Easter 2024 - Living Hope
Main Idea: You are invited into a personal relationship with God Himself because of Jesus’ payment for sin on your behalf.
THE PERFECTION OF CHRIST
Jesus is God incarnate.
Jesus was born as a human so He could take our place.
Jesus lived a completely sinless life on Earth.
THE LOVE OF CHRIST
Jesus was abandoned by His closest companions.
Jesus was betrayed by His own people.
Jesus endured horrific circumstances to reconcile you to God.
THE LIVING HOPE OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION
Jesus defeated sin and the grave, & offers the same to you.
Jesus is enthroned as King forever, & invites you into His Kingdom.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by YouTube)
We're going to look first at the perfection of Christ.
Perhaps you're new to Christianity, or you have never considered why Jesus is the one that we make such a big deal of.
What's so special about the first century Jewish carpenter that we would sing about him, 2,000 years later, almost 6,000 miles away from where he lived, and an ocean away?
Well, the first reason is that Jesus is God incarnate.
The Bible says in John 1 and verse 1 that in the beginning was the Word, Jesus.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
In John 10, Jesus said, I and my father are one.
In Philippians 2, one of the first Christian missionaries, a Jewish rabbi named Paul said, Christ Jesus, who existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, held on to, exploited.
But instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.
For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and so that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
And in the Book of Hebrews, Chapter 1, the writer said, In these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son.
God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him.
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word.
After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Not only was Jesus God incarnate, but Jesus was born as a human so that He could take our place.
Galatians 4-5 says, When the time came to completion, God sent His son, born of a woman, born under the Mosaic Israelite law, to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as children.
1st Timothy 2 says, God our Savior wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all.
Jesus came because humanity is inherently broken.
I don't have to convince you of that myself today.
You have kids.
You have news on your phone or your TV.
And the Bible names what our brokenness is.
Why we're like this.
The Bible says our world is infected with sin.
Sin is anything that we think, anything we say, or anything we do that goes against God's nature.
So God is love.
So any cruelty, unkindness, harmful words or actions are sin.
God is the giver and sustainer of life.
So murder and assaults are sin.
God is loyal.
So lying, adultery, and breaking our word or promises is sin.
God is perfect in every way.
So our inner hatred, lust, jealousy, bitterness, and a thousand other vices are completely counter to who he is.
And because God is also just, there is a punishment, there is justice for the evils and wrongs that are done on this earth.
We all love that thought on the macro scale that men like Hitler or Stalin or Jeffrey Dahmer would get justice for their wrongs.
But the truth is that all of us have broken God's laws.
We've willfully chosen to do, say, and think things that are in opposition to our Creator and God.
So all of us are headed for God's justice.
But God loved us way too much to leave us in that condition.
So he came down.
Jesus, the little baby celebrated at Christmas so that he could take our place, that the just punishment that we deserved would all fall on him instead.
We can see not only was Jesus God incarnate, and not only was he born as a human so that he could take our place, humanity did the sins, humanity did the wrongs, and so it would need to be a human that paid for the sins of humanity.
And we see that Jesus did this by living a completely sinless life on earth.
If Jesus was exactly like us, including our sin, then how could he take our place?
The Bible says what set him apart was that he was completely sinless.
2 Corinthians 521 says, God made Jesus, who did not know sin, to be sin for us so that in Jesus we might become the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 415 says that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
1 Peter 3, 18 says, Christ also suffered for sins once for all.
The righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring you to God.
Jesus never once thought, said, or did anything that was contrary to God's nature, because it would have been going against his own nature as God himself.
But because he was also human, he could stand in our place, take our punishment, and reconcile us with himself.
However, this was not done grudgingly, it wasn't because someone forced Jesus to do this, it was voluntary of his own will because of his love for us.
Next, we're going to turn our attention back to that first century and see the love that Jesus has for us.
The emblem of Christianity for two millennia has been the cross.
But I want to remind us today that it was Jesus' love that compelled him to endure all the pain, agony, and the placing of all the sins of mankind on him.
First, as we look at the love of Christ, we see that Jesus was abandoned by his closest companions.
Matthew 26 tells us the story of the night that Jesus was arrested.
They came up, took hold of Jesus, and arrested him.
At that moment, one of those with Jesus reached out his hand and drew his sword.
He struck the high priest servant ear and cut off his ear.
Then Jesus told him, Put your sword back in its place, because all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.
Or do you think that I cannot call on my father, and he will provide me here and now with more than 12 legions of angels?
A legion was a Roman troop of about 6,000 or so soldiers.
He says, how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen that way?
At that time, Jesus said to the crowds, have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a common criminal to capture me?
