Easter Sermon 2008
Easter Sermon 2008 – The Words and Works of Jesus
Lay Reading: Isaiah 55:3, 5-7
Isaiah writes in 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
ISA 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
ISA 53:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
ISA 53:7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
Pastor Reading: 1st Corinthians 15:1-8
Paul says: Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
The Words and Works of Jesus
Open with prayer
Good to see all of you today. As we launch in, obviously we are going to be talking about Jesus Christ. We will be examining the words and works of Jesus, and through that we will see why we celebrate his resurrection today. Jesus grew up in a small rural town of little note, not the kind of place you would expect God to show up in. His mother was a young teenage woman, his father was a blue collar construction worker – a carpenter - who would’ve swung a hammer. He grew up in very simple and modest accommodations. He never owned a home, ran for political office, never made a lot of money, never married a woman, never traveled more than 200 miles from his home. His first 30 years of life were lived fairly anonymously, just working a job. He only spent 3 years in public ministry, preaching, teaching and performing miracles and the like. Yet today, from this very simple, humble, relatively obscure man comes the most important person in all of history. Today we break our calendar into two parts – BC which is before Christ, and AD which is Latin for Anno Domini which is the year of our Lord. All of human history hinges on this one man, Jesus Christ. And today, on this, the day the church has selected as the day to celebrate his resurrection, roughly 2 billion people (yes I counted them all) gathering together in Easter services to honor and celebrate this man, Jesus Christ as God. And it is amazing because all of human history, and all of our faith comes down to this one man. And that begs the question that we will spend our time this morning investigating – why this man as opposed to other men? Why his teaching as opposed to the teaching of others.
First, Jesus himself gives us a clue in the 14th chapter of John in the 10th and 11th verses. Jesus says: You should listen to my teaching – Jesus is a Rabbi and a teacher and he wants us to listen to his teaching, and he says: If you do not believe my teaching, then investigate my works. And so he tells us to investigate both his words – what he has said - and his works – his deeds and what he has done. And so briefly today, that is indeed what we will do. For the first part, we will be focusing on John’s Gospel.
Jesus says to us that he came down from heaven. And he says this in John 6:38 - For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. Jesus says that he came down from heaven – this is an extraordinary claim because no one else has made this claim in the history of life on the Earth with any credibility. Occasionally you might hear of people who had a near death experience and got a glimpse into heaven. Or a religious leader like Mohammed will claim that one day they got to peer into heaven for a period, but no one claims to have come down from heaven. This makes Jesus distinct from and superior to any other religious leader who has ever lived.
The second thing Jesus tells us is that he is the only way to heaven. Not only did he come down from heaven, but if we would like to go to heaven, he is the means by which we obtain that great gift. He says in John 14:6 - I am the way (singular and exclusive) and I am the truth (Singular and exclusive) and the life (Singular and exclusive). No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus said I came down from heaven to rescue and to save and if you would like to go to heaven I am your only option. There is no salvation apart from me. Christians believe in the exclusivity of Christ, that there is no hope beyond the grave apart from Jesus. We believe this not because we are trying to be narrow minded but because we are trying to say the same thing that Jesus did. He was emphatic on this point because he loves us and he wants it to be exceeding clear that everything comes down to his person and his work. So Jesus says that he came down from heaven and if we would like to go to heaven then we need to have a relationship with him.
The third thing that Jesus said was that he was in fact sinless. This again is an extraordinary and unparalleled claim. None of us would make this claim, all you’d have to do is to ask our wives! Women like Mother Theresa and men like Gandhi have themselves declared that they are sinners, that their thoughts are not always pure, that their words are not always carefully chosen, that their motives are not always without pride and selfish ambition. But Jesus makes this extraordinary claim. That he alone is without sin. Again, this makes him superior to all other religious leaders. Jesus says in John 8:46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? This would have been impossible for anyone else to utter. This is an extraordinary and unparalleled claim. No human being could risk making that challenge without many flaws in his character being exposed. Had Jesus not been sinless, someone in the hostile crowd would eagerly have charged him with at least one sin.
