Son-rise
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Have you ever watched the sunrise?
I know many of us have had that experience, getting up in the blackness of night. Standing shivering in anticipation of what you hope will come soon!
But, it seems to get colder.
The night gets blacker.
Have you ever had that thought “will tonight be the night the sun does not rise?”
The wait becomes interminably long...
But the, there’s a glimmer of the horizon. There’s a lightness, that starts to spread. The anticipation builds...
The brightness grows before, just there, the sun peaks over the horizon. The light grows!
The Dazzling brightness continues to emerge from the darkness.
Before long you can’t even look at it directly without hurting your eyes.
The air warms. The shivers fade away. The Beauty of the new day emerges with singing birds and chirping insects.
The landscape is lit and the newness of the morning is once again established.
This experience of darkness to dawn reflects that of our own human existence.
Our Story of Hope. From the depths of the darkest night, to the most brilliant sunrise.
We’re going to look at the big picture, across the sweep of history. We’re going to look at 3 eras of human existence, from deepest night to brightest sunrise. And we’re going to do this by surveying the Bible, flying across it’s pages and diving in at different stops.
No Hope: Plunged into Darkness
No Hope: Plunged into Darkness
Adam and Eve knew true despair.
They had it all. Beautiful Life in the presence of our Glorious God. They knew true innocence and purity.
But it was all wrenched away, by their own stupid choices. Their own selfishness and independence lost them paradise plunging the into darkest night.
God pronounced those awful words:
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
God cursed mankind to hard labor all the days of their life before unceremoniously returning them to the ground.
God exiled humankind. “The LORD God sent [us] out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which [we were] taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”
This began the sorry story of humankind. Barred from access to the tree of life. Cursed to hard and hopeless lives that would come and go like dandelions.
As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
This was the new normal for humanity. Fleeting lives full of toil and pain and despair. The best that anyone could hope for was that their life would be better than others - that they may experience some joy in life before the inevitable death that awaited them.
God tells us: “The soul who sins shall die”
All humankind, since the first sin of Adam & Eve have inherited a sinful nature. All of us, from beginning to end have been infected. Like a genetic disorder, it is passed from one generation to the next. So each of us sprouts up stained by sin, and we die in sin.
So why bother? Why care?
Death is an inevitable end for all of us.
The only thing that is better about life, is that you’re not dead yet, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes reflects on this:
This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
As far as anyone one knew, that was it. Live a good life, enjoy yourself as much as you can and avoid God’s wrath, then see you later.
This is how many people approach life now - live it up while you can, and try not to get into trouble then die. All over red rover.
What more can we hope for? We are sinners, and our race has been exiled from God's presence for our rebellion.
We have been barred from the Tree of Life.
All we have to look forward to is the return to the ground and the corruption of our bodies.
Unsurprisingly, this leads us to ask. Is there another way?
Is there more to hope for?
Is there a way that God’s curse can be undone? Is there a way that the tree of life can be made available to us again? Is there a way to be with God?
Maybe, maybe if we pull up our socks and try really hard, maybe then we might be able to outweigh our bad with good. If I feed enough homeless people, open enough doors for old ladies, go to church enough times, maybe that will cut it?
Nope. Same outcome. All die.
How? How then can this state of humanity be reversed?
The ancient people of God asked this question, after countless failures at trying to live the holy life God called them to. They wondered what it would take to reverse death.
How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man! What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah
Glimmers of Hope: Coming Light
Glimmers of Hope: Coming Light
These people of God looked to God for rescue. They knew that if anything was to be done to reverse the human condition, God would have to do it.
They didn’t know how. They didn’t know when. But they knew that he could do it.
God showed his people glimmers of a death-free life; a fellow named Enoch, and another named Elijah, neither of which died, but we taken away from the Earth by God. Where to? Presumably to live in God’s place.
God gave them a taste of resurrection with the occasional miracle where someone would come back to life.
He showed them his power, by rescuing Israel from slavery, and giving them a beautiful inheritance. He acted to protect them from their enemies. He tried to even dwell in their midst, but their sin kept getting in the road of that return to the garden of Eden. And they kept dying.
But maybe there is more? Maybe there is a way past the road-blocks to life?
Song writers hoped for the undoing of death, knowing that only the one who hopes and trust in God may escape death:
They said things like:
I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
King David (the author of this song) looked to God in trust and hope. He knew that God could deliver him from death.
The ancient sufferer, the man Job, he too hoped that death would not be the end for him:
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
He hoped, beyond hope, that he would be able to use his own eyes to look at God, after he was redeemed from death.
God responded to these hopes and prayers. He answered his Old Testament people to tell them - “I will deal with death”. He gave messages to his prophets:
like
And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
And
Hosea 13:14 (ESV)
I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?
God promised to deal with death. There was hope, that God would overthrow death. But if you remember, the cause of death was sin. So in order for God to deal with death, he also needed to deal with sin. He had given Israel a foreshadow of how he would deal with sin, through atonement, but he needed to deal with it fully and finally, which God promised through the prophet Jeremiah!
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
There is a day coming where they won’t need to instruct one another to know and follow God, because none of them will be separated from God! Sin will be no more.
As you can see, we’ve been hopping all over the Old Testament to see this story unfold. This story took centuries and millennia to unfold. It took a long time - and anticipation for the climax of this story had been building and building and building. They were in the darkness, waiting for the light of dawn.
As we have seen, there a pieces of the puzzle are all scattered and no one knew how they would all fit together.
They didn’t know what was in store for them in death, except that death was not ideal. They knew that God is the God of the living. They trusted that somehow, someway God would make things right.
People knew that God had been faithful to fulfill his promises in the past, and he could be trusted to do it in the future. They knew that God would come through for his people, maybe not in their lifetime, but he would do what he said.
