Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Good morning, Emmanuel Fellowship Church.
[00:00:07] What a joy to be together today. Amen.
[00:00:13] I am stoked to hang out in this truth today. I'm gonna. Before we get going too far, I'm gonna ask you guys to just indulge my inner old school Baptist pastor for just a minute. It is traditional on Easter Sunday for the minister to say he's risen. For the congregation to respond, he's risen indeed. And I just. This is. I just need this, guys. I need you to do this with me. Can we. Is that okay? All right, all right, all right, let's try. Okay, here we go. He is risen.
[00:00:45] Hallelujah. If for some reason you somehow made it this far and haven't figured it out, today is Resurrection Sunday. It's Easter Sunday. Although we do this literally every time we gather, this Sunday is set aside especially to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Three days after his brutal and unjust death on the cross on Easter Sunday morning, Jesus the crucified one who gave up his spirit on Good Friday, rose and walked out of his grave with the vestiges of death eliminated from his person. Because death could not hold Jesus, he died and then he rose.
[00:01:28] Because for all of human history since sin entered this earth, death has been the final word on every single individual life.
[00:01:38] But the Bible teaches that on this Sunday, 2,000 years ago, Jesus showed the world that he had the power over the curse, that his work, his teaching, his very person, is sufficient to conquer our old enemy, death.
[00:01:57] So we're going to celebrate that truth from Luke 24 today. It's worth celebrating if you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you this morning, that's fine. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. So we have house Bibles around the room. You can grab one from under a table or under a table under the chairs in front of you. If you don't own a physical copy of God's Word, I'd strongly encourage you to take one of these Bibles home or talk to one of our pastors and let us buy you one that is slightly larger print than the ones under the. Under the chairs. Okay. As you're turning there, I used to have one of those sunlight alarm clocks. You guys ever seen those? They are amazing. I have a picture of one.
[00:02:42] Listen, this is not an infomercial, but for like five seconds, it's going to be. Those things are magical. They're wonderful. Oh, my gosh. I'm kind of obsessed with this, if you know me at all, you know that I'm not naturally a morning person. Several years ago, I got into a slump of a terrible morning routine. Millie was really little. We was our first kid. We hadn't figured out her sleep schedule yet. And I got into this terrible rhythm of just needing, like, three or four alarms every morning to get out of bed. You guys know what I'm talking about. Like, the physically plugged into the wall alarm clock and then the cell phone, and then my watch, and then the second alarm on the cell phone. And then hopefully I finally got out of bed and got to work, like, only a couple of minutes late, you know, I'm saying, like, I got there and it just wasn't a good space. And then my brother started talking to me about these daylight alarm clocks that he got one. And when he described it, I said, that sounds fantastical and magical and too good to be true. That doesn't sound like a real thing. And then I used one. And I'm here to tell you guys, you should all buy one.
[00:03:48] That's not why we're here today, I promise. But seriously, you should get one. Well, they have these fancy LED bulbs and they simulate a sunrise in your bedroom. It's slow, over 45 minutes. It slowly fades up the light into your room until it's bright. They don't even make noise. They're silent. And they wake you up. Oh, and it's so pleasant. You wake up refreshed. Your body goes, oh, the sun's rising. And it ends out your sleep cycle naturally. It's great. Now, I've gone way too far down the infomercial route, so let me get to the point here.
[00:04:21] One of the most beautiful things about a sunrise, I know many of us don't experience them often, but one of the most beautiful things about a sunrise is that it is slow, subtle. It's quiet.
[00:04:35] It's gradual. It's not like flipping on a light switch. That's.
[00:04:41] But a sunrise eases into your life, and you don't realize it's there even until it's really there. It slowly dawns as gradually more and more light illuminates the world. And that is the perfect analogy for where we're going today. My main point today for you guys is simply this. Jesus is the light of hope that shines into the darkness of our lives.
[00:05:05] Jesus is the light that shines into the darkness of our lives. After the darkness of the unjust death of Christ, hope and life arrived like the dawn.
