Good morning! If you are a first time guest here this morning I want to especially welcome you and thank you for taking the time to join us for this very special Easter celebration. I see quite a few new faces and I want you to know that I consider it a privilege that you choose to spend this time with us. My name is David and I am the Lead Pastor here at North Point.

    I am telling you my title because I just figured you are smart people and will figure that out eventually. But I have to confess to you that I really don’t like telling people what I do. It’s not that I am embarrassed by what I do. I love what I do and I consider it a great privilege to work for God and with people.

    What I have experienced is that when people discover what I do, a strange and sort of surprised look comes over their face, sort of like when your Mom caught you digging out cookies in the cookie jar and then they start to talk with me as if I am not a “normal” person. Somehow being a pastor makes me weird to some people.

   I remember one business seminar I attended. We were sitting around a large round table waiting for the seminar to start and someone decided that we all needed to get to know each other. So the introductions began; someone would say their name and then share their company bio. One guy said that he was a CEO of a big financial company, I thought wow. Another person said that they were in sales for another company and that they were responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sales for their company. I began to realize that I was sitting with some very successful and powerful business people. And then it came for my turn and I though O great here we go, and as soon as I told them I was a pastor, they sort of smiled, gave that cookie jar look and then avoided me for the rest of the seminar.

   At that point I decided I needed a better way to describe what I do. Can I share my new job description with you?

   Ok, you ask me what I do – go ahead.

  Well, thanks for asking. I work for a global enterprise. Our global enterprise has branches in nearly every country in the world; we even have braches operating underground in places like China and Pakistan. Our organization has hospitals, hospices, food and homeless shelters all over the world. We also do justice work, we offer reconciliation services, we have orphanages, and we do marriage guidance counseling all over the world. We also have educational endeavors that help people discover truths that can set them free from bondages and improve their lives in dramatic ways; our educational endeavors cover people from kindergarten all the way through graduate school.

   But if I had to boil all that down to just basics, I would say that we look after people from birth to death and we deal primarily in the area of behavioral and life transformation; our goal is to help people discover a power that not only can change individual lives, but can transform and enrich people’s most important relationships. I happen to be the CEO of one of those branches and the overall name of our company is called “The Church”.

     What do you think?

   Everything I said is true, I know it’s not what most people think when they think of the church, but that’s because they don’t really understand what the church is suppose to be doing, or worse they have had the unfortunate experience of being on the receiving end of a religious person who does not understand what the church is suppose to be about.

   But the truth is that if you are a Christ-follower than you are a part of this global enterprise as well and not only is the church a global enterprise, it’s also inter-galactic because it includes everyone that has gone before us and everyone who will be after us. That is an accurate description of what we are doing together this morning as North Point Church.

   Especially today, on Easter, which is to say that today is the day that we celebrate the efforts and accomplishment of our Founder. Easter is a celebration and a time to remember what our Founder did to start this amazing, historical, world-changing global enterprise. And whether you are here by conviction or by guilt, you are here because of what Jesus did 2,000 + years ago.

     Now Easter is not the whole story. A little less than two days ago we remembered another day that we call, “Good Friday”. Good Friday is the day we remember what happened in history. “Good Friday” is the day we remember what Jesus Christ did, what actually happened in history. It’s really not about some ceremony or religious ritual that we do; no, it’s a day to recognize an actual event that that happened to our Founder, an event that took place in time on earth and not matter what you believe about Jesus, very few people disputes the fact that it happened. Good Friday is a historically based and generally recognized fact.

    Rachel, my daughter, asked me this week why we call that day “good”. She said, “Dad, shouldn’t that day be called “Bad Friday”?

    Well, the people around Jesus that day certainly acted badly. They mistreated and tortured our Founder, a person who did nothing to deserve it – that was definitely bad.

   However, that day is called “good” because what Jesus went through resulted in solving a really bad situation.

    For us to understand how really good that day was, we have to understand how really bad the situation was before that first Good Friday.

   You see every human being in the history of the world is guilty of sin and as a result we are all going to die – that’s bad.

   Now there are three sides or facets to sin. If might have heard about the seven deadly sins, well these seven sins fit under one of three categories or types of sin. So what I would challenge you to do is to keep score. As I explain these things, I want to challenge you to take note of how you have done.

   So if you take my challenge I just want to point out that the “we are all going to die” thing is bad, nothing good about that.

I. FAIL TO DO

    The first type of sin that we commit is when we fail to do what God has demanded that we do.

     It’s sort of like a target at a shooting range and this target has two circles. The bull’s-eye says, “Love God” and the outer circle says, “love people” and anything outside of these two circles is a miss. These are the two things that God says that we are obligated to do, it’s our responsibility.

