Resurrection Sunday

Come and experience the story of the eternal Life of God.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, this week in my quest for a sermon, it's kind of what it feels like. Searching around like a blind man and what the Lord is highlighting. And I felt today to do something a bit different. Those of you who are note takers, I would encourage you maybe put the pencil down today. And those, the majority of you who don't take notes as you were. I feel to share with you something I guess that's near to the heart of God, obviously. It's his nature, it's his character that we're always wanting to expose and reveal. But I felt to do it in a way where I want to kind of like paint a picture and take you through like a journey, and it will be more of like a play. Trying to describe to you like a play, an eternal play, one that has started from eternity past and will in many ways continue for eternity in the future. But we I don't know. We'll see how it goes, okay? So I'll be reading scripture, I will be jumping back and forth in the Bible, but just explaining as I go this story, painting this picture in this story to you. And like we know, many things about God are like a tapestry. And as you know, in a tapestry, when it's woven, the thread goes from one end to the other. And so we can, in the same way, pick out characteristics, attributes of God, and see them played out all through the tapestry of time and of the scriptures. And as we grab a hold of one of those strings, we can follow back to its origin and take it even to the eternity of the future. And so today, we're gonna take a hold of one of those strings and we're gonna see where it goes. But first off, we're gonna start. It's kind of like the preamble or the foreword, I don't know what you call it, in a play. But before the play actually begins, there's a scene that's being set. And so we're gonna go to Acts chapter 5. And this is about A.D. 35 and 37, several years after Christ has risen again, has ascended. And it says, and through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches. That at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing the sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed. And the high priest rose up, and those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation, and they laid their hands on the apostles and put them in a common prison. But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, Go, stand in the temple, and speak to the people all the words of this life. What life. And this is what John, the Apostle John wrote in 1 John, his beginning, his preamble of this epistle. He says, that which was in the beginning, which we have seen, which we which uh which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you, that your joy may be full. The eternal life, the life of God, the word of life. This is the life which the angel was talking to the disciples about. So let's go back to the beginning. John is talking about in the beginning. So now we start at the beginning of this thread on the one end of the tapestry. We go back to Genesis chapter 2. Now, the studying of what's about to take place is God has created a perfect world in every way. There's nothing lacking, there's nothing broken, there's no death, there's no decay, there's no pain and suffering. It's a world that we actually can't quite comprehend because it is so different than what we live in now. The reality of the first creation said that God said it was good, it was good, it was very good. Now, if perfection calls something good, it is, by and large, perfect. And that is the setting in which we now enter in. Now these are the five days of creation have been completed, part of the sixth. And now we're standing here in the midst of God's wonderful creation, and yet everything else thus far has been spoken and has been formed and created. But now God reaches his hand into the dirt and forms man. So chapter 2, verse 7 says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Everything else up to this point was alive because God spoke it into existence. But here we see man is formed and is not full of life until God breathes into him. This is the ruach of God, the breath of God, which is also understood to be the Spirit of God entering into Adam and he becomes a living being. Or some scriptures call it he became a living soul. And the so the Spirit of God animates Adam. He becomes, not only in image, but in spirit, one with God. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So God plants a garden. Not only is his creation perfect, but he has this special place that he creates, the garden of Eden, and he places man in the center of it. And the tree of life is in the center of this garden. As is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So man is placed there to tend and steward what God has created that is perfect. God essentially gives us the keys to the world. He gives us dominion and power. He has man name animals. Who gets to name your dog? Not your neighbor. They can call him something, but whoever owns it names it, right? So now we go ahead, just a few verses. Over to verse 15. It says, Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Note that God gives no restriction on eating of the tree of life. He does not say you cannot eat it or it's not yours. He actually lets man freely eat of the tree of life. And he just gives him one restriction, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he says, in the day that you eat of it, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely die. So what died that day? We know, as my brother-in-law used to say, you had one job. You had one job. You have one tree up to eat from. They eat of it, they're deceived, and they eat of it, and they fall. They break connection and union with God. Did they fall over dead? No. Need those kindergartners in here again so they can answer these tough questions. No, it didn't fall over. Dead. But what was happening? What died? Maybe the better question is who died? The Spirit of God left them. And they continue to breathe, and yet were dead. But here, again, if we if we're thinking of this as a play, let's take it back a little bit. Let's rewind. And we see that there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And Eve isn't there yet, but Adam is. And the four of them are sitting here, God's showing his new creation off. And the Father speaks, but it comes through the Holy Spirit because he's the speaking, you know, the word of God, Jesus Christ is there. And so this communion, this connection between the three of them is shared with Adam. And he's showing him everything. And he says, see this tree? The day in which you eat of it, you shall surely die. But there's four of them there, right? We understand that he's talking to Adam, right? You shall surely die. But I just want to pose