Disciple 8: Hope Lives!
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Mark 16:9-13
N:
Opening
Opening
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Welcome to our Family Worship gathering this beautiful Resurrection Sunday morning! I am Bill Connors, the senior pastor here at Eastern Hills, and it’s always a joy to come together as the body of Christ to worship our Lord and Savior, and especially on this day when we remember and reflect on the hope that we have in Jesus because of the first Resurrection Sunday.
We’re halfway through our taking up our annual offering for North American missions called the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. Our church goal is $15,000, and through last week, we’ve received $9,681.25 toward that goal. Thank you for giving to this important offering, and for praying for our SBC missionaries throughout the U.S. and Canada, such as the Mouras who we saw earlier. We will continue to take up this offering through the month of April.
Next week, we will start a new sermon series that we’re calling Proclaim. In this series, we will look at seven sermons that were preached in the time of the early church throughout the book of Acts, and what those sermons have to say about us, about others, and about the Gospel. I hope that you will plan to be here throughout this series, which will actually take us to summer!
But for today, we are finishing up our series through the Gospel of Mark called Disciple. Joe and Trevor have done a great job setting the stage for this morning’s finishing of the book of Mark, Joe preaching on Hope Crucified on Friday, and then Trevor preaching on Hope Risen this morning at Sunrise Service. We are going to look at a short passage at the end of Mark, and use it as our jumping off spot for this morning as we reflect on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ with our look at Hope Lives! Let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read Mark 16:9-13:
9 [Early on the first day of the week, after he had risen, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and reported to those who had been with him, as they were mourning and weeping. 11 Yet, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe it. 12 After this, he appeared in a different form to two of them walking on their way into the country. 13 And they went and reported it to the rest, who did not believe them either.
PRAYER
I really like illusions. People who can pull of great illusions are so impressive to me. No, I’m not going to do an illusion as an illustration. I think the oldest person who would believe my slight of hand and misdirection would be about 3 (my girls loved the old “make the crayon disappear and come out your mouth or nose” trick when we were waiting for food at a restaurant). We’ve even had a couple of pretty impressive illusionists right here in this room for youth events over the years. I have walked away from an illusion and thought, “How did he do that?” But since my teen years, I haven’t ever walked away from one and thought, “What I think I just saw really happened the way it seemed to happen.”
So what does this have to do with Easter?
The centerpiece of the meaning of this weekend is quite frankly the resurrection. That’s why it’s called Resurrection Sunday—because Jesus beat death and rose again. Now, we have a tendency in our modern way of thinking to doubt the supernatural, the miraculous. Generally, I suppose that this is fair. We look at an illusionist and want to figure out how he has done his tricks. We see movies with superheroes or space battles or some combination of the two and we know that those things are special effects. You could say that we are biased against the supernatural.
Unfortunately, this anti-supernatural bias can be sneaky. It can crawl into our minds and cause us to approach Scripture from a perspective of doubt instead of a perspective of wonder and faith. We look for naturalistic means to explain away the power of God shown in the miraculous in the Bible. This is because we struggle with the idea that something truly miraculous could happen at all—especially if we think that faith is foolish, or is somehow in contradiction to reason. But faith isn’t the opposite of reason. It’s the opposite of unbelief. My assertion is that faith is completely reasonable, provided you don’t start with a wrong assumption that the truly miraculous is impossible.
So it shouldn’t be surprising to us that people might doubt the resurrection, or even that we sometimes might even have questions about it that need answering. Seeing as how this is Resurrection Sunday, we’re going to take a look at the resurrection this morning, and I really appreciate how God has worked to set the stage here, because Joe’s message on Good Friday, and then Trevor’s message this morning at Sunrise Service really connect with what God has given me to bring this morning. Because the bottom line is this: Either Jesus is who He says He is and He really died, was buried, and rose again, or He isn’t and He didn’t. The resurrection is critical to Christianity. If Jesus lives, we have hope. If He doesn’t, we don’t. So my first point then is this:
1: Jesus lives!
1: Jesus lives!
