04 Three Days that Changed the World. The following document is a rough copy of Pastor Drost s sermon notes of his message preached April 16th, 2017

Transcription

1 04 Three Days that Changed the World The following document is a rough copy of Pastor Drost s sermon notes of his message preached April 16th, Smythe Street Cathedral - Do Not Copy Without Permission

2 This week we have been walking through The three days that Changed the World We started on Maundy Thursday with the Last Supper and Jesus giving us a New Commandment: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. John 13:34 (NKJV). This comes at the heels of a very shocking story. Shocking for the disciples where Jesus takes a towel and washes the feet of His disciples and dries them with the towel. Showing us that the way of Christ is the way of a humble servant. Jesus tells us He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. Matthew 23:11 (NKJV) Jesus sets this example to us that it s not about me it s about serving not what s in it for me but what s in it for others loving others like He loved us serving others like He served us! Picking up the towel of service! Paul says it this way in Philippians 2 Don t do anything only to get ahead. Don t do it because you are proud. Instead, be humble. Value others more than yourselves. None of you should look out just for your own good. Each of you should also look out for the good of others. As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did. In his very nature he was God. Jesus was equal with God. But Jesus didn t take advantage of that fact. Instead, he made himself nothing. He did this by taking on the nature of a servant. Philippians 2:3-7a (NIRV) The Konnect Kids upstairs have been learning this month about HUMILITY and this is their verse Don t do anything only to get ahead. Don t do it because you are proud. Instead, be humble. Value others more than yourselves. Phil. 2:3 Illustration: A few weeks ago Pastor Wayne talked about being a puck-hog and the value of players that were great at assisting others to score. I was raised in South America and Europe and we played a much more sophisticated game than hockey we played soccer! I can still hear the cry of goal! that could be heard for miles But, as in hockey, great soccer players know the value of passing the ball so the other can score for the team! The Konnect Kids lesson defines humility as: Humility is putting others first by giving up what you think you deserve PASS IT TO WIN IT! That is what Jesus did for us at the Cross He passed it to win it for us! For me! For you! And heaven resounded with a big GOAL! Isaiah 53 says He was wounded FOR our transgressions, He was bruised FOR our iniquities; The chastisement FOR our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV) He does it for us! That is what the cross is all about. Jesus dying for us, for our sins so that we may find forgiveness! Page 2 of 6 04 Three Days that Changed the World

3 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6 (NKJV) Iniquity: Now that s not a nice word! It sounds very harsh! A better word would be slip-up. Let s face it, most of us really don t feel like we are sinners not what I do! People magazine once did a partly tongue-in-cheek survey on the subject of sin. The results were rated in order of gravity. The outcome was interesting: Sins like murder, child abuse, were (not surprisingly) rated the worst sins in ascending order, Smoking, swearing, and illegal videotaping far down the list. Parking in a handicapped spot was rated surprisingly high, whereas sleeping with someone while not married got off lightly. Cutting in front of someone in line was deemed worse than divorce. "Overall, readers said they commit about 4.64 sins a month." Remember the TV show Scooby-Doo? (I still like watching it) "The Gang," as they were called, were always getting themselves into trouble. Getting robbed, scared, and lost. In each episode, their task was to catch the villain. Whether the villain was a ghost, an evil witch, or any other phantom, every time it would end with the Gang catching the villain, and IN EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, the villain turned out to be a person you'd never expect. We'd assume the villain would be that really mean tour guide, or the strange park ranger, or the grumpy gasoline attendant But in the end, they would rip off the mask of the villain, and it was always a surprise! The villain was always the nice janitor, the sweet teacher, the seemingly "good person". We often think of the other person when referring to someone as a sinner. We are the good guys! But if we are honest, when the masks come off We are the villain! Jesus has to die for us! All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Last Friday we ended our Good Friday service singing: Thank you for the cross, thank you for the cross, thank you for the cross my friend we all must sing that! We all must be grateful! So, Jesus conquers sin for us through humiliation: death on a Cross. The worst kind of death, reserved for slaves and criminals. Jesus dies like a low-down criminal. The Son of God dies nailed to a Cross as a defeated man: he is betrayed, falsely accused, tortured, mocked, crucified, laughed at by the passerby and slowly dies. In human terms, he ends in failure, defeat. But Jesus humbly allows evil to be unleashed on him and he takes it upon himself in order to conquer sin for us. Jesus wins through failure! The cross is not an accident; an unfortunate bad luck ending his death was written, planned and prophesied from the beginning all the STORY of ancient Israel, all the Old Testament sequence of events, the history of humanity, point to it and ends with these words: It is finished! But the story does not end here it cannot! The cross would be a colossal failure without the resurrection! It s not a big stretch to believe that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried. After all, Roman crucifixions are historical facts. A common execution. In fact two other guys got crucified the Page 3 of 6 04 Three Days that Changed the World