a question and maybe imagine this for a moment. That the father is telling Adam, in the day you eat of it, he turns to his son and says, You shall surely die. Now did Jesus drop over dead in that moment? No. But what if, in that moment, God is also speaking to his son? And that the son is now destined to die in order to ransom the object of his affection. Jesus was so tied to us, so united with us, that he would follow us into hell itself to ransom us back. I find it interesting as I was thinking of this that we take the fall of Adam and Eve so personally. We tie back every pain, every even anoint, back to those people with that apple. And we get offended. How many of you who have a loved one or a kid who's ever sick or in pain would prefer that you are the one in pain instead of them? And so we get offended at the pain and suffering that we live in and in part contribute to on a regular basis. And yet we fail to realize that the pain we experience through the brokenness and suffering of humankind is much less, pales in comparison with the ache and pain of God Himself for man. For you see who actually lost the most in that moment? Man or God? Well, God needs nothing, no. But love always desires connection to preserve, to protect. And so man falls. Man is in a garden, and he dies spiritually. And he is put out of the garden under a curse. And this is the end of Act One. And then the curtains are drawn, and we wonder what next. So the next act is the curtains open and it's pitch blackness. It's marked by a continuing. Man is now marked by a continuing loss of identity. He has lost his way and he relies heavily upon this knowledge of good and evil to guide him. And man continues to plunge further and further into utter darkness and no hope. There's no godly life to be found, no way to redeem it. And man is left in his own devices and strengths to continue to do the same cycle over and over, downward and away from God, hurting others and himself in the process. But God finds a man, Abraham, and he asks Abraham if he will believe him enough to believe that he can, through him, bring life and restoration back into the earth. And Abraham humbly says yes. And so God finds a man that becomes a group of people, and he gives them laws to try to curb this perpetual darkness and destruction that man is under. And from a distance, there's this pinprick of light that starts to come. I don't know if you've ever been in someplace completely dark, but I have. And if there's a faint bit of light, if there's a point of light, if it's dark enough, you can't see if that thing's five feet away or a thousand feet away, but you see it. It's a point of light. And you can't differentiate the distance. And so these men in the Old Testament are looking to this light, and it steadily becomes a little brighter all the time. And yet they see it from afar, they're hoping for it. Maybe it's in my lifetime, and the next generation comes, and each one is seeing a piece and a part of this light that is coming. And so what the scripture titles as when the fullness of time had come, Act 2 ends. And the fullness of time had come. So in Act 3, this lonely man steps out onto the stage, and his name is John. And John begins to narrate. He says, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. And in him was life. And the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness cannot comprehend it, cannot overcome it. The light has arrived, but with it it's the life of God. The Zoe, divine life of God. So here stands God in human form. The first man since Adam to have the Spirit of God living inside of him. To have eternal life presence in him. The world had not seen that since Adam fell. And yet here he is. And Jesus comes and lives in the world under the curse. Right? The curse of Adam in a world steeped in the effects of sin, although he did nothing wrong. He willingly subjected himself to the death, suffering, brokenness, pain that man had created around him because he loves us. Because he loves you. Because he loves me. And through the empowering of the Spirit, this life of God resident in Jesus, the very heart and nature of God is revealed in the earth. He restores, he heals, he sets free, he comforts, he cries, he rebukes, he corrects, he delivers, he makes whole. He is courageous, he is selfless, he is humble, and yet he is a king and he rules. And years later, in the surrounding regions, even the Gentiles, those who were not followers of Jesus Christ in any way, or even aware of the Jewish culture, it's said of them that they knew that God had anointed, they had heard and understood that God had anointed this Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. And he went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil because God was with him. But we, meaning all broken and lost mankind as a whole, took him, mocked him, beat him. We plucked out his beard, we tore the skin off his back with whips, and put a crown of thorns on him, and nailed him to a cross. That was our response to the life of God being poured out among us. And if we would say, no, we would not be that person, I would remind you that your very sin is what caused him to come this far for you. And so we go on to John chapter 19. Verse 28. This is Jesus who's hanging on the tree on the cross and has become for us a curse. He says, after this, Jesus, seeing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now a vessel of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to his mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. He bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. The divine spirit, the life of God. He gives up his divine spirit because no one else can take it from him. And just as he could have laid it down at any moment, he held on to it until it was accomplished the fullness of the wrath of God, the penalty. Of sin, the restoration of man was paid for in his own body. And then he gave it up. Not before. He didn't hold on to it any longer than he needed. He gave it up. And then we go over to verse 40. It says, Then they took the body of Christ and bound it in strips of linen with spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden a new tomb, of which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus because the Jews, preparation, because the Jewish preparation day for the tomb was nearby. Okay. So we remember the beginning of this thread, where man lived in unity and oneness with God in spirit and in life, and he was placed in a garden. And then he fell and he was put out of the garden. He died and he was put out of the garden. Now we see Jesus lives under the curse outside of the garden. And he is killed outside of the garden. And then he is buried in the garden. It's an exact reversal of what happened to Adam. This garden represents the connection. It represents our divine right. It represents