The resurrection is true. It is not an illusion, not a deception, not a hallucination. Jesus truly lives, even though He died. In our focal passage this morning, the Gospel of Mark makes reference to two occasions that get longer treatment in other Gospels, so we will jump from Mark to those other passages for more detail. However, both sections have the same central focus: the appearance of the resurrected Jesus Christ.
Consider the first half of our focal passage this morning:
9 [Early on the first day of the week, after he had risen, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and reported to those who had been with him, as they were mourning and weeping. 11 Yet, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe it.
“After He had risen.” Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to Mary Magdalene, and when she told His disciples, they doubted it had happened. Sounds like many today. The Gospel of Mark is short on details here, so let’s look at the Gospel of Luke to hear more of the story of that first Resurrection Sunday morning:
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. 3 They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. 5 So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. 6 “He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, 7 saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’8 And they remembered his words. 9 Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. 10 Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things. 11 But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women.
These ladies came to the tomb to prepare the body of Jesus, a good thing as Trevor said this morning, and they find it open. Angelic beings appear and ask, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen!” The stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty, and the angelic beings are there with an explanation. They remind the ladies that Jesus had said that He would rise again on the third day, and the ladies head back and inform the disciples about what they had discovered. Matthew also tells us that Jesus appeared in person to the ladies as they returned. Here’s what Matthew said:
9 Just then Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” They came up, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus told them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”
It’s clear that something incredible, miraculous, supernatural has happened. The man who was dead is no longer dead. He has risen. Then in our focal passage we see another reference to a passage that Luke shares in greater detail.
12 After this, he appeared in a different form to two of them walking on their way into the country. 13 And they went and reported it to the rest, who did not believe them either.
Summarize Luke 24:13-34: A couple of Hebrew guys are on their way to a little town called Emmaus from Jerusalem, and as they went they talked about what had happened to Jesus. Jesus comes and starts to walk with them, but He keeps them from recognizing Him. He asks them what they had been talking about, and they tell Him:
19 “What things?” he asked them. So they said to him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet powerful in action and speech before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. 21 But we were hoping that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel. Besides all this, it’s the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women from our group astounded us. They arrived early at the tomb, 23 and when they didn’t find his body, they came and reported that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”
They know about the crucifixion. They know about the report of the women regarding the resurrection and the angels. And still they don’t really believe. So Jesus explains it to them as they walk. When they stop for dinner, Jesus prays before the meal, and reveals Himself to them, and they know it’s Him. Then He disappears. They run back the seven miles to Jerusalem to tell the disciples, and Jesus appears to all of them:
36 As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you!”
The fact is that Jesus died, Jesus was placed in a tomb, and Jesus rose again. Matthew and John were eyewitnesses to this. Luke was an investigative reporter about it. Mark likely got his information from Peter, who was an eyewitness to this.
There are only two possibilities: this is true, or it’s not. Jesus rose, or He didn’t. It can’t be part way. Paul even argues that Christianity itself hinges on the fact of the resurrection:
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. 15 Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished.
Understand that the resurrection of Christ isn’t something that Christians have a favorable opinion about. We aren’t saying that this is “our truth” and someone else can have “their truth.” We’re saying that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is objective, empirical, FACT. It is THE truth. Think about it. Jesus was a real public figure with a very public ministry and a very public crucifixion. Several people, including His enemies, knew where He had been buried. After Jesus rose, He appeared again very publicly:
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.
So Christians aren’t saying that we celebrate Resurrection Day, or Easter, because we think Jesus rose again, and therefore, we should worship Him. We are saying that today is Resurrection Day because nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus really did, in fact, rise from the dead, proving Himself to be the powerful Son of God, who predicted that He would rise from the dead, and thus, He is worthy of our surrender, adoration, worship, and praise. He is our hope. And our hope is alive and well, because the grave simply could not hold Him.