And then the fourth thing that he said regarding himself was that he was indeed God. An again, this claim is highly unusual. In the history of the world only a few people have claimed that they are in fact God. And let me tell you, they don’t have the resume to back that claim up. And of the religious leaders who founded various religions on the Earth – none of them made this same claim. All they will claim is that they have a relationship with God, or they speak for God, that they are a prophet or a servant of God, that they point the way to God, but they themselves are not God. Jesus however is emphatic on this point, and I want to stress this for you because there is teaching out there that states that Jesus was not considered to be God, either by himself or his followers. They would claim that this is only a legend, a myth, a fable created many years after his death. The fact is that he repeatedly said he was God, and it was the primary reason for which he was put to death. He states it here, in the 10th chapter of the book of John beginning in verse 30 – Jesus said “I and the Father are one.” Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?" "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God." Everyone understood very clearly that Jesus repeatedly and emphatically stated that he was God. Some people say that he was not God but that he was a good moral man and a religious teacher. Friends if he told us he was God and he was not, he was not a good moral man but he was a liar, and he was not a good teacher but he was a false teacher of the worst kind. Jesus was so clear on this point. We are here today because Jesus is our God. If you do not know him as your God these are the four statements that Jesus made about himself. There are many perspectives on Jesus, but I think it is so important that we allow Jesus to speak for himself on these matters. He said that he came down from heaven, that he is the only way that we can get to heaven, that he lived a sinless life, and that he is God. He declares this. These are four things I have listed are some of his greatest words.
Now we will look at his greatest works. First of all, he foretold the future – which would be great if we could do this. I’d know which stocks to buy and when to sell. I’d know which check out line at Hy-Vee to get into. I’d know which car to buy, and I’d win with every NCAA tournament bracket I entered. Wouldn’t you love that? I’d even settle on just knowing if the Twins will be any good this year so I don’t get my hopes up for nothing! Wouldn’t that be nice to know the future? Wouldn’t that be great? But we don’t know the future because we are not God and we don’t have full knowledge, and for us the future is still open, but for God who is over all, he knows the future. Jesus repeatedly foretold and promised the future. I’ll give you one example here in relation to his friend Peter in Luke 22:34 – Jesus said "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today; you will deny three times that you know me." Jesus does this repeatedly – tells the future. It’s one of his great works that verifies his great words.
The second extraordinary work of Jesus includes the forgiving of sins. We have all been burdened by sin, it drags us down, we understand that. Jesus, unlike anyone else who has ever lived, doesn’t tell us how we can get rid of our sin, or how to hide or mask our sins. Rather he forgives it. He tells us that he himself can take away our sins and that they are forgiven. One example of this is where he declares in Mark chapter 2 verse 5 after some guys lower their ill buddy through the roof where Jesus is preaching - When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." An extraordinary claim. When we sin, we ultimately sin against God. We may sin against people, but ultimately we have sinned against God. And so we need forgiveness from God, we can’t pay God back. God must simply forgive us. And Jesus Christ, being God, has the authority and power to forgive sin. You and I need to simply do nothing but ask and then we receive grace and mercy and love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and if you are here today and you have not asked the Lord Jesus for forgiveness of your sins, I promise you this – there is not one person in this room and there is not one person in this world that Jesus Christ is not willing to love and embrace and forgive. And he will say the same thing to you that he said to this man, friend your sins are forgiven! This is one of his great works, and a work that he continues to this day.
The third and final area of the great works of Jesus I will focus us on today is that he performed miracles. The miracles of Jesus show us his rule over history, and over creation, and over the natural order of all things. He performed many miracles in his life. He healed people, he walked on water, he turned a little boy’s lunch into a meal for thousands (which would make for a great catering business!). In Mark chapter 10 verses 33-34 we see an example of this. It says - "We are going up to Jerusalem," Jesus said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him.” Extraordinary details of what was coming. Both how and when he would be betrayed and killed. Then he concludes his thought with the most fantastic promised miracle of them all “Three days later I will rise." Jesus made the promise that he would rise in three days. Jesus performed many miracles, and simply put, everything comes down to his greatest miracle, which is his resurrection from death. Unlike anyone who has ever lived, Jesus Christ conquered death. That is why we are here today. That is the bedrock of our faith. This is THE issue in the history of the world. And this is THE foundational fact, upon which all of Christianity is built, and Paul says in the 15th chapter of book of 1st Corinthians that unless Jesus Christ is raised from death, we are to be pitied, we have no hope, our faith is in vain and we are all fools chasing nothing but a false god. And so everything comes down to this issue. The great works of Jesus and the great words of Jesus hinge on this issue. And I assume that some of you are like me in that you did not come into this world believing this great fact. And perhaps even today you are filled with doubt and skepticism, wondering “Did Jesus really die like he promised he would. Did he really come back to life after three days?” I didn’t believe this in my heart, in a deep way until I was about 19 years of age back in college. And I began looking at and surveying all of the evidence that was presented to see if this is in fact true. I was a skeptic, I had grown up in the church, heard all the stories, sang all the songs, was baptized, confirmed, the whole nine yards. But doubts persisted, the questions remained.