[00:05:19] And yet, even as I Say that like, on Easter Sunday. That's like a pretty kind of Christian truism. That's, like, easy to be like, amen. Yes. But even as I say that, I know that many of us in the room immediately kind of something in us is like, yeah, but, like, really. But, like, for real, though, like, yeah, I get that story. But as we think about our own lives, how come so much of our own life seems less like Easter Sunday and more like Good Friday?
[00:05:48] How come so much of our own experience seems like bad keeps happening and evil keeps winning and God doesn't do much about it? If Jesus is the light, well, then where the heck is that light? In my situation or what I'm struggling with in my hurt, where is the good news for me, beloved? Pray with me. And we're going to walk through this text, and I think we're going to see Jesus's answer to that question.
[00:06:17] Jesus, thank you so much for this morning.
[00:06:20] Thank you for new life in you. Thank you for resurrection God. Thank you for the gift of celebrating together with spiritual family spirit. We ask that you would be our discipler today. Humbly, Lord. We ask that you would be our teacher, that you would proclaim truth to us, that you would challenge us, and that you would convict us. And encourage Justin, that each and every one of us would leave here today having a fresh experience of your gospel and the hope it brings into every inch of our life.
[00:06:48] Jesus, we need you for this. So we pray it in your name. Amen.
[00:06:53] Okay, Luke 24, we're going to start in the first verse. We'll read this on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. We're going to stop there for just a second because we're stepping into the middle of a story that's already ongoing. If you were with us on Good Friday, then we walked through the last night when Jesus was betrayed and ultimately died. But let me. Let me remind us of that story so we know what we're stepping into here. So on Thursday of Holy Week, Jesus shared his last meal, a Passover supper, what we call the Lord's Supper, with his closest friends. Really shortly after that meal, he's betrayed by one of those same friends. He's handed over to a group of jealous and now violent religious leaders who have been plotting his death for a while. So Thursday night passes horrifically. There's a farce of a trial. There are beatings, there's mocking. And it all comes together in the morning with Jesus being brought before the Roman political leader Pilate, who consents to have Jesus crucified in spite of the lack of any evidence of him deserving death. Death.
[00:08:08] Jesus is then tortured before being physically, literally nailed to a wooden cross and left to suffer unto his death.
[00:08:18] After agonizing hours, Jesus cries out to God the Father and surrenders his spirit and dies alone and abandoned by his friends and even his Father. Jesus dies as the most wretched of sinners deserves.
[00:08:36] Brings to mind what the scripture says.
[00:08:38] For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
[00:08:46] We know what the scripture says it is the wages of sin is death.
[00:08:50] And our sweet Jesus became sin and died a sinner's death.
[00:08:58] And just like that, he breathed his last breath and he died.
[00:09:05] And this is where we stopped on Friday.
[00:09:07] Abruptly left the room in that darkness.
[00:09:13] We sat in the horror of the moment when life itself was killed.
[00:09:17] But there's more to the story. There's more going on here. You see, we say that Jesus was abandoned by his closest friends. And that is true.
[00:09:28] But ultimately, Jesus didn't actually die alone. So not really.
[00:09:33] The apostles, his best friends, the people who bragged, the people who said, I'm with you to the end, the people who literally said, I will die with you. They show up, I'll draw my sword and I will protect you. Those guys abandoned Christ and ran away and hid.
[00:09:49] But Jesus, female followers, the women in his life, they stood by him to the bitter end.
[00:09:59] They stood vigil at the cross as he suffered. They bore witness to his final breath in his final words and his death and even beyond.
[00:10:12] See, some of Jesus secret followers who were wealthy and had some influence, pulled some strings to get authority of his body that they might bury him. And a special Sabbath was coming up. And the Jews can't touch a dead body within so many hours of the Sabbath as they're trying to get it done quickly before the day starts. And these women, they kept track of it. They followed from a distance. They watched the tomb Jesus was laid in. Because here's the thing, there was no time to properly honor Jesus's body.
[00:10:46] The Jews have a very specific ritual for death, and it involves no embalming. Instead, they pack the body with herbs and spices and ointments and allow it to decay naturally. And none of this was able to happen. They had to be so quick before sundown and the Sabbath begin. And so these women who loved Jesus, who were with him from the beginning of his ministry who stayed vigil when he was abandoned, who watched his death, who bore witness. They marked where that tomb was. Because when the, when the Sabbath was over, they were going to come back and they were going to honor him one more time.