Every day, I used to sit teaching in the temple and you didn't arrest me.
But all this has happened so that the writings of the prophets would be fulfilled.
Then all the disciples deserted him and ran away.
Jesus could have allowed his friends to fight for him.
He could have called heaven's armies to fight for him.
But his love for you and for me demanded that he allow himself to be deserted by the men he'd been with almost every day for three years.
And if that wasn't bad enough, even one of his closest friends denied knowing him on three separate occasions that night.
Maybe you have been betrayed by those closest to you, that you put trust into a relationship and it was unfounded.
Jesus knows he has been there, it's written for us for all of eternity that we would know that he feels that pain.
Not only was he abandoned and deserted by his friends, but he was also betrayed by his own people, his own nation.
John 1 verses 10-12 say, He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him.
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name.
Mark 8-31 says, Jesus began to teach his disciples that it was necessary for him to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and rise after three days.
In Mark 15, we read that the crowds in Jerusalem were offered the chance to pardon Jesus, but instead they chose to have a political zealot pardoned instead.
Their call about Jesus was, crucify him.
The Roman leader asked what crime Jesus had done to be deserving of death, and they simply yelled louder, crucify him.
So he was abandoned, deserted by his friends.
He was betrayed by his own people, his nation.
And Jesus endured horrific circumstances to reconcile you to God.
What Jesus suffered and went through was the worst that humanity had to offer.
Several years ago now, one of the few R-rated movies Christians will admit to watching, The Passion of the Christ, was centered on just this brutality.
Jesus was hit by the religious leaders.
He was taunted and insulted.
His beard was pulled out, but that was nothing compared to what happened when he was handed over to the Romans for beating before crucifixion.
Dr.
William Edwards in the Journal of the American Medical Association described Jesus' death this way, Scourging was a legal preliminary to every Roman execution, and only women and Roman senators or soldiers accepting cases of desertion were exempt.
The goal of the scourging was to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse and death.
As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim's back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones in the whip would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues.
Then as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh.
Pain and blood loss generally set the stage for circulatory shock.
The extent of blood loss may well have determined how long the victim would survive the cross.
The severe scourging with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss most probably left Jesus in a pre-shock state.
Moreover, hematidrosis had rendered his skin particularly tender.
The physical and mental abuse meted out by the Jews and Romans, as well as the lack of food, water, and sleep, also contributed to his generally weakened state.
Therefore, even before the actual crucifixion, Jesus' physical condition was at least serious and possibly critical.
Wrote that in the s.
Then on the cross itself, Jesus would have been wavering between either suffocation and immense pain as he would lift himself up on the cross, tearing his hands and feet to be able to breathe as jeering onlookers gambled for his clothing and threw his claims of being humanity's savior in his face.
And yet, the truly worst part of Jesus' death was not the physical, though his physical death was one of the worst ways a person could be killed.
It was that Jesus had all of our sin placed on him.
Every wicked thought, every deed that has ever been done that is counter to the nature and character of God was placed on the sinless son of God.
The resulting spiritual anguish would cause him to cry out in the words of a song he would have sang since childhood, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far from me?
As a song we sang as a church on Friday put it, Christ, God's beloved, condemned as though his foe.
He, as though I, accursed and left alone.
I, as though he, embraced and welcomed home.
They are on the cross.
Jesus paid completely for your sin and mine.
The just punishment that we deserved for our rebellion against God's way was taken on by Christ.
So that if you accept him, his payment, and his new way, you are no longer alienated and condemned because of your way, but you are brought into his family and now have complete forgiveness forever.
That hope, that forgiveness, that new life, that new family, all is part of what is his living hope in the resurrection.
Let's look back another 2,000 years, one last time, at the living hope of Jesus' resurrection.
What is the hope of Jesus' resurrection?
It's that his words and promises are true.
He really is God.
He really did come to take our place.
His promises of eternal life and a new relationship with God and others today really will take place.
And as evidenced by his resurrection, death is not the end.
There is new life, and the promise of Scripture is that we will one day experience that same resurrection ourselves if we trust in Jesus and follow his way.
You see, Jesus defeated sin and the grave, and he offers the same to you.
The Bible says God fulfilled what he had predicted through all the prophets that his Messiah, Christ Jesus, would suffer.
Therefore, repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out.
The word repent is an older word, one we don't really use much anymore unless you're standing on a street corner with a sign around your neck, but it means to turn around.
It's to change your mind, to face a new direction.
The Bible doesn't call you to say a magic incantation, in order to experience God's forgiveness.
And it also doesn't call you to attend a church 70 times, or give at least five easy payments of $19.99, in order to have Jesus save you.
The Bible again and again calls us to repent and believe.