Let me give you a few reasons why I believe it is absolutely credible to believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The first is that he most certainly did die. He was beaten in the brutal way of flogging. If you have seen the movie the Passion of the Christ, you might remember these gruesome scenes where he was beaten, the flesh was ripped from his bone, a method so violent and painful that we draw our modern word excruciating from it. After flogging him, then they forced him to carry a heaven wooden cross bar across his bare back. He was so tired and bloody and beaten raw that he could not even carry it by himself to his place of execution, so someone was appointed to help him. When he got to that place, he was literally nailed to a Roman cross, one of the most painful ways to die in all of human history. He died fairly quickly because he was near death when they crucified him. To confirm this fact, a professional executioner investigated him, and pronounced him dead. To further confirm this fact, he took a spear and shoved it up underneath Jesus’ rib cage, puncturing his heart sack and blood and water flowed out from the wound. In addition, they bury Jesus in about a hundred pounds of linen and spices, as was customary in the time of Jesus. And then they laid Jesus in a tomb that was hewn out of rock, and there he lay for three days without water, without food, without medical attention. Any one of these things would have killed him. The floggings nearly did, the crucifixion certainly would have, the spear through his heart would have confirmed that fact, and he would have suffocated to death even if he had lived because of the heavy and tight burial wrappings that encased his body. And had he lived through all of that, he would have died of dehydration, and blood loss and shock in the cool tomb. So we know in fact that Jesus did die. It’s extraordinarily clear, and it would take a miracle as great as the resurrection to believe that he did not. The second thing though, is that the tomb was in fact empty. There were those who initially believed that the body had simply been stolen from the tomb to explain this situation. That leads to the third thing, which is the tomb was empty but that wasn’t because the body was stolen, but instead it was out walking around, talking, having breakfast and catching up with old friends. And Jesus appears to people who are unlikely to worship him as God. One is Thomas, who is a great doubter. Thomas says “I will not believe in Jesus’ resurrection until I see it for myself.” So Thomas got to go and see and touch the scars from the crucifixion. And then he falls down and worships Jesus as God, absolutely convicted that it is the same Jesus resurrected to life. In addition, and maybe this is the most extraordinary, his two brothers, James and Jude, worshipped their risen brother as God. How many of you have a brother? How many of you ever mistakenly called him God? As he was tormenting you or giving you bloody knuckles or a wedgie? Brothers do evil, that’s the job description for a brother – Evil! If you have any questions on that, you can confirm it with my own brother! Brothers do terrible things, particularly to little brothers, and as an older brother I’m telling you this is a fact! So Jesus’ own brothers, his little brothers, they didn’t believe that he was God, and reasonably so. He resurrects from death and they believe – our brother is God! They both go on to be pastors, who write letters in the New Testament, James and Jude.
And maybe even more fantastic than all of this is the conversion story of a man named Saul. Saul was a religious leader who was not particularly fond of the followers of Jesus. The first time we meet him in the New Testament he is murdering a follower of Jesus. Then in the book of Acts we see that he experiences the risen Christ. He has an absolute transformation, a complete 180, and changes from Saul the Christian killer to Paul author of a large part of the New Testament. To cap it off, Paul ends up dieing himself for his belief in the resurrected Jesus. Paul’s conversion is no less extraordinary than if Osama Bin Laden showed up in church today, repented of his sins, converted to Christianity and then took over Billy Graham’s revival crusades. Absolutely shocking, no one saw that coming. That’s good evidence.
