Easter 2026

Ryan Miller

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Sermon: Crown Christ King

It’s been a long time coming

Good morning, everyone, I’m Pastor Ryan

We are here to celebrate CHRIST RESURRECTED, His tomb empty, Hell robbed, the grave defeated

The Cross is vacant, the Tomb is empty, the Crown of thorns is replaced with a Crown of Righteousness

Jesus is ALIVE! Amen?! We don’t celebrate a still-crucified good person, we celebrate the Resurrected King!

Because of Jesus’s work on the Cross,

We have LIFE, and life abundantly

We have keys to victory

We have power over death, hell and the grave,

All because God has provided the way to be Saved.

JESUS is KING, and there is no other like Him

We celebrate the King of all kings - He is our ONE KING

And we wait patiently for the Day of the Lord - for His Return.

It won’t be long now…but it’s been a long time coming.

This world is a challenge.

I mean, it’s not the final boss,

but it’s giving - and giving way more than we ever wanted.

Maybe like me today, you’ve found this year to be quite the challenge.

It’s been heart-breaking. It’s been difficult. Even though its been giving, it’s been leaving a lot more wanting.

This wasn’t how its supposed to be. This isn’t how we wanted it to go.

But here we are. In a world more broken than we desire; leaving desires more than we wanted.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way!

The world wasn’t created for all this. The world wasn’t created for brokenness. It wasn’t created for separation anxieties, and absenteeisms.

It wasn’t created for you just to have difficult so you can grow better.

It was actually created perfect. The world was created perfectly, and people were living in harmony.

Until there was a choice. A choice that would decide for a man and a woman. A choice that would decide for all men and all women - for the whole world.

It was after that choice, that we witness a world that was the perfect utopia, become marred with anger, jealousy, war, abandonment, agony, defeat.

It was after that choice, that we find difficulty, that we find disease, that we find heart-ache, and heart-break.

It was a choice. A choice that was either what God had for mankind, or what mankind had for God.

THE CHOICE

Let me explain…

The Bible says that in the beginning God made all of Creation for His benefit, and it culminated with mankind.

We were made in the image and likeness of God.

When He created mankind, He formed Adam and Even, and He had you and me in mind in the process.

The world was perfect - perfectly aligned for mankind, and perfectly aligned with God

But mankind was prompted with a choice - a choice of continuing in what God had for mankind, or positioning themselves in a place where they would decide what to do with God.

Yes, they were fooled - into the idea that even in their own limited mind and capacities, that they could choose what would be better for them than what God had in store for them. It’s a hopeless choice we can still find ourselves in today.

They made the wrong choice. They chose themselves, and not God.

God arrives on the scene - with love and compassion finds them hiding from their own choice.

God finds them seeing themselves naked, covers them for a moment, and would begin a plan of redemption - a plan to redeem their choice.

-A plan to redeem life that would only lead to death.

It was a long time coming, but God finally shows up on the scene again.

After continued heartache and failure, mankind cannot rescue themselves.

God condescended Himself from His Heavenly realm, and took on human form - He became clothed with His own Creation.

The only begotten Son of God.

He was born, Jesus of Nazareth, and would begin to carve out a historic life.

He chose to take on flesh. He chose to take on this broken form. He chose to walk out a life of struggle

The same God, who made Heaven and earth, sent the Son of God to walk among us and show us a life that leads back to victory.

A life that leads back to fulfillment.

A life that leads back to righteousness.

A life that leads back to the choice - of choosing our way, or the Way that leads to life everlasting.

Jesus would peak His process in what we now call Holy Week. This Holy Week was a long time coming. People waited thousands of years for this moment - just not in the way they expected.

Last week we celebrated Palm Sunday - it was the day Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem, on a donkey.

His message of peace was celebrated by a city in uproar - calling on “Hosanna”! Hosanna in the highest! Save us!”

The script would flip so quickly though.

No one can effectively describe the abuse He would endure over the next 5 days. No one can relate to what He went through.

