I've Got to Give It Back

Call to Worship

The Lord is in His Holy Temple.

Let all the Earth keep silent before him.

I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the House of the Lord.

Our feet shall stand within Thy gates Oh Jerusalem.

Opening

To everyone in their respective places, I bring you greetings in the transformative name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For indeed, we serve a true and living God. I want us to labor quickly in the Word on this morning because the way my weekend has been setup I can just give him glory without preaching a Word. But I want to fulfill my duties and be true to the Word God has given me, so we will have Church, but just before that a Word of prayer. Amen.

Give Scripture: Matthew 28:6

Prayer

Read: Matthew 28:6

Matthew 28:6 KJV 1900

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Give Subject: I’ve Got to Give It Back

Introduction

This is a very familiar passage of text. It tells a story so well known that billions of people know the story despite having no faith or belief in it.

Believe it or not this verse alone contains within it the entire weight of God’s Word throughout time.

This scripture, this verse, is so pivotal to the Gospel and the plan of God that without it our system of faith would be rendered impotent.

This verse, so well known to many of us even on this Conference Line, is the equivalent of Genesis 2:7 when God breaths the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils.

Genesis 2:7 KJV 1900

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

As Genesis 2:7 marks the beginning of the 1st Adam being given life and subsequently power over the realm’s assigned him…

Matthew 28:6 marks the point where 2nd Adam is given life and power over the realm’s assigned to him…

Without Genesis 2:7 their would be no beginning of Spirit and without Matthew 28:6 their would be no ending of flesh.

And so, in this sense, Matthew 28:6 represents a dispensational shift in the realm of the spirit.

See, the cross broke the power of Sin.

But it was the resurrection that broke the power of the Grave.

And Yet, despite what we know about it and the role played by this very passage of scripture, many of us read over it with little understanding of its implications.

This passage of scripture is not only relevant because of the dispensational shift.

This passage of scripture is not only relevant because of the beginning of the Kingdom.

This passage of scripture is not only relevant because it represents a breaking in the power of grave.

But indeed this scripture is prophetic and if you will allow me a few moments, we will walk this text and then we will go.

Matthew 28:6

In the book of Matthew 28, we are in the period after the crucifixion of the Christ who has suffered, bled, and died for the sins of the World.

Jesus Christ had fulfilled his duty.

He was betrayed by his friends.

He was beaten within an inch of his life.

He was humiliated as he drug his own altar to the top of the mountain for sacrifice.

He suffered in his body as he hung for hours on the cross.

Then he died a painful and horrific death.

And even in his death, his body was desecrated as he was pierced in his side.

And so the government took his body down from the cross and took possession of it.

But then the evening came, and a man name Joseph came to Pilate and begged to take possession of the body of Jesus.

Joseph was not any old man, but the scripture says he was a rich man.

The scripture also lets us know that he was a follower of Jesus Christ.

Joseph takes the body and wraps it in linens.

He did not dress the body as was the typical custom because it was already the evening.

But he also did not leave the body exposed to the elements and wraps it in clean linen cloth.

He then does my favorite piece, he places the body of Jesus Christ in a tomb he had recently had constructed for himself.

He did not buy a burial plot to place him in, but instead placed him in a tomb chiseled out of the rock.

He put the Chief Cornerstone in the corner of a mountain.

He put the stone that the builders rejected, back into the mountain.

He put the ROCK in a mountain of stone.

But he also closed up the tomb with a rock heaved in front of the door.

He wanted to protect the gravesite from angry protesters and from potentially fanatical disciples.

And as I thought about this scripture and even as I read it, I realized the importance of Jesus‘ getting out of that grave.

You see, some people in your life have spent all their time trying to find ways to kill you.

People have spent your entire life trying to find ways to take you down.

They have been trying to find ways to tear you apart.

They were looking for ways to block you from your purpose.

They were hoping for a change that would let them get you out of your position.

So they talked about you.

They called you a liar.

They called a failure.

They called you weak.

They called you everything but a child of God.

People stabbed you in your back.

They whipped at you with their words and actions as they tried to find a way to make a liar out of you.

They made you carry the tools for your own sacrifice.

They fit you with the altar.

They gave you the tools for sacrifice.

And they told you to carry it up the mountain.

And even now, your enemies are planning and plotting against you and they feel like the victory over you because it looks like you are dead.

It looks like your ministry is over.

It looks like your marriage is over.

It seems like your career is over.

You feel like giving up.

You even threw in the towel.

But God sent me with a Word that says, “I’ve Got to Give this Back.”

Conclusion

I got to get out of here now… I have been up here way too long…

I appreciate you men and women of God for putting up with the preacher this long….

But if anybody feels like giving God some glory for the stuff you get to give back.

Because you see, Jesus had made clear to the disciples the manner of his life.

He not only told them but he even showed them himself.

He raised Jairus’ daughter when her body was still warm from life.

He raised the woman’s son as his funeral procession was headed out of the city.

He then raised Lazarus after he had been dead for three days.

He then told them, that on the third day I will meet thee in Galilee.

And yet, despite what they had been told the people forgot his ministry, they forgot his power, and they forgot his journey… And so they gave him something that he was supposed to have but he was not supposed to keep.

And see, as I CLOSE, that is what people have been doing to the people of God.

That is what they have been doing to the Church.

That is what they have been doing to Holy Temple.

That is what they have been doing to each one of you under the sound of my voice.

People have spent years trying to force you to accept a title you were never supposed to keep but they ignored who they KNEW you to be to give it to you.

They tried to call you broke… but you’ve got to give it back.

They tried to call you stupid… but you’ve got to give it back.

They tried to call you foolish… but you’ve got to give it back.

They tried to say you would never make it… but you’ve got to give it back.

They tried to cancel your ministry… but you’ve got to give it back.

Jesus was put into a rich man’s grave and made to take on death… but he was never supposed to keep it...

That is why on third day, he shook death off and he kicked his feet off the edge of the bed and he said ALL POWER, is in my hands.

You have to get to a place where you say God… you do not have to let me go because I will shake it off and give it back anyways.

And so Jesus Christ gets up and as he does, he not only gives death back its assignment for him but he then cancels the assignment for death.

But he blesses me because the same place that was supposed to be his dying place.

The same place that people had assigned him to spend the rest of his life.

The same room they said he would never live beyond.

The same space that was meant to serve as the end of his ministry...

Marked the starting place for a kingdom greater than any on this Earth.

And that is all I am trying to tell you is that the same place where people tried to dog you out.

They said you would never go anywhere.

They said you would be stuck with the same old people

Doing the same old things.

Not only are we about to give everything back… but the same stuff they gave you to kill you… the same stuff they gave you for you to die in...

GOD IS ABOUT TO USE IT TO TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND.

I hear the scripture in my head.

Be Not Dismayed Whatever Be Your Tide… GOD WILL take care of you.

Then another said… And we KNOW… that All things work together for the good of them who love the Lord and who are the called according to his purpose.

Then another said… For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the GLORY that shall be revealed.

Another said… I have never seen the righteous forsaken… nor his seed out begging bread.

Then it said… think it not strange concerning this fiery trial which is to try you as though some STRANGE THING that has happened to you… but rejoice for inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed YOU WILL BE GLAD with exceeding joy .

And last one… but it says MANY are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord DELIVERS THEM from all of them.

I want you to know that you’ve got to give this back… because this same thing that you give back will launch you into a new area of your ministry.

So stand therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free and be no entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Be free from their mindset.

Be free from their attitude.

Be free from they opinion.

Be free from what they said.

Be free from what they thought.

And most of all GIVE IT BACK....