    And every day you and I have a new opportunity to shoot at this target. Every day we get a new bow and a new set of arrows and with our choices we take aim; we put the arrow in the bow and we shoot; we make choices, and many times we miss the target. So we sins when we fail to love God or we fail to love our neighbors. This is all that God requires of us; to love God and to love our neighbor. Jesus said it this way in Matthew 22:37-40:

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40, NLT)

   It’s important to understand that the idea of love here is not referring to some warm feelings or even worse than that is equating love to the idea that we are just to be “nice.” No, the Biblical definition of love is based on a choice; love is a choice we make to seek the highest good of another person, regardless of our feelings or our circumstances or whether the other person deserves it. We love when we act in the best interest of our neighbors and we love God when we choose to honor Him as God in our life.

   So love is a choice, not a feeling or just being “nice”.  The opposite of love then is selfishness and indifference. Selfishness happens when we choose to do only what is best for ourselves – it’s the ultimate act of narcissism. Selfishness misses the mark of loving God and loving our neighbor.

    Indifference happens when we choose to ignore our responsibility to love someone we are in relationship with; when we just don’t care what happens to someone else and both of these are sin – miss the mark to love God and to love our neighbor.

  OK, score yourself on this one will you. It’s OK this is a safe place. How is your aim? To be honest the fact is that every one of us has missed the mark; we have all chosen to act selfishly and we have all been indifferent to those who we are responsible to love. In fact there is not one person here this morning that has never missed and because of that we are all guilty of sin and therefore we are all going to die – which I point out again is a bad thing.

II. TRESSPASS

    Another facet of sin defined in the Bible refers to the idea of Trespass. Trespass means to do what is forbidden for us to do. We trespass when we do something that we shouldn’t do to a person, to their rights or to their property. We also trespass against God when we do something God says we shouldn’t do.

   Let me try to illustrate this. There are some things that God says we shouldn’t do, not a lot of them, but there are some and these “do nots” can be linked back to not loving others or not loving God. Things as “Do not steal”, or “do not slander others”, “do not worship anything other than God” and things like that.

      It’ sort of like God has fenced off, He put a circle around some areas and He says to us that we are not to go there. God says to us that we can go wherever we want to go and do whatever we want to do except don’t go over there; you must not climb over that small fenced in area, you must not step over that line; that is forbidden territory – do not trespass. And these fenced in areas are reasonable. I mean they just make sense of life in community and if we are going to experience the amazing life with God that He offers us.

    Now if you know anything about the history of human kind you quickly realize that we have this deep seated desire to be stupid. I have it in me and you have it in you.

    God says I have given you all kinds of amazing and wonderful gifts and all I ask is that you stay within the bounds; makes sense. God says to us, “if you stay within the bounds your life will be blessed, but if you step out of bounds you will suffer”. Pretty simple isn’t it. It’s not complicated nor is it very grey – it’s all pretty clear.

    So what do we do? Well we’re stupid, so we look around and we say, Wow God says that I can do this and this and this, very cool, quit an amazing world full of amazing wonders and pleasures. But you know what God also said that I should do that, Humm… I wonder I should go there? I wonder why that is; well, let’s find out and we step over the line, we climb over the fence and we get real stupid because we start to think to ourselves, “I know other people shouldn’t do this, but I can handle it” and we step over the fences.

    The Bible has a very compelling image for this kind of choices. It says in Proverbs that when we choose to trespass is about the same as a dog who returns to its vomit, good picture, gross, but actuate.

    The problem with stepping into forbidden territory is that it’s a little like quick-sand.  Once you step into it, it has a way of drawing you in further and further until you become a victim, until you become a slave, bound in the mire, stuck, which results in no longer being able to go and experience all the good and wholesome things God has for you.

     There is something about forbidden territory that destroys your relationships with the people you truly care about; just ask former Governor Spitzer, if the price he has paid for stepping into forbidden territory was worth the so called gain he thought he would receive.

     Forbidden territory has an appeal to us; it appears from the outside looking in to be fun and exciting, but once you step over the line, you discover that you cannot get yourself out of the slavery of the thing; you cannot go back and restore what you lost.

    So go ahead and score yourself on this on. Have you ever trespassed, step over the fences, stepped out of bounds? Truth be told we are all guilty of missing the mark and we are all guilty of trespass and therefore we are all going to die, again not a good thing.

    How are you feeling so far this morning? Are you still glad you joined us this morning?

There was a man in court and the judge asked him, “Are you innocent or guilty?” the man said, “I am innocent”. Four hours went by and suddenly the man shouted out, “I’m guilty, I’m guilty.” The judge asked, “Why didn’t you say that four hours ago?” The man replied, “Well, I didn’t realize that I was guilty until I heard all the evidence.”

III. INIQUITY

    There is one more facet to sin defined in the Bible. This third facet is described as “iniquity. Iniquity happens when we take something that originally was beautiful and wholesome and we use it in a perverted way that causes this good thing to be corrupted.

       Iniquity happens when we take the beautiful things of God and pervert it and we pollute it. So we take something like sex, which is a beautiful gift of God that He gave to a husband and wife and we use it in a perverted way.

     We take food, I like food don’t you? And we become gluttons. We take God’s creation and instead of being good stewards of it we abuse it and pollute it.

