SIMPLY JESUS
JESUS THE RISEN LORD
HEBREWS 13:20-21
INTRODUCTION
-When you first started school they gave you the title student.
-When you finished school you got the new title, “graduate”.
-When you took on your first job you became an “employee” and throughout your career some of you also get to wear titles like, “supervisor”, “manager” or maybe even “owner”.
-As each of us travel down our life’s path we have the opportunity to wear many different titles.
-When you walked in today you were identified as a “visitor or a regular attender”.
-If you give birth to a child you are given the title “mother”.
-If your wife gave birth to a child, you still get a title! “father”…
which seems kind of unfair since she did all the hard work!
-Think about all the titles we wear.
-Mr. and Mrs. Husband & wife.
-Parent, grandparent, great grandparent!
-Senator, officer, voter, there’s even the title Slurpee guy @ 7-11
-We give all kinds of titles to all kinds of people for all kinds of achievements, accomplishments, & statuses.
-But what do we call Jesus?
-But what is the appropriate TITLE for the one man in all of history who raised himself from the dead?
-That’s why we’re here today…to consider who Jesus Christ is, in light of the resurrection.
-What title to get you for doing THAT? Lord! Jesus is the risen Lord
-Our passage today is just a little closing prayer from Hebrews 13.
-This passage tells us a few important things about our Risen Lord.
WHAT DID JESUS DO? (vs 20)
20 Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—21 may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.
-You have probably heard the Easter story before.
-Vs 20 sums it up simply; it’s about Jesus being brought up from the dead!
-It almost seems like no big deal as read vs 20.
-It doesn’t seem like a major point in this little passage.
-But the resurrection of Jesus Christ is central.
-When Jesus was arrested he endured a series of unlawful trials.
-His accusers produced false witnesses and convicted him on trumped up charges.
-He was framed, condemned, and sentenced to die.
-DURING THE COURSE OF HIS EXECUTION HE WAS:
-Punched with fists by the guards.
-Slapped and spit upon.
-He endured a kind of whipping that often killed people.
-The cat of nine tails would shred the flesh from a man’s back.
-Throughout the tortures, trials, and humiliation he was mocked, paraded around, and even forced to carry his own cross.
-They shoved a crown of thorns down on his scalp, nailed him to the cross, put a sign over his head that said “King of the Jews…
-…and then left him to die.
-DURING HIS TIME ON THE CROSS:
-From noon until 3pm on that Friday the sky was dark.
-Everyone who witnessed his death knew something significant was happening. Something serious, something awful.
-This righteous man was hung among thieves.
-The people who’d put him on the cross, mocked him while he was dying. They were pitiless and ruthless.
-Matt 27:42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.
-And so he hung there & hung there, enduring ridicule and shame.
-When he finally died the earth shook, rocks crumbled, tombs burst open. And dead saints appeared and walked around.
-The temple veil that separated average people from the most holy place suddenly tore in half without anyone touching it.
-Even one of the guards who participated in Christ’s crucifixion proclaimed, “Surely he was the son of God.”
-BUT WHILE PEOPLE WERE STILL PONDERING ALL THIS…
-They buried him quickly because dark on Friday night began the Sabbath. There was no working on the Sabbath, not even burying!
-So from that time until Sunday morning all the followers of Jesus were crushed. Their hopes were dashed.
-They had left everything, given up everything to follow Jesus.
-They had quit jobs, moved from their homes, left family members behind.
-They’d given up everything to follow Jesus…the title that they used for him was Rabbi….teacher.
-But what title do you give a dead teacher?
-But after all they did to kill Him, JESUS ROSE UP FROM THE GRAVE.
-Jesus was just another prophet that God’s people killed…until he rose up from the grave.
-Until he rose he was just another religious leader who said some controversial things, gained a following, and then…died.
-Until he rose he was just another history making guru who had his hay day, and then faded away.
-But when he rose from the grave he distinguished himself from all other religious leaders and all religions.
-No other prophet, no priest, no guru, no philosopher…before or since…ever raised themselves from the grave.
-Only one person could do such a thing. Only the one who created life…only the Lord of life, has power over death!
-And that’s precisely who we believe that Jesus is.
-He is the risen Lord, and our passage says he wears another title:
JESUS BECAME THE GREAT SHEPHERD.
-Now I know many of you are all dressed up this morning.
-You are well groomed, freshly showered, you look like a high class bunch of men and women…but the Bible calls us sheep.
-That isn’t because we’re dumb well…sometimes we are.
-It’s not because we’re stubborn…but we R stubborn sometimes.
-And we aren’t called sheep because we tend to follow the crowd, though we do sometimes follow the crowd!
-We’re called sheep because Jesus is like a Shepherd for us.
-That means that Jesus is tending to us.