Jesus begins telling those closest to Him what His end of the road is going to look like.

Some there anoint and worship Him with expensive perfumes, and others make a mockery of His gifts and treat it as a waste.

He orders the Passover dinner - feeds His friends and talks about one of them being a fraud.

For that same fraud and the other disciples, Jesus gets down and humbles Himself to wash their feet.

That same fraud sells Him out for 30 pieces of silver.

Jesus gets away to go pray - He wrestles with God the Father in prayer and His flesh is not buying it, but His Divinity is craving

The fact that He must go to suffer the most excruciating form of torturous death to fulfill His purpose.

The fact that He, who never sinned - never did anything wrong - would have to take on every single sin from every human being that ever existed or would exist. He would have to take on all the filth, the knowledge, the trash, the evil, the wickedness - all of it.

My sins, your sins, her sins, his sins - all of our sins He would know and own; and He sweats blood over it.

And then is fake friend comes - and sells Jesus out with a kiss. He’s handed over to be falsely arrested, falsely accused, and falsely beaten.

His friends abandon Him. He has no one to defend Him.

And He’s dragged away - made a mockery, stripped naked and flogged.

They pound a crown of thorns into His skull, they mock Him while He suffers.

They rip out His beard, beat Him more, they rip open His flesh by whipping and beating Him.

Then they made my Jesus carry His own cross; weighing around a 100 pounds, and dragging it up hill for half a mile.

He carried and dragged the old rugged cross - until he physically could not, and someone helped Him finish.

Then they took nails and pounded one into each hand, and one through both of His feet.

And they raised that old rugged Cross and dropped it into its stand; Jesus’s own body weight hanging there and pounded as the cross settled -

There He hung, on the hill called Golgotha, suspended between Heaven and Earth -

It was in that place He knew YOU- you see before getting there, He had you on His mind, He knew He was taking the payment of every one of your sins, the punishment of each pathetic choice that wasn’t God’s choice for our lives -

There He is suspended knowing it, carrying the weight of the world on top of His hanging body.

It’s there He knew - that He fulfilled every requirement that God had for redeeming your life, redeeming your story, redeeming your choice.

It’s there that Jesus prays to the Father - for your forgiveness and mine.

It’s there that Jesus intercedes on your behalf and mine

The Bible says in God’s eyes, Jesus becomes the sin of the world - all our sins were upon Him in that moment.

It’s there that Jesus receives the final blow in what it feels like to be lonely- the moment when God Himself abandons you - because you made a Choice.

And He cries out - “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

That choice…He knows. It was a choice. For Jesus, it was a choice - and it was a long time coming.

THE VICTORY

His choice though was in victory.

This is the thing about God. He only knows Victory.

You see leading up to this moment on the Cross, He had several personal battles.

When He fought depression, He won.

When He fought sickness, He won.

When He fought anxiety, He won.

When He fought abandonment, He won.

When He fought belittling and mockery, He won.

When He fought being falsely accused, He won.

When He fought being stabbed in the back, He won.

When He fought temptation, He won.

When He fought satan himself, He won.

He won - Jesus wins - He won - He wins every time

And when He was suspended on the Cross and praying for you and me, and praying to God for our forgiveness - He won

He won because He made His last declaration before His final breath-

The Word of God - who was made flesh and dwelt among us - the Word of God, who proceed from the Father as the ONLY begotten Son,

The Word of God - who flows only from the Will of the Father -

Said three specific words: IT IS FINISHED

And when declared this - IT IS FINISHED - this was a victory declaration that reverberated not around the entire world but throughout the entire timeline of Creation.

It was a long time coming - ONE CHOICE. ONE TIME. ONE VICTORY. All else is conquered and covered.

Because God said IT IS FINISHED, it was the final Word, you and I can now have a Savior.

Even when Jesus was at the point of giving up his life spirit - He already said IT IS FINISHED

That means all is done, all is covered, all is paid for, all is taken care of He has the receipts.