But some, even then, weren’t so sure. We see that when Mary told the disciples, they had trouble believing it. When Jesus appeared to the disciples and Thomas wasn’t there (Gospel of John), Thomas wouldn’t believe it. We even see right before the Great Commission in Matthew, that some doubted, even though they saw Him with their own eyes:
16 The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted.
Doubt is powerful. Some of you might even be still wrestling this morning with the fact of the resurrection. It comes down to one question: Does Jesus live, or not? To say that He doesn’t live, we have to explain several things: the empty tomb, the testimony of His public appearances after His resurrection, and the fact that His disciples went from being terrified and hiding to being bold and courageous witnesses for Jesus, willing to be arrested, beaten, and even killed because of their faith in the fact that Jesus rose from the dead (we’ll see more of this in our series through Acts starting next week).
Several theories have been proposed that try to get around the supernatural fact of Jesus’ resurrection:
Were they wrong that Jesus died? (Swoon theory)
No… the Romans knew how to kill people, and when they were dead. Many people died during the beating before the crucifixion. Plus the crucifixion. Plus being stabbed with a spear in the side (as John records). Jesus would have been in sorry, sorry physical shape if He had just gone unconscious, and there is no way He could have recovered sufficiently from the beating, the crucifixion, and the stabbing just by “sleeping it off” for 36 hours in a cave without water, food, or medical care. And then could He have moved a huge stone from the inside of the tomb? And gone on a seven mile hike with the guys going to Emmaus that same day? No. It’s just not possible. Jesus really died, so if He appeared alive after His crucifixion, it means that He MUST have been resurrected by the power of God. 1 Corinthians 6:14 tells us this:
14 God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Were they wrong about the fact that the tomb was empty? (wrong tomb)
No… the Bible specifically says that they saw where He was laid.
55 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed along and observed the tomb and how his body was placed.
So this isn’t a case of mistaken tomb. If it were, once it were declared that Jesus had risen from the dead, all those who opposed Him needed to do was point out the correct tomb and produce the body. And this says nothing about all of the post-resurrection appearances.
Did the disciples lie? (to gain something) Maybe the disciples thought, “You know how we can really cash in on this whole thing, even though Jesus died? We can steal His body, and then make up the idea that He was resurrected, and start a new religion.”
No… what did they gain? They gained nothing. It didn’t make them rich. It didn’t make them famous. What it ultimately made just about all of them was dead. Why create a conspiracy they knew would be problematic (Jesus had just been killed), and then die for the lie, none of them ever recanting? This might account for the empty tomb, but certainly not for the public appearances or for their incredible boldness after the resurrection.
Were they delusional with grief? (joint hallucination) It has been heard of that a single individual, in a moment of extreme grief, might hallucinate that the object of their grief was standing before them.
But multiple people? Having the same hallucination at the same time? A hallucination that was able to interact with them?
40 Having said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 But while they still were amazed and in disbelief because of their joy, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 So they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.
Hallucinations don’t eat food and it vanishes. Even if you were to argue that a small group of people might have this kind of hallucination, we saw earlier that Jesus appeared to 500 people at the same time. Are 500 people going to have the same hallucination? No. Plus again, the way to prove this false would have been simple: go to the tomb and produce the body of Jesus, which would have still been there if everyone was just hallucinating. No, the tomb was still empty.
Were their stories blown up into legends? Maybe some time passed, and as people passed on the story of Jesus, it became like a fish tale, or like something out of Braveheart: “William Wallace killed 50 men… 50 if it was one." So maybe the Jesus story over time got bigger and bigger and bigger, until it became legendary.
No… All of the earliest evidence suggests that the resurrection was central to the disciples’ testimony from the very beginning, not that it grew and grew and eventually turned into this supernatural resurrection story. The first recorded sermon in the Book of Acts (chapter 2, which we will look at next week), given a mere 50 days after the crucifixion, references Jesus’ resurrection at LEAST twice:
24 God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.
32 “God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this.
And again, if they were just creating some legend that they wanted people to believe, then it goes back to the questions of what they had to gain from it, and why they would be so willing to die for a lie that they had created.
Christianity then was very easy to falsify: all they had to do in the first century was prove that Jesus didn’t really rise again. And they couldn’t do it, because it really happened.
