Easter – He is Risen
{Audio: https://mega.nz/file/mEEWkSTK#wXOc7HZnt3BPH9AbRBqu1HZMlsFk3r_joaqnORZLJx8}
{YouTube Channel: Mesquite NV Living Waters Fellowship}
Last week, in our message entitled, “Recovering Our Hope,” we looked at the story of the women who came to the tomb on that first Sunday Morning, and the message they received. And it if from that message that every message about faith in Jesus Christ should originate, because, in essence, it was the first Easter Sunday message ever preached, and it was by angels.
“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He (Jesus) is not here, but is risen!” (Luke 24:5-6 NKJV)
And this message that Jesus is alive was proven time and again as He showed Himself to the disciples, proving that He was indeed risen and alive by asking Thomas, who doubted by the way, to put his hands into the scars in Jesus’s hands and side (John 20:27).
But we are also told that Jesus appeared to over 500 different people over a period of forty days after His resurrection. And when each of these people encountered Christ personally, all doubts were dispelled.
You see, it’s one thing to be told that Jesus rose from the dead, but it is quite another thing to see Jesus standing in front of you, inviting you to touch his hands and side and share a meal with you.
And it is this faith, this belief, which has been proven to be true and accurate, even through some of the most rigorous standards, including what it takes to prove something in a court of law.
And the reason the Christian church has gone through such lengths to reveal the truth of Jesus’s resurrection, is because we have the good news that every person needs to hear for their lives to be forever changed.
The Apostle Paul addresses this very thing as to the importance of establishing the truth about the resurrection. ‘“
“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14 NKJV)
While the death of Jesus upon the cross is what forgives our sins, the reality is that without the resurrection then it would have never made a difference. It was and is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes it all available, because He is alive and ready to redeem all those who come to Him.
And so, He is risen, and because He has risen from the dead, He is alive. And because He is alive, all those who believe in Him can have their sins forgiven, and have a really neat and great life to boot.
There are therefore three things that I would like to share with you this morning as to what we can expect because He has risen and our sins are forgiven through faith in Him.
First, because He has risen, We Can Have
1. A Relationship with Him
Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20 NKJV)
In other words, Jesus is inviting us out to lunch; because He wants to spend time with us and for us to get personally connected to Him. He said that He wants us to abide in Him, which means to dwell in and with Him (John 15:4).
Therefore, since we can have such a good relationship with Jesus when we come into His saving faith, here are some of the perks.
a. Go Over To His House
“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession … “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14, 16 NKJV)
After the resurrection, Jesus went into heaven and behind the veil of the heavenly temple, into the Holy of Holies, the throne of God, as our Great High Priest.
The writer of Hebrews goes on to say, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh” (Hebrews 10:19-20 NKJV)
I love how the writer of Hebrews says this, that it is “a new and living way.” And because Jesus is alive, our relationship needs to be alive as well.
And so, we can go directly to His home, the heavenly Jerusalem, and into the temple itself to talk with Him. It’s this last part, “to talk with Him,” that brings me to the second aspect of this relationship, and that is we can give Him a call at any time.
b. Give Him A Call
This aspect of our relationship is from what we are told by the writer of Hebrews in the word He uses for “boldly.” The English translation of this word means with all speech. In others words, because of the resurrection, we can have direct communications with God.
Prayer is just that, openly communicating with the Lord, and allowing Him to communicate back with us, and that at any time and in any place. It doesn’t have to be in a church building, or beside your bed in the morning. We have direct access to Jesus day and night.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NKJV)
What is God’s phone number? It’s found in the Bible. The Lord gave it in Jeremiah 33:3. “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3 NKJV)
We are also told the same thing in Psalms. “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” (Psalm 50:15 NKJV)
c. Attend His Birthday Party
Because He is alive, we can go to His birthday party. It’s called Christmas. And like all birthday parties, there are gifts.
But what sort of gifts can we, or do we, give to Jesus. We give to Him our Time, Talents, our possessions, and the most important gift we can give Him is ourselves, as He gave Himself for us.