He owns victory over death - death couldn’t stop Him.

He owns victory over hell - Hell couldn’t hold Him.

He owns the keys to every grave - the grave couldn’t contain Him.

The Choice was only one choice with one specific result - the final Word. It is finished

And on that third and glorious morning -

The tomb rolled away, and Christ walked out of that grave

Having stole the keys to death, Hell, and the grave

And brought resurrection power with Him back to this earth for all who believe

on the wonderful glorious Name of Jesus -

Oh but that isn’t His only Name

When He said IT IS FINISHED, there imparts every aspected of His Holiness into every need you and I can possibly have:

He is called

The last Adam,

Our Advocate,

the Alpha and Omega

He is called AMEN

He is the Author of eternal salvation

He is the Beginning and the End

Beginning of the creation of God

The Blessed One

The Branch of Life

The Bread of Life

The Bread of God

The Captain of Salvation

He is the Christ, the Christ child

my Companion, and the Chief Cornerstone

He is Counselor

the Son of David,

The Dayspring,

Deliverer and the Desire of all Nations

He is Everlasting Father

our Faithful witness

the First and the Last

the Firstborn of all creation

He is God, and God eternally blessed

Head over all things

Healer of every disease

Heir of all things

High Priest The Most Holy, the Holy One, and the Horn of Salvation

He is the very Image of God, and Immanuel

He is Jesus, the Just One

The King of Israel, the King of the Jews, the King of all kings

He is the Lamb of God

the Life, the Light of the World, the True Light

He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah

the Living Stone

Lord, Lord God, Lord God Almighty, Lord of Glory and Lord of All

He is the Maker and Preserver of all things

Mediator, Messiah, Mighty God, and the Morning Star

He is our Passover, the Great Physician,

our Priest Forever, Prince of life and Prince of peace

He is our Prophet and Propitiation of our sins

He is our Redeemer, our Righteousness, the Ruler of the kinds of the earth

He is the same, yesterday, and forever,

Savior, Servant, Shepherd and Overseer of souls

He is the good Shepherd of the sheep, The Great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd

He is Shiloh, the beloved Son, the only begotten Son - the Son of God and the Son of Man

He is our bright and morning Star

and the Sun of Righteousness

He is the Truth, He is the Vine, He is the Way

He is the faithful and true Witness

He is Wonderful

He is the Word

And He is the Word of God

And my question to you today is DO YOU KNOW HIM?

Because it’s a Choice

CLOSING

For some of you today, this is a choice that’s a long time coming.

Before Christ, you didn’t have a choice.

But because of Christ - today, this moment right now, you have a Choice.

What do you need from Him today? Because He’s made a choice - out of His undying love for you, to give you a choice!

God’s Word over your life today is IT IS FINISHED

Romans 5:8 “8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

What died with Him was the immorality, the shame, the guilt, the disgust of life, the filth, the anxiety, the depression, the separation from God

You can choose the one who said, it’s all finished. You can choose to not hold on to those things anymore.

Will you release your claim over your soul today and give it to the One who can cleanse you?

He can redeem your story. Your story is hopeless without Him. But in Christ there’s still hope - He is our Hope of Glory.

Only in Jesus is there victory over this life. Do you choose Christ today?

Listen to me very carefully today -

If you’ve been bound and suffering - it’s been a long time coming

Today you have a choice - if today you’re making that choice to receive Christ and His life today, will you raise your hand?

You know you’ve pushed away far too long. You know you’ve resisted far too long. Today, you’re done fighting. Today you’re ready to receive what God’s choice is for you.

This world - its not our home!

Our heavenly relocation - It’s been a long time coming.

Here’s your opportunity. For every one that raise their hand this morning - as an act of solidarity to choosing Christ, as your first act of faith in Jesus, I want you to step out and come up front to this altar area and receive Him and His salvation. Take that step of faith - flex your faith in Jesus. Let Him bring you victory and life everlasting.