The evidence speaks, no it even shouts, that the bottom line is that: Jesus really did die. Jesus really was buried. And Jesus really did rise from the grave, defeating death, and He really does live forever. The question is: do we believe it? This is the most important question you will ever answer.
2: Since Jesus lives, those who belong to Christ live.
2: Since Jesus lives, those who belong to Christ live.
This is the central to the message of the Gospel: those who belong to Jesus by faith will live forever, just like Him, raised up by the power of God, as we just saw in 1 Corinthians 6:14.
Let me explain as clearly as I can:
God created the universe, and He did so perfectly. And He made man and woman to be with one another and with Him in perfect fellowship. But man and woman chose to go their own direction, believing that they could be equal with God. And so they sinned, which means that they did that which God didn’t want them to do. And since they did that, the perfect fellowship that they had with each other and with God was broken, because they themselves became broken because of their imperfection.
So what was to be done? God created us for relationship with Him, but that relationship is ruined because of not just their sin, but because of our sin. We all make choices that go against what God would want from and for us. We could try and try and try, and never be good enough to deserve that relationship again, because we can never get back to perfect. Someone had to buy our perfection, and had to buy it with their own perfection. But only God is perfect. So because of His love, His grace, and His mercy, God the Son, as the man Jesus Christ, lived that perfect life for us. And as we have already seen, He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin and to ransom us back from death by taking the wrath of God against our sins on Himself. And as I just explained, He defeated death and rose again, never to die again.
So what does this mean for us? It means that if we surrender ourselves to Jesus in faith, trusting our forever to Him instead of ourselves, then we are forgiven of our sins, we receive the Holy Spirit who gives us new life from the inside out, and we are promised eternal life in heaven with God.
4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
You see, hope only lives because Jesus lives. Without Jesus rising again, we have no hope for forever, because we would never have deserved to be in the presence of God again.
What we couldn’t do for ourselves, Jesus did by taking our place in death, and beating death for us. Jesus gives us hope for now, and hope forever.
How does Jesus give us hope now? He gives us hope because His sacrifice fixes the brokenness that happened in the Fall. When Adam and Eve sinned, they died spiritually. And now, because of what Jesus has done, we can be made alive again by God’s grace through faith. Jesus said Himself in John 10:
10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
Paul said it this way to the church at Ephesus:
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
So we who are in Christ have a new life to live—a life not bound to sin or enslaved to our flesh, not under wrath, separated from God… no, we have been made spiritually alive by God’s grace!
But not only that, but the Gospel also promises us that we will live forever with Jesus in the presence of God, a paradise called heaven, and that some day in the future, Jesus is going to set everything right again, and He will take us to be with Him in for all eternity, in a place prepared for us:
1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.
This is what we have to look forward to if we belong to Jesus. We have true life now, and we are promised eternal life later in the presence of God.
Closing
Closing
But the contrast is also true: those who do not belong to Christ will be separated from God for all eternity. In John’s Gospel, he wrote it in the most simple terms:
36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
Challenge the one who has never believed. Trust in Christ. Surrender to the hope of the Gospel. Just as Jesus was resurrected, so you can be as well.
Invite the one who has walked away from the faith because of doubt. Stop doubting and believe.
Call those who believe EHBC is where God would have them serve and grow.
Reflection time, include offering.
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
We will be having our rescheduled bi-monthly business meeting next Sunday night, April 11, here in the Sanctuary at 5:30 pm. We had to reschedule it because we didn’t have a quorum on its original date in March. We must have at least 50 church members at business meeting in order to conduct official business and vote on things, and we have several things of importance to vote on at this meeting. So please plan to be here for that meeting on the 11th. If we do not have a quorum that night, we will have to have a special called business meeting immediately following morning service on the 18th of April to vote on those important items.
Bible reading: today, Proverbs 24. We will finish Proverbs next Sunday, and then start the book of Acts the next day. Calendar on the website on the What’s Happening page.
Instructions
Benediction:
1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.