[00:11:23] And so in this moment, you can imagine it sitting back from the distance watching as these, to them, strangers take Jesus's body and put it into a tomb. And at this point, this is all that remains of the kind Rabbi. Jesus, an unclean dead body.
[00:11:43] And they wanted to honor him one last time. And so as the tomb was sealed with a stone and the strangers left, they marked where it was. This was the way for them to honor the memory of their beloved Rabbi.
[00:11:59] I love this detail because when they show up on Sunday morning, they show up with their pack of ointments and spices of showing up to honor a dead body, to honor the memory of a man they loved. It reminds us that the Resurrection was no one's plan.
[00:12:21] No one was expecting Easter Sunday.
[00:12:26] Kind of like how no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
[00:12:30] I know that was a really bad time to bring up something light hearted and funny. That's like just inappropriate timing, but that is how my brain works. I couldn't get. I kept saying this out loud as I was writing notes this week and I just said, you know what, I'm just gonna invite my church family into it. No one expected the resurrection on Easter Sunday. The Resurrection, you gotta come back with me. Sorry. The Resurrection was no one's plan except for Jesus.
[00:12:58] It was in fact Jesus's plan. Jesus planned this moment from the get go. He knew this was coming. Even as these women came to honor a dead man in their mourning, Jesus was already living and breathing and awaiting them. His heart had begun to pump blood again. His blood had begun to flow again. He is already alive in this moment as they arrive in their morning.
[00:13:26] Like so many things in the life of our sweet Jesus, the resurrection managed to simultaneously be the single most significant event in human history and yet remain quietly humble and totally unassuming in its action.
[00:13:42] I mean, think about that for a moment. The resurrection of Jesus signifies the defeat of Satan and the curse upon this world. And yet that morning, the sun rose like any other day.
[00:13:53] Quietly, the stone rolled away. Jesus got up and walked out and according to the apostle John, started gardening.
[00:14:04] What a strange way to step back into the world.
[00:14:09] And yet that is how they tell us the story. Look how it continues. Verse 2. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in, but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Asked the men. He is not here, but he has risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, it is necessary the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and rise on the third day. And they remembered his words.
[00:14:46] When they arrive, everything gets strange and wonderful all at the same time. Remember, they've arrived to honor the dead, but they find an empty tomb. I love this part. You notice Jesus does not simply introduce himself to them. Instead they find angels, the messengers of God who declare to them what had happened. This is because, beloved, the resurrection of Jesus is proclaimed.
[00:15:12] It is the nature of the gospel to be proclaimed. That may seem like a small detail, but I think it's actually really good for us to remember that. You have to remember here, guys, the empty tomb is not what saved these women. It's not the empty tomb that brought them to Jesus. As astounding as that physical immediate evidence may be, the gospel of Jesus must be proclaimed and then believed in faith.
[00:15:38] There's nothing wrong with evidence. It's wonderful, it obviously helps. But it is faith in the gospel proclaimed that brings us to Christ. That is what we see in these women. When they see the empty tomb, they're perplexed, they're confused, they're worried. But at the amazing proclamation and reminder of the truth, they remember, they see, they believe.
[00:16:02] This is one of the strangest aspects of the resurrection story that we can easily gloss over. You see, skepticism is our natural cultural bias.
[00:16:14] As modern Western folk, we're skeptical of everything. And the more radical the claim, the more skeptical we naturally are. But think of the people we're talking about who experienced Jesus resurrection. These are first century Palestinian Jews. They have no such skeptical, anti supernatural bias as we do. They don't. In fact, they're definitely pro supernatural action in the universe. I mean, these are the people who followed Jesus around for three years, seeing his miracles, seeing his ministry. If anyone should be expecting God to work miraculously and supernaturally, it should be these folk, right?
[00:16:57] And yet the resurrection of Jesus, it's completely unexpected by his followers. Completely unexpected. They are perplexed. Someone has to intervene, someone has to say, hold on, hold on, let me connect the dots for you here. Read on. The thing of verse nine, returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the 11 and to all the rest Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women who were with them were telling the apostles these things. But these words seemed like nonsense to them and they did not believe the women.
