The Purpose of Easter

If i was to ask the question, what is the purpose of Easter what woudl your answers be?

What is the meaning of Easter?

I think we can get lots of answers? The easter bunny, mini eggs, easter egg hunts. Or maybe some differnt answers like Jesus dying, Jesus taking away our sins,

Now don’t get me wrong i do belive that those are some great reasons, and answers for whst Easter is. I believe that there is a bigger reason for why easter is so important, and why i belive that this week that we are in now, is one of the most Holy and sacred weeks of the year.

And so tonight… I want to talk about Easter—but not just like… “Jesus died, Jesus rose again,” and we move on.

I want us to actually understand what’s going on. Because there is so much more than that.

I think it is importnat to state Easter doesn’t start in the Gospels. It doesn’t even start with Jesus.

It starts way back at the beginning.

And so does anyone rember what we talked about last week? Or what Book of the bible we were in?

What did we learn from the first verse in Genesis?

We learned that God is the creartor, and if God is the creator, then we are the created…

We learned that because God is the creator everything belongs to him..

Which ultimately means that whether we like it or not

God is the King of our lives..

And so i want you to remember that for the rest of tonight as we keep going, and i hope that you see a theme through the Bible.

And so i want us to turn to Genesis 3. Becuase this is where everything changes.

And so in Genesis 3 we are introduced to Adam and Eve, we will learn a bit more about them next week, But Adam and eve were the first people to live on the world. They had a perfect relationship with God.

And so when God placed Adam in the garden he gave Adam one command.

Genesis 2:15–17 NIV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

And so we move to the next chapter where we are introduced to this serpent and the serpent comes and says to Eve.

““Did God really say that?”

basically meaning

“Can you really trust Him?” “Wouldn’t it be better if you decided what’s right?”

And so we read in:

Genesis 3:6 NLT

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

We will talk more about this next week, But Adam and Eve decide to disobey God.. Personally i don’t believe that Adam and Eve eating of the fruit was the first sin in the bible.. But the first sin in my opinion is when in verse 6 it says

Genesis 3:6 NLT

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

The greatest sin that was commited was to be like God.. To be the King..

I think we sometimes think that sin is just lying, cheating, or doing bad things…

But sin comes down to our hearts wanting to take away the throne of God..

And the root of that is pride…

Adam and Eve wanted to be like God… and that is the same for us today.. And so we will get into that more next week..

But here’s the question that leaves us with:

If God is King… and humanity has rejected Him…

What happens now?

And this is the story of the whole Bible. Because all throughout the old testament which is the first part of the bible, God was making a promise that somoene was coming who would deal with sin and defeat evil and death..

In fact if you are still in Genesis 3 God says to the serpent who was satan, or the devil

Genesis 3:15 ESV

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

And so that verrse may not make sense, but esseitnally what it is saying is that somoene is coming and somoene is going to deal with sin and evil.

A king who who set things right.

And so fast forward a lot of years in the bible and the people of Israel are in one of the most wicked times on earth.

Judges 21:25 NIV

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

Which we know that Israel had a King, it’s King was always God.. But they didnt have an earthyl king.

…and so a couple of months ago we went through the story of Saul. Do you guys remember?

The people are asking for a king… someone to rule over them…

And this is really important— because they already had a King.

God was their King. But they didn’t want that.

And so god says one of the most heartbreaking verses in th bible

1 Samuel 8:7 NIV

And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.

Doesn’t that sound familiar, sound similar to what happened in the book of Genesis.

Again they are essentially says

“We don’t want God to rule over us… we want someone else…

or

“ we want ourselves.”

And So God gives them Saul, and Saul looks like the most perfect King:

He’s tall. He’s strong. He looks the part.

And so for a moment in the bible it looks like the king that person who was promised to defeat sin and death was finally here

But what happens?

He fails.

He disobeys God. He starts doing things his own way. He cares more about people’s approval than God’s command.

And then so we see read that Saul was rejected as King….

And so the peopls still wanted a King...

Do you guys remember who God raised up after Saul?

Who was the most famous King of Israel in the Bible?

Remember a couple months ago we learned about David and how David was diffent; infact it says

1 Samuel 13:14 ESV

The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

Notice anything intersting about that verse..

It doesn’t say king.

It says prince.

Why?

Because even though Israel had a human king… God never stopped being King.

David wasn’t the ultimate King… he was ruling under the true King.

And I think that’s really important for us to see. Because even at Israel’s best moment… even with their best king…

God is still the one on the throne. David isn’t perfect. Becasue what did we learn about David.

He sins.

He fails.

He makes huge mistakes.

And what we start to see is this pattern:

No matter who the king is…

if it’s just a human… it’s not enough. They all fall short.

And so the question is still there:

Where is the true King?

The one who won’t fail… The one who won’t sin… The one who can actually deal with the problem of sin… and fix what’s broken…

And that question… is exactly what leads us to Easter.

Jesus

And so fast forward now to the New Testament..

We are introduced to a man named Jesus, who was born from the virgin Mary.

Everythign about Jesus is differntd than every other person..

He teaches with authority, not like the other teachers.

He heals people. He casts out demons. He calms storms.

And people start to wonder, “Is this the one? Is this the King we’ve been waiting for?”

And then there’s this moment where Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, and people are shouting, “Hosanna! Save us now!”

They’re laying down palm branches, celebrating Him like a king.

And in their minds, this is it.

This is the King. This is the one who is going to take over. This is the one who is going to defeat our enemies.

But they were expecting the wrong kind of King.

They thought He came to take a throne… They thought he was there to overthrow the government…

But instead of that what does Jesus do? or to better ask the question?

What is one of the biggest things Jesus did on earth?

He died

Jesus died…

And you see to the people that made no sense, why would this man who was supposed to be God just die…

If He is the one sent by God, or better yet this man was claiming to be God, and so why would he be arrested, beaten, and put on a cross to die?

I want you guys to know that on the cross Jesus said one of the most important words in the whole bible.

“It is Finished”

What did Jesus mean by “It is finished”? Any guesses?

That was Jesus saying, “The plan is complete.”

Everything that started back in Genesis, everything God promised, everything Israel had been waiting for—it all comes together right here.

And so my one of my main point for tonight is yes Jesus died to take away each persons sin, He died because he loves each and every one of you, and yes he died to deal with sin..

But the two pinncacle reasons why Jesus died on the cross, was to show that

1. He is God, and only God could could be the perfect King to take away all of our sin.

2. God is still king

So when we look at Easter—yes, Jesus died for sin, that’s true.

But it’s even bigger than that.

Easter shows us that God has always been King, and He has been working out His plan all along.

And so my question is now:

What is the real meaning of Easter?

Easter is one of the most beatiful weeks, and times of the year… And i guess my point is… I dont want Easter to just a one day thing, or a week where we just think about choclate or the easter bunny…

My point really is:

Jesus is king

We are not any diffrent than Adam and Eve or Saul, David or Israel. inthe fact of:

We still want control. We still want to do things our way. We think we know better than God.

At the end of the day… We want to be the ones on the throne.

And that all comes down a pride issue..

Becuase its not our throne.. It’s God’s

Ans so the question isn’t, “Is Jesus King?”

The question is, “Are you living like He is?”

Because there’s really only two ways to live. Either you keep trying to run your life…

or you step down… and let Him be King.

And so my question is.. will you allow God to be the King of your life?

or will you continue to do what is you think is right in your own eyes?