Easter 2026

Waiting feels responsible until you realize it’s just fear dressed up as wisdom. We start Easter morning in Revelation 1:4–8, where Jesus is named the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. That means the resurrection is not only comfort for grieving hearts, it’s a royal announcement to the nations: Jesus Christ is alive and reigning now. If you’ve been looking for assurance, this passage anchors it in the character of God “who is and who was and who is to come” and in the finished work of Christ who frees us from our sins by His blood.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Father, we thank you for breaking death's pain. Father, for forgiving our sin, for pardoning us, for lavishing your righteousness on us, pouring your grace on us. God, we don't deserve it. We can't earn it, but you give it to us lovingly, and it's for your glory, and it's for your pleasure. And Father, I pray that this morning you receive our worship. All that we sing and say and and do, God, would be for your glory, because it's the you're the only one worth talking about. You are the only one worthy to receive all glory and all honor and all praise. And it's in your name we say, everybody. Amen. God bless you. Amen.

Reading Revelation 1:4-8;

A Thunderstorm Story About Waiting;

Jesus Is Risen So Act Now;

Jesus The Forever King Explained;

Sin As Treason And Gospel Rescue;

Easter Gives Identity And A Kingdom;

Gathered Versus Assembled Church Life;

The Three People Prayer Text Challenge;

Jesus The Alpha And Omega Center;