[00:17:28] Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths. And so he went away amazed at what had happened.
[00:17:37] When the women report their experience, they're blown off by the apostles.
[00:17:42] Luke tells us they considered it nonsense.
[00:17:45] That's incredibly dismissive, right? That's rough.
[00:17:49] Why do you suppose that is?
[00:17:52] They come back full of excitement, full of life, and they're just completely dismissed. Why is the central miracle claim of Christianity so unexpected and unbelieved by Jesus closest friends and followers, the people to whom he multiple times directly said, this is exactly what I'm going to do.
[00:18:14] I'm going to be betrayed. That guy. I'm going to die three days later, all raised from the dead. And they all go, uh huh, uh.
[00:18:23] And then when it happens, they go, that's nonsense. That's nuts. Yeah, there's no way. No way you saw angels. No way he resurrected. That's crazy.
[00:18:34] How the heck does that happen?
[00:18:36] How do they miss it so massively?
[00:18:40] Well, guys, the answer goes back to the beginnings of humanity.
[00:18:43] I mentioned this in our call to worship, but to remind us, right? Like the universe belongs to God. The whole thing. The whole thing, all of it. It's pretty big. You should look at the telescope pictures, right? Like it's huge, but it's his. He made it, he designed it. He keeps it in this construction. It wasn't detached from his person, right? Like he gave it purpose. God created everything that exists, that it might relate to him, that it might glorify Him.
[00:19:13] But we know that's not the reality of it. As we live in this world, something is wrong with the universe, right?
[00:19:22] People suffer, children die, friends betray you. Nature seems at best disinterested and at worst actively working against your flourishing.
[00:19:34] When you look out at this grand universe, it's pretty.
[00:19:39] But doesn't it seem detached from relationship to any sort of loving God?
[00:19:45] The Bible teaches us that God gave responsibility and authority to us in all the hugeness of this universe. God gave responsibility to steward that relationship to these little naked bipeds.
[00:19:58] And we blew it.
[00:20:00] Humility had the chance to brilliantly lead God's creation in loving relationship with him, and we instead chose separation and death. We looked to the very source of life and we told him, we actually don't need you.
[00:20:15] We can do this better on Our own. When the creation unplugged from the Creator, it immediately began to die. Think of your phone. Unplug it from the charger in the morning. It works for a while. But left unplugged from the source, eventually it will die. The entire universe began winding down towards sad, isolated heat, death.
[00:20:38] And we all know that's true, right? That's middle school science class.
[00:20:43] Guys, this is why Jesus, best friends who heard the proclamation of the gospel ahead of time multiple times had such a hard time believing the Resurrection.
[00:20:55] Because of course they did.
[00:20:58] In spite of the fact that they had no bias against the supernatural. Resurrection goes against everything the curse of this broken world has taught them and teaches us.
[00:21:09] Dead people stay dead. That's the way of it. I'll tell you guys, I've done several funerals over the course of my ministry. I have 100% success rate. They stay that way.
[00:21:22] This is the rhythm of the dark and dying world within which we find ourselves. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not all doom and gloom on earth. In our universe, there are sparks of beauty, sparks of life and joy. But look at this. They're always connected to the transcendent. They're always echoes of the relationship with the Creator. Loss. Whether it's the birth of a new baby, the inauguration of a marriage, a beautiful painting, a moving song, the view from the mountaintop, a great meal, Whatever the joy, it is a joy because it cries out to the loving Creator whose absolutely necessary connection has been lost.
[00:22:01] And this is the catch.
[00:22:03] We know in our bones that every single one of these joys, every single one of these beauties, is at its heart, fleeting.
[00:22:12] Eventually, the earth will roll on and pass them by.
[00:22:15] Babies grow up and turn into old people who die.
[00:22:20] That's what it is. All marriages, every single one in history, ends in death or divorce.
[00:22:26] Paintings crack and fade and are torn or lost or burned or even just unappreciated. Tastes change and songs are forgotten. Views get boring if you see them. Enough meals only last a few minutes. The hunger always comes back. Deep in our souls, we know this is not the way things are meant to be.
[00:22:45] And yet, while our souls long for something that cannot be found in this world, the creation teaches us over and over and over again through experience that life at the end is meaningless and death is inevitable.
