Made New: Easter Sunday

Intro: Flying Upside Down

There is an old story and I am not sure if it is true...

It goes like this...

A fighter pilot was running through tactical maneuvers and as he is flying doing all sorts of crazy training things...

He looks at his altimeter and realizes that he is too close to the ground

So when he goes to pull up to gain elevation, he suddenly crashes and explodes into the ground

The pilot had not realized that he was flying upside down...

There is a problem with flying upside down…When you do it long enough, it seems normal

When the whole world just goes about their life in an upside down way, then upside down gets confused with right side up!

Have you ever had the experience of doing something wrong your whole life and then when someone showed you the right way, you just felt like a total dufas?

Personal illustration:

There are so many of these little things:

I remember when my wife and I were on our honeymoon and we were getting gas in the rental car…I didn’t know what side the gas tank was on, so I guessed ad pulled up on the wrong side...

And so she says to me…Why didn’t you just look at the arrow that is next to the gas sign on your gage? it shows what side the gas tank is on...

I NEVER Knew that…I just felt like a total chump…At that point I had been driving for like 9 years of my life and I just never knew

It was like I didn’t realize it but I had been missing something my entire life

I was flying upside down

What if everyone including you is flying upside down through life?

The is the whole story of the Bible:

Sin & Shame: Flying upside down

The Bible opens with a picture of a garden. Were God makes humans

“The human job description of Genesis is that God assigned us collectively to rule over all living things on earth, animals and plant. 

We are responsible before God for life on earth.”

And in that work God intends to be our constant companion or coworker in the creative enterprise of life on earth. 

That is what his love for us means in practical terms.  

That God is always there and with us....

Those first two chapters of the Bible are about humanity flying right side up with God.

But many of us know the story:

In Genesis 3…The first Humans sin.

And it didn’t take long for the default position of humanity to be that we were flying upside down

Sin in the bible is a rebellion to God’s life. Its a rebellion to flying right side up…It is a rebellion to God’s way...

First sin shows up in our thought life but then it starts living in our actions…It is when we are both outwardly and inwardly sinning against our creator!

And just as you live in much the same pattern as your parents…All of humanity started flying upside down together...

Humanity flew upside down so much and so often that no one even realized it any more.

At first there were obvious things that showed that the human condition was simply flying upside down.

Things like violence

Anger

Lust

Injustice

But then there were some things that we just mistake for common and normal today

The human condition of sin is flying upside down…it is going about life in such a way where we just assume that God isn’t there..

It is just the way that most people talk…Its living by default

Things like narcissism ...

An obsession with status and wealth

Acting as if aging is something to be worried about...

Lying has become normal and common place for humanity

Things like hating your neighbor because of their political values

Things like underhanded racial comments or prejudging

having the last word in online fights

Ignoring your family because you’d rather be on your phone

See all of humanity has been flying together upside down, and it is SO COMMON THAT WE DON’T EVEN SEE IT ANY MORE

When Sin entered the world, humanity stopped living their life in the power and fullness of God

And the the greatest power that was left was death…So everyone just started living to avoid death...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Flying upside down has become a world wide movement that we don’t even recognize any more!

The Invitation of Jesus

But through it all …There is this carpenter form Nazareth who claimed to be somebody…

This man claimed to be the son of the living God...

And his Good News that he had was short & Radical:

The New International Version Chapter 4

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Lets break this down:

Repent : Repent means to change your mind and your life....

So for example…When electricity came out…People converted their whole houses..Their entire lives changed…They repented from the days of going to bed early…All of the sudden people stayed up late and changed their whole lives

For the kingdom of the heavens has come near

See this invitation of Jesus is not a matter of hearing what Christ said long ago and , “trying to cary it out” rather, the real son of God is at your side!

What Jesus is saying in this little statement is so huge and massive...

He is saying, what humanity threw away in the garden…I am making available again...

Jesus in the very beginning of his ministry is announcing that God is available in your personal life…Just like Adam and Eve had God available to them...

Jesus’ invitation is that his life is available to you and you can fly right side up again...

Jesus’ Resurrection: Flying right side up

Today as we begin to look at the Easter text. It is my hope and my prayer that we see it with fresh eyes…

In easter you are invited into a new reality…A reality where you are able to fly right side up…A reality where sin does not conquer your life…a reality where God is with you

Let’s look at Luke 24

Luke 24:1-12

The New International Version Chapter 24

24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here he is risen!

One of the things that seems hard for us to remember as humans is that Jesus overcame death, which means he is still alive on the throne today

We are not here every Sunday proclaiming our belief in a theoretical God…A kind of idea, we are here every week to proclaim that God put flesh on n the person of Jesus...

He took all of our sin on his body…Allowed himself to experience death on the cross and then rose again

We are here every sunday proclaiming a God who is alive and real.

Which means his gospel announcement from Matthew 4 that he is available to us didn't stop when he died,…But his promise of being available to us is now this eternal promise…

Just as he was alive when he rose from the grave, the hope of easter is that he is available to you right now!

Abraham in the Bible…He died and people visited his tomb...

Buddha died of eating Bad pork…He stayed dead

The Prophet Muhammed died of what historians think was the flu…He has remained dead

Confucius died from natural causes at age, 72…he is still dead

But Jesus sands alone. See the central claim of Christianity is that this Carpenter from Nazareth died and then rose again

Our central claim is that he is still alive!

What Adam lost in the Garden, is now available to you

Repent..>Change your mind, for God’s way of life has now come near

And the absolutely radical claim of easter is that the life and the power of God is available to you where you sit!

You no longer need to fly upside down!

Jesus flips the script: Death no longer has power

See in Easter, Jesus flips the script!

What we tend to believe is that death is the most powerful force in humanity

We try and avoid it

We buy insurance for it

It is one of humanity's greatest fears

But in Jesus christ, there is no more power in death!

I love what the apostle Paul says....

1 Corinthians 15:22

The New International Version Chapter 15

22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Do you get it?

Jesus wants to come and live with you to make you truly alive.

Not just to fly right side up, but to give you a new character

To renew and remake you into his image

God knew what he was doing when he created you…The problem is that we see our parents and the rest of the world flying upside down and we assume that it is a safe way to go, but the reality is that it is a deadly way to go.

Jesus wants to make you alive...

He wants to invite you into a new kind or quality of life, where he is in charge and his life flows through our own.

In the book 2 Corinthians 5 the Apostle Paul says

The New International Version Chapter 5

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Do you get it?

Because Jesus is alive…You can be made new?

It doesn't matter if you struggle with

Things like narcissism

An obsession with status and wealth

Anger

Lying has become normal and common place for humanity

Things like hating your neighbor because of their political values has become common place

Things like racial violence are more normal

having the last word in online fights

Ignoring your family because you’d rather be on instagram

If you are flying upside down then Jesus is for you!

Response / Challenge

“If you are already flying upside down and don't know it, your cleverness will do you little good.”

If you are already flying upside down…Your own attempts at significance will never lead you there

If you are already flying upside down…Your wealth will bring your little security

If you are already flying upside down…Beauty will never be enough

…your anger will never be satisfied

…You will always struggle with this vast emptiness

But this easter…Who among you will be bold enough to say....I have been flying upside down my entire life?!

THE LIFE OF GOD IS AVAILABLE TO YOU TODAY

You can defeat death today....

You can fly right side up today!

It is all about surrender....

Surrendering your ego!

Surrendering your life over to Jesus