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Amen. Good morning again, church. Let's hear for our worship team. Let's hear for grace and mercy coming and singing with us this morning. We're very thankful for them. If you have your Bibles with you, I invite you to turn to the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 1. I'm going to be reading verses 4 through 8. Revelation chapter 1. As you're turning the air, I'll pray for our time. Our Father, who is and who was and who is to come, we praise you on this Easter morning for Jesus Christ. We thank you that He loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and has made us a kingdom priest to you. Fix our eyes on the risen and reigning Christ, the Alpha and the Omega. Strengthen your church with assurance and renew weary hearts and silence guilt and let us understand the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Help us to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in his name until the day that every eye see, every eye sees him, and every knee bows to him, because he deserves the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Revelation chapter 1, verses 4 through 8. John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you, and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so, amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Glory to God. This is his word to us. Growing up, uh, maybe you were like this too. I was I was super close to my grandmother. Uh she passed away about 20 years ago now, but her memories, her influence stays with me. Uh her name was Blanche Hutchinson, old school name, right? We all called her Graham Hutch. Uh she was what you would call a uh a fuddy duddy. And I think she knew that. And she wore that as a badge of honor. She was tiny, she was probably five feet tall on a good day and tough as nails. Graham Hutch raised eight kids, kept her home, took care of Grant Hutch for decades, actually, as his health declined. She took no sass from her grandkids, especially my two sisters, which were awful. But she was one of the best examples of the greatest generation that knew how to endure hardship. But she was a fuddy duddy. She's just silly. Now, if you're offended by the term fuddy duddy, probably means that you are a fuddy duddy or you will become one. But for all of her toughness, Graham Hutch was terrified of a lot of things. She was super easy to jump scare, which I made a sport of that when I was a child. But Graham Hutch, she was best known, and I remember her best for being terrified of thunderstorms. When a storm rolled in, she would not go near the landline phone because she was convinced she would be violently electrocuted, which of course there is some truth to that. Now, this is of course northern New Hampshire, and so think a wall-mounted rotary phone. If you Google it, if you don't know what that is, they just got cell phones last fall, I think. But if if the storm got bad enough, we all knew that not only would she not touch the phone, she would actually go and hide in a closet. And if nobody went for her, she might just stay in that closet for days. So every time the bad weather was rolling in, we would tell my mom, just go get Graham, bring her here to our house. But my mother would say, you know, we're overreacting. Every time she would say that. Then of course the storm would grow worse. And my mother, who was also a fuddy-duddy in training, she would start worrying about my grandmother during these storms. And what would she do? She would try to call my grandmother, but we knew that she wouldn't even walk by her phone, and it's likely that she was already hunkered down in a closet somewhere. And I think every single time someone would end up having to go get my grandmother in the middle of the storm. And it's typically my father and I, and that's where I learned a lot of French cursing. Now you're like, okay, what does this, what does this have to do with Easter? What does Revelation chapter 1 have to do with Easter? Friends, here it is. We serve a risen, ruling, forever king, and we should not delay with what should be obvious for us to do. Christians hesitate when we should move. We tell ourselves there's going to be a better time to be on mission. There's going to be a safer time to serve, a more convenient time to tell someone about Jesus. But Revelation 1 reminds us that because Jesus is alive, because Jesus is risen, because he is reigning right now, the time to trust him, to obey him, and bear witness to him is always right. And it's always right now. Because Jesus is not only alive, he is king. He has redeemed his people. So I want to take this short passage and I want to break it into a couple of pieces. Let's start with the fact that Jesus is the forever king. This is the exegetical understanding of this passage. Jesus is the forever King. John says, verse 4. Towards the end, he says, this is grace and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. Now what this is, this is covenant language. This is the language of the great I am, the God who depends on nothing and who is ruled by no one. See, Easter doesn't begin with our feelings or even our response, but with God Himself. God is eternal, God is sovereign, and God is unchanging. And John makes clear that this grace and peace came from the Father, from the fullness of the Spirit, and through Jesus Christ. You see, the whole Trinity stands behind the salvation of the church, which is why Easter is so secure. John gives us titles here for Jesus. He says, He's the faithful witness. Jesus is perfectly obedient where Adam and Israel and where we have failed. Jesus is the firstborn of the dead. And his resurrection guarantees that everyone who belongs to him will live. And he's also the ruler of the kings of the earth. Not someday, but right now. And so the empty tomb is not just a comforting doctrine for grieving saints. It is a royal declaration to the nations that Jesus is the king of kings. He's not trying to become king. He is the risen king right now. He is the forever king. And I think the good question to ask is, and sometimes it's hard for us to understand, why do we need a king? We haven't had a king here for 250 years. And this is challenging for Americans in particular to understand. I mean, we love our rulers, but not our kings. But this goes all the way back to the beginning, doesn't it? When God created humanity, he intended for us to live under his righteous rule and perfect fellowship with him. But when when Adam sinned, that fellowship with God was broken, and that rebellion has marked humanity ever since. And the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so sin is not just making a mistake, it's not a bad habit. Sin is our rejection of the very God who gave us life. It is the rejection of God's authority. It is cosmic treason against the one who created us. That's why the wages of sin is death. Not just physical death, but eternal separation under the righteous judgment of God. But this is where the gospel breaks in. Jesus came proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand, calling sinners to repent and believe. That was those were his first recorded words. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news. And then, of course, at the cross, the full weight of our sin falls upon him, and the judgment that we deserve is poured out onto Christ. Jesus dies in our place, but of course, he did not remain in the grave. And that's what we're celebrating right now. The resurrection is God's declaration that everything that Jesus claimed about himself is true, and that everything he has accomplished is completely finished. Do you believe that it is finished this morning? Friends, your salvation is finished. It is complete, it is whole in Jesus Christ. Jesus died for our sins according to the scripture. He was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Why did he do this? So that we could be saved from the righteous wrath of God. Now, this is not information that we admire. This is information that we respond to. The gospel is a summons. And it's summoning us to respond to news. We need to repent, turn from our sin, don't make peace with our sin. We must believe, resting entirely in Christ and trusting in Him alone. That's the glory of our justification, where we are made not guilty before God. That's the exercise that we remembered on Friday night. The gospel, we need to understand the gospel is not about what we do. The gospel is about what Jesus has done. The gospel is not even about you. The gospel is about Jesus, but it's for you. Jesus has done everything necessary to save sinners, and all who come to him in faith will be saved. Look at verse 5. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom priest to God, to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Before you ever loved him, he loved you. Glory to God. Anyone thankful for that this morning? Before we ever loved him, he loved us. Now, this is not vague religious sentiment. This is redeeming love, covenantal love, blood bought love. And from that, he has freed us from our sins. He hasn't offered us freedom. He hasn't suggested freedom to us. He has made it not only made it possible, he has freed us. Jesus died to accomplish redemption. If you're in Christ, your sins are not waiting for a future payment. Your sins are not hanging in suspense over your head. They were born by Christ and put away at the cross. And John says, Now listen, he says he has made us a kingdom. Priests to his God and Father. I could spend weeks right there. He has made us a kingdom. Now this means to us that Easter not only gives us pardon, but Easter gives us position. Easter has given you a position. It has given you an identity. You see, we're not just merely rescued sinners, just barely hanging on. You see, in Christ we belong to a kingdom that is bigger than us. In Christ, we have access to God. In Christ we are brought near. The resurrection means the crucified Savior is now the reigning Lord, and everyone who trusts in him is gathered into his kingdom and welcomed into his presence. And this is why Easter is not just about what happened to Jesus, it's about what Jesus has accomplished for his people. We are placed in a kingdom. We don't do this alone. There are no solo specialist Christians. You say, well, I have I don't need no church. That's hogwash. You're just waiting to be tripped up and taken down by the enemy. That's all you're doing. Too many people try to go it alone. One of the most, and here's the thing, one of the most common things, this is probably the most common thing I hear in ministry in any church that I've ever pastored, in this church included. People say to me, Pastor, I feel alone and I feel disconnected. I feel alone and I feel disconnected. Nobody reaches out to me. I don't know many people. I feel alone, even at the church. I feel alone and I feel disconnected. I'm never going to suggest that that feeling isn't real. But I also know there's a solution for it. I'm a solution guy. If you come to me with a problem, guess what's going to happen? I'm going to give you a solution. Now I know men and women are different, and sometimes, and my wife and I we've had this conversation over the past 30 years. When she just wants me to listen, she's like, Don't give me a solution, just listen to me. And I'm like, okay. Go ahead. But most of the time she knows, if she comes to me, I'm going to give her a solution. Here's what I suggest. There's a solution to this loneliness. Hebrews 10 says, we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of sun, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. Now, I like the King James Version there, the original language, it has to do with assembling. Now, here's the challenge. We think getting together like this this morning is assembling. We're not assembled. We're gathered. There's a difference. We're gathered together. We're not assembled together here. We are gathered together like puzzle pieces in an unopened box. I mean, if you take a box, uh a puzzle box and you haven't opened it yet and you go, the pieces are all gathered, but they're not assembled. First Baptist Church, sometimes it feels like a shiny puzzle box, still unopened. The pieces are all gathered, but they're not assembled. Brothers and sisters, we need to assemble. We serve a risen king, and he's given us a job, and we need to assemble. We can no longer be satisfied with gathering. We need to assemble. Men I don't want you to raise your hand. But I'm asking the men in this room: do you have you have at least two guys that you could call at 2 a.m. if you needed them? Do you have two men in this room that you could call at 2 a.m. if you needed them? Women. Do you have at least two other women in this room that you would trust with your deepest hurt? Now, if your initial thought is yes, but they're my friends, they're just not my church friends. They don't they don't come here. I don't, they don't really. I think we're missing the plot, if that's our thinking. Because that's what this is for. We need to assemble. And so here, I'm gonna give you a challenge this morning. I know everyone comes for Easter to be challenged. Just give me the Easter bunny method so we can go. No. Your ham can wait. This is what I want you to do. Every single person in here, this is what I want you to do. Even you stubborn, stiff-necked people are like, whatever you tell me to do, I ain't gonna do it. Because I know