Hope Of Resurrection Series

He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee. - Luke 24:6

Today we will meditate on the title of “Hope of Resurrection.” How the resurrection gives us hope. When Jesus Christ was crucified in 33 AD, there were only about 120 followers. They were meeting in the upper room, about 120 followers. Today, 2,000 years later, 2.3 billion people in the world claim to be followers of Christ, 2.3 billion. That means one out of every three people on this planet, one out of every three would say I am a follower of Jesus Christ. [Why did Christianity spread so far and so fast?] How did 12 disciples, the people that Jesus chose to be his first followers, expand into one out of every three people on planet Earth? The answer can be put into one word, the resurrection.

Resurrection means you've died and came back to life. The resurrection is the event that changed all of history. Because when Jesus had come back to life, it changed everything. Let us look at the four reasons why followers of Jesus Christ are the most hopeful people on the planet. We have more hope than anybody else, there's no contest. We have far more hope than anybody else in the world because of what Jesus Christ did at the resurrection. Why do we have hope?

I. Hope of Forgiveness:

We have been completely forgiven. Jesus repeatedly said over and over, “I'm going to die on the cross to pay for all your sins”. The Bible says this. Ephesians 1:7 “In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death. And so we have forgiveness of sins because of God's rich grace.”

Now we're all imperfect, so we all carry regrets and we all carry guilt and we always wish we had done things differently, we all have sins and things that we feel bad about or guilty about. The Bible says, in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. God doesn't want you carrying guilt through your life. God doesn't want you carrying a load of shame through your life.

The whole reason He died on the cross. So that you could be set free from all of that guilt, all of that shame. Guilt ties you down, it robs you of peace of mind. But Jesus came to die for you, so you don't have to die for your sins. We see in 1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed”.

Have you ever asked this question or thought about it, Who really killed Jesus? Who put Jesus on the cross? Who is to blame for Jesus being on the cross? Well, it wasn't Judas, and it wasn't Caiaphas the high priest, and it wasn't Pilate the governor, and it wasn't the Romans, and it wasn't the religious leaders, and it wasn't even the crowd.

[Who put Jesus on the Cross?] Who put Jesus on the cross, and this may shock you. The first answer is this, God did. God put Jesus on the cross. It was his plan from the very beginning. Genesis 3:15 tells us, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.” That’s why Jesus came to Earth, to die for our sins. Here's what the Bible says in Isaiah 53:6-10. “All of us have strayed away like sheep. We've all left God's plan to follow our own. And the Lord has laid on Him, the iniquity of us all. Isaiah is talking about Jesus, the guilt and sins of us all. But it was God's plan that he should suffer, it was God's plan.

The second answer for who put Jesus on the cross is us. We did, I did, you did. If none of us had ever sinned, Jesus wouldn't have had to die for our sins. The Bible says this in Romans 4:25 “Jesus was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God.” In your Bibles, underline the word us. He was raised from the dead, this is what Easter's all about. He was raised from the dead to make us right with God. Who's included in us? You, me, and us. We are made right with God. So we've been completely forgiven. That gives us hope, we are not facing any judgment because we have hope because we have been completely forgiven.

II. Hope of Courage:

When Jesus Christ got on the cross, one of the things he did was he broke the power of death and he broke the power of the fear of death. The fear of death is a universal fear, everybody has it. We find the fear of death everywhere. Because it's unknown, we don't know much about it. But what did Jesus do? He came back to life. Let me explain this. If Jesus Christ had not been resurrected from the dead, you wouldn't even know that there's life after death. You might say, well I hope there's life after death. But you'd have nothing to prove it, but Jesus Christ came back and said, I've conquered death, there is greater life after death. And that gives us hope. Here's what Jesus said, John chapter 11:25. Jesus promised,” I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” Rev.1:17-18. “Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen. And I have the keys of the Hades and of Death.” That's a reason for hope. If Jesus Christ had not resurrected on Easter Sunday, we’d all be helpless and hopeless, death would have been the end. Now, when Jesus died, they buried him in a tomb. Now, the 12 disciples were afraid. They ran and ran. None of them believed that the resurrection would happen. And so they hid in fear. [Why were the disciples of Jesus running and hiding in fear?] They thought that they would be executed next as the followers of Jesus.