Intro: It is so great to be able to gather together this Easter. It was only a year ago that we had to celebrate Resurrection Sunday on our couches in our homes. And while many are still choosing to worship online for any variety of reasons, it is so wonderful to be back together with those of you who feel safe to come and worship together.
A lot has happened over the last 12 months! From political upheaval, riots in the streets, schools and pretty much everything else being closed, to even churches shutting their doors. It has taken a toll on us as people in general and even as those who believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord.
So, this is exactly what we need! To stop and take some time to celebrate the resurrection. To be reminded of the power of God to raise His Son from the tomb! And to recognize that the same power is available to us through Jesus! The Bible tells us clearly that just as Jesus was raised from the dead. We too, who believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord will also one day be raised.
1Cor. 15:52 (NLT) - It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed.
And that is our hope for eternity and we hold to this promise with all our hearts. But, I think it is also important that we recognize the significance of the resurrection in our lives today. Most of us aren’t facing death and the hope of the resurrection. That is a ways off, at least we believe and hope it is. So, what difference does it make that Jesus was raised from the dead? After all, all kinds of strange and amazing things have happened in history, but they don’t really matter if they don’t affect our everyday life. For instance, it is interesting that a man landed on the moon in 1969, but it really isn’t a big deal that affects my life now. Whether a man walked on the moon or not doesn’t make much of a difference to how I live today. The same could be said about is true of the resurrection.
But Romans 8:5-11 teaches us that the death and resurrection of Jesus do affect our everyday life. In fact, they are the most important events that ever happened in all of history.
So, let’s take a few moments this morning, on Resurrection Sunday, to remember the power of the cross and the resurrection and how it should impact our daily lives.
PRAY
I. The Resurrection Determines How We Think. (Rom. 8:5-6) (Jessie)
5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature THINK about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit THINK about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your MIND leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your MIND leads to life and peace.
I couldn’t think of something better today for us to talk about than to talk about how the resurrection affects our daily life. We are going to start with how the resurrection affects our minds and thoughts on a daily basis. If you have your Bible go ahead and open it to Romans 8:5-6.
When reading these two verses the first thing that jumps out to me is that there is a vital way that our minds should be thinking. One mindset is going to bring us death while the other mindset and thoughts bring about peace and life. I don’t know about you, but I want life and I definitely want peace. We also see that there are two different things that are controlling our minds and thoughts. We see in the group that leads to death, that mind is controlled by sin. Whereas the mind that leads to peace and life is controlled by the Holy Spirit. What we are seeing here is one mind has allowed the resurrection of Jesus Christ to dominate everything that they think about and ultimately dominate their life and for this person life and peace will abound in their life. The other group of people are the ones who don’t believe in the resurrection or even Jesus and we see that this brings a life of misery that will inevitably end in death for them. Now let's take a closer look at the two and what the Bible has to teach us about the differences between them.
A. Sinful thinking leads to spiritual death. (5)
Those who are dominated by the sinful nature THINK about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit THINK about things that please the Spirit.
The first group we are going to be looking at is the group that allows sin to dominate their thoughts and how this will bring death upon them. The first thing I want to point out though is that this isn’t a literal death. The Bible clearly teaches that this is not saying that God is just going to strike them down and kill them on the spot as soon as their mind wanders to thinking of sin. No this is talking about something that is much worse than an Earthly death this is talking about a spiritual death. This spiritual death is us being separated from God. This is serious, this is something that I would never even wish upon my greatest enemies. Let’s look at the Bible and see what it says about people who are spiritually dead and separated from God.
2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 CSB when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength
There are a few things that I want to point out from these verses that really struck me. The first is when we are separated from God and don’t obey his Gospel he brings vengeance down on those people. I can’t begin to imagine what the creator of our universe’s vengeance is like. Even with how scary this is, that isn’t even close to the worse thing that we see happening in these verses. The very end of this verse it says they will be eternally separated from the Lord’s presence. I remember when I was separated from the Lord’s presence and that was the most lonely, miserable, and broken I had ever been in my life and to have to spend an eternity in this place isn’t even imaginable. But I want to give some hope to anyone who may be in this place today. Jesus Christ came to this Earth and died on the cross and 3 days later rose again so that this doesn’t have to be you. We are talking all about his resurrection today and if you will turn from your own sinful ways and ask for forgiveness and believe that Jesus did in fact rise from that grave then you are saved from all of this.
