Easter - The Hope Of Heaven

We are all searching for something. We are searching for meaning and purpose to life. Some are searching for fun and pleasure, others fame and status.

• We look for friends, to give us companionship. We crave for things, to fill our sense of void. We run after money, so that we can get what we want. We seek for a name, to gain recognition.

• Everyone is searching because there is this sense of need deep down in our heart.

• But the problem is no one can truly be satisfied in this life, without God.

Some thing will always be missing from this life, without a relationship with God.

• Jesus: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

• Jesus, the Son of God, has to come. He is only way we can know God.

If you want to have a fulfilling and blessed life, we need to know Jesus.

• I did not invent that. This is God’s will for us, revealed in 1 Peter 1:3-4

...In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you.

God wants to give us a new life, a living hope and an inheritance in heaven.

• These are gifts from God. Only God can give us such promises.

(1) A New Life

What we need is a NEW LIFE – a new birth, that’s how it says here.

• We are not talking about a better life, a happier life, but a NEW life.

• Jesus says “You must be born again” to a man named Nicodemus (John 3:7).

• You bought a new TV and it is not working. You bring it back to the shop and they give you a NEW one. It is not about repairing the old but receiving the new.

God wants to give you a new life. Man needs a new life because our existing one has been marred by sin.

• No amount of training can make us good. No amount of disciplining can change us. Nothing on the outside can change what is on the inside.

• Jesus died on the cross on our behalf, to pay the penalty of our sinful life. He shed His blood and cleansed us from all unrighteousness.

• When you believe Jesus as your Saviour, you will experience a transformation; not a reformation, but a transformation.

• Your sin is forgiven and God gives you a NEW LIFE.

Eph 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - 9not by works, so that no one can boast.”

• All you need to do is to receive it by faith. The Bible also says God wants to give us…

(2) A Living Hope

“He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”

• Apostle Peter said it with such confidence because he saw Jesus personally, before and after His death. Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples. He was an eye-witness to the event.

• This is not a religion; it is a historical fact. It is the truth being penned down by eye-witnesses who have experience this NEW LIFE in Christ.

No one would want to believe a dead man’s story. It doesn’t make sense.

• Apostle Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Cor 15:14)

• If Jesus, who claims to be the Son of God, cannot overcome death, then there is no guarantee we can. And all His claims will be false.

• Then we are more pitiful then all men, Paul says (cf. 1 Cor 15:19) because we’ve believed a lie and given up our lives to serve a lie.

But Jesus indeed came back to life. The disciples were willing to die for preaching about it. They knew, as many of us know today, that Jesus is alive.

• He has not only given us a NEW LIFE but a LIVING HOPE. We know He is alive today and He hears our prayers.

• God cares for us and He is watching over us. We are people with a LIVING HOPE because we are children of the living God.

• With Christ, life has become an endless hope. Without Him, it can only be a hopeless end.

If God raised Jesus from the dead, then we will also be raised. If there is a resurrection, then there will be a heaven.

• That’s what Jesus said to His disciples: “I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:2-3)