross.

They stabbed his side to make sure he was dead.

He was put into a tomb and enveloped in enough spices to kill him if he wasn’t already dead.

He died.

But on the third day, he came back to life.

How do we know that it is true?

Well, we have eyewitness accounts.

Here we are reading the account of Mary seeing Jesus.

The guy who is writing the account is the Apostle John, who not only saw the empty tomb, but he saw Jesus alive.

He ate meals with Jesus after the resurrection.

Peter, Thomas, and the rest of the Apostles saw the living, breathing Jesus.

In face, 500 people saw Jesus.

Paul tells us:

Being alive, everything that he promised us is true.

Being alive, our salvation is secure.

Being alive, he is able to sit at the right hand of God and intercede in our behalf.

If we have turned from our sin, confessing that we realize we are sinners and that we cannot do anything to save ourselves.