Resurrection Joy Dr. Steve Walker

Transcription

1 Series: Book of Matthew September 7, 2014 Resurrection Joy Dr. Steve Walker If you've been around Canyon Hills for any amount of time, you know we are passionate in believing church has to go beyond Sunday morning. We just know if this is all there is to our active faith, then we quickly become ineffective, bored, and really unfruitful in our Christian life, and so we're constantly trying to convince each other, "Hey, we have to connect to other people in our church." We do that through Life Groups. We have over 100 Life Groups, but most, if not all, of them are full to capacity, so we're getting ready for a new wave of people. We have over 1,000 people in Life Groups now, and we probably have a need for 500 more. We have people on a waiting list to get into groups, so we are coming to you. Some of you have been coming to church here long enough now where you're ready to plug in like this. Others of you have already been here a while and you might be open to just being stretched a little bit to facilitate a small group. It doesn't mean you have to be a seminary graduate as much as it means, "Hey, we want to get together with some people and start growing in our faith and encouraging each other, spurring one another on to love and good deeds," so I hope many of you will do that. Whether you're single or married, man or woman, any combination of that, we want to just get you plugged into maybe even considering leading a group. You just fill out that card and leave it in the lobby. That doesn't mean you're committed, it just means you're saying, "Hey, call me. Let me know what this is all about. I'm kind of open to it." Please do that. We could use many, many more groups. I found out, just at the end of this week, we have one of our heroes with us in church today, one of our global outreach partners around the world. Get this, before I introduce him to you. He started Christian ministries in Africa. Since 1985, they've planted over 200 churches in different countries in East Africa (Kenya, Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania). The ministry has four children's homes in Kenya, caring for more than 170 children around the clock. They run four schools in Kenya and Uganda. They have pastor training schools and various feeding stations in Nairobi and Kenya, feeding over 2,000 children daily. We have been Canyon Hills Community Church 1

2 involved with this ministry for quite some time now and count it an incredible privilege to come alongside David and Jennifer Hatley. Jennifer is still back in Africa, but David has been in the country and he is right over here somewhere. David, can you just stand up and wave long enough for us to say hi and welcome you? Awesome. Thank you. We love what they're doing there. David and Jennifer have adult children here and, I think, at least one grandchild who attends Canyon Hills, so we're happy we get to worship together with him today. If you don't have it done already, get your Bibles close by. Get them open to Matthew, chapter 28. It's no secret, for those of us who love Jesus, that one of the greatest sources of joy in the Christian life is the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without Easter, Christmas is just a fun story. Without the resurrection, Christmas is just an economic boom in a capitalistic society. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, that's all Christmas is because there is no resurrection in their life. Without the resurrection, everything we talked about last week, about the crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus, makes no difference. All that is is just a dark day in a famous Galilean's life. Simon Greenleaf (many of you may recognize that name) is one of the principal founders of the Harvard School of Law. Early on in his life and legal career, he set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus. He was convinced that if you carefully looked at the facts in the Gospels, if you examine the Gospels in the Bible, you would be able to easily dispel the myths that make up the Christian story. Well, he embarked on that journey, and, like others we've heard about, " came to the conclusion that according to the laws of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history." That is the founder of the Harvard Law School who came to that conclusion. We not only agree with Greenleaf, but we agree even more with the apostle Peter when he wrote these words in 2 Peter, chapter 1. He said, "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." You need to take joy in that, church. We are not here because we follow some cleverly devised, crazy stories from a couple thousand years ago that randomly took place and all of a sudden collaborated with each other and were put into a book and now there are a bunch of these crazy people who worship this dead guy who supposedly rose from the dead. That's what the world wants to keep telling you. That's what they want to keep believing. That's fine, but you have more joy than that. You have more reason to believe than that nonsense. Today, we arrive at the second to the last sermon in the gospel of Matthew. I mean, it is an amazing moment in history right here. Some of you started coming to the church three years ago and we've only been in one book of the Bible the whole time, so we're going to rejoice that God Canyon Hills Community Church 2

