The King Is Risen

The story of the cross and the resurrection is all about redemption. And it is a

story not relegated to the likes of fairy tales or fables. It is a true story. A story

about the Son of God who was both fully human and fully divine. It is a story

about forgiveness and grace. It’s about second chances and new beginnings. It is a

story of hope and there is nothing else like it in the world, past, present or future.

And I have the honor and the privilege to preach this message to you for this is the

very purpose I’ve been called to be a minister. Not just to preach on Easter

Sunday, but to preach the gospel message and about the event that changed the

course of history forever. That of course being the Resurrection of Jesus.

I’ll just put it like this. If the resurrection had not happened and it all turned out to

be a fiction, all of my life’s work would been in vain and there would be no reason

for us to gather every single Sunday morning for it would all be meaningless and

purposeless. That means that all the hustling around the house trying to get the

kids ready and yourself ready and the dog fed, the frustration from having to

change your kids’ clothes because they ended up wearing their breakfast instead

of eating it, worrying about getting to church before the second song starts would

all be pointless. And we would be a people to be pitied most of all. The Apostle

Paul puts it this way.

1 Corinthians 15:12-19

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say

that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the

dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised,

then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be

misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom

he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not

raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, yourfaith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen

asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are

of all people most to be pitied.

Everything hinges upon the resurrection. There is no Christianity without the

resurrection. There is no hope without the resurrection. And if someone claims

there is hope apart from Jesus, it is nothing more than an illusion.

And this is why when we come to the next verse that Paul writes, we can rejoice

and give glory to God for he says,

1 Corinthians 15:20

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have

fallen asleep.

Sir Ambrose Fleming,

“The Christian Church is not founded on fiction but on historical and actual

events, the greatest that ever happened in history – the resurrection of Christ.”

Here’s one of the results of the resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection makes our

resurrection possible.

Romans 6:5

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be

united with him in a resurrection like his.

This means that when those who put their faith in Jesus die, they will be reunited

with friends and family who have also put their ultimate trust in Jesus. And that is

just one of the things we get to look forward to during our time here on earth.

There was someone I knew during my freshman year of college and I found out

that she didn’t believe in an afterlife. She believed that the best hope for any

person was to live out their lives as best they could and when they died, they just

ceased to exist. And I have lived long enough to know that there are multitudes ofpeople who live out the course of their lives operating from this worldview. No

wonder we see so many people striving to make their mark in the world, good or

bad. They just want to be remembered because they believe in their heart of

hearts that there is nothing else for them after they die, that this life is all there is

and so time passes second by second until they arrive at death’s doorstep without

any real hope.

This is not so for the Christian. Our hope is not found in having our names

engraved on plaques or our lives recorded in the history books, or a reputable

legacy where maybe someday someone will erect a statue in our honor or give an

inspiring eulogy at our funeral. No, our hope is found only in the resurrected

Christ. And his name is Jesus.

Our greatest achievement is not in making ourselves known, but it is in making

Jesus known. I know there are many parents and grandparents and future parents

here in the room right now. And I want you to know that your greatest success as

a parent or grandparent is to raise up children who love and trust Jesus. I also

want you to know that your greatest failure as a parent or grandparent is to

elevate something else over the importance of knowing and loving Jesus. If sports,

or schooling, or band practice, or job performance at the office, or being a good

moral person, or having a nice house or an impressive retirement portfolio takes

the place where only Jesus was meant to occupy we will have made an egregious

error; one with eternal consequences. Our ultimate hope is to be found in Jesus.

To all of us in here today, whether it’s your first time hearing this or the

thousandth time, this should be a breath of fresh air. We can breathe a sigh of

relief. Yes, these other things matter. It’s important to do well in school or to have

a great job or to have a healthy retirement, but all of these things don’t hold a

candle to the importance of one’s relationship with Christ. Here’s the thing. We

can fail at all these other things and still be successful. But if we fail in the most

important thing and succeed in all the rest, we will have failed in everything.

When talking about the Resurrection, we can’t do it without talking about Jesus’

death. There can’t be a resurrection without first having a death.

When we look to the cross and picture our Savior suffering, we no longer have

anywhere to hide. Roy Hession says,“At Calvary, the naked truth is staring down at us, challenging us to drop the pose

and own the truth.”

You see, we can’t hide anything from God. So, what are we really accomplishing if

we put on a front and fool others, and in the process make fools of ourselves in

the eyes of the God. Drop the pose. I think many of us in here know how

exhausting it is trying to keep up an appearance that is not real. Friends, Jesus did

not die on a cross so that we would live like posers. Drop the act. My hope for you

is that knowing and understanding this feels like a weight lifted off your shoulders.

It’s time to get our priorities straight and focus on what truly matters.

“Drop the pose and own the truth.” And what is that truth? We are all sinners in

need of a Savior. It is the great equalizer. You can be rich and die in sin. You can be

poor and die in sin. You can be morally good and die in sin. You can be morally

corrupt and die in sin. At the end of the day, the only thing that will matter is our

relationship with Jesus.

