Pastor Bob's Easter Sermon

Hi there! Last Sunday was Confirmation - so no sermon. I will be on vacation for the 3 weeks following Easter - so you get a break! I pray that all have a blessed Easter celebration.

Come Alive This Easter
The night before Jesus Christ was crucified, He made a very strange statement that nobody who heard it understood. He said, “In a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you’re going to see Me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive!” (John 14:19)
What did He mean? They’re thinking, “We’re already alive! What does He mean, ‘You’re about to come alive’?”
Easter is about coming alive. Jesus Christ proved who He said He was by dying on the cross and then being raised from the grave by the mighty power of God. You know all about that part of the story. But there’s a second part to it … and that involves us.
Our next verse; “He (meaning Christ) included everyone in His death so everyone could be included in His life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)
What is this “better life?” In America , we know about the “good life.” Even on our worst days, compared to the rest of the world, we’ve got it good! But what if there was something more? What if beyond this good life there is a better life? Friends, God intended for us to have a better life, not just a good life. Want to know about it? Of course we do.
We often settle for less because we don’t there’s anything better. When I was a baby, my parents fed me Gerber’s strained spinach. It was yummy, because I didn’t know any better. If you tried to feed that to me today, it would probably taste like turtle spit.
When I got to grade school, I discovered Spaghetti-o’s. A definite step up from strained spinach. When I became a teenager, I discovered home-made lasagna. Now we’re talking! There is definitely something better in life. And I would never go back to strained spinach, because I have tasted something better.
God says to us this morning, “There’s something better. There’s something way, way better than just the good life!” What is this “better life” that Christ offers us?
It’s a life filled with meaning. A life filled with meaning. The greatest tragedy in life is not death … no, it’s going through our entire life without purpose, without meaning, without knowing why on earth we are here. Yet most people go through life without ever knowing their purpose.
This is a fact, and if we haven’t discovered it yet, we will someday. Having the good life isn’t enough. Having the goods, looking good, feeling good … it’s not enough to make us happy. If the good life was good enough, WalMart would be the happiest place in the world. But it’s not, is it? It takes meaning for our lives to have true significance. Our lives need fullness. Most of us equate our busy and stressed life style with a full life. Having as full schedule is not the same as having a full life. We need meaning.
Trouble is, we search for meaning in all the wrong places. Possessions. But there’s always more to get. Accomplishment. But there’s always more to accomplish. We search for meaning through all sorts of things … and many of them are good things … but even good things don’t last. We want something that gives us eternal meaning. Where do we get that? From the God who created us.
The Apostle Peter tells us; “Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven – and the future starts now!” (1 Peter 1:3-4) Let’s look at a few things from that verse.
First, we want to notice that this “better life” is connected with what Jesus Christ did at Easter. Somehow, His coming back to life enables us to live a better life. Second, we notice that the better life is not just something we tack on to our good life … it’s a whole new deal. God wants to give us a brand new life. Not “new and improved” but brand new! A chance to begin again. That’s the starting point to a better life … a brand new one.