3 is going to bring us fully to the end by next Sunday, God willing. We find ourselves in Matthew, chapter 28, today. We're going to look at the first 15 verses. I believe the first 15 verses of Matthew 28 are the exclamation point on God's redemptive history. I think the resurrection of Jesus Christ is God slamming down his gavel on the head of sin, Satan, and death. By Jesus rising from the dead, the empty tomb is heaven's offer for eternal joy for all those who will believe. That's where we come to today. If your Bibles are ready, let's stand for the reading of this portion of God's Word. "Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.' So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, 'Greetings!' And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, 'Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.' While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, 'Tell people, "His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep." And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.' So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day." God in heaven, I just know there are people all around us in this room who are tired, sad, and broken. God, you have brought together, today, people who are hurting, confused, disappointed, and whose life dreams and goals have been seriously detoured in other directions. Here we sit, God, talking about your Son and his resurrection. I pray, God, that you will take the power of this moment and begin to replace all those things with a joy that is lasting, that will allow us to overcome these feelings. I pray, God, you would surprise us this morning by increasing our faith, deepening the spiritual roots of our hearts so we know, no matter what, Jesus is alive. I pray, God, we'll grasp, today, just a portion of that great joy these women had when they ran from that tomb. God, I pray that if there's anything we need to change, if there's any sin of which we need to repent, or if there are any attitudes in our hearts that need to be changed, we give you Canyon Hills Community Church 3

4 permission, today, to convict us of our sin and change us. Oh, God, just do your work that we may know the happiness of being holy and close to you. Oh, God, take this morning and do with it as you please. In the name of your risen Son, Jesus, I pray, amen. I want to just kind of review the context of this moment in the life of Christ, and then I want to take some time and try to apply it directly to our everyday lives. The first thing you see here is that this whole scene took place at early dawn on the Sunday morning after the Friday of the crucifixion. Jesus died on the cross, late afternoon on Friday. Here we are on Sunday morning, after the Sabbath, after the resurrection. Matthew mentions two women in the story, Mary Magdalene, who some believe is the second most important woman in the whole Bible, right after Mary, the mother of Jesus. In fact, when you look at this (I was surprised this week, when I found this out), she is mentioned 12 times in the Gospels. She is mentioned more than just about every apostle in the Bible. If you don't remember your Mary Magdalene history, she was the woman out of whom Jesus cast the seven demons and delivered from a life of demon possession. She was present at both the crucifixion and the resurrection. The other Mary Scholars aren't completely sure which one to whom Matthew is referring. We're not sure who she is. Some believe it could actually be the mother of Jesus. I'm not sure it is. You wouldn't refer to the mother of Jesus as just, "the other Mary." I don't think Matthew would do that. Yet when you read the other gospel accounts, we know these two weren't the only women who showed up that day. There were a couple of others. At least one other one whose name was Mary So there were three Marys who showed up at the tomb that morning. We're just not sure to which one Matthew is referring here. We're told, right at the beginning here, a great earthquake happened. Most likely, it happened while the angel was descending from heaven. I'm sure there were all kinds of commotion and racket as the angel comes to earth. I love this guy. He has a great job description. He shows up from heaven, a big earthquake announces his arrival; he rolls back the stone from the tomb, and then sits on it and waits for the party to begin. I love this guy. I want to talk to him in heaven. I envision him just kind of leaning back on his arms with his legs kind of swinging off the thing and saying, "All right. Let's get ready. Let's let people know it has happened." Here is in the story. He doesn't have a name in the gospel, but there he is. We're told he looks like lightning and his clothing is as white as snow. Basically, Matthew is describing, here, an angelic being in the form of a man. He's so bright and it's so amazing that you have to literally just block your eyes because you can't totally stare at him. It's an amazing sight, I'm sure. He rolls back the stone, as I said. Canyon Hills Community Church 4