Romans 3:23

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Does the Scripture say only some have sinned? Does it say only Democrats have

sinned or only Republicans have sinned? No. It says all have sinned. And it is in

this truth that we recognize our greatest need. And the moment we recognize

this, the picture of Jesus hanging there on the cross, his blood, lacerations,

bruises, pierced hands and feet of which could all be described as grotesque and

offensive, all of a sudden becomes the most beautiful thing we could have ever

laid our eyes upon. This is the beauty of the cross. Jesus didn’t die for those who

could keep up the best appearances. He knows all of our sins, our brokenness, our

insecurities, our doubts, our mistakes, our shortcomings. And while knowing all of

these things, he still died for us. What kind of a love is that? It is a perfect love. It

is the love of God.Romans 5:8

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for

us.

John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes

in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:17

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order

that the world might be saved through him.

Now, as good of news as this is, the world is full of skeptics. There is no shortage

of skeptics regarding the validity of the resurrection of Jesus. There have been

many attempts to disprove the resurrection and all of them have come up short.

Dr. Thomas Arnold, a past professor of history at Rugby College, Oxford University

wrote,

“I have been used for many years to study the history of other times and to

examine the weight of evidence of those who have written about them and I

know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proven by greater or fuller

evidence of every sort to the understanding of the fair inquirer than the great sign

which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”

Let me take us to the gospel of Matthew to further give credence to the

resurrection.

Matthew 57:62-66

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the

Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor

said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb

to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away andtell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than

the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure

as you can.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and

setting a guard.

The chief priests and Pharisees were so paranoid that they requested a guard be

put at the tomb so that Jesus’ followers wouldn’t pull any shenanigans and make

it seem like Jesus rose. And so, there was a guard placed at Jesus’ tomb. And these

were Roman guards. This was their job and scholars have concluded that there

could have been anywhere from four to sixteen guards watching the tomb. Every

precaution was taken in order to make sure of the fact that Jesus’ body could not

have been stolen. Any attempt to say otherwise would go against reason and

logic.

The founders of all the other world religions have died and remained dead. You

can actually go visit their tombs and do you know what you would find inside?

Their remains. It is not so with our Savior. Let’s return to Matthew’s account.

Matthew 28:1-6

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.

All the tombs and graves of the founders of all the other world religions are

occupied by dead men. The tomb of our Savior will forevermore remain empty. If I

were given a choice of where to place my hope in for this life and the next, it’s not

going to be in some man who had died and that’s all she wrote. I’m going to place

my trust in the one who prophesied about his resurrection and actually did it.

The empty grave has far more implications than it would seem at first glance. I

mentioned earlier in my message, that Jesus’ resurrection makes our resurrectionpossible. And I’m not just talking about our future resurrection when Christ

returns. I’m talking about the moment one comes up out of the water of baptism

which in and of itself signifies death, burial and resurrection, one begins living

their new life in Christ. There cannot be a resurrection without there first being a

death.

I remember last summer, there were cicadas in our backyard and they would leave

behind their molts (exoskeletons) and my son Josiah would pick them up and be

amazed by them. Here’s the thing. When a cicada molts, they don’t return back to

it. They don’t try to crawl back into it. That part of them is dead. It’s lifeless. It can

no longer move or breathe or feel anything or do anything. It no longer defines

them or has any bearing on its future. It’s the same thing for Christians. When we

become a Christian, we die to our old selves and live our new lives in Christ. And it

is in this reality that our past no longer defines us. Our past mistakes or failures no

longer define us, because now we find our identities in Christ.

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in

me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved

me and gave himself for me.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away;

behold, the new has come.

There are some of you in here today who are in need of a resurrection. You are in

need of a new beginning. If you are tired and weary, I want you to hear what Jesus

says.

Matthew 11:28-30

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my

yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will

find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”Now I realize this may sound too good to be true. “All I have to do is trust in

Jesus?” Many of us have been duped multiple times, but I can guarantee you that

you will never find a promise so sure as the one we find in John 3:16. Anyone can

receive eternal life through faith in Jesus. And that’s not all. As a result of this new

status in Christ, we are new creations. We no longer live for ourselves, or for

anyone else except for Jesus. And that is freedom like no other.

The Resurrection is a testament to this renewed status for the newly converted

Christian. When God looks upon those who have placed their trust in Jesus as

Savior and Lord, he doesn’t see, “condemned.” He sees, “reconciled.” He doesn’t

see “orphan”. He sees “child.” He doesn’t see “enemy”. He sees “friend.” He

doesn’t see “lost.” He sees, “found.” He doesn’t see “broken.” He sees “restored.”

He doesn’t see “disappointment.” He sees “promise.” He doesn’t see “dead”, but

He sees “alive.”

1 Peter 1:3

3 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,

We live in a world today that trivializes this event. But I am here to tell you that it

is the most profound event in all of history. Its effects have rippled throughout the

centuries and its message rings loud and clear. Death seemed to have the final say

on Friday, but then came Sunday, where there stood an empty tomb.

Piano to play here.

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to

God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.If you are still trying to figure out who this Jesus is and if he can be trusted and if

the claims he made were true, I want you to reflect on what C.S. Lewis had to say.

“You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a

madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him

and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But

let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human

teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”