If you don't believe what the Bible says about Jesus' sin, the resurrection, then you cannot experience God's forgiveness.
However, if you're in that camp, you're probably fine with that because you don't believe that there is a God, or that you need His forgiveness.
But if you just believe and don't repent, just believing that the Bible is true is not enough.
James 2 says, you believe there is one God?
Good.
Even the demons believe, and they even tremble.
You must also repent, not turn over a new leaf, not be good for one week or be good for 70 years, but change your direction, that instead of relying on you or anything else to provide the direction of your life, you personally choose Jesus as your Lord, your master, the one who determines what you do.
The Bible says it this way in Romans chapter 10.
If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Not might be saved, not one day eventually hopefully will be saved, you will be saved.
One believes with the heart resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth resulting in salvation.
For the scripture says, everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
I don't care if your mother Teresa in here, I don't care if you just walked off the street for the first time after a whole life of crime and villainy that would make Jack Sparrow blush.
If you are here today, you can call on the name of the Lord and be saved.
We would sing in church the song, the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sin away.
Paul was a kidnapper and a murderer.
King David was an adulterer.
Over and over and over again in the Bible, you see people that should not have gotten a relationship with God based on the merit of their righteousness.
But it's not about our righteousness, it's about his.
We are infected with sin.
We are not like God.
But God loves you far too much to abandon you to a life lived to your own devices.
He has pursued you.
And today, I can confidently say, if you are in this room, he is calling out to you if you do not know Christ.
He is calling you to salvation.
He is calling you to abandon your own way and to turn to his.
You might be wondering after hearing all of this, okay, if Jesus wants control of my life, what does that mean?
What does that look like?
I want to comfort you right away and promise you that there's no Kool-Aid involved.
There's no shunning or secret ceremony.
Life with Jesus is life as it was made to be.
It's life lived in community with others.
It's understanding who God is.
How much He loves you and discovering how His way is so much better than the life that we've tried to make on our own.
Galatians 5 summarizes it like this.
The fruit result of God's Holy Spirit living in you is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
There's so many other great aspects to the Christian life that we don't have time to go into this morning, but all I can tell you right now is that His way is genuinely the best way.
The question today for you is, have you ever turned to Jesus for forgiveness from your sin, embracing Him as your King?
If you've never done that, but would like to, we're going to have an invitation in just a moment where I'll invite you to talk to God in your heart, to tell Him that you believe and that you're putting Him in control of your life, that He is now your Lord.
If you still have more questions, then I'd encourage you, there'll be a number that's on the screen that you can text to ask about more information.
If you have more questions about the Bible or about Jesus or about sin or salvation, I would love to set up an appointment with you to talk about that this week.
The question for you today, the main thought that we started off with, is that you are invited into a personal relationship with God Himself because of Jesus' payment for sin on your behalf.
We're going to do things a little bit differently today than we normally do them.
Randy's going to play, and this isn't magical music that will make you feel a mood, and then you'll raise your hand, and suddenly God will enter your life.
Frankly, the piano is more so it's not awkwardly quiet, and so that you can have some inner time to think.
We're going to go to a moment of prayer, and there's going to be kind of two main things that I'm going to ask of you.
If you do know Jesus, if you have repented of sin and believed wholly in Christ, are you living like it?
He's risen.
He's alive, and He is your Lord, and He has a mission for you.
He has a way of life that is so much better than whatever you could contrive on your own.
And He invites you into that daily walking relationship with His Spirit.
If you don't know Christ, if you've never turned to Him for salvation, if you've never said, God, I was trusting in my good works.
I was trusting in my attendance.
I was trusting in my baptism.
I was trusting in doing right by the environment.
I was trusting in all of those things to give me inner peace.
I was trusting in those things to perhaps, if there was an afterlife, give me enough brownie points.
If you have never said, Christ, I'm turning to you and you alone, then I invite you today.
As the piano plays, we're gonna have people praying.
It's a time that's between you and God.
I wish I could manipulate or force you to genuinely believe in Jesus, but it's not possible.
The Bible says it's a personal choice, one that no one can force you to make, one that you can't accidentally make.
It's a volitional choice.
Jesus, I turn from my way, I'm turning to you.
I know that I've sinned.
I know that you paid the price for my sin.
And Jesus, I'm calling on you as my Lord and my Savior.
Maybe you might have some more questions.
I would invite you to text that number.
Say, hey, I'd like to set up an appointment this week, talk more about this.
Wherever you are at today, if you've known Christ for 70 years, or this is the first time you're hearing about him, he wants a personal relationship with you.
He's not looking for the perfect, because no one's perfect.
He's looking for you, because he cares about you.
He loves you, he created you.