5 Then in verse 4, we come across the guards. For fear of the angel, the guards tremble and become like dead men. There was probably at least 5, maybe 10 or more of these guards. We saw last week that they had been put in charge of guarding the tomb to make sure no one messed with the body of Jesus. The Jewish people didn't want the disciples to come steal him, because then they could propagate their crazy story, what Jesus said, that he would rise from the dead in three days. They could have been Jewish temple guards or they could have been Roman soldier guards. Again, we're not totally sure. I think they're Roman soldier guards, personally, because later in the story, they are really nervous about being found out that the body is gone. For the Roman guards, if you fell asleep on the job and something like this happened, it would mean your immediate execution. It would be assumed that you were a part of the coup and you allowed this thing to happen. So they're nervous and they go to the Jewish priests and say, "What do we do now?" Of course, we'll get to that in just a second. We have no evidence that these guards heard the angel speaking or saw Jesus alive. All we know is they saw the angel, woke up, saw the tomb rolled back, and they faint. They're lying on the ground, unconscious, passed out, out of sheer fear. Then all of a sudden, in verses 5-7, the angel starts talking to the women. The women show up on the scene and the first thing the angel says to the women is, "Hey, don't be scared. Don't be afraid." I can't imagine the fear these women had when they showed up, 2,000 years ago. First of all, they're getting closer to the tomb, and as they come right around the corner, there are Roman soldiers lying all over the ground. They don't know if they're asleep. They don't know if they're drunk. They don't know if they're dead. They can see where the tomb is, and these guys aren't moving. I don't even know if they're breathing. These women (probably four, at least) start stepping over these bodies of these Roman soldiers. That had to be a weird thing, right there. The stone is rolled back. They come around the corner and all of a sudden, the tomb is open. That was a shocker. Then there's this lightningbolt type of dude sitting on the rock, who is talking to them. I want you to get into the story a little bit. This isn't a nursery rhyme. This really happened, and these women, much like the women who would attend our church, come up on this scene and they are scared out of their minds. They don't have to say anything. The angel looks at them and says, "Don't be afraid." What an amazing scene. How wild it must have been! I love this sentence he says here. At the end of verse 5, he says, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified." I love that statement. What a telling statement! What a revealing statement about these women! We can't be sure what they were hoping to find or feel that morning. I'm pretty sure they weren't expecting Jesus to be alive. Yet if I were to guess, I think they just got up that day and wanted to be as close to Jesus as possible. I'm sure it wasn't very different from people today who would go to the cemetery to visit the graveside. We go there because We know the person isn't there anymore. We know Canyon Hills Community Church 5

6 the person is gone, but the closeness we feel in proximity when we visit the cemetery, in some strange way, gives us momentary relief from the grief, loss, sadness, loneliness, and sorrow. In that moment, there's just something unique that happens. I think these women would have given anything to have heard his voice again, so full of grace and truth, or to see his face again, so full of hope. The angel says, to them, these eight amazing words. He says, "He is not here, for he has risen " Eight words that would forever change human history and eternity "He is not here. This place is vacant. This tomb is empty. He is risen." Then he looks at them and he says, "Come. I want you to see where he lay." Past tense. They were probably just standing there with their mouths open in shock. He says, "No, come. Come. You need to peek in here. Look. He's not here. He is not here." In verse 7, the angel says, "Go. Hurry up. Go tell the disciples he has risen, just like he said he would. Go tell them they're going to see him again, just like he told them they would." In verse 8, it says, " they departed quickly " That may be an understatement. They ran like crazy, " from the tomb with fear and great joy " I want to skip that verse and come back to it, because that's where we're going to find all of our application, but in verse 9, we see here that Jesus meets them as they're running. We don't know how far they got. We don't know if it was right there in the garden, if it was right outside the garden, or down the road. We're not sure, but it was pretty quick. We're told here that they fall down. They grab his feet. They just kneel at his feet and start worshiping him, and that's exactly what we would all do if we saw Jesus in his glorified body in our presence. We would fall on our faces and worship him. They really are the first, in the fulfillment of Paul's words in Philippians, chapter 2, where he wrote, "There will come a day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord." These two women, right here, were the first to fulfill that great truth. He says, "Don't be afraid." Just like the angel, he says, "Go tell my brothers I'm alive." Then, at the end of the story, we read where the guards came to at some point. The women are gone. Jesus is gone. The angel is gone. The tomb is open. They run into town and tell the chief priests and elders what happened, and so they bribe them. Their chief priests pay the soldiers money to spread lies and tell people, "The disciples stole the body while we were sleeping." Just so you know, this is kind of a side thought of mine. You know, in that day, just like it would be today, tampering with graves was a serious crime, a serious offense, and it would land you in prison for a very long time, especially in that day and age. You just didn't mess with people's tombs and burial places. Now what's interesting to me is that's the lie they were spreading. They were telling people, "He's gone because, while we were sleeping, the disciples came in and rolled this giant stone away." It would have been almost impossible because you would have had to roll it uphill and it Canyon Hills Community Church 6

