The "Empty" Hope Of Easter Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: March 28, 2013

Date Preached: March 31, 2013

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: Easter Sunday Sermon

Sermon Title: The Empty Hope of Easter

Sermon Text: Luke 23:50-24:49 [ESV]

Introduction:

Last week I shared with you that Jesus Loves You! I shared that the love of Jesus is very often NOT understood… and because it is NOT understood there are many who simply cannot accept it for what it is!

Finally we saw that even when His love is shown beyond any doubt … there will be those who refuse to receive His love…

Jesus LOVED us so much that He was willing to submit himself to the Cross for YOU and ME… Willing to die for our sin, so that we could live in redemption with the Father!

Today as we celebrate the fact that Jesus loves us… TODAY as we celebrate the physical representation of HOW we know He loves us…

This is because today we celebrate Resurrection Sunday!

This is the most wonderful day of the year for believers... So today we come together in worship to CELEBRATE!!! Do u wanna celebrate this morning?

We should celebrate as Jesus has conquered death and offers eternal life to all who will come to Him! This world has much it wants to offer us today...money, sex, career, power, position, fame...just to name a few, but not all we hear is going to be real, much is just an illusion...

I believe we all know that everything we HEAR is not going to be true! In this world we hear that this product can do this… or this product can do that…or this person promises this or that... They will try to tell you that they have proven FACTS to back up their claims!

They CLAIM that their product or person will do this or do that… they attempt to fill us with this information so that we place our HOPE in their product or in the person they represent! However, we all know that SO MUCH of the time the ‘facts’ they share with us about their product or person falls way short of being true…

We see this evident in all areas of our lives, but where we see it the most is in our world today is in the advertisement industry!

Have you ever saw an advertisement, heard the sales person pitch all the ‘facts’ and you were thinking, WOW, that is just what I need!

Based on what facts they present to you… you have HOPE that their product will be PERFECT for your situation… that it will meet your needs OR probably the MOST overused HOPE we have in material things: “if I could just get that, I would be HAPPY and satisfied!”

I know that we have ALL been there at one time or another in our lives… BUT what ultimately happened! Let me share a personal story with you! Once I saw a commercial about this exercise machine!

They laid out all their claims and backed it up with their ‘facts’! I was out of shape & overweight… & this commercial gave me HOPE that I could get into shape!

Their machine did EVERYTHING! You would get into shape and it would KEEP you in shape! It was stylish, and easy to use and was EASY to store when not in use! My ‘hope-o-meter’ was off the charts!

In fact, I was so overcome with desire to HAVE it that I eagerly dialed the phone & gave them my credit card number (MUCH TO MICHELLE’s counsel & warning)!

BUT I wasn’t worried, I knew that Michelle was WRONG! After all, they had given me their ‘facts’! My HOPE was this machine was going to be my way to get IN SHAPE!

I could already see it in my mind… I was going to be BUFF & HANDSOME… I was going be chiseled & the healthiest man alive! Oh, Michelle was going to be the luckiest woman alive and I could NOT wait till my miracle machine was delivered!

Then it happened… the day ‘hope’ arrived! It got there and I thought “How wonderful… it is only a matter of days till Michelle will see how smart I was to order this…I’ll show her!”

How many in here knows what happened next? I'll tell u what happened...Hope was crushed that's what happened!! It started when I opened the box & found that the assembly was extremely difficult!

Once I finally got it put together, I jumped on my new machine, still hoping it would be as WONDERFUL as I had imagined it! Almost the instant I began to ‘use’ this machine… that hope they had promised me...it faded away!

I could tell that their claims & the ‘facts’ they had to back it up was NOT exactly as they had advertised… the hope they had led me to believe in… it was a false hope! What a disappointment!