The Wise Men gave to Jesus gifts, of Gold, Frankincense, and Muir, to meet He and His family’s needs. And this is what we do when we give Him of our gifts and talents; we meet His need, as we become His hands and the feet to this world.
We saw this played out in the video series I sent out throughout this past week. It was actually the first one, last Sunday, Palm Sunday, about the owner of the donkey and her colt.
The disciples said that the Lord had need of them, and they gave to Jesus the use of the donkey and her colt. The owner met Jesus’s need.
In the same way we meet the need of Jesus as we give to Him, through serving others.
Jesus said, “As you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” (Matthew 25:40 NKJV)
But here’s the game changer, we are merely giving back to God what He has already given to us.
We call them, "spiritual gifts,” which come from the plural of Greek word “charisma,” meaning "expressions of grace," given by the Holy Spirit.
And while there are different kinds of gifts, as found in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4, these gifts are God-given graces. And they are works of service, to benefit and build up the body of Christ as a whole.
And here is the point, we give Jesus these wonderful gifts in our use of them in the service of others.
Because He is Risen we can also have
2. An Abundant Life Through Him
Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10 NKJV)
Are we living the abundant life?
Unfortunately most people are living and doing just enough to get by. They’re doing just enough in their marriages, relationships, or at their work to get by and not get divorced, dumped, or fired. In other words people are living a substandard life, which is especially disheartening because of what Jesus said, that He has come to give us an abundant life.
But Jesus calls us to have a life in Him that is above and beyond anything that we can or could possibly imagine. We see this in what Paul said about how God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (Ephesians 3:20).
The Apostle John said, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4 NKJV)
So, living an abundant life comes from the Lord God living inside, which can only happen when we become born again, and our bodies become the temple of God with Jesus sitting upon the throne of our hearts.
So the question becomes, are we living above or below God’s full potential for our lives?
The reason we can live such an abundant life is because Jesus, who lives within every believer, overcame the world and the devil when He rose from the grave.
Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 NKJV)
Because He has overcome, we can then overcome and have that abundant life.
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37 NKJV)
And because we are more than conquerors, we can join in with the Apostle Paul and say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13 NKJV)
And finally, because He is risen we can have
3. Heaven as Our Eternal Home Because of Him
Heaven is that place, that home that every human heart longs for and desires to be. And to this end Jesus said that He was going on ahead of us, in order to prepare a special place for every person who believes in Him.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3 NKJV)
Jesus is saying that He has designed a special place for each one of us, a special place with each one of us in mind. So desirous was this offer that Thomas didn’t want to miss out so he asked Jesus, “How can we know the way” (John 14:5)?
Basically he was asking, “How can I make reservations?”
And so Jesus made it clear, that such heavenly reservations can only be made through Him.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 NKJV)
Every person who has given their heart to Jesus Christ has a new home, an eternal home, in heaven. Realizing that life on this side of eternity isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, isn’t all there is to life, and is only for a moment, is what makes the promise of heaven so wonderful.
Heaven is our goal.
The Apostle Paul said, “But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)
Why is heaven so near and dear our hearts? I believe it’s because Heaven is the place the old spiritual’s refer to as “the land of no mores.”
Heaven is that place where the suffering we endure on this earth will be eradicated. It is a place where there will be no more pain, sorrow, suffering, and tears. It is the place where there will be no more nights, no more darkness, and no more fear. Instead heaven is a place of eternal joy and peace.
Conclusion
And so, because of the resurrection, because Jesus rose from the dead, we can have a personal relationship with Him, where we can go over to His House, give Him a call, and even attend His birthday party where gifts are both given and received.
Also, because of the resurrection, we can have an abundant life while we live here on earth, because He is alive within all those who believe. And since He overcame the devil and the world, so can we because He sits on the throne of our hearts, or as the Apostle John said, “Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
And once this life is over, because of the resurrection of Jesus, we have a place in heaven waiting for us to occupy.
This is why the angel’s message to the women at the tomb is the message that we as the church need to continue to preach and that is that Jesus is no longer in the tomb, the tomb is empty, because He is not there, but is risen.