B. Spirit-led thinking leads to life and peace. (6)
We just saw that keeping our minds on sin will inevitably bring about spiritual death. Let's take a look at what happens when we are like the second group of people in verses 5 and 6. In these verses it says but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit THINK about things that please the Spirit and letting the Spirit control your MIND leads to life and peace.
I love the language used in this verse it says that when we let the spirit control our mind. I love this because when Jessie is in control of his mind it wanders and leads to things that it shouldn’t be thinking of. This verse is telling us to release control to allow the Spirit to control your mind. This is telling us to surrender to the Holy Spirit. I don’t know about you, but this brings me so much peace knowing that it’s not completely up to me but I have help in giving my mind to the Holy Spirit. But how do we do this, how do we surrender our minds and allow it to be on the Spirit and things that please God. Let's look at Romans 12:2.
Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
This verse is telling us not to conform to the age, or in other translations, do not conform to this world. We must allow Christ to come in and transform our minds. We have to look at this world through the lens of Christ. We can’t conform to the world because they are trying to convince us otherwise. This world hates God and most everything that we stand for when we say that we love and follow after Jesus Christ. We can’t back down and change our thoughts just because people are pushing back at us. No, what we must do is allow the Holy Spirit to come in and transform the way we think. With everything that is going on in this world and the growing animosity that is coming towards our Christian values and beliefs, we need to continue to put our minds on Jesus. We continually seek a relationship with him and we continually allow him to transform us. This is an ongoing process! Yes once we have placed our belief in him and announced him the Lord of our lives we have been sealed into his eternal family where we can never be taken out of. We now get to experience this peace and life that this verse is speaking of.
But we don’t stop there, we don’t just say, “well I believe in Jesus and I know I am going to heaven”, and then we stop pursuing this deep relationship with him. No we continually allow him to transform us into the image of Christ. We continue to come to him in prayer and soaking ourselves in the word of God and his truths. We are at war with an enemy who if he can’t destroy us then he will distract us and how we fight back against this attack is to keep our minds and thoughts on Jesus Christ just as it says in 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 10:5 (ESV) - We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
We are to take every thought captive and obey Christ. This is what it looks like to allow the Resurrection to affect the way you think everyday.
TRANS: The resurrection not only has an enormous impact on how we think, it also has a powerful impact on what we do.
II. The Resurrection Determines What We Do. (NEIL) (7-10)
A. Failure to believe results in hostile actions toward God. (7-8)
For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
How we think also affects how we act. We saw in verse 6 that a person who refuses to believe with their mind, in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, crucified, dead, and buried and raised on the third day, is in a clearly defined trajectory toward death. A life separated from God and His wonderful, rich “life and peace” poured out on them. They are living and breathing physically while being spiritually dead. Literally, the walking dead!
Next, the passage shows us what being trapped in the thinking of our sinful nature looks like. We see that this death in one's thinking looks like hostility and disobedience in one's actions. I like the way the NIV translates it.
Rom. 8:7-8 (NIV) 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
I like the word used here. “Governed”. The idea is to have authority over and influence over how one thinks and acts. We have governing authorities over us that make laws and influence how we live. So, the unregenerate mind, governed by the sinful nature, is not only incompatible with who God is and how He wants us to live, it is hostile. Or, a better translation could be “actively hostile”. We know the difference, don’t we. We can be hostile toward someone. It means we don’t like them, our attitude toward them is one of hatred and malice. But active hostility is when we are acting on our attitude.
Such is the mind and actions of someone who refuses to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once a person mentally refuses to acknowledge Jesus and His saving work on the cross and the power of God to bring peace between us and God and remove all hostility, there will be continued separation and hostility.
And, get this, the passage says that such a person can’t obey God even if they wanted to apart from believing in Jesus. They will always fall short of God’s perfect plan for their life due to their unbelief. Verse 8 - That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
Now the point here isn’t that unbelievers never do anything nice. Paul isn’t saying that unbelievers always do the most evil thing possible. They may be nice to their parents or children or friends in a lot of ways. But this is not about personal goodness or behavioral modification. This is about a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ and living in peace with Him. And ignoring God or refusing His existence is hostility in and of itself. They are slaves to their sinful nature. There is no resurrection life. No alternative. The result is they move through life separated from the rich life-giving peace- instilling relationship they can have with God through the resurrected