[00:23:00] That's rough.
[00:23:01] But that is the rough lesson that life in this cursed and broken world teaches each and every one of us. The curse beats us down with our mortality and our suffering.
[00:23:14] So of course they didn't expect Jesus to actually resurrect.
[00:23:21] Because who would?
[00:23:24] You wouldn't.
[00:23:26] I wouldn't.
[00:23:28] Sure. They had seen him do miracles. He taught them that God was here and he was doing something new and they should be a part of it. It had awakened something within them. They had left everything in their hope that this was real and that things could be different. They had marveled at the cleansed lepers and the free demoniacs, that they had satisfied multitudes with leftover food. They had faced the calm sea and asked, who is this? They had dared to hope that God was a God who actually kept his promises. They had bought into the word repeated from Genesis 3 right up to Malachi, that God is powerful and he will actually redeem this broken world. They had dared to believe that redemption was possible, that death could be defeated.
[00:24:08] But what hope had whipped them into a fervor?
[00:24:11] The cursed and broken creation reared its ugly head with a vengeance.
[00:24:17] Satan had screamed at them, reminding them that no matter how hopeful or beautiful things may seem for a moment, death will always be there with its sting, and it will always be fatal.
[00:24:28] Jesus had died.
[00:24:30] And when their Lord was buried in the ground to rot, so was their hope.
[00:24:36] Of course he died.
[00:24:38] Everyone dies. Joy is fleeting and death wins.
[00:24:42] Can't you consider your own life for a moment, beloved? To see the same truth weighing you down day by day?
[00:24:51] Obviously there are moments, there are times, there are beautiful things where we kind of push that to the side.
[00:24:57] But it only takes one little thing to bring that truth right back to the forefront of our minds.
[00:25:03] But here's the thing about it.
[00:25:06] It's wrong.
[00:25:08] It's wrong.
[00:25:10] Death doesn't get the final word, beloved. On that morning, our sweet Jesus humbly, quietly stood up and walked out of his tomb.
[00:25:23] And most of the world didn't even notice.
[00:25:26] But you know who did notice the curse notice. Satan noticed. Death noticed. When Jesus walked out of the tomb as a living, breathing person, he forever smashed the power and dominion of the curse. No longer would death defeat life. No longer would sorrow squelch joy. No longer would darkness defeat the light. The light of the gospel was dawning upon the world. And the world would never be the same. Amen.
[00:25:56] You and I would never be the same.
[00:25:58] And yet some doubted.
[00:26:01] How could they not?
[00:26:03] Experience had taught them the curse always wins. And dead people don't stop being dead. It has taught every one of us the same thing.
[00:26:10] So what did the angels actually do? What was their ministry that morning?
[00:26:15] They remind the women of the truth of the gospel. The truth of the word, that this has been God's plan all along, that God has been promising that he would break the curse and free his people over and over and over throughout the whole of the scripture. God makes this promise again and again and again. Sin doesn't get the final word. I will fix what you have broken with sin. God would break the curse and would do this through his death. They needed convincing that God is actually a God who keeps his promises.
[00:26:45] And praise be to God that Jesus takes no offense at that doubt, but quietly, humbly, lovingly convinced them. You read on in Luke. It tells us how over meals and conversations in living room and meals at beaches, he showed them his body, he showed them his wounds, he showed them his life, and he breathed out the Holy Spirit upon them. And he explained the Scriptures and showed them that he couldn't be touched by the curse anymore.
[00:27:12] The day that day, on Easter Sunday, the light of the resurrection dawned slowly, just like the sun dawns every day.
[00:27:22] You ever watched a sunrise? I mean, like, recently, I have to be honest, my sunrise alarm clock got broken, ironically, by my children very soon after I got it. They're expensive, so I've never replaced it.
[00:27:35] But I often get up early and read in the morning, and the sun will rise behind me through our front window while I sit in the chair in our front room. And one of the most enjoyable things about sunrises is this.
[00:27:48] They are immensely subtle. Immensely subtle. When you get up before the sun is up and you want to sit and read, you have to turn on your reading lamp because it's pitch black.
