Easter Sunday 2023
Notes
Transcript
Intro: Flying Upside Down
Intro: Flying Upside Down
Good morning and Welcome to River’s Edge Church.
We are so happy that you are here for Easter, I hope I get a chance to meet each of you. I also want to give a special welcome to those watching online this morning.
Well before we get into the Bible this morning, I want to tell this story that sets us up for today
A number of years ago, A fighter pilot was running through tactical maneuvers and as he is flying doing all sorts of crazy training things...
He looks at his altimeter and realizes that he is just way too close to the ground
So when he goes to pull up to gain elevation, he suddenly crashes and explodes into the ground
The pilot had not realized that he was flying upside down...
Now I am not a pilot so I don’t know but I would imagine that one of the problems with flying upside down in a jet fighter…When you do it long enough, it seems normal
You can see where I am going with this right?
When the whole world just goes about their life in an upside down way,
then upside down gets confused with right side up! You start to hear the phrase…well this is the “new normal” and you hear it quite a lot
Have you ever had the experience of doing something wrong your whole life and then when someone showed you the right way, you just felt like a total dufas?
What if everyone including you is flying upside down through life?
Do you ever feel that way? Like man it just seems like nothing is working out and everything is backwards?
Well it is not this way by accident.
All of humanity is flying upside down
All of humanity is flying upside down
I believe that all of us at one point in our lives are flying upside down
And there was one catalyzing event that happened that really reveals to us why the world is like this
Way back in Genesis 3, Humanity rebelled against the life of God. God wanted to live life with humans…He wanted human partnership, he wanted a human family…
But sin separates us from God and that happened millennia ago but rebellion still defines our heart today!
Intrinsically we all are rebels right? Each of us...
In fact humanity has flown upside down for so long and so often that we simply turn on the news and we can see a world full of
Violence
Anger
School Shootings
Lust run wild
The human condition of sin is flying upside down…it is going about life in a way where we are alone and devoid of God.
It is just the way that most people talk
Things like narcissism ...
An obsession with status and wealth
Acting as if aging is something to be worried about...
Lying has become normal and common place for humanity
Things like hating your neighbor because of their political values has become common place
Things like underhanded racial comments or prejudging
having the last word in online fights
Ignoring your family because you’d rather be on instagram
See all of humanity has been flying together upside down, and it is SO COMMON THAT WE DON’T EVEN SEE IT ANY MORE
When Sin entered the world, humanity stopped living their life in the power and fullness of God
And the the greatest power that was left was death…So everyone just started living to avoid death...
Ladies and Gentlemen, Flying upside down has become a world wide movement that we don’t even recognize any more…because it has become our default way of life
The Invitation of Jesus
The Invitation of Jesus
But through it all …There is this carpenter form Nazareth who claimed to be somebody…
This man claimed to be the son of the living God...
And his Good News that he had was short & Radical:
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Lets break this down:
The invitation of Jesus is to live life with each of us right here and now
The invitation of Jesus is to live life with each of us right here and now
Repent : Repent means to change your mind and your life....
So for example…When electricity came out…People converted their whole houses..Their entire lives changed…They repented from the days of going to bed early…All of the sudden people stayed up late and changed their whole lives
For the kingdom of the heavens has come near
See this invitation of Jesus is not a matter of hearing what Christ said long ago and , “trying to cary it out” rather, the real son of God is at your side!
What Jesus is saying in this little statement is so huge and massive...
He is saying, what humanity threw away in the garden…I am making available again...
Jesus in the very beginning of his ministry is announcing that God is available in your personal life…Just like Adam and Eve had God available to them...
Jesus’ invitation is that his life is available to you and you can fly right side up again...
So often times there is an invitation but how can we know if that invitation is backed up with power? With something real and tangible?
That takes us to the very first resurrection morning
That takes us to the very first resurrection morning
This is Jesus’ invitation to each one of us...
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Now before we get into the reality of the resurrection:
I love in Marks Gospel…if you have been following along…Everyone scatters from Jesus, Peter full on denies Jesus…The disciples are all scattered…but the women are the heroes, they are faithfully there…They are even going to attend to Jesus’ body without a plan to roll away the stone…They just trust that someone will help them but they don’t know who or what will happen
And it is these women who get the divine announcement, who are the first witnesses to the resurrection.
Many people give the bible a hard time about being anti-woman, but I just don’t think they have read it. jesus has a very serious redemption of women in his ministry.
So these women find the stone rolled away
There is no earthly explanation for a stone to be rolled away…No one is there and this would have been a massive stone
So the implication is that it is God himself who did it.
And the angel says this to the women
Mark 16:6 (NIV)
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.
One of the things that seems hard for us to remember as humans is that Jesus overcame death, which means he is still alive on the throne today.
We are not here every Sunday proclaiming our belief in a theoretical and far away God…
A kind of idea, we are here every week to proclaim that God put flesh on n the person of Jesus...
He took all of our sin on his body…Allowed himself to experience death on the cross and then rose again, he literally defeated death
We are here every Sunday proclaiming a God who is alive and real.
Which means his gospel announcement from Mark 1 that he is available to us didn't stop when he died,…But his promise of being available to us is now this eternal promise…
Just as he was alive when he rose from the grave, the hope of Easter is that Jesus is available to you right now!