     We take the ability that God has given us to make money so that we can take care of our families and others and we take that and pervert it, we start to horde resources and we use it in the pursuit of our own personal pleasure and prosperity.

     The idea of iniquity is that we take something that God gave to us for good, to use it to love Him and others and we misuse it and pervert it.

   Ok, go ahead and score yourself on this one. Have you ever misused the beautiful things of God?  Sin means to miss the mark, trespass and pervert the beautiful things of God. So go ahead and mentally add up your score. Is there anyone here this morning that could give a testimony of a score of 0, that you have never missed the mark, never trespassed and never committed iniquity? Anyone? I know I can’t.

  Yea, that’s the problem for us isn’t it? I mean there is not one of us that has a perfect score. We are all guilty of missing the mark and trespass, and we are all guilty of iniquity and - because of that guilt you are all going to die – which I point out again is not a good thing.

      So that is the bad part and its well, bad and we have all done these things and therefore we are all going to die. Unless…isn’t that good that there is more to the story. Unless… look at what Jesus said about unless in the Gospel of John 8:24:

"That is why I said that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I Am who I claim to be, you will die in your sins." (John 8:24, NLT)

   There is a very important contrast. On one side we have discovered that because you and I have guilt we are all going to die, but on the other side is the UNLESS. I mean there is the good news, there is Easter. Unless you believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

     Notice the wording in this verse it is very important. Jesus said, “unless you believe that I Am…” That little phrase “I AM” is actually a reference to the name of God in the Old Testament. Every Jew who heard Jesus say this little phrase would instantly understand what Jesus was claiming. By saying that little phrase “I AM” they knew that Jesus was claiming to be God. There would have been is no mistake about that. Jesus said that every person will die in their sins unless they believe that Jesus is who He said He was, the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of people.

     Good Friday is not good because of what happened to Jesus that day, but rather Good Friday is “good” because of what Jesus made possible; that through what happened to Jesus on Good Friday and because of the resurrection on Easter, He now offers forgiveness of sin and restoration with God.

     Easter changes everything. God took the worst possible situation – the torture and death of His one and only Son and used it to turn around our death sentence. Look at how the Apostle Paul explained it in Romans 5:10:

For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. (Romans 5:10, NLT)

  There is it! The purpose of Easter was not for religious people, not for people who think that they are good enough. It you’re not a particularly religious person, if you have little or no religious background, if you really don’t feel connected to God then congratulations – this is your God ordained holiday.

    Jesus Christ did not come to earth for religious people, He couldn’t care less about religion. And I just want to say that I hate religion as well and I’m a pastor, or sorry I am a CEO a branch of a global enterprise.

   Religion is about what a person does to gain the favor of God. It is works based. The problem with religion is that there is no way that we can solve our death problem in our own efforts. We have all missed the mark, trespassed and practiced iniquity and the penalty for doing such things is death that is the price that must be paid. So no matter how many good things you are able to accumulate, we all have the penalty of death hanging over our heads. Religion does not work and it never will.

   Biblical Christianity is not about religion; it’s not about trying to make yourself good enough before God. Biblical Christianity is about being restored in your friendship with God through Jesus Christ – or another way to say that is being restored by what Jesus accomplished on Easter.

   Jesus Christ came into our world because we needed Him to come, to not only teach us true things about God, but also to suffer, to die and rise again to defeat Satan, sin and death. Jesus did all that not to impose a bunch or religious rules, but to connect us with God.

     This Romans passage says that our friendship with God is restored through the death of His Son. That is the first step; the death, burial and resurrection of Christ was a means to an end and not an end in itself. The reason why Jesus wanted to connect disconnect people to God is explained in the second part of that verse. Romans 5:10 says, “…we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.”  

     The word “salvation” refers to the idea of “making whole”. Through Christ, God will give you the power to change, to empower you so that you can love Him and love others, to set you free from the things that mess you up and to make all things new – so that you and I can experience the beautiful things of God again.

     So how, how can you tap into all these amazing things? There is a simple and very profound answer to that question.

OPEN YOUR LIFE TO A LOVE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

    It’s all about relationship. It’s about opening your life to a love relationship with God through Jesus Christ. No one will ever love you more than God. His love is not based upon anything you do; God’s love for you is based upon who He is. He loves you because he made you. He created you so that He could love you; not because He needed to love you but because you and I need Him to love us.

     Jesus proved how much He loves you at that very first Easter. He gave up His life for you and He did that even before we understood what He was doing, even while you and I were enemies with God.

    The apostle Paul explains God’s desire for your life in his prayer. Look at Ephesians 3:16-19:

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  (Ephesians 3:16-19, NLT)

   That is my prayer for each of you as well. That you will have the courage to invite Jesus Christ into your life, not a religion, but a Person; so that you can grasp how wide, how long, how high and how deep God’s love is for you. There is no other way to be made complete with all the fullness and power that comes from God. It’s not about religion with a bunch of rituals to perform, it all about a relationship with God. A relationship where you respond to His leading and that response is called faith - To know Him, to trust Him and to follow His leading.