[00:27:59] And slowly the sun comes up and you get a little more light, a little more light, a little more light. And then there's a moment where you realize, oh, it's day and I need my reading lamp. In fact, my reading lamp has been totally outshined by just the sun through my window. But you don't realize it till it's already happened. It doesn't come to mind all at once. It's this slow, subtle, beautiful thing.
[00:28:23] Jesus closest friends and followers weren't convinced of the Resurrection. The women heard and were scared and confused. They remembered.
[00:28:32] That's about it. Peter went and looked and he marveled. It wasn't until verse 45, later in the chapter when the text says they believed Jesus actually appears to his followers in person, eats meals with them, shows them his wounds, and still they struggle with disbelief. It is not until Jesus gives them supernatural understanding of the Scripture and the proclamation God has been making from Genesis up until that moment that it clicks and they believe.
[00:29:01] Beloved, our God means what he says.
[00:29:07] He means what he says.
[00:29:10] His promise is as good as accomplished.
[00:29:15] When he says something, it is true. He actually intends to recreate this world perfect. Without any pain, without any suffering, without any injustice.
[00:29:27] Which really brings us perfectly back to today.
[00:29:32] What is it that makes you doubt Jesus?
[00:29:36] Beloved, don't play church with me in this moment.
[00:29:40] I know you doubt.
[00:29:42] How could you not?
[00:29:44] I doubt. We all doubt. This world is wretched and you have all suffered. Admittedly, some more than others. But we've all seen the effects of the curse.
[00:29:56] It feels so real, so present, so absolute.
[00:30:00] I'm not foolish enough to think that many of you didn't come here this morning bearing fresh scars of this broken and cursed world.
[00:30:11] And even those of you who are having a good day.
[00:30:14] I bet if you sat with it long enough, you could think about the way the curse has scarred you.
[00:30:22] You've experienced the effects of the broken world, death of loved ones, the death of precious relationships, betrayal, failure, depression, natural disasters. We've all borne the weight of the curse. And if we're honest, to make it even a little worse.
[00:30:42] I know we haven't all just been hurt by the curse.
[00:30:45] We've all participated in it. It.
[00:30:48] We've often been the ones who do the hurting.
[00:30:51] We've been the ones who betray, who lie, who self preserve, who ignore the hurting.
[00:30:58] We hate the curse because of what it's done to us.
[00:31:02] Yet we also love it because there are ways it makes our life seem convenient.
[00:31:08] We willingly partake in it pretty much every day.
[00:31:12] What wretched creatures that leaves us. What could possibly be done? Where is the hope? Where is the light in that darkness?
[00:31:21] I don't know about you guys. This is something that I have wrestled with in my own faith.
[00:31:26] If God is so good, why doesn't he just fix that?
[00:31:30] Why doesn't he take that part of it away? Why doesn't he wave his hand and snap his fingers Thanos style and make all the evil and suffering go away in this world? I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. And that struggle. Yeah.
[00:31:45] But I'll tell you guys, thanks be to God that He doesn't that have a solution.
[00:31:52] And it's better than the way I think about it.
[00:31:55] You see, God is not content to leave us wallowing in the pains of the dominion of sin.
[00:32:01] What our God does is he steps into the suffering with us.
[00:32:08] He steps into the mess of the curse alongside us.
[00:32:14] He takes on evil and injustice and pain with us.
[00:32:20] On that quiet Sunday morning 2000 years ago, when Jesus sat up and walked out of the grave alive but scarred.
[00:32:30] He made the way for us to be free and beloved. I mean real freedom, freedom from the weight, the curse.
[00:32:41] Paul said it like this in Ephesians 2.
[00:32:44] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the curse of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
[00:33:09] But God, being rich in mercy, because the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that at the coming age he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. By grace you have been saved, beloved, through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God. It is not the result of works so that none of us may boast. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in.
[00:33:55] Come on.
[00:33:57] Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect, obedient life, died a death on the cross willingly and told death to get.
[00:34:07] He sat up and walked out of the grave alive again, spitting in the face of death itself so that we might be free.
[00:34:17] Our God does not re erase the reality and consequence of our sin.
[00:34:23] He doesn't turn our universe into some kind of, I don't know, cotton candy ice cream sundae. No.
