Living Like We Believe the Resurection

Introduction

I feel like it is safe to say, if you are here this morning you would admit to believing in the resurrection. But how many of live like you believe the resurrection? It is easy to say it on Easter morning at church, but it takes work to show it in our lives the other 364 days a year. So this morning I want to look at a resurrection appearance passage this morning to look at how a life will truly look living in resurrection power. It is a life characterized by peace. If we truly believe in the resurrected Jesus we should walk in resurrected life. We are going to look at John 20:19-31.

Read Passage

Peace Filled

As we read this morning we saw a word mentioned three times, peace. All three times it was mentioned by Jesus:

When he first appeared to them by coming through the wall “Peace be with you”

When he tells them he is sending them he tells them “Peace be with you”

When he came through the walls a second time to appear to Thomas, “peace be with you”

A resurrected life is a peace filled life

When you first truly have an encounter with Christ it does leave you startled. Or when you have been backslidden and you deeply encounter Christ again, you get startled in a sense. When you encounter Christ you realize there are things in your life that need to change. And Christ offers peace in those situations if we are willing to leave our sinfulness alone.

A resurrected life has peace because we choose to listen to the voice of Jesus, rather than the voice of sin and fear

When Christ has called you out of fear and sin and doubt he calls you to go. He did not save you to be a pew warmer, but to be an active member of the body proclaiming the Gospel in your day to day walk.

A resurrected life is a life that keeps peace as we remain faithful to go where we have been called/sent.

We give Thomas a bad rep sometimes for being a doubter. But Thomas peace only came after he had a personal encounter with Christ. We can call ourselves Christians and say we believe in Jesus, but if we truly want people to meet and be transformed by Jesus we need take them to meet him personally.

People don’t need your opinions, people don’t need your good lifestyle. They need you to open your Bible and introduce them to Jesus. His words change hearts not ours. But many of us cannot open our Bibles to introduce people to Jesus because we have a shallow understanding of Jesus ourselves.

Often our lives are characterized by fear and cowering. When reality that is not how we have been called to live. 2 Timothy 1:7 says

2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

A People Who Don’t Cower

Peace allows us to live boldly.

If you want true peace in your life, you must learn to tell fear no. And learn to live with these three characteristics evident in your life:

Power (dynameos)- Dynamite like power

Love (agape)- We must learn to love people based off not who they are or what they have done, but off of who God is. God did not give us a list on what we must do to be loved, but loves us solely because of who he is.

Self-control: Is dying to self. It is easy to do what you want to do, but at times it is hard to do what you ought to do. It is not hard work to do sinful things but it takes work to flee.

The disciples were hiding out of fear. They were the religious minority. Watching Jesus being crucified would have been a big blow. They lacked faith. Jesus had told them what would happen, but their faith was not their yet.

In their defense they did not have the Spirit in dwelling them yet. But we see Jesus encourage them to have peace as he sends them,

Sometimes we are like the disciples and cower. We are the religious minority and it is steadily increasing. many times in our culture we do seem to take some pretty big losses and many times it seems things are done to silence us.

A resurrected people don’t show fear. That doesn’t mean we wont feel free, but it means we will tell fear no.

Matthew 10:16 says:

Matthew 10:16 ESV

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

We must develop a plan and tactics. We are in a war and as we see often the world has a plan.

The world wants to tear us up. we need to go out with tact, and kindness. But also boldness. We need to learn to boldly proclaim the resurrected savior. If we truly believe his bower over death, we should be fearless of any consequeces. The ultimate consequence is death, but they cannot even defeat us in death because we will be with our savior. While others are still here proclaiming the Gospel.

Having Peace Means Encountering JESUS

Thomas had to come to Jesus himself before experiencing the peace. He heard the talk but he didn’t experience the peace of the resurrected Jesus until he met him himself.

You don’t experience the transforming power of Jesus because you hear grandma or the preacher or mom etc. talk about Jesus.

If you want to experience the transforming power of Jesus you need to encounter Jesus not just hear others talk about their transforming experiences with Jesus.

Give people scripture not opinion.