Well, good morning.
Welcome.
Happy Easter.
Good to have you here, whether you're in the sanctuary or I know some people ended up in the overflow room, so thank you for being in there.
Good news is y'all can misbehave a little bit in there.
I'll never know.
You can have a good time.
What we love to say every single week is we are more broken than we originally thought, but we are more loved by God and Jesus than we could ever dare to dream.
That's the good news we talk about every single week.
It's the good news we'll talk about today.
Three days ago on Thursday, Jesus had dinner with his disciples.
He held up the bread.
He said, This is my body broken for you.
He held up the wine.
He said, This is my blood shed for you.
He washed the disciples' feet, even the one who would betray him.
He prays for his friends, and then he leaves and he goes to the Mount of Olives.
He goes to the Garden of Gethsemane.
Here's a picture of the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, he's there praying.
Now Gethsemane is a device.
It's used to crush olives.
Here's a picture of the device that would be used to crush olives.
So here is Jesus praying.
The Bible says, so stressed that he sweated blood.
And I was like, is that real?
And so I did a little Google, and yes, it's true.
I think my voice set off a Siri when I said sweated.
Did all your Siries activate?
It's a real thing.
That's a real medical condition to sweat blood.
And so Jesus is there and he's being crushed like an olive.
He's being crushed.
He was then arrested.
He was tried.
He was beaten.
He was crucified.
Isaiah 53, 5, he was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
On Friday, he was nailed to a cross like a common criminal.
He who knew no sin became sin that we, you and I, might be the righteousness of God by gift to us.
On Saturday, hope was gone.
And then there's today.
There's Easter, there's resurrection, there's new life, there's hope.
So what might this have to do with your heart and life today and Marietta in 2025?
Is this just tradition, or could it possibly be more?
Luke 24, 10 through 12.
The ladies have come back from seeing the empty tomb.
They said, guys, you won't believe this.
He's not there.
Those words he spoke to us about rising from the dead, it actually happened.
He's not there.
The soldiers are gone, all that.
It's all gone.
Luke 24, 10.
Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and the Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with whom told these things to the apostles.
But these words seemed to them an idle tale.
And they did not believe them.
But Peter rose and ran to the tomb.
Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen claws by themselves.
And he went home marveling, marveling at what happened.
Point number one is this resurrection compels us into marvel of God, a life of marveling.
I love that word marvel in verse 12.
The word marvel means to have wonder or admiration.
See, we marvel at that which we think is remarkable.
Whatever you think is remarkable in your life, you will marvel at it.
Two years ago, I went on a refuge leadership retreat in eastern Montana.
Eastern Montana.
There is nothing out there.
Middle of nowhere.
It's the end of the day.
We had fished the Bighorn River, and a whole group of leaders is around a huge table.
We're having dinner together.
We're sharing our leadership struggles and opportunities, the burdens we carry as leaders.
And then we finish the discussion.
We go outside and we sit around a campfire.
There's nothing right there.
There's pure darkness everywhere except for this little fire.
There's no lights anywhere.
And then there is a flash of green across the sky.
And then there was a flash of purple.
And for 45 minutes, we get to see the northern lights.
That's not AI.
There's no filter.
That's a real picture.
It's very similar to the laser show at Stone Mountain.
Okay, so that's about the same thing.
You don't need to go to the Northern Lights, just go to the laser show.
It's very, very, very similar.
45 minutes, these colors swirl.
And all of us become speechless.
We all stand up.
We all move to kind of the edge of the area that we're, there's another picture of us standing.
We just move to the edge, and all of our heads go up, and we just stand there speechless for a while.
We marveled.
We weren't like, oh, should we uh should we stand up now and marvel at this?
We didn't have a discussion, it wasn't a debate, it was just like, oh my god, like all of us, like 20 people just all stood up at the same time, no words.
Everybody stood up and their heads go up, and we just stand on the edge of that field and look up.
And then suddenly guys started to say something, but the only words coming out were words like, wow, amazing, beautiful.
Oh, oh, you see that?
Wow, amazing.
We marveled.
We are filled with wonder and admiration of something that we saw that was remarkable.
Peter looked in, Jesus was gone, that's remarkable, and he marveled.
He is sent into wonder and admiration.
Jesus was dead, and now he's alive.
We marvel upon Jesus.
We're called to a life of beholding Jesus more.
What does this alive Jesus give us?
Listen how Peter describes it, 1 Peter 1, 3 through 5.
According to his great mercy, so his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again.
So he caused us, not us causing something, he has caused us to be born again into what?
To a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to what?
An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power, you are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Point number two is this we have new life, not because of our work for God, we have new life through Christ's work, the cross, and Christ's victory, the resurrection.
Verse 3 says, according to his great mercy.
The word mercy means kindness or goodwill toward the miserable.
Anybody ever felt miserable?
Have you ever been miserable to somebody?
Just like a real pill, right?
Kindness toward you, the miserable one, the afflicted, with a desire to help them.
That God's heart to you while you're miserable is to help you.
So we marvel upon Jesus.
By his mercy, he gives us this new life.
Now, what is this new life?
What is this inheritance?
Peter talks about.
Well, here's a list that we look at in our church repeatedly in the sermons that I preach.
What is our new life in Jesus?
We've seen this before.
Let's marvel upon it.
In Christ, we are always forgiven and always righteous.
Jesus is your righteousness.
In Christ, we have secure, forever acceptance, and peace with God.
Jesus is your peace.
In Christ, we are never alone and have endless companionship.
Jesus is with you.
In Christ, we are liberated from performancism to live by the Spirit and freedom and love.
Jesus is your freedom.
In Christ, we are relieved of judgmentalism and empowered to live with love toward others.
Jesus is your source of love.
In Christ, we are both deemed godly while we're becoming godly.