7 would have made a bunch of racket. Then you would have gotten this stinky corpse out of the tomb. They did all that while the soldiers were leaning against the rock. If they had actually stolen the body, because that is such a great crime, wouldn't you think we would have had evidence, somewhere in the Bible, that at least some of them would have been arrested and thrown in prison for that crime? There's no evidence of that anywhere, which tells me, although they were spreading this lie, there were probably more people who didn't believe the lie than did. Now we come back to verse 8. Look at it again. "So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy " The fear part is reasonable, for all the reasons we just talked about. Until they saw Jesus, they were frightened and terrified, but I want us to dwell on that little phrase there, " great joy " Why great joy? Why, for 21 centuries, do we have believers getting great, lasting, fulfilling joy from the fact that Jesus is alive and his tomb is empty? Why did the apostle Peter write, 25 years after the risen Savior, in 1 Peter 1, where he says, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory "? He's writing this years after Jesus rose from the dead. Why all the joy? Why great joy? Why are we even here this morning? I want to remind all of us who love God and follow Jesus why the resurrection is our source of great joy. I want to show how the resurrection of Jesus fulfills the deepest longings of the heart, and I have a whole bunch of reasons ready to give you. Since all the important football games have already been played this weekend, we have lots of time, so let's get started. I have way more points than we have time, but we'll go as long as time will allow. Let me just start with some of the more obvious reasons why the resurrection is a great source of joy, and then we'll get down into kind of the deep end of the swimming pool. 1. Because he is risen, we have a way to God. Again, it may be obvious to most of us, but let that sink in for a minute. Jesus said, "I am the way. I'm the way to God. I'm the truth. I'm all the truth you need about God. I'm the life. No one comes to God, the Father, except through me." You see, one of the deepest longings of the human heart is to know where we go beyond this life. One of the deepest needs we have is to have a sense of what comes after this life. That longing every human being has was put there by God. In Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, verse 11, we're told that God put eternity in the heart of every human being, so this curiosity, fear of death, and desire to know, "Is this all there is?" comes from God. He puts it there because he wants us to seek him and he wants us to know the answer to that. Jesus makes the claim that there is a way to God, and he's the only way. Only through him can we be reconciled back to God and have a relationship with him. That's where the joy of the resurrection comes from. It's from knowing Jesus is already alive and Canyon Hills Community Church 7

8 already with God. He knows the way because he's there already. Amen? That's why Jesus says those famous words of his, earlier in John, chapter 14: "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." In the resurrection, our deep longing for eternity is met in him. 2. Because he is risen, we are forgiven of our sins. Please get this. We drill the gospel into you every single week, and I want you to hear it again. I want you to embrace it. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Get that. Without a resurrection, we have no forgiveness. We have no eternal life. This is another basic need and longing of our hearts, because if God still holds our sins against us (we have all sinned, amen?), then there's no hope for anything else from God, because we know God and sin do not dwell in the same place. God can't even look upon sin. The foundation for every other blessing from God is that God won't hold our sins against us. Everything hangs on forgiveness. If Jesus is not risen, then he is not God, and if he is not God, then he has no power to make us righteous by faith in his death. Stay with me now. The sacrifice of Jesus' death is made effective through the power of his resurrection. Are you with me? Without the resurrection, all you have is a guy who died a horrible death on a cross, and that death has no power to change anything in your life or my life. Yet because he is risen, he has now the power to make you righteous through faith in him. By his resurrection, we're saved from sin's power to condemn us to death. This week, I found this great little verse in Romans, chapter 4. I completely forgot it was there, and in just about three or four words, it drives this point home. I want you to turn there. Romans 4, verse 25 Go to it with me. It's simple, powerful, and clear. This is a whole chapter about how we become right in the eyes of God, how we become righteous enough, and good enough to go to heaven. You have to back up to verse 23 so we can start at the beginning of a sentence. Again, the context is how we become pure, holy, and righteous enough to go to heaven. Verse 23: "But the words 'it was counted to him' were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also." He's speaking about Abraham being considered righteous. "It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." Those two phrases have to be together. We're told here that Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses. He was hung on a tree and died for our sins. He died in our place. He took all the punishment and penalty for our sin upon himself. He did that for us. Canyon Hills Community Church 8

