It All Makes Sense Now - He is Risen

Do you remember a time you were trying to learn something and you worked really, really hard. It took forever but then that incredible moment came when you figured it all out. When X-2=3 or how you get that thingy to go on that thingy. When all that struggle, all that frustration becomes clear. Aha! You figure it out! X=5 or whatever the solution is, you get it, it all makes Sense.

It’s a great feeling to get the answer, a great moment when the mystery is solved.

Easter is that day. This is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s the answer to everything that God does, it’s the reason Jesus came. This is the answer to all of life problems. It is why we are a Christian.

The truth is simple, the details need to be memorized

Jesus was born, lived a life perfect and showing us how to live, then on Thursday he was betrayed and he handed himself over to die, On Friday Jesus died for our sins on the cross and then on Sunday he rose again.

Luke 24:36–39 CSB

36 As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. 38 “Why are you troubled?” he asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”

He really is back! He is risen and this summed it all up. He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t revived. He is Resurrected. With power and triumph, God conquered sin and death.

John 11:25–26 CSB

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Sunday has come! we celebrate that Jesus saved the world by dying on the cross for our sins and then coming back! He is Risen! He is alive!

And his resurrection makes a difference not just at the end of our lives but in our every day. His resurrection makes everything different.

Today, we worship, we gather to give God worth, we sing of the wonderful, amazing, incredible love of God that set us free.

These songs are different than other songs, because these songs are telling us the reasons this resurrection makes a difference on Sunday, but also Monday, Thursday afternoon, Friday night, because we don’t just talk about God, and we don’t just come to listen to nice music, we come to sing back to God and to learn truths, to have words memorized that can remind us of the truth for this Sunday and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and every other day.

See I can often remember a song better than a sermon, even better than a bible verse. God made us this way. So today, this Easter, with a truth most of us knew before we got here, I want to share with you what that means in your everyday and then we will sing of this truth and then I share some more and we will sing some more, and stand in awe of a God who lives, dies, and rises again.

Today, all voices can sing or moan with the truth of what God did, does and will do.

Here is a truth, some of us come today not accepting that Jesus did anything for us. We think that there are good people and bad people. And when alone, or in the midst of our memories, we can be reminded of the bad we have done. Sometimes we knew exactly what we were doing. Other times we didn’t do what good people should do. Other times we learned later that we were so much worse, we hurt people without even knowing it, We are bad people. Yet, nothing we can do, no sorry will fix all these things, we can justify it, forget it, try to ignore it but we get reminded.

Here is the truth of the God. You are not alone. There are no good people. Everyone is messed up. Everyone can’t fix it.

You see that you are separated from God. You know the truth that

Romans 3:23 (CSB)

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

There are many that have been where you are now.

Those who have walked the walk of shame, waking up in the wrong place, in the wrong way, wondering what they had done.

The things that people can call you now, and even though you might yell at them or lie to them, fight it off and excuse it, you’ll know what they call you is true.

They say that if you walk into a church the walls will fall in, or you will burst into flames, you know that won’t happen but you feel very far, far away from God. A huge hole is called a chasm. The Grand Canyon is a chasm and it feels like your on one side and God is on another.

But there is another truth.

Jesus placed a cross through that chasm. Jesus fixed it. Jesus freed his follower from those names. And replaces it with hope. His resurrection replaces those words that people call us with words like saved, replaces it with truth.

How did He do it?

God became man

Philippians 2:7–8 The Message

7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! 8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

He “wore our sin, he bore our shame. The cross has spoken we are forgiven.”

He wore your sin, the cross changes everything because of his resurrection, someone who is completely torn up by addiction can be restored!

A person who is completely self-obsessed with what people think of them, in deep depression because they can’t get out of their own head, can be healed as they accept the Love of a man who would die for them and the power of the God who created them!

See the Bible calls these addictions, selfishness, hatred, anger, immorality, calls of this sin. The Bible also shows what Sin does, it leads to eternal death separation from God

Romans 6:23 (CSB)

23 For the wages of sin is death,

But the verse doesn’t end there because of EASTER, because of the Resurrection

Romans 6:23 CSB

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Eternal life! Death has lost it’s grip on me. Death has lost it’s grip on all who accept Jesus Christ as there living Savior!

See on this Sunday, Jesus really, really rose from the dead. He was totally alive.

Because of Jesus’ resurrection, no problems are the end, no one is the name that has been put on them, no huge hole lies between us and God anymore, chasm is the name for a giant hole, and nothing separates us from God because Jesus fixed it

We are free! We have a living hope!