Jesus is your holiness and he's your empowerment toward holiness.
And Christ, we have a heavenly home prepared for us when our days on earth are over.
Jesus is your home.
And Paul said that inheritance, by his great mercy, you have that.
Two months ago, my youngest daughter and I were finishing the classic series, The Wonder Years.
Do you remember The Wonder Years?
So it was a show in the 80s about the 60s.
Okay?
Show in the 80s about the 60s.
I grew up watching The Wonder Years, Kevin Arnold, Winnie Cooper.
The show begins when they're in the sixth grade, travels with them year by year.
And Kevin adores Winnie.
And if you watch the show, you adore Winnie.
We all love Winnie Cooper.
Kevin and Winnie, they play together, they hold hands, they have their first kiss, they date other people, they become jealous, they have to work that out, they learn to be friends, and then they get into high school, ninth grade, and Winnie starts to hang out with older, driving, troublemaking boys.
And Kevin goes to her and says, Winnie, this isn't good.
He says, Winnie, you're not being yourself.
But she won't have it.
She won't hear it, and she runs off and she gets in the car.
And they get in a car wreck.
And Kevin goes to her house, sits in the front yard, and waits all day, all afternoon, for Winnie to come home from the hospital with her parents.
So let's watch as her parents bring Winnie home.
That's about three minutes long.
Is she all right?
Well, it's a broken leg and some cuts, but she's gonna need some time to recover, but she'll be okay.
Kevin, maybe you should go home now.
What?
Kevin.
Winnie doesn't want to see you right now.
But that's impossible.
I know she wants to see me.
Kevin.
Please go.
And I guess that's when I finally understood.
I'd been part of Winnie's past.
A past she wanted to forget.
And now there was nothing to do but go.
And I was part of her.
And no matter what.
I knew I could never let her go.
We're both just kind of a mess.
We're 66 episodes into the show at this point.
We love Winnie Cooper.
Kevin loves Winnie.
And then Winnie rejected him.
Guilt and shame.
Guilt and shame won.
The story was over, but he didn't go.
The story wasn't over.
He sees her in her mask, he pursues her, he moves toward her.
And what does he say, sweet little Kevin Arnold?
I love you.
I mean, what a beautiful Easter image.
We reject God, we go our own way.
We're self-centered, we're rebellious, we're miserable, we're self-righteous.
We say, I don't want to see you.
We are guilty and ashamed.
But the story's not over.
Death does not win.
He sees us in our mess and he loves us.
Listen to how Paul writes it in Romans 5, 6 through 8.
This is the message version.
Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.
He didn't and doesn't wait for us to get ready.
He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.
And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway.
We can understand someone dying for a person we're dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble can inspire us to selfless sacrifice.
But God put his love on the line for us by offering his son and sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
In the next chapter of Romans, in Romans 6, verse 4, Paul writes this We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Paul gives a graphic image here.
The images is that your old life of sin, your old Adam, the Bible says, is drowned.
It's drowned.
And what is raised is a new life.
A new life inside of us, a new self, hindered by the sinful nature, but not controlled, not governed.
We now have a life centered on the grace of God and a gaze upon Jesus.
A couple of weeks ago I heard the term siren song.
Have y'all heard this term siren song?
So it's the it's the idea that a song plays on your phone or on the radio.
As soon as you hear it, you're kind of like, whoa, hold on a second.
Hold on, hold on.
Oh, oh, I hear it.
Oh, yeah, hold on.
And you kind of like, oh, I gotta turn that one up.
Like it's the idea of like as soon as you hear it, you're like, whoa, gotta turn this up.
Like that's the idea of a siren song.
So I'm gonna play you two siren songs for me.
Uh, here's the first siren song.
See if you recognize it.
As soon as you hear it, you're like, ooh, I can I can hear it.
It's coming.
I'm gonna turn that up.
All right, here's here's one more siren song for me.
Right?
Stephen Curtis Chapman, could you hear it?
You're like, nobody's around, I'll crank it up.
Real good.
Nobody's around.
All right, we're good.
So that's the idea of siren songs.
You hear it, you just have to turn it up.
Because something in you comes alive when you hear it.
Something awakens.
It brings the question: what brings you life?
What song are you listening to about who you are?
We say in our church, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day because every day we forget the gospel.
Meaning, what is the song you listen to every day that you're turning up?
Is it a song about a tiring, performance-based life?
Achieve and you'll be enough, look a certain way, you'll be enough, get something and you'll be enough.
Is it a song about life without God?
Or is it a song about the loving Heavenly Father who sees you, knows you, loves you, pursues you, redeems you?
Now, I I know you may not come back to church till Christmas Eve, so let me just have my moment with you.
In Jesus, God loves you without condition and without limits.
All the seeking that you and I are doing, all the proving that we're doing, we're just wearing ourselves out to be somebody, to feel okay, to feel forgiven, to feel righteous.
All of that you have in Jesus.
And God's grace to you.
This is the new life we have in Christ.
According to his great mercy.
On Friday, Christ was crucified for our sins.
He was dead and buried.
On the third day, he rose from the dead.
Beloved, be buried in Christ in baptism.
You are raised to walk in the newness of life.
If you have a question about this sermon or you would like prayer for anything, I'll be down front afterwards.
So let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we're so grateful that you do not leave us, but you move toward us in our mess, in our guilt and shame, and when we say, I don't want to see you, you just keep lovingly pursuing us.
Forgive us for the ways that we rebel against you.
Forgive us for the ways that we act self-righteous and think that we're too good and we don't necessarily even need your grace anymore.
Help us to behold you more, to marvel at you more, at the goodness of Jesus for us.
May we as individuals, may we as families, and may we as a church behold Jesus more.
In Christ's name we pray.