Now, I don’t get to play much golf … don’t have the time. But when I do get to play, I invoke an incredible concept. It’s called a “mulligan.” I love this! If you don’t know much about golf, a mulligan means you take your first shot, and it’s such a stinking shot … hit the tree and bounced off your partner’s head … you get a second shot; only this one is “free” and you don’t count the first one against you. Cool, huh?
Let me say this; Jesus Christ wants to give us a “mulligan” for our life. He says, “You know all those dumb shots you’ve made … stupid things you’ve done that you regret and wish you never did? Let’s just erase those and start over. Take a mulligan. You can just begin again.”
That’s a great deal! But how do we get it? Well, we don’t earn it. We can’t work for it. The verse says, “we’ve been given a brand new life.” It’s a gift.
And, better yet, this free gift of a new life is a life freed by grace. Freed by grace. What does that mean? The Bible tells us; “We’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.” (Romans 7:6) And it all comes by grace.
What is grace? Grace is when God gives us what we need, not what we deserve. Everything we have in our lives is because of God’s grace. The next breath that we take; that’s a gracious gift from God. In fact, we would have nothing at all if God didn’t decide to make us.
So grace is saying, “I love you. I forgive you, even though you can’t earn My forgiveness. I’m not mad at you, and I’m not holding a grudge. Because My Son, Jesus Christ, has taken your sin and the rightful punishment for it on Himself, on the cross.” Grace is God saying, “I’m giving you a mulligan … a new start … a new life.” Grace is God saying, “I’m setting you free.”
Okay … freedom from what? From guilt. From the fear of death. From the hurts others have caused … from the bitterness we can’t let go of. From the expectations of others. God set us free to be ourselves, to learn and grow and to become all that He meant for us to be. He has set us free from meaninglessness, from boredom, from fear. And most importantly, Jesus sets us free from trying to earn God’s approval.
Do you ever wonder, does God like us? We might not be sure of that when we don’t truly understand grace.
Were we raised in a strict, religious home? “I don’t drink, smoke or chew … or go out with girls that do.” Every religion can be summed up in two words: “do” or “done.” All the religions of the world basically say, “Here’s what you’ve got to do to get God to like you.” Then they come up with their own list. If we do all the things on the list, then God thinks we’re cool.
Jesus came to earth and said, “Know what? That’s all wrong. I don’t want your religion, I want you, a relationship with you. And I’ve set it all up for you. You don’t have to “do” … you just want to gladly accept what I’ve already done.” That’s grace.
We have two choices. One is to keep trying to earn God’s approval by our effort … doing, or not doing, certain things. The other is to enjoy God’s approval by accepting what Jesus Christ has already done for us.
Guess what? The Bible says that first way doesn’t work. God tells us in Hebrews 7:18-19; “The old system … was cancelled because it didn’t work. It was weak and useless for saving people. It never made anyone really right with God. But now we have a far better hope, for Christ makes us acceptable to God …”
When a TV show doesn’t work, what do they do with it? They cancel it. When a product doesn’t work, what do they do? They take it off the shelf.
God cancelled the old way of trying to earn our way to heaven because it doesn’t work. Why not? Because heaven’s perfect … and we’re not. God used the old way … the whole sacrificial system … to point us to Christ … to open our hearts and eyes to the fact that there is no way we can work our way to heaven. God gave us a far better hope … a far better life. And that is to simply accept His free gift of grace, love and salvation, through what Jesus has done for us on the cross.
It’s a free gift … but it’s not cheap. In fact, it’s very expensive. And somebody had to pay for it. Jesus Christ. He paid for our freedom. The Bible says; “He (Jesus) gave His life to purchase freedom for everyone.” (1st Timothy 2:6) On the cross, He paid to buy our freedom. We are no longer a slave to sin, to guilt, to worry, to fear. He paid to set us free.
There’s a word for that. “Redemption.” To be redeemed means to have our freedom paid for. We don’t hear that word very much any more … especially since they quit giving out those little green stamps! The word came out of the slave trading years. During that heinous time, compassionate people, called “redeemers,” would buy slaves in order to set them free. The slave was redeemed.
Jesus Christ came to redeem us, to set us free from our old life of slavery to sin, and has given us a new life of freedom. And more than that, He has adopted us into His family, so that we are no longer strangers to God, but joint heirs, actually brothers and sisters, of Christ Himself.
There was a woman, a Korean woman, who got pregnant by an American soldier. He left her behind after the conflict, and she never saw him again. She gave birth to a little girl. But the little girl was different than the other little girls. She had freckles and light, curly hair. She stood out. In that culture, the mother and the little girl would be severely rejected.
In fact, some mothers had actually killed their babies if they looked too different from all the others. They couldn't stand the heartache of the way they were treated.
This mother kept her baby, and for seven years, tried to raise her to the best of her ability. But the rejection and the humiliation became too much to handle. So she abandoned her little girl to the streets. There were packs of children living in the streets. They would sleep in abandoned buildings, under bridges, in caves in the hills; they would eat whatever they could scrape out of garbage cans.
This little girl was called the ugliest word of the Korean language, "Tookie." It means "alien devil." Years later, she wrote, "When you hear what you are, when you are a little child, day after day after day, you begin to believe that about yourself. I believed that anyone could do whatever they wanted to me physically, because I wasn't a person. I was inhuman, dirty, unclean. I had no name. I had no identity, no family, no future, and I hated myself."
She lived on the streets for two years until a new orphanage was opened. It was a primitive place, but at least she was safe. Soon a rumor spread that an American couple was coming to the orphanage, intending to adopt a little baby boy. This was great news! Some little boy, from among their numbers, was going to get a fresh start; a future.
So the little girl, who at nine years was the oldest one there, began to help by bathing the little boys, getting them all ready to present to the American couple.
The next week, the American couple came. This is what the little girl recalls. "It was like Goliath had come back to life. I saw that man, with his huge hands, lift up each baby, and I knew he loved every one of them as if they were his own. I saw tears running down his face; and I knew that if they could, they would have taken the whole lot home.
"Then," she said, "he saw me out of the corner of his eye." Listen to how she describes herself. "I was nine years old, but I didn't even weigh thirty pounds. I was a scrawny thing. I had worms in my body. I had lice in my hair. I had boils all over me, and I was full of scars. I wasn't a pretty sight. But the man came over to me, and he rattled off something in English, and I looked up at him. Then he took his huge hand, and laid it on my face."
What was he saying? He was saying, "I want this child. This is the child I want!"
But then an amazing thing happened. She said later in life, "The hand on my face felt so good, and inside I was saying, 'Oh, don't let go.' But no one had ever shown to me that kind of affection before. And I didn't know how to respond. I yanked his hand off my face, and I looked up at him, and I spit at him. And then I ran away."


The next day, the couple came back to the orphanage. And because they understood what was behind that little girl's hurt, and they understood what she had suffered, and in spite of her initial rejection of them; they went back to that little girl and said, "We still want this child." They adopted her; they cleaned her up; and they brought her to America .
You and I are that little girl … that “Tookie” … that little alien devil deformed by our sin and guilt and grief. We are so far lost in our sin we spit into the face of the God who loves us. Yet God says, “I want that little girl … that little boy. I want that one.” And He adopts us as His own. He gives us a brand new life. A better life, the life God intended for us.
My friends, when we celebrate communion this morning, I pray that we all understand the great price God paid for us. I pray that we see the broken and mangled body, the shed blood, of the perfect Lamb of God. God gave His Son up for us so that we may have life … the better life, the life we were meant to live that we may love and serve our God and neighbor. God gave up His Son so that we might be redeemed, adopted, into His very own family … that we might be called the sons and daughters of God.
That’s what Easter is all about.

Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving us despite our faults, the ugliness of our sin. Thank You that You sent Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to live as us, only a perfect life, a life without the sin that mars our own. Thank You that He choose, freely, to give up His own life to pay the penalty for our sin, and in doing so, redeemed us, setting us free to become adopted into Your family. We praise You for raising Him from the power of death that we all might have life, the better life, a life free from sin and death.
May we fully appreciate, understand, and accept this great gift offered to us.
In Your powerful name we pray.
And the people said, “Amen.”