the goodness of God. It represents fullness and life. Because what lived there? The tree of life. And the world is seemingly plunged into darkness yet again. And third act. We had this moment of light, and now it's extinguished. And we are yet plunged into darkness, despair. And that enemy has ultimately one. At the beginning of Acts 4, but something's different. Something's different. There are two ancient laws at work that even predate, pre-cede mankind. What are those? One, a seed must reproduce after its own kind. And two, the law of seed, time, and harvest has come. These are laws that were in place before Adam even was created. If you look in the Genesis account, the thing that God notes about the plants He creates is they have seed in them and they reproduce after their own kind. And if there's a seed, it must be planted, and if it's planted, it must produce after its own kind. And through Scripture, it's reiterated over and over. It's a lot of seed time and harvest. For centuries man has been sowing and reaping sin, death, and judgment upon himself. But now, ah, a divine seed, a seed of life, has been planted in the earth. And as Jesus said, unless a seed dies and goes into the ground, it cannot reproduce after itself. What Jesus held could only be released unto mankind through his death and subsequent seed of his life being spread to us. A seed of life from the tree of life. Now we have a garden, and this tree of life has sprung forth again, and we find ourselves again able to enter into the Garden of Eden. What makes the Garden of Eden the Garden of Eden? Because it's beautiful? Yeah, sure. Actually, what makes the Garden of Eden really the Garden of Eden? It's unfettered fellowship and connection with God. And that in that is the source of eternal, divine life. And here he is, in living form. And not ironically enough, when Mary Magdalene encounters him, she thinks he's the gardener. Because that's what Adam was supposed to be. And he messed that up too. Jesus Christ has fully restored all that Adam had messed up and the subsequent fallout. So Jesus goes to his fearful, yet self-absorbed disciples and encourages them. And at one point it says he breathes upon him and they received the Holy Spirit. Okay? And nothing appears to really happen. But like we all know, when you plant a seed, you need to wait. Seed, time, all this. So weeks later, Jesus ascends into home and gives instructions that the disciples should wait at Jerusalem for the fullness of what he has already imparted to them. And we see on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of eternal life, comes upon the men and women that are there, and they are forever changed. And the very day, if you want to unpack this, Pentecost, that day, thousands of years before, the law came to Israel and 3,000 people dropped dead. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit comes and 3,000 people receive eternal life. There's the difference of your trees, there's the difference of your nature. There's the two life sources on display. One gives eternal, lasting freedom and life. The other gives you death, despair, and destruction. And these are the two trees that yet live: the knowledge of good and evil, the law, religion, and the tree of life, which is Jesus Christ. So let's return back where we began in Acts. These men that were but a few chapters before this, hiding, fearful, self-absorbed, self-seeking. They were still asking Jesus as he's about to ascend to heaven, hey, when is your kingdom happening here that we can, you know, good stuff and money? He's like, just wait, guys. You're gonna get it. They thought they were gonna get money. He's in power. He's saying, no, you're gonna get it. And he's told on. I'll start back in verse 18. They laid their hands on the apostles and put them into their common prison. But at night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, Go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. Not your life, this life. And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priests and those with them came and called the council together with all the elders and the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. And there was no small disturbance when they realized they weren't in prison, and that they're out preaching yet again. So we go over to verse 28. And the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you've filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and you intend to bring this man's blood on us. And Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than man. Look at these guys, farmers, IRS agent, an anarchist, and a mega follower. All together saying in one accord, We follow God, y'all follow man.

unknown 31:20

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

And God, the God of our fathers, raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And he, and we are his witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given those who obey Him. Who else is the witness? The living Spirit of God inside of every believer. From this point on. Says in Ephesians that the spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us. And in Romans, if the spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, in your mortal body, then he who raised Christ from the dead can equipped your mortal body through his spirit who dwells in you. We have the same spirit of Jesus Christ living inside of us. The divine nature. And now we have the choice of what tree to pull life from. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The tree of eternal, of eternal God life. And this is now our story. This act has not ended. It will when Christ returns. But we are living in this actively right now. And the stage of your life that you're playing this out on is yours to do with what you will. So I'm gonna ask the band to come up. We're gonna take communion. Nothing that Jesus did was just by coincidence. And they could never eat meat that had blood still in it. You can start hanging out the elements. Because it says the life is in the blood, why couldn't they eat animals' blood? Because they weren't supposed to get life from anything else other than the divine life of Christ. How do we know that? Because at the Last Supper, it just takes the cup, the cup of his blood, and he says, take this. This is the new covenant. This is the eternal life. This represents what I give you. Not the lifeblood of animals, not the lifeblood of angels or whatever else you want to come up with. The lifeblood of God Himself. And he's extending himself to us. We can always live well below what God gives us and what he wants for us. It is our choice. That's what humility and love do. They give you a choice every time. Because God does not demand from you anything. Because love does not, true love does not demand anything of you. You guys can play your song?