9 We couldn't die for God because we have nothing to offer God. We are sinners. We can't bring a sinful life to God and say, "Here, take this." It has no value to God. The sacrifice to pay for our sins must be pure and holy, without blemish, and the only thing available and possible was Jesus himself. He dies for our sins. Are you with me? You got that gospel part, right? Listen to the next part. He says he was raised. It didn't end at the dying for the sins. He was " raised for our justification." He was raised to make us righteous. He was raised to make us to be just as if we had never sinned. Because he was raised, he has the power to take his purity and righteousness and give it to us by faith. Are you with me? That's why the resurrection is so important. Look at chapter 5, verse 1. In the very next sentence Paul writes, he can't help himself. He says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," who is alive. The promise is, because he is risen, we no longer have to earn our way to heaven. We no longer have to figure out how to be righteous, holy, and pure because we can't. We're born sinners, and because he is risen and we put our faith in him, he makes us righteous. That's where some of the joy from the resurrection comes from. 3. Because he is risen, our faith is not in vain. It's not stupid, in other words. It's not worthless. "For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile " You see, deep down inside, again, another longing we all have is for someone whom we can absolutely trust, someone we can count on through thick and thin. We have that longing in our hearts, and no matter how hard we try to find that special human being, we never do. We never can, because of sin. That human doesn't exist. We will always, somehow, eventually, let each other down, because we're sinners. Yet that need to have someone in our lives whom we can ultimately trust is always there. We long for that person because we were made that way. Let me give you some evidence of that. You know your Genesis creation history, right? God created Adam and Eve and he put them in a garden. He put them there in this perfect place. He put them there to bring glory to himself by trusting in him for everything they need. God places them in the garden and says, "This is perfection. We are going to enjoy fellowship forever. You will have everything you need if you trust me. Here's how you trust me. I will take care of you. You will never have a need. You will always be completely satisfied. If you do this, you will break that trust. You will tell me you don't want to trust me." Of course, we know they did that. They chose not to trust God for everything they needed. Satan comes along and tempts them and tricks them and they give in. Because of that, everything changed. But the original way man was created was to find total satisfaction in God. Someone has said this many times. I just quote it, so I don't take credit for it. We know this to be true: "God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him." That's why the resurrection is so much joy, because when we put our faith in him, we find all of our Canyon Hills Community Church 9

