Easter Sunday 4/9/23

Christ: Our Firm Foundation.

ACTIVITY:

Something is Different:

Make 2 teams. Have each team select a team captain.

Have the teams stand opposite of one another and let them study each other.

Have 1 team leave the room.

The team left in the room changes up 10 thing about the people on their team.

Write them down.

Bring the other team in to guess.

Repeat for Team 2 and then end.

Point for later in the lesson:

If I could change myself, I’d be good.

Or

If I could just change 3 things about me, then people would like and accept me more?

Or

Maybe i’m already accepted, but I feel like there is still something missing and if I could just change ______ then I would feel better about myself…

_____________________________________________________

What is your foundation at school?

What is it about school that drives you to try? Friends, grades, etc…? What is it?

What is the foundation of your family? Without this, your family would fall apart?

What is your foundation for life?

What is your life grounded on?

It’s ok for this to be something not Christian-ese ok?

We sang this morning about how Christ is our firm foundation.

The Rock on which I stand.

Maybe at school, it’s grades for you.

You think your life would fall apart if you don’t keep your grades up.

Maybe its friends and if your friends moved away your life would fall apart.

Maybe at home it’s your dad or mom.

Maybe it’s traditions you do in your family or trips you take.

Maybe it’s just simply all the sports. You do sports as a family and without that you would be lost.

Can I just remind us all of something this morning.

One day, grades won’t matter. Today they do, but can I just say, grades haven’t mattered in my life for some time now and It’s great to be on this side of things.

One day, people we love will die. This past weekend, we buried Allison’s grandpa.

It was Allison’s dad’s dad that passed. And to be honest with you, we were not that close with him, but still close enough that it hurt certainly.

However, one of Allison’s family members got the news and thought it was Starla’s dad that had passed away.

Papa is a patriarch in Kentucky. I feel like life for everyone there revolves around him. He is a foundation in that area for many people. He’s a almost 80 yr old farmer. I eat meat from his farm almost every month.

When he passes away, it’s going to rock so many people because he’s just a good, strong, hard-working, loving man.

But you know what. He will die.

We all will die.

The issue for us isn’t that we will die, it’s that we ignore it.

Today any one of us could pass away.

Grades matter so much to us today even though we know one day they won’t matter.

Sports matter so much even though we know one day they will end.

People matter so much to us and we know one day, they will not be with us anymore.

SO what’s my point?

Here’s my point:

Everyday, in every situation, what is your foundation for living this life?

If we know that so much can change and will change throughout our lives.

How are you preparing and living your life now so that the foundations of your life won’t change when circumstances around you do?

Your life will absolutely change.

It should change.

But our hope, our foundation for life, shouldn’t.

1 Corinthians 15:17-20 “17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

3 things today I’d like us to see from these verses.

Change is unavoidable.

We played a game earlier today where you knew change was coming, so you were looking for it.

However, life isn’t typically like that.

Things happen quickly and before we know it, our entire life is different in the blink of an eye.

You may or may not have experienced this yet, but wow it’ll rock you.

I haven’t talked about this in a while, but after Allison and I had Roman, we got pregnant again.

I don’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl, but at 10 weeks in the womb, Allison miscarried.

We lost that precious child.

A child I had already seen on an ultrasound.

A child I had seen move.

A child whose heartbeat I had listened to and looked forward to meeting.

Then in the blink of an eye… everything changed.

I think life changes most in the giving and receiving of life.

Nothing will change you more than having a child and gaining someone you will love forever

and

nothing will change you more than losing someone you love and never hearing their voice this side of heaven again.

The question then is this.

Change is unavoidable, so what is your hope in change?

We sang today:

Christ is my firm foundation.

The rock on which I stand

WHen everything around me is shaken

I’ve never been more glad

That I put my faith in Jesus

He’s never let me down.

He’s faithful through generations

SO why would he fail now?

He wont…

And that’s the truth of the resurrection this easter Morning.

Christ will never fail.

NEver.

Through all the change we experience in life, the one thing we should make the foundation of our lives is that Jesus… never changes!

He is the ROCK on which all stands!

Everything hinges on the Resurrection though.

What if it didn’t happen?

2. The resurrection is the foundation of Easter and our Faith.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 “17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

If the resurrection never happened… what are we doing?

Everything hinges on this!

I can prove it to you.

John 7:1-6 “1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him. 6 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.”

While Jesus was on earth, His own brother wasn’t sure Jesus was God.

2 things would have to be true to believe your brother is God.

He is perfect.

He has power over life and death.

1 Corinthians 15:7 “7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”

*****Read more about this*****1 Corinthians 9:5 “5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?”

What would lead James from a skeptic to a believer?

He believed Jesus did raise from the grave and that He was righteous.

It’s written about by a secular historian Josephus and by Luke and Paul (in Acts, 1 Corinthians, and Galatians especially) that James was a leader in the early church.

And around 62 Ad, James is killed for preaching the gospel.

Now I don’t know about you, but if my brother is part of a cult, I’m not dying for Him.

However… if my brother really was who he says he is, he would be worth dying for.

THAT CHANGES YOU FOLKS!