you're I can already see the look in your eye. This is what everyone to do. It's not difficult. I want you to pick three people. And men, pick three guys. Women, pick th pick three women. Don't pick the ones you know well, don't pick the ones that are in your clique. Pick the ones that you want to know better. Pick three people. Find three people and commit to pray for them this week. Find three people, commit to pray for them three times this week. And I'm not done yet. Pick three people, commit to pray for them for three times this week, but every time you pray for them, I just want you to text them. Hey, brother, hey sister, I prayed for you today. I love you in Christ, and I'm praying for you. That's it. I I know some of you over the age of 65 are like, I'll call them. Go ahead. Text them. Send them a text, say, I love you, I prayed for you. Pick three people, pray for them three times this week, and then text them and say, Hey, this is what I did. I'll tell you right now, that text can change somebody's life. We need as a church to stop waiting for people to come to us. We need to go to our own people. Are we a family in here? Sometimes it feels like it. Sometimes you feel like you get the weird uncle, sometimes you get the cousin you don't talk to. But we're saved into a kingdom. And we need to we need to stop waiting for people to come to us. We need to stop waiting for people to come to us to get us to do something. We need to stop waiting for people to come to us to serve. We need to stop waiting for people to come to us to say, hey, are you giving? We need to stop waiting for people to come to us and say, hey, I'm hurting. We need to go to our own people. And you say, I'm not good at that, I'm kind of a type. Figure it out. You're a grown person. That text can change someone's life. Can you imagine, especially if you are a B type personality in here, getting all these text messages during the week? Pick three people, get their number. If you don't have it, it figure it out. Pray for them, tell them. Three or four times this week. I can tell you right now, friends, listen to me. If we do this, this will fundamentally change First Baptist Church. Because people will come in here and they'll go. These people genuinely like each other. These people genuinely love Jesus. It'll fundamentally change First Baptist Church. We're not alone. We are a kingdom. Okay, second. That's the only challenge I have for you today. Well, maybe. Second big piece here is this Jesus is the story, isn't he? Look at verse 8. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and is to come the Almighty. This is where the passage lands in our lives today. You see, Jesus is not a supporting character in your life. He is not a religious add-on. He is the beginning and the end. He is the author and the finisher. He's the center of history. He's the center of redemption. From Genesis to revelation, from creation to new creation, from first breath, from your first breath to your last breath. He is Lord over all. That means our salvation is secure because as the Alpha and Omega, as the beginning and the end, he begins and then he finishes. Grace will always have the last word in our lives, won't it? The kingdom cannot fail because the king cannot fail. Now listen, listen, Jesus is Lord. Here's some tough news, man. Jesus is Lord whether you bow down before him as Lord or not. Jesus is King whether you acknowledge he is or not. Now I'll tell you what, there will come a day when you will. But for some it's going to be too late. You know, we don't cause the sun to rise in the morning. We can't prevent it. But when it comes up, we can see everything by it, right? That's the way it is with God. And this truth steadies us in this chaos of this world. I mean, society feels unstable, nations are raging, evil seems bold, but Jesus reigns. And we see the sin of others, and we see our own sin. And hopefully we see our own sin more clearly. We need to understand that Jesus still reigns. Jesus is not absent from his church. He's enthroned for his church. And because he reigns, his people can live with confidence. We can suffer with hope. We can labor without fear. If Jesus is the risen king and if he's redeemed us by his blood, and if his if he's coming again in glory, then we must bear witness to him now. Easter brings us comfort, but it's much more about commission. The same Jesus who died and rose is the one who sends us. We don't speak in our own authority. We don't speak on our own power. We testify in the power of the Spirit to the death, resurrection, exaltation, and saving reign of Jesus Christ. We are not called to wait and see. We are called to speak and go. Too often we become passive. We tell ourselves someone else, someone else will say something, someone else is going to do something, someone else is going to carry the burden. It's the culture of the world, it's the culture of the church. I mean, anytime you see something happening in a town like Hopkinsville, you can go onto the community chat, which I don't recommend. And people will be like, somebody ought to do something about that thing. Oh, I wish I could, but I can't. Stop talking and start doing. Somebody else will do it. We see the need, but we wait and we wait and we wait. We make excuses and we wait, but the risen Christ has not redeemed us into silence. He has redeemed us for witness. And because salvation belongs to the Lord and not to us, we can speak boldly about our King. We don't save anyone. But we proclaim the one who does. We don't produce new hearts, but we we herald the gospel through which the Spirit gives life. We need to, the church universal, I think we need to recover not worldly aggression, but holy courage. We are witnesses of the king and the gospel we proclaim is the power of God unto salvation. And it's tough because we look at our city, we look at crime, we look at our neighborhood, we look at the tension and strife and the state and the nation, the world. And sometimes we say, you know, it doesn't look like a place where Jesus is King. But as it were, God comes to us and He says, look at the ascension. There's a man sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and that is down payment. It is a deposit guaranteeing the total reign of grace one day. Right now we've seen the pledge. He's gone before us. But one day we're gonna see the rest of the reality. Friends, Jesus is the story. We are his prize. Easter is about him, and because of him we benefit eternally. And so that brings us to the final piece here. We we don't wait. If you're in Christ, if you're in Christ, you are witnesses of the Christ. Acts chapter 5 tells us the apostles bore witness to all these things. And those things are made clear. If