sermon from easter sunday 2007 @HBC
Don’t just look at Jesus’ death as a transaction that gets us into heaven and we’re just killing time until that happens. He was resurrected and is alive today and that should affect our life today.
For the first time ever this year I don’t think I’ve heard or read a news story about how nobody knows what Easter is about! At Springs last week, Jon Burns wanted to rename Good Friday - Freedom Friday. I’ve heard of churches who refer to today as “resurrection Sunday”. The word Easter has nothing to do with Jesus, if you want to know more about that then put a couple of hours aside and ask Dave!
Romans 5
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! NIVMost of those verses refer to Jesus death so let’s quickly cover that.
We are God’s enemies as it says in that verse, we do things that we shouldn’t do and we don’t do things that we should do, and that sin separates us from the relationship we were meant to have with God. Blood needs to be shed to pay for that sin, and it should be our blood, our death, but Jesus died in our place to “reconcile” us to God, to restore our relationship with Him. The greek word used there for reconciliation is “katallasso” which is a verb meaning “an exchange”. There was an exchange of everything we’ve done wrong in our life for His perfect life. There was an exchange of the punishment and the death we deserved for the freedom and life that He deserved. We didn’t deserve it, there’s nothing we can do to earn it, it’s a free gift down to God’s ridiculous love for us.
So, Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, we were justified etc. Why wasn’t that the end of it, why was Jesus resurrected? It’s obviously important, as Paul says in Corinthians…
1 Corinthians 15(New International Version)12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.Jesus was resurrected, he came back to life and He is alive today. The end of Romans 5:10 says “how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life”. We have been saved by Jesus death and we are also being saved continually through His life. Jesus’ death wasn’t just a one-time transaction and now we just sit back and kill time until He comes back or we die and go to heaven. Jesus is alive today and that should affect our lives every single day.
Helping us to avoid evilRomans 5:10 in the Amplified version:
10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin's dominion) through His [resurrection] life. AMPJesus being alive should help us be daily delivered from sin. Our sins are forgiven, but Jesus is daily making us more like Him and part of that is the choices that we make, good and bad, every day. If you had Jesus standing around next to you all day would you be as likely to do whatever it is that you shouldn’t be doing? If He was standing there would you be as likely to lie about something you’ve done, try to cover up a mistake you’ve made, take something that isn’t yours, lose your temper with someone, look at something dodgy on the internet, have a few drinks to many, spread rumours about someone because it makes you feel better? If He was right there with you, would you be as likely to do those things? Well, the thing is, he IS right there with you all the time! And he’s not only there seeing what you do and hearing what you say, He knows what you’re thinking as well!
His presence there with you isn’t to make you feel guilty, it’s not a case of Him being there to make you try harder so that you can overcome the sin. I’ts impossible for us to make ourselves sinless, Paul spends the previous 4 chapters (and a lot of the rest of the book) explaining this to the Romans. Rome was the centre of everything, they’d built an empire, if anybody had an attitude of “if you work hard enough you can achieve it” it was them. But Paul over and over again talks about everybody being sinners, the impossibility of trying to make yourself righteous, and how God’s forgiveness is a gift of grace not down to works, anything you have done.
Jesus isn’t there with you to make you try harder, He’s there to help.
It’s because He has got power over the devil, the power to “daily deliver you from sin’s dominion”.
The devil knows your weakness and he’ll try and exploit them. If you struggle with gossip, when you find yourself in a situation where people are gossiping, he’s going to try and tempt you to join in.
Example of how sin can work. Somebody who has given up chocolate thinks… “I’m not going to buy any chocolate but I’ll go in the shop , I just wont go down the chocolate aisle… I’ll go down the chocolate aisle but I wont stop and have a look… I’ll just have a look at the chocolate but I wont pick any up… I’ll just pick some up but I wont buy it… I’ll just buy a bar but I wont open it… I’ll just open it for the smell but I wont eat any.. I’ll just eat a bit…”
The devil makes little suggestions (has god really said???) but he can’t make us do anything, he does not have power over Jesus. Paul goes onto talk in later chapters in the book about how we are “dead to sin” – we tend to make statements like “oh its just me, I’ve got a short fuse, I can’t help it”. No, we are dead to sin, we are not under its power or helpless against it. We will get tempted but Jesus has the power to deliver us daily from sin’s dominion. When you are tempted, remember that Jesus is right there with you and ask Him for His help, remembering that He has the power to “deliver you from sins dominion”
Helping us to do goodIts not just a case of Jesus daily presence with us helping us to not put a foot wrong. The message paraphrase of romans 5:10 says our lives should be “expanded and deepened through His resurrection life”. Expanding and deepening your life doesn’t mean not doing anything bad anymore, it’s the life to the full that jesus talks about. The expanded, deepened, abundant, full life that He’s got for you which is more than you are experiencing now. As well as bad choices we make, Jesus being alive and with us should impact the good choices we make. ie. We should make more of them!
Jesus saw opportunities to help people (physically and spiritually) where we miss them and look back thinking “well I could have…”. Ask Jesus to open your eyes to the opportunities around you.
Jesus acted on the opportunities – he didn’t sit back and think, “well, next time that happens, I could…”. 40 days of community – “Going after” a life of love isn’t just thinking, I’ll do something when the opportunity arises, its actively looking for those opportunities. Jesus acted then and there. He didn’t say to the disciples “now here’s a blind man who would probably benefit from having his sight back, we should discuss this at our next deacons meeting, compile a list of all the blind people in our target outreach area and set up a rota of prayer teams to pray for people to receive their sight back. We should have all that up and running within the next 18 months or so!”. He didn’t do that. He spat on the mans eye’s and gave him his sight back!
For example, when Dave met those people on the corner of Regent street, if they’d said they needed a lift tomorrow. Should Dave identify that there’s a need for lifts to the hospital, bring it to the deacons, who then take it to the church meeting, who then publish a list of dates and times of available people and post it to local houses? By which time, those people don’t need a lift anymore.
The little things in our lives lay the foundations for the big things. As a church we shouldn’t always be looking for the next big event we can organise. We should be looking at what we do on a daily basis, decisions that we make, interactions with people that we work with. We need to be living missional lives – taking Jesus wherever we go (or more like finding him wherever we go because he’s already there!). That’s what will see the church grow with people becoming Christians. Not that events are wrong, Jesus had a small scale relational aspect and a large scale attractional aspect to his ministry. But the large scale things have less impact without the relationships. Together as a church we can look to doing big things – eg the survey of local houses to find out what people’s needs are and then organising something in response (the salvation army did the same thing and came up with the jam club), but that’s not a substitute for us daily living lives of love with people who we come into contact with.
Jesus wasn’t just treading water, killing time until His death. He lived His life to the full, doing what God wanted Him to do, and that’s what we should want to do.
video clip –
a wasted lifeI don’t want to waste my life just killing time until Jesus returns or I die. Jesus wants to use you for all sorts of things now, you might think you’re not ready or able or capable, but Jesus rose from the dead, is alive today and is with you, giving you everything you need.