There was hope, in the midst of their own lives which came and went, in the midst of their own sin, in the midst of their toiling and their pain. In the midst of their despair, there was still hope on the horizon.
Sure and Steadfast Hope: The Son-Rise
Sure and Steadfast Hope: The Son-Rise
God didn’t leave his people hanging. At exactly the right moment, he sent someone to take care of things. His name was Jesus. Jesus, Son of God.
God sent John the Baptist ahead to announce the coming sunrise, get everybody ready to receive it!
Jesus brought all the hopes and promises of the Old Testament into a clear picture. He showed how all the puzzle pieces fit together.
Jesus taught the people how he would undo the problems that separated them from God and how they could have the eternal life they longed for. He walked the streets of Palestine teaching and instructing his people about how eternal life was not a pipe dream, it could be secured:
He said:
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
and
John 11:25–26 (ESV)
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
So Jesus came proclaiming this message. That by trusting and believing in Him, by taking hold of him, they could have eternal life. They could be like Job and in the end stand in their own body, with their own eyes to look on God himself.
But how, how would he do this?
Why would looking to Jesus be any different to trusting anyone else? Plenty of leaders and rescuers had come before, but the had all died without bringing about paradise.
Well, Jesus was the Redeemer that Job spoke about, the one that would redeem, purchase, God’s people from the grave. He was God himself who had come to undo the problems that separated man from God.
Jesus, Son of God came to open the way to God, to cleanse the people from their sin, to overthrow death and to give them rest.
He was the one who would reveal to us God’s face, so that to see Jesus is to see the Father.
He was the one who came to ransom people from the grave.
He was the one who came to take away our reproach.
He was the one who was God himself, come in flesh to save us.
He was the one who would take away the sting of death.
He was the one who would not be abandoned to the grave, so that we would not be abandoned to the grave.
He was the one who would enable us to Know God.
He was the one who would take away our sins, our iniquities.
Jesus himself had no sin. He was perfect. He was not born in the usual way, he was born through miraculous conception, meaning he was born a man - a real man, but free from the inheritance of sin.
He was God incarnated into human flesh - able to live as a man, but to live faultlessly. He was the ideal man who was obedient to God, perfect in every way. He did not need to die. But, Jesus went to die in our place, to make atonement for us as we saw on Friday.
Death is the penalty for sin. And Jesus took all of our sin on himself, taking the penalty of death for our sin.
But, he did not stay dead, because he would not be held by death! But, having paid the debt, and having made atonement, death was disarmed! It was overcome! Jesus himself being the perfect sacrifice provided full payment!
Jesus death was victory, and he rose to life showing that he had undone the power of death. It was now harmless to God’s people!
English Standard Version Chapter 15
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
Jesus rose as the firstfruits of the Resurrection to come - he is the first of the resurrected people of God who will one day follow him in never dying again.
The resurrection is that confirmation email. You know after you’ve paid for your online shopping or some such thing, and you wait those few minutes for the confirmation email to come though, uncertain if the payment has cleared, or if the website is ripping you off? Then it arrives, “your order has been received”. The email is the sign to you that payment is received and delivery of the goods is imminent.
The resurrection of Jesus is the proof of payment, that sin has been paid for and the goods are about to be delivered!
We can wait impatiently for the package to arrive. We haven’t got a tracking number, but God has always delivered on his promises. We don’t know when the resurrection of the dead will be, but we know it is coming!
Has gone before us to show, that death is now disarmed. We can face death knowing that is is not permanent for us. For those who want it, for those who trust God for it, they can have an eternal life, not the despair of the grave.
The despair that Adam & Eve brought into the world was undone. Life could be eternal once again. Jesus brought light into the world once more! He has secured our hope, and given us a beautiful day to look forward to. Like a glorious sunrise that introduces a warm beautiful day, the rising of Jesus from the grave introduces a new age where light and life will reign!
Jesus resurrection has brought meaning to our life - no longer are we here to just have a good time till we die, but we are here preparing for beautiful eternity with him in rest and peace. We are here helping others prepare for that eternity.
Will it be eternity in the pit, or will you seek out for the eternal life that Jesus offers to those who believe in him?
Our eternal life is not one of disembodied spirits playing harps on clouds - our eternal life is exactly that, life! We are made as embodied beings, and when this present age has passed, God will give us resurrection bodies, Like the one Jesus has, so that we can live real lives on a real earth, face to face with God.
We may die, and our spirit will go to God if we have entrusted yourself to him, but that is just a temporary state. It is a short term situation until God fully and finally undoes the problems that Adam & Eve and Satan introduced to the world. He will remake the world. He will make a place for us to live together with God! He will open to us the Tree of Life once again. John got a prophetic glimpse of that future:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
There is our hope, that we will be able to partake of the tree again, in the presence of God.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found!
Christ’s rising from the dead heralds the new age, where the Kingdom of God is established forever. The Son Has risen. The darkness is being banished!
Where does that leave us?
Where does that leave us?
We are the prayers of Psalm 16. We aren’t yet there with our Resurrection bodies - but we have seen the Resurrection of Jesus, if not with our eyes, through the pages of Scripture we know that eternal life has been secured. Even if we know hardship and death is this life, like Jesus we will not be abandoned to Sheol, nor will we see corruption forever. We can look to God, like the saints of the old testament and find our peace and security with him knowing that because Jesus has secured eternal life, we will join him in life, with joy and pleasures forever more.
This life will have it’s ups and downs. We still experience the lingering effects of a cursed world. But the confirmation came through, Jesus rose from the dead - and we have a sure and steadfast hope that we will follow him. Right now, we are to look to our savior God in expectation of what is to come. We find our security in him.
I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Questions for after:
Why did death come into the world?
How can we have eternal life?
How did God make eternal life for us?