you've been with us on Wednesday night, you remember when Peter said the God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Death, resurrection, exaltation. These were assigned to Jesus so that he might send his spirit to grant repentance. See, that's the gospel, and that's what we proclaim. It's impossible to proclaim Christ without the Spirit of Christ. Witnessing is not something that we do in our own strength. It requires the work of the Spirit within us. It requires faith and prayer and trust and dependence. If we're going to witness to others, we need to rely upon the witness of the Spirit within us. And what are we telling people? Are we inviting them to church? I mean, that's good, isn't it? Are we inviting them to life groups? I think that's good. We invite them to events, that's good. But sharing the gospel is different. It's giving someone very specific information. What is the gospel? The gospel is the good news that the holy God who created all things has made a way to save sinners through his son, Jesus Christ, although we've rebelled against him and we stand guilty under his righteous judgment. God in his love sent Jesus to live the perfect life that we couldn't live, to die on the cross in our place, bearing the wrath that we deserve, and to die and to rise again in victory over Satan's sin and death. And now by grace alone, through faith alone, all who repent and trust in Jesus are forgiven of their sins, are declared righteous, are adopted as God's children, giving eternal life to the glory of God alone. Glory to God, that's our message. And this is the good news of the good news. For us as witnesses of the good news, we're called to share it and get out of the way. We share it and we get out of the way. If you ever meet somebody that's good at gardening, ask them a question. When you plant a seed and you cover it back up, and you and then you walk away. As far as I know, you don't plant a seed in the ground and go, how's it going? Come on, let's go. I mean, that's how I garden, but that's not a good way to garden, is it? But that's how we treat the gospel. We need to bear witness and then get out of the way. We tell others about Jesus and then we leave the results of that to God alone. Why? Because God grants salvation, not us. And that truth, man, that'll set you free. I've never saved anyone. And I've had this question before: how many people have you saved? None. I don't do anything. I pray for people, I share Jesus, then I get out of the way and I keep praying. But I I'll tell you why I sleep well at night. Because Jesus saves and Todd Goulet does not. And so we're worried. Oh man, you know, uh, I can't do that. You know, you're good at that. I'm not good at it. I I share the gospel like a steamroller trying to crush a watermelon. I don't know. I'm about that subtle. And so if you're if you're using your own personality as an excuse not to share the gospel, don't tell me, tell God. Oh Lord, I can't do that. Not me. I don't think God zaps people from heaven, but maybe he will in that to in that instance. And sometimes that can also lead to this evangelistic indifference. Where we're like, you know, if it's up to God, as long as I drop a few gospel hints in there, I've done what I need to do. And so we minimize the moment. We avoid the discomfort. We delay the urgency. Friends, here's the truth: evangelism is warfare. We're fighting a war. We are fighting a war against a powerful enemy. And we need to regain the vision of the church militant in this warfare against Satan, sin, and death. We need to be people who stand up as soldiers of the cross. Vodie Baucom said that niceness has become the 11th commandment at the expense of the first ten. And this is the danger that of waiting creeps in because we convince ourselves there's going to be a better moment, a more natural conversation, a less awkward opportunity. But that's exactly what we always said with my grandmother. Every time the storm rolled in, there was a window to act to go get her to bring her to safety. And every time the temptation was to wait, to assume to delay, until the storm was already raging and the situation was urgent and dangerous. Friends, the world is in the storm right now. And so we can come up with all kinds of excuses why we don't bear witness to Christ. But we can't wait. We shouldn't delay our obedience. We must not sit back while people remain in the storm of sin and judgment and being sent to hell all the time because we're hoping for a more convenient time to act. Instead, we need to steal our hearts. And with the promises of the gospel's success and our responsibility to stand as witnesses, we proclaim Christ with boldness and urgency. Jesus taught his disciples that he is the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament. And as his witnesses, they they went out and explained these things so that in hearing the gospel others might believe. The apostles received all this instruction not to admire it, but to act on it. And so we must too go out with that same confidence, not waiting, not hesitating, not settling for simply discharging a message and moving on. We are called to long for the salvation of others, to press in, to speak clearly, to plead, to persuade, to endure discomfort, stopping at nothing by God's grace to see others come to faith in Christ, while at the same time fully trusting that it is God that's doing the work. The storm is here. And we know where their safety is. If it were not for the bold witness of one person. One person who got a hold of me when I was 23 years old, shared the gospel. And through that one man, Jesus saved me, Jesus saved my bride, and God willing, a godly legacy in our family for generations. And through that influence, the heart family's here today, and the heart family, we we don't even know the influence our families are gonna have in the next few generations, and we're just two families in this room. Glory to God! Are you bold enough to change somebody's eternity with a message? You change someone's family tree with the gospel. Amen. See, we're not just about saving souls, we are about saving lineages through Jesus Christ. Happy Easter. He's risen. The gospel's our work. Let's do the work. Let's pray together and then we'll sing. Father, as we leave this place, we don't leave your presence. And we don't leave unchanged. We've seen by faith the risen Christ. Give us grace to respond. And for those who don't know him, draw them to repent and believe the gospel. Send us out with hearts that are fixed on his return, with lives that are marked by holiness, and mouths that are ready to speak his name until that day when every eye will see him. To you be glory and dominion forever and ever. Say with me Amen.