Intro: What a wonderful passage its fast paced, filled with espionage, excitement and the supernatural. Sounds like something Hollywood dreamed up doesn’t it? However as we look at this passage it is not filled with lights and sounds but the light of the world and the darkness of men.
This is Matthew’s version of the resurrection story. It includes
• The Lord Jesus’ resurrection
• The religious deception
• The great commission’s inception
Before we dive in with both feet we need to remember what was said last week. Do you remember last week? We talked about the reality of the creator. That there is a God and he created us. There is a corruption in the creation. The letter to the Roman’s says it clearly all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Sin is looking at God’s best and saying uggh. It is turning our nose up to God in rebellion and rejection of His rule as creator and King of the universe. What does that rebellion and rejection of God’s rule lead to? (emptiness)
Jesus said in John 10.10 the thief comes to steal, and kill, and destroy but I am come that you may have life and have it to the full.
Do you realize that the devil comes to take your life? He comes to steal, or kill, or destroy the full life God had in mind for you before you were formed in your mother’s womb.
Think about the devil comes to take, Jesus comes to give. When you come to Jesus he doesn’t forcefully take your life. If you hear the gospel the good news and accept the life He offers you have the option to bow your heart and bend your knee before the true King of the universe and your true king. Jesus wants to give you fullness of life! So what does that fullness of life look like?
Jesus took the burden of the cross. He substituted in your place so that you could live in the breakthrough of the resurrection. Romans 6 tells us that if we are baptized into Jesus – by the Spirit not just water, we were crucified with Him, we were buried with Him, we were also raised with Him. As our substitution he took our punishment for rebellion and disobedience. As our substitute and representative he shattered sins hold on us and defeated death forever. Death is not the absence of physical life. True death is the absence of God’s life. The God life, life under the loving, caring, protective hand of God is what fullness is.
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples
The women were afraid. They did not yet understand what we get to hear about on a weekly if not daily basis. Jesus was alive. There were scared to death but filled with Joy! They were filled!
Let me give you four truths of a breakthrough or resurrection life.
I. A life that is full is not controlled by the past
When Jesus left the borrowed tomb, He left the sins of the world in the tomb, we, too, have resurrection power available to us to walk in freedom from the control of sin if we will be filled or controlled by His Holy Spirit.
“He is not here, he has risen,” Jesus was no longer where the sins of the world were.
Jean-Pierre de Caussade in The Joy of the Saints told us how to not be controlled by the past or consumed by the future.
To escape the distress caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to his good providence; give the present wholly to his love by being faithful to his grace.
God has cast our sins into the graveyard of forgetfulness. What is even more wonderful than that is that God will use our broken past to bless someone else in their greatest time of need.
Guard against being controlled by your past. It is forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus. Guard against staying in the past. Our God is the God of the present. He is the God of the living. We don’t live in the victories of yesterday but God’s grace and presence right now.
Jesus paid for my past and yours, He provides for your present and paved the way to the future. What you must ask is do I trust He knows what is best for me.
Some will accept that they are going to heaven but not that they are forgiven while they still live on this earth. Bruce Larson tells the true story of a Catholic priest living in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who once carried a secret burden of long-past sin buried deep in his heart. He had committed that sin once, many years before, during his time in seminary. No one else knew of this sin. He had repented of it and he had suffered years of remorse for it, but he still had no peace, no inner joy, no sense of God's forgiveness.
There was a woman in this priest's parish who deeply loved God, and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ, and He with her. The priest, however, was skeptical of her claims, so to test her visions he said to her, "You say you actually speak directly with Christ in your visions. Let me ask you a favor. The next time you have one of these visions, I want you to ask Him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary."
The woman agreed and went home. When she returned to the church a few days later, the priest said, "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?" She replied, "Yes, He did." "And did you ask Him what sin I committed in seminary?" "Yes, I asked Him." "Well, what did He say?" "He said, 'I don't remember.'"
This is what God wants you to know about the forgiveness He freely offers you. When your sins are forgiven, they are forgotten. The past - with its sins, hurts brokenness, and self- recrimination - is gone, dead, crucified, and remembered no more.
Jesus calls us to be people who: Live in the present-tense.