Abraham in the Bible…He died and people visited his tomb...
Buddha died of eating Bad pork…He stayed dead
The Prophet Muhammed died of what historians think was the flu…He has remained dead
Confucius died from natural causes at age, 72…he is still dead
But Jesus sands alone. See the central claim of Christianity is that this Carpenter from Nazareth died and then rose again
Our central claim is that he is still alive!
The resurrection means death is defeated and we can stop flying upside down.
The resurrection means death is defeated and we can stop flying upside down.
But what does that mean that one man overcame death?
But what does that mean that one man overcame death?
What Adam lost in the Garden, is now available to you
Repent..>Change your mind, for God’s way of life has now come near
And the absolutely radical claim of easter is that the life and the power of God is available to you where you sit!
You no longer need to fly upside down!
See in Easter, Jesus flips the script!
What we tend to believe is that death is the most powerful force in humanity
We try and avoid it
We buy insurance for it
It is one of humanity's greatest fears
But in Jesus christ, there is no more power in death!
I love what the apostle Paul says about that first easter morning because he helps us to understand what easter means to us:
1 Corinthians 15:22
The New International Version Chapter 15
22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Do you get it?
Jesus reversed all that Adam did and makes available to all humanity the life of God.
To fly right side up again,
To build a new person within you
To reshape you into his image
God knew what he was doing when he created you…The problem is that we see our parents and the rest of the world flying upside down and we assume that it is a safe way to go, but the reality is that it is a deadly way to go.
Jesus wants to make you alive...
He wants to invite you into a new kind or quality of life, where he is in charge and his life flows through our own.
But there is more to all of this, when you really grasp that Jesus rose from the dead and you give yourself over to Jesus then he does something even more he gives you a purpose in this world....
In the book 2 Corinthians 5 the Apostle Paul says
The New International Version Chapter 5
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Do you get it? The writer of this the apostle Paul is just going on about how much the resurrection means to us…
There are two points to these verses that we need to grasp today
The resurrection of Jesus both reconciles us to him and makes us His partner in His reconciliation of the world
The resurrection of Jesus both reconciles us to him and makes us His partner in His reconciliation of the world
But something he is saying here in verse 17 really demands that we look at it a but further:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
See the whole bible awaits a new creation…A new heaven and a new earth…Isaiah 65 waits for this moment…All of the prophets in the bible await for a time of a new creation
A time when the whole world is set right and its isn’t just individuals flying right side up but its the whole world
People get really confused when we talk about the book of Revelation but I’ll give you a little cheat sheet really fast...
Its about the old world of sin and shame dying off and a new world emerging through the people of God
At the end here is what it says
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
A new heaven and a new earth....See the old order has passed away
The whole business of death is gone
The whole idea of sin is thrown out
We wont talk about injustice any more because there will only be justice in this new word
Lying wont be a thing, because the world will be ruled by the truth!
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Then in verse 5…God on the throne says…I am making all things new!
Between Revelation 21, and 2 Corinthians 5 we see this very impotrant point
I don’t think this gets talked about enough at easter services…But the entire Bible is pointing to the fact that
The resurrection of Jesus is day one of the new creation!
The resurrection of Jesus is day one of the new creation!
The promise of God is not a far off distant promise! it is for right here and now!
The promise of God to make you new is for today
And not only do we get to be made new but we get to become partners with the living God in the reconciliation of the world
Why would God do this?
Because
Jesus loves you enough to put your sin to death on the cross and make you into a new creation
Jesus loves you enough to put your sin to death on the cross and make you into a new creation
Response / Challenge (As the band comes forward)
Response / Challenge (As the band comes forward)
This is the story of Easter
And maybe your here today and you heard me talking about flying upside down
You just know…thats you
You already intrinsically know that you are obsessed with money and status and that isn’t right
You just know that your sexual sin makes distance between you and God
You know that you can not keep going on with your anger
You know that hating your neighbor because of their political values just shouldn’t be right
I believe that you are not here by accident
I believe that God wanted you here today because you are flying upside down
And without flying right side up, your headed for disaster and you know it
The only way is surrender
To confess that you are actually flying upside down and you need the living God in your life to make you new!
So maybe your here and as I am talking about this your heart is beating in your beat a little faster and you just know this message is for you today
That is nothing that I am doing, that is the Holy Spirit leading you to choose Jesus
So flying right side up takes bold action
It take the courage to respond …It takes a laying down of your life and coming to God and admitting that you need to be made new
It takes the courage to say yes to Jesus
“If you are already flying upside down and don't know it, your cleverness will do you little good.”
If you are already flying upside down…Your own attempts at significance will never lead you there
If you are already flying upside down…Your wealth will bring your little security
If you are already flying upside down…Beauty will never be enough
This Easter....Maybe it is time that the rest of your life and your eternity is changed
and you surrender your own life and put your confidence in Jesus
So I want to invite you to do something bold today
If this is you...
If your flying upside down
or if at one point in your life…you were flying right side up but then you flipped it again
I want to invite you to a relationship with jesus where you will fly right side up again
where he will make you into a new creature
The alter is open
I want to invite you forward because we have people who want to pray for you