-He’s watches over us. He cares for us.
-He didn’t raise from the dead to show off, he raised from the dead to be something for his people.
-The job of Shepherd doesn’t mean much to modern people, but it conjures an image of a man who cares for a flock.
-Jesus is the Great Shepherd of our souls.
-The ancient shepherds lived with the sheep.
-They would protect the sheep from predators.
-They would mend the sheep when they were injured.
-They would give shelter to the sheep, and often guard the entrance to those sheep pens with their own bodies.
-Jesus does all those things for us.
-In John 10:11 Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.”
-But we must never forget that…
JESUS SIGNED THE COVENANT IN HIS OWN BLOOD.
-We love Jesus the Shepherd, like to talk about his love.
-We like to talk about heaven.
-We’re relieved to know that all our sins are forgiven.
-But we must never forget the great cost of our forgiveness.
-Today people are wearing pastel and eating chocolates!
-We’re carving hams and hunting for eggs.
-There are bunnies, I’m not sure where that came from…and baskets and those marshmallow peeps!
-Those are our Easter traditions.
-But Easter Sunday is when we remember that Jesus came out of a grave after being brutally murdered on Friday.
-He paid for all the blessings we have, with his own life.
-Our lives were changed, our souls were saved, but he paid the price.
-Rom 5:6 “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
-And we don’t need to feel guilty about that, we aren’t required to pay him back; we don’t have to earn it somehow.
-We can’t possibly deserve it.
-But our tribute to the risen Lord is to never forget….the cost of our forgiveness and salvation.
-He wanted us saved so badly that he paid the price to save us.
-He took responsibility for sins that weren’t his.
-He took a punishment that really wasn’t intended for him.
-He took a brutal death sentence that had our names on it.
-And he did all that because he wants us saved.
-He wanted to give us a way out.
-He wanted to give us a second chance, and a new beginning.
-But there’s just a little more in our passage.
21 may he equip you with all you need for doing his will.
May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
JESUS EQUIPS US TO DO HIS WILL.
-He isn’t a Lord who wears a title and bosses people around.
-He’s a hands on leader who equips to do what he instructs us to…
-There are days when it seems like it’s impossible to follow Jesus.
-When we read about his life, his work, his amazing attitude.
-When we see how he treated people who were unlovable, and outcasts, and enemies…it seems that we could never follow him.
-When his words cut us to our hearts, and convict of our sins.
-When his teaching calls us toward standards that almost seem impossible…
-It’s easy for us to feel overwhelmed.
-It’s easy to want to give up and say it’s too hard.
-But Jesus didn’t just save us and then leave us to figure it out all on our own.
-The power that raised Jesus from the dead, is the same power that Jesus uses to help us to follow him.
-And lastly…
-JESUS PRODUCES GOOD THINGS IN US.
-He’s not only good, and working for our good, he’s helping us to do good ourselves.
-There is a Christian Bagpipe player named Eddie Snipes who plays manys different gigs including some funerals.
-A funeral director called and asked him to play at a graveside service for a homeless man.
-The man had died alone and had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery out in the country.
-And because Eddie is a Christian he felt like he should do this good deed for a poor lost soul.
-But on the way out to that cemetary, Eddie got lost and finally
arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.
-The only people left were the diggers who were eating lunch.
-He looked down into grave and saw that the vault lid was already in place but he felt badly for missing the funeral.
-And so, he decided to play anyways.
-So he took out his bagpipes and began to play.
-The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. -He played out his heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. He played like never before for this lost homeless man.
-As he played ‘Amazing Grace,’ the workers began to weep.
-They wept, he wept, everyone all wept together.
-That’s who Jesus is equipping us to be…
-The people who do good things, and right things, even if we have to do them alone.
-Our Lord Jesus compels us to do good things, noble things, and right things.
-Because accepting Jesus isn’t just signing up for heaven, it’s signing up to live like Jesus lived.
-When Eddie the bagpipe player had finished he packed up his things and started for his car.
-As he opened the door to his car, he heard one of the workers say, “I never seen anything like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”
-And in our hearts we’ve all given titles to Jesus.
-Teacher, holy man, healer,
-A man who loved, told the truth.
-But what you must know the
-But Jesus is Lord.
-We don’t accept him on our terms, we accept him on his terms.
-The titles that we have for him, are not nearly as important to the title that took for himself that morning at the tomb.
-He is the Risen Lord. And there is no salvation, there is no forgiveness, until you accept Jesus as the Risen Lord.
-There is no assurance of heaven, there is no resurrection ahead for us until we receive Jesus as the Risen Lord.
-Until we embrace the title that is only his to wear.
-We’re having a bunch of baptisms today. All those being baptized are stating publically that they are following Jesus as Lord.