10 satisfaction in him. Now that we have our sins forgiven, met through Jesus, we can have our need for someone to count on also met through the risen Jesus. See, the death of Jesus proves his love for us. If you're ever starting to feel like God doesn't love you anymore, if you're every starting to convince yourself, "There's no way God can still love me, based on what I've done or said," all you have to do is look at a cross and you will know God loves you. But let me tell you this: the resurrection proves he has the power over every enemy of life. When you put your trust in Jesus, you put your trust in the only one who will never let you down. I love Isaiah, chapter 12, verse 2. "Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." Jesus is alive to be trusted. Trust him, and you will find great joy. 4. Because he is risen, we have the hope of seeing loved ones in heaven. We get to see those who have gone on ahead of us. Paul writes, in 1 Corinthians 15, "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits [the first one] of those who have fallen asleep [died]." Probably many of us in this room have loved ones who have already gone on to heaven. Some of them went way too soon and we miss them. That is sin's greatest curse, death. You see, before Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, death was not an option. They would live forever, but because they sinned in the garden and they decided they wouldn't trust God but they would trust in themselves, they brought death to the whole human race. That is the curse of sin. Because of that sin of death, we have things now like miscarriage, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, overdoses, suicides, car accidents, drunk drivers, mudslides, tsunamis, and all sorts of diseases, starvation, war, crime, and violence. All of those are consequences of hearts and bodies broken by sin. All of it. Too many people have died and lost their lives way before they should have ever gone. But in the risen Jesus, we can live with the joy of knowing that one day, we will be with him and with them forever. Let me be careful that I don't give you some universalist version of religion here. I am not saying everybody who has died has gone to heaven. Please don't think I'm saying that. Unfortunately and sadly, there are all kinds of pastors and religions, even in the name of Christianity, that give the impression that, somehow, everybody who dies goes to heaven. If that were the case, then Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross was a giant joke and completely unnecessary. No. In chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, in verse 23, we're told that promise of being raised from the dead and going to heaven, those whom we will see, is only for those who belong to Christ. We will have the joy of one day being with our loved ones who belong to Jesus Christ forever and ever. Canyon Hills Community Church 10

11 5. Because he is risen, every life has value and meaning. Every single person matters because Jesus is alive. Listen to this super-long sentence here by Peter: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Let me look at that with you for a minute. The amount of people today who believe there is nothing to live for is staggering. That number of people is growing. There are so many people living in our world today who are hopeless. The amount of hopelessness is unending. It's relentless. I've quoted Mother Teresa often. She always said hopelessness is the leading cause of death on earth. It's not war. It's not crime. It's not disease. It's hopelessness. I think she's right. The reason I think she's right is because what we turn to for answers and hope in our world (politics, education, an economy, and science)... All they do is remind us of how lost and scared we are. That's all those things do. They offer no lasting hope. They offer nothing to fulfill the longings of the heart. The resurrection of Jesus is the pathway out of hopelessness. It always has been. Through faith in the risen Jesus, every single human being has the potential of being born again, spiritually. Peter writes, " born again to a living hope " It's not a dying hope, not a dead hope, but a living hope. That means our living hope is not some idea. It's not some philosophy. It's not some religious weird stuff. Our living hope is a person. It is Jesus Christ, who is not in the tomb. When we are born again, when our spirit is made alive through faith in Jesus Christ, we have a hope that doesn't die. It doesn't go away with a bad economy, bad weather, or whatever. It's eternal and lasting. Peter says we have an indestructible inheritance that is 100 percent guaranteed by the power of God. It's guarded and guaranteed by God. Jesus is alive and he's sitting at the right hand of the Father. That is the living hope we live with. 6. Because he is risen, our suffering is never in vain. Here's where we wade into the deep end of the swimming pool, brothers and sisters. Because he's alive, none of the stuff in this life is wasted. None of the trials, sadness, disappointments, betrayals, sickness, disease None of it is wasted. Paul said, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. [ ] And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn " There it is again, the first one. " among many brothers," who would also rise from the dead and live forever. Canyon Hills Community Church 11