[00:34:31] Our God steps into the absolute mess that we have made of this creation, steps into our suffering, and through his sovereign power brings life out of death.
[00:34:45] He brings beauty out of brokenness. He brings meaning and purpose out of scars.
[00:34:53] I'm sure most of you guys have seen this before, but have you ever seen the Japanese Kintsugi pottery? You've seen this before?
[00:35:02] I have a picture of it. It's an art form where craftsmen take ceramics and break them. Then they take epoxy and lacquer mixed with gold and silver dust and they rebuild them.
[00:35:15] The art, the beauty comes out in the lines created from the breaks. And the final piece carries a beauty that the original could never have.
[00:35:25] It's really cool to see.
[00:35:28] This is something that's been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's a classic, traditional art. Somehow the breaks, somehow the suffering, somehow the wrongness, that is what becomes the beauty.
[00:35:43] And this, beloved, is what our God is doing with you.
[00:35:50] And if you want to come back up, Jesus died to free you from sin.
[00:35:57] But in the moment of your salvation, those of you who know Christ, he didn't send down his spiritual vacuum cleaner and suck you up from this world of suffering.
[00:36:08] Instead, he left you here.
[00:36:12] He left you here with all your scars, and he left you here in a world that is still wrestling with the curse, where the death throes of death still wage war against us.
[00:36:26] And he left you here knowing full well that would mean you would suffer, that you would experience hardship, that you would experience injustice, that you would experience pain.
[00:36:42] He left you here with your scars, with your hurting, to bear witness of his wonderful gospel.
[00:36:49] Because, beloved, hear this.
[00:36:53] It is in your scars, it is in your wounds, it is in your suffering, redeemed by the blood of our gracious Lord, that the power of the gospel is displayed to this world.
[00:37:08] Beloved, you must know this. Our Jesus wastes no ounce of pain, does not go to waste.
[00:37:17] Instead, instead, he brings life out of it.
[00:37:23] He brings resurrection out of it. Beloved, Jesus's death and resurrection was that you might have life.
[00:37:29] Let us not leave this morning without engaging that radical truth.
[00:37:35] So here's what I want to do as we land out today.
[00:37:39] I want to invite you guys to just take a moment to sit with this truth, whatever that looks like for you right now, you're invited to do it. If you want to sit quietly in your chair, if you want to get on your knees, if you want to come forward and grab one of our pastors or pray at the altar, whatever that looks like for you, I want to invite you to take a moment to be present and specifically to be present with our Lord, to consider this truth, to consider what it means to respond to the gospel today.
[00:38:15] I know as we walked through this, some of you grew in some frustration. I don't like that plan, Jesus.
[00:38:23] I don't like that your plan involves me suffering.
[00:38:27] That is what he has for us.
[00:38:30] This is what he is. What he has decided is the most life giving, the most beautiful, the most freeing.
[00:38:38] And he does not leave us alone in it.
[00:38:41] He walks alongside us, he hurts with us, and he brings life out of that.
[00:38:48] And beloved, I know that is a hard mantle to take up, but I promise you it is a worthwhile one.
[00:38:56] So I'd encourage you today, if you are in this world, if you're in this room and you don't yet know Christ.
[00:39:02] I would encourage you to consider his call to you today.
[00:39:07] Listen, here's the thing. This world's rough, and you're going to hurt one way or the other.
[00:39:14] But Christ invites you to come to him and find life and forgiveness. To find joy and to find freedom, to not walk through this life alone.
[00:39:24] Consider that invitation today. Consider what it might look like to come to him with real confession, with your real heart, my life in Him.
[00:39:33] But for those of you who are in Christ already, I would encourage you take a moment to meet with Jesus and discuss in plain terms.
[00:39:42] Your relationship will suffer.
[00:39:45] I promise you. He won't be offended.
[00:39:48] I promise you. He can handle your doubts, your frustration.
[00:39:52] I promise you. What to show you is that he brings life out of this.
[00:39:58] That he has comfort for you, that he has redemptions for you.
[00:40:04] Let's take a few minutes to meet with the Lord together.
[00:40:08] And then we'll close out our time of response by taking communion. Beloved, do the work you need to do with Christ today.