Let us sing!

Living Hope

He is our living hope.

Living Hope changes the reality of all situations.

Yes it even changes that fact that you are not perfect. We have a word for this reality. This Easter is a time you need to memorize a new word.

You see I and probably you, are not perfect. There are shameful things that have occured in my life and at times still occur. Some of you might have shameful things to. In a day when someone can take a video of your worst act, or facebook will remind you of that stupid thing you posted 5 years ago. It can appear like nothing has change.

But someone entered changes everything. Change though doesn’t come easy. Things have to happen for this living hope to be possible. Have you ever known people who say things like I will pass this test or I will get this job and they never studied, the never learned how to do the job or interview for the job, they are trying “positive thinking” but positive thinking without the work done is really just denial and stupidity.

There are many who think that if they just do good, think good, act good, be nice, everything will get right.

This is just the same kind of thinking as trying to pass a test not studied for, it’s denial, it’s wishing when the only way to make something right is to pay the punishment for the wrong done to the one who was done wrong. God was the one who we first did wrong to, God is the one who needs to be made amends.

Jesus made that amends, with his life, with his death, and was given full power with his resurrection and He takes what he did, and uses it for you. The Bible has one word to describe what Jesus did for us, “Redeem”.

Titus 2:11 CSB

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

Titus 2:14 (CSB)

14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.

You are redeemed. That means a lot. All those names people call you, and they are true, Jesus redeemed you from that, you are new. You are not a coward, You are redeemed, You are not a druggie, You are redemed. You are not that word, you are redeemed.

Every stain of your past, every thing that people shout in your face to bring you down, every time people claim that you are not a Christian because they know what you did! You can say,

“I am not who I used to be I am Redeemed, I’m redeemed”

Redeemed

We have a living hope, that no matter what dark time we are in right now we know that our resurrected Jesus, our God is alive, He is our hope right now.

He is our hope right now because He was our hope in the past when He redeemed us, picked us, choose us, to be His follower.

You see with those two truths every aspect of our Monday should change. We are looking at our jobs as one who work for Jesus, the one who paid the price for us. We look at our families with the Hope that God will be glorified in our family.

With this real hope, and this real redemption still some of us might forget why we worship, because in the day to day, some of us need better jobs, some of us need places to live, some of us need healing, some of us need to stop repeating our mistakes, some of us know that things have to change, we need help.

The truth we have a living hope. The truth we are not our past, we are redeemed. But still in those day to day things our past being changed, and hope, well it doesn’t do anything.

We need someone to come into our lives and really give us great help.

You know that Captial One commercial where they say that choosing them is an easy choice, as easy as, then they go to kids picking teams for basketball. The little elementary kids pick and there is NBA hall of famer Charles Barkley standing with them.

What would it be like to play basketball with a Champion? You would win the game for sure.

For 20 years Every year people look for help in Omaha, Nebraska, they look for a man who has a lot of money to give them advice through a lunch. IN 2019, Justin Sun, paid 4.5 million dollars to have lunch with Warren Buffet, who was the fourth richest man in the world.

What would it be like to get personal financial advice from Warren Buffet, a champion of the stock market.

What would it be like if a Champion came into your life, where you are at, someone who really knows how to do life.

Yet, Jesus told us,

John 16:23–27 The Message

23 You’ll no longer be so full of questions. “This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I’ve revealed to you. 24 Ask in my name, according to my will, and he’ll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks! 25 “I’ve used figures of speech in telling you these things. Soon I’ll drop the figures and tell you about the Father in plain language. 26 Then you can make your requests directly to him in relation to this life I’ve revealed to you. I won’t continue making requests of the Father on your behalf. 27 I won’t need to. Because you’ve gone out on a limb, committed yourselves to love and trust in me, believing I came directly from the Father, the Father loves you directly.

ASK, The one who Champion of the grave. Believe the resurrection. And know that all authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to our Champion Jesus Christ!

Romans 8:31-34 38-39

Romans 8:31–34 CSB

31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.

In ancient times, Champions sat. They sit because the job is done! Victory is won. And this victory was true then, is true today, and will be true at 8 am tomorrow and every day after so that nothing, nothing can stop the victory of the Living Hope, the Redeemer our Champion.

The Bible states:

Romans 8:38–39 (CSB)

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You have the authority! You are the ones called by God to love God and love others! You are empowered to go to the hardest places, the most fallen people, because you know, THERE IS A CHAMPION and he is for you!

Champion