The Walking Dead: Alive! Series

THE WALKING DEAD: ALIVE! (EXPERIENCING THE RESURRECTION)

OPENING: Declare: “Christ is risen!” Pray for all of the other churches in town.

INTRO TO TOPIC: Have you ever seen the TV show The Walking Dead, or any of the popular zombie movies? The basic idea behind them all is that during the apocalypse at the end of the world, there is some kind of virus that reanimates dead bodies – the living dead – and causes them to walk around looking for human brains to eat.

• That’s similar to the Bible’s description of our lives before Christ!

1. THE BAD NEWS – WE ARE THE WALKING DEAD:

“1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” (Eph. 2:1-3, NKJV).

• BRAVEHHEART QUOTE: “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.”

• What does it mean to be truly alive?

• Just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean you’re living life to the fullest!

• God’s original intent for us is to experience abundant life (John 10:10).

• But because of Adam and Eve’s sin, we are all born with a sin nature.

• This Scripture says we were dead in our sins, following the passions of our evil nature.

• QUESTION: Is living in sin, really living?

• “You will be accepted if you respond in the right way. But if you refuse to respond correctly, then watch out! Sin is waiting to attack and destroy you, and you must subdue it.” (Genesis 4:7, NLT).

• Sin is bondage, being chained to something you don’t want to do.

STORY: The night of my 18th birthday – out drunk, blacked out, passed out in a ditch (photos – fortunately they didn’t have facebook back then), threw up in my best friend’s car, my friends had to shower me clean, woke up in a pile of my own vomit the next morning. This is living?

• “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23, NKJV).

• “As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10).

• “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24).

• Paul is saying here that before Christ, we are the walking dead – bodies of death!

• The Answer: Living in sin is not really living. It’s not being fully alive.

• I don’t know about you, but I want to live life, I want to be fully alive!

2. THE GOOD NEWS – GOD WANTS TO MAKE US FULLY ALIVE:

“4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us…

• I like when God butts in. Not because we e-mailed him or tweeted him, we rejected Him!

• BUT GOD: in spite of our ignorance and rebellion, He is RICH in mercy, GREAT love!

• Quote John 3:16 and talk about Good Friday chapel at Stony Plain – “SO LOVED!”

5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:4-9).

• Even though we were the walking dead, He made us alive in Christ.

• A dead man cannot make himself alive. If there’s a body floating in the water, you can throw a life preserver to him, but he can’t reach for it! Therefore, God makes us alive!

• NOTE: Just because you’re alive in Jesus doesn’t mean everything will go well with you!

• QUOTE John 16:33 – we will have TROUBLE, but in Christ, we can have PEACE!

• When we are alive in Christ, we can say, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

THE BIG IDEA: Apart from Jesus, we are all the Walking Dead. But because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, we can become fully alive.

3. WHAT IS THE GOSPEL? (1 Cor. 15:1-6).