4 same day Jesus did. So the crucifixion of Jesus is the easy part of the three day story! But the resurrection, that s a different story! Did it really happen and does it really matter? Let s read part of the story from Matthew s narrative: Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came 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 from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you. So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. Matthew 28:1-8 (NKJV) Some would consider this no different than a Scooby-Doo story. Ohers would say that these were sincere people but these women were just hysterical and imagined this. Others say that it was a scam the disciples came up with to gain notoriety. Others explain it away that Jesus did not really die, he simply went into some sort of a coma and later came alive. But regardless the explanations of the skeptics, the bottom premise stems from the fact that people just do not resurrect from the dead. So it s highly unlikely. To me, one of the first things to consider is the stone that was rolled away. It was moved not to let Jesus out. It was moved to let the women and the disciples in to see. Come, see the place Take a look! We are invited to examine the evidence! God invites us to check it out. WHY? Because it matters! If true, it s a game changer. So to the question of this being a hallucination by some hysterical women Peter probably thought that because he ran to the tomb with John to verify and they went in and found it empty After that He appeared to 10 of his disciples that very day and for 40 days, walked with them, ate with them, explained things to them He even made breakfast for them and at one occasion he appeared to more than 500 people at once proving that he had risen! That s a huge hallucination! To those who say he was some sort of apparition, like a ghost or some sort of vision. That first day he appeared to them Luke tells us They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Luke 24:37-40 (NIV) Again, it s an invitation to examine the evidence! Page 4 of 6 04 Three Days that Changed the World

5 To those that think Jesus did not really die but just went into some sort of coma and then came back on the third day That s a hard one to swallow for me considering the brutal torture he went through. The whipping he received (Called the verberatio by the Romans was famed as one of the worst kinds of floggings of ancient times they used the cat of nine tails! Many died from the pain!), then the crown of thorns was pressed on his head, plus the horrific execution of a Roman crucifixion. People watched as he bled to death hanging for hours from his nailed hands and feet. But here are the facts viewed by those present: The Jewish people had a custom that dead bodies should not be present on Sabbaths. Being Passover, that Sabbath was especially important to the Jews. So they asked Pilate that their legs might be broken so they would die quicker. The soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. John 19:32 33 (NKJV) The last point I make about the evidence of the Resurrection is what it did to those who were eye witnesses. Hundreds of people are willing to abandon their strict Jewish tradition and worship this Jesus. They are kicked out of their homes, synagogues, persecuted, tortured, and killed all because they refused to deny that Jesus had risen from the dead. Do you really think they would do this for a defeated dead dude? Hey, let s start a new religion and tell people Jesus is alive and we can all get tortured and killed. It will be fun! The resurrection was not preached by the early Christians as a shocking message, a terribly irritating one to the Jews, the Romans and the intellectual Greeks of the day. It was a horribly inconvenient message, but they were not willing to dismiss the facts. Our culture does not like facts. Facts are inconvenient! Our culture is about likes and dislikes, look at Facebook. It s all, I like this, I don t like this, I like this, I don t like this. But the Resurrection is a FACT, an inconvenient FACT to our modern progressive thinking! It matters! It s a game changer! The Apostle Paul says to the Corinthian church If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 (NLT) Who is this Paul? Paul was a devout Jewish Pharisee who was offended by Christianity. He found it outrageous! So much so that he persecuted the Christians. Then one day he saw Jesus raised from the dead and then it didn t matter about his Jewish upbringing, his traditions, his opinions. It didn t matter. His life took a 100% turn around! All that mattered to him from that point on was preaching that Jesus was crucified & raised from the dead. While in a prison, chained to a guard, He writes to Timothy Page 5 of 6 04 Three Days that Changed the World

6 Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains. 2 Timothy 2:8 9 (NKJV) He was persecuted, stoned, beaten, and tortured by his own Jewish people. They tried everything to kill him but it did not matter to him he had met Jesus alive! The Resurrection of Jesus is not the happy ending to a nice story. It is not the happy end of a cute movie; it is the proof that Jesus Christ conquered death, and the grave, for ever and ever. It is proof that He is King of Kings and He is Lord of All It is proof that He is alive and He is the champion of Heaven. That is why, Easter Sunday morning is the very center of our FAITH, it is our HOPE, it is our JOY, it is our FUTURE, it is our VICTORY! Jesus is alive! That s why we say on Easter morning: Christ has risen! The Lord has risen indeed! Hallelujah! Jesus said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Mark 16:15 (NIV) Page 6 of 6 04 Three Days that Changed the World