All of this to say that Jesus’ words state: I came down from heaven, I’m your only hope to get to heaven, I live without sin, and I’m your God. And his works – knowing the future, forgiving sin, and doing miracles like resurrecting from death. All of that points to the one issue of the resurrection – did it indeed happen? On this the evidence is incontrovertible. He did, and if that is not certainty for you, perhaps this will be the one thing that will be comforting to anyone who has lingering doubts. Non Christians, people who didn’t worship Jesus as God, confirmed the historical fact of the resurrection. There were Jewish, Greek, and Roman ancient historians who did confirm and report, much like the newspapers today report the events of our times. They reported that Jesus Christ died, and then three days later he rose again. It was an accepted and agreed upon fact even by those who did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. All of this is simply my attempt to compel you to place your trust in Jesus. To place your hope in Jesus. Because today friends, Jesus Christ is alive and well. And he tells us as well that he is coming again. He makes this other great promise, that he is coming again to judge the living and the dead. And he tells us that we will stand before him, and that he knows our hearts, nothing will be hidden from him. And he will judge our hearts, and he tells us clearly that we will either spend eternity with him in heaven or we will spend eternity separated from him in hell. I know that some people don’t like to talk about that, and it sounds negative, and it sounds restrictive and it sounds exclusive. But Jesus spoke of hell more than anyone in the Bible. And he did so because he deeply, profoundly, and sincerely cares for us. He loves us. And when he said from the cross, “It is finished.” That was his declaration that the work was all done. And we just need now to be with him. And so he declares to us what hinges on these types of decisions and responses, so that we would be compelled to love and trust him. Because he is our great Savior, who has saved us from Satan and our sin, and death. And perhaps it is the Apostle Paul who says it most clearly in Romans chapter 10 verse 9, he says this simple line - That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that he rose from the death to conquer sin and death for me, then you are saved. That’s what Paul promises, then you will be saved. So today as we are gathered here, we must each ask, do I believe in my heart on the Lord Jesus Christ and that my life belongs to him? After we take an offering, we are going to close with a song called “Christ Arose”, and it will be a chance for you to confess today with your mouth. I urge you, get this right. If you don’t know, don’t leave church today without thinking this over. If today is the first day you are believing in your heart and confession with your mouth Jesus as Lord, then please let me know so I can celebrate with you! You can come tell me, or call me, or drop me a note. But get this right. Don’t let another day pass you buy with uncertainty. Pray with me.
Thank/praise Jesus for His resurrection the Father’s sacrifice, their grace, their plan for our redemption, their love that brings joy and peace. Let’s celebrate the risen Lord!
Children’s message:
Object: A toy Jack in the Box.
Scripture: The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Matthew 28:5-6 (NIV)
Do you enjoy surprises? I do! I have a surprise for you this morning. (Bring out the Jack in the Box toy and start to turn the handle. Act surprised when "Jack" pops up.) When I was a child, one of my favorite toys was a Jack in the Box. I can remember sitting for hours, turning the handle, and waiting for the moment when the lid would open and Jack would pop out. Even though I should have known what was going to happen, I was always surprised to see "Jack" pop out of the box.
This Jack in the Box reminds me of a story in the Bible -- a story about a very special surprise.
Early in the morning, on the first Sunday after Jesus had been crucified, two women went to the tomb where Jesus had been buried. When they arrived, there was a great earthquake as an angel came down and rolled away the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb. When the guards saw the angel and the open grave, they began to shake in their boots and fainted dead away!
Then the angel spoke to the women. "Don’t be afraid!" he said. "I know you are looking for Jesus. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said he would. Come, see where his body was lying. Now, go and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead."
The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy as they rushed to give the disciples the message. As they went, they met Jesus and ran to him. They fell at the feet of Jesus and worshiped him. Jesus said to them, "Don’t be afraid! Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and I'll meet them there."
Some surprises, like this Jack in the Box, make us happy, but the best reason we have to be happy this morning is that the grave is empty, Jesus is alive, and he loves us very much! That is what we celebrate today!
Dear Father, we praise you! Jesus has risen -- just as he said he would! Amen.