An average person’s anxiety is focused on:
40% -- things that will never happen
30% -- things about the past that can’t be changed
12% -- things about criticism by others, mostly untrue
10% -- about health, which gets worse with stress
8% -- about real problems that will be faced
Stop trying to grapple with the what ifs and let God take care of it. You simply make that long term investment in God’s kingdom day by day.
While touring Italy, a man visited a cathedral that had been completed on the outside only. Once inside, the traveler found an artist kneeling before an enormous wall upon which he had just begun to create a mosaic. On some tables nearby were thousands of pieces of colored ceramic. Curious, the visitor asked the artist how he would ever finish such a large project. The artist answered that he knew how much he could accomplish in one day. Each morning, he marked off an area to be completed that day and didn’t worry about what remained outside that space. That was the best he could do; and if he faithfully did his best, one day the mosaic would be finished.
II. A life that is full is not conformed to the world
Jesus was told by Peter that He would not die for the sins of the world. Yet, He not only paid the penalty for our sin but broke the power of sin over us by bursting out of the tomb with the life of God.
What happened to Peter and the rest of the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection? Transformation. How do you explain a man denying Jesus before the crucifixion and then declaring Him after the “so called resurrection?”
Paul himself begged the Roman church and you and me to not be conformed or pressed into the mold of the world. But be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Jesus doesn’t just come to get you out of hell he came to get your head right!
So how do we begin this transformation process? We bow to the King. In the old testament the High priest would go into the Holy of Holies and offer a sacrifice for the sins, the disobedience and rebellion of the Jewish nation. How do we know that this man’s sacrifice was accepted? He came out alive! How do we know Jesus sacrifice was accepted? He came out of the tomb alive.
He came out for us to live full alive to God. So how do we keep from being conformed to the world?
A) Pressure to conform to the world decrees
When we face the pressures of the world what does the Bible tell us to do?
1 John 2:15-17 tells us of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life so how does transformation begin and continue, 1Tim 6.11, 2 Tim 2.22 Flee – Run to Jesus
B) Pressure to conform to the flesh desires
Romans 7.18-24
Deny the demands of your flesh and cling to the demands of Christ.
Romans 6.12-13, 8:13
C) Pressure to conform to the devils designs
1 Peter 5.9, James 4.7 Surrender to God and resist the devil. Change your allegiance.
III. A life that is full is complete in Christ
The disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, found everything they needed in Jesus. This is what allowed them to let go of their earthly possessions to take care of the members of the Body of Christ.
His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. — 2 Peter 1:3
In Christ we have everything we need to face this life and the life to come. In Him we have all wisdom, all peace, all kindness, all forgiveness, all power, all purpose, all gentleness and on and on.
Colossians 2.9-10 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.[b] 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
The word translated complete comes from a nautical term that mean the ship was filled and prepared for journey.
Whatever you need for life in you will find in Jesus God’s anointed king (messiah)(Christ)
In Him I have complete forgiveness of sin, In Him I have complete strength to face today, In Him I have complete hope to face tomorrow, In Him I find water of cleansing, In Him I find the Spirit of Power, In Him I find purpose of life. I am complete in Him.
Completeness as we apply the truths we know about Jesus Christ to our daily lives.
IV. A life that is full is concerned with the Glory of God and the gospel of Jesus.
A gospel was literally a good news. It was a letter that was sent out telling a new emperor is taking his seat in Rome. Good news! Jesus has taken His rightful place as King on the throne of creation. Good News! Jesus is on the throne!
Carrying the gospel to anyone is a God sized task. We merely share what we have seen and heard and God applies the pressure of the Holy Spirit. If we are full of the life of God that will be what we share with those around us. It is not I have to share, its I get to share, I can’t help but share what God has done in my life. Has God done anything in your life lately? Is he doing anything right now. Then why if the God of the universe is working in your life isn’t that more important than fertilizer and crops, more important than the stock market and your 401 k, more important than who will win the NCAA championship, what new app you have on your I phone.
Conclusion: As you think about the empty manger, the empty cross, the empty tomb, Is your life full? Jesus left the tomb empty so that your life could be full with the life of God.