12 This is a difficult and amazing reality, all at once. It's difficult because the resurrection of Jesus Christ doesn't eliminate suffering in this life. It doesn't eliminate death. It doesn't eliminate trials, tribulations, and tragedy. I will never stand here and pretend it will and it does. It doesn't. The resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees our suffering has a purpose. It will never be wasted. God will never ignore it. God isn't out of control, with his face in his hands, going, "I don't know what to do now. I'm so sorry. I didn't see that coming." That is not the God whom we worship. That is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible says, "Yes, there is suffering. Ultimately, it doesn't compare to the glory to which you're soon going to come." Yet he tells us the suffering has a purpose. You see, without the resurrection, the suffering of Jesus is worthless, and so is ours. It has no value. Without the resurrection, the Buddhists and the Hindus are right. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, I'd be a Buddhist or a Hindu, because that would be about the best option. The Buddhists say, really, that life is all just a consequence of our actions or inactions. It's karma. You kind of get what's coming to you, good or bad. That's why there's no compassion in those cultures. It's like, "Hey, you get what you deserve." The Hindus basically say, amongst a million other things They're the most confused people on the face of the earth. I say that with a sadness, not a cockiness, but they are very confused. They believe anything and everything. What it deduces down to is basically that life is just a bunch of empty randomness you have to endure. Without a resurrection, they're right, both of them. In Jesus Christ, there's a progressive process of purification and sanctification that takes place in the midst of our suffering. I know this hits home for some of you today, on so many levels. Paul is writing, saying those of us who love Jesus God is always in the process of taking the stuff that happens in life and conforming us into the image of his Son. What God does with suffering, pain, and disappointment is to burn the dross of our sin out of our hearts and burn the gold of his grace in. That's why, when we're going through tough times, we can actually be joyful in all circumstances as James writes, be joyful in all circumstances when he says, "Consider it joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith is producing something in you because your trials are in God's hands." When that takes root, joy becomes real. 7. Because he is risen, God will never stop loving us. Here comes the depth of the joy. God will never stop loving us because Jesus is alive. "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God " Canyon Hills Community Church 12

13 Here's the key in the whole verse. Nothing " will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God, is the conduit in which God pours all of his love out to you and me. By putting our faith and trust in his Son, we find our way to God, and it's there we find all of his unfailing, unending love. What an amazing thought! Again, the longings of the heart God created us with a need to love and to be loved. That explains why, when they ask Jesus, "Hey, if we're going to take you seriously, what's the most important thing we have to do?" Jesus says, "I have good news for you. Do you know what it is? Love God with all your heart and love each other." Do you know what that does? That satisfies the two longings of our heart, to love and to be loved. In essence, that means if you have your faith and trust in the risen Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it means two things. First, there is nothing you can do to make God love you more. Nothing. There's not one thing else you can possibly do that will impress God or cause God to love you more. His love for you is already infinitely perfect. It's unending. It's unfailing. It can't improve. It can't increase. Secondly, there's nothing you can do to make God love you less. Even on your worst day, because you have all of your faith and trust in the risen Son of God, there is nothing that can separate you from his love. That ought to bring tears to your eyes and a smile to your face. Is it any wonder they ran from that tomb that day with great joy? I'm not sure all of this was going through their heads instantaneously, but with a little bit of time, I'm sure it all became clear. I'm going to ask you to do something for me. I'm going to ask you to just bow your heads before we leave. Just take a moment. Don't let this moment pass. Just bow your heads and close your eyes and just breathe for a minute. Would you take this quiet time with you and God and just thank him for his unending, perfect love? Thank him that he loves you so much that there's nothing you can do to make him love you less. Just take a moment and rejoice in that. Father in heaven, I thank you that he is risen, that he is not here, and that he is alive and with you at your right hand, soon to come again. God, I pray that in the midst of all of life, today, as we walk from this building, you will have increased our joy. I pray, God, you will have deepened our roots of faith. God, especially for those in this room who may have struggles that are real, that are real-time, I pray that in a supernatural way, inner joy has begun to well up. God, I pray for those in this room who do not know Jesus Christ or who only know him from a distance. I pray that today, you will draw them to yourself. I pray they will have a longing and a hunger to know a joy that lasts. God, may today be the day of their salvation. I pray this in the name of your Son, amen. If you have questions about what it means to surrender your life to Jesus, to turn from your sin, and to trust him as your Lord and Savior, we would love to answer those questions. Right over here, there will be some people ready and raring to go to have that conversation with you. Don't leave here if you have questions about what it means to completely surrender to Jesus, to be Canyon Hills Community Church 13

14 baptized in his name, and to follow him all the rest of your days. We'll talk to you about. We would love to. Next week is it. It's a historical day in the life of Canyon Hills. We are actually going to open our Bibles to another place soon. This would not be the time to clap. I'm not asking for applause. Bring your Bibles and we'll finish up the gospel next week. God bless. Have a great rest of your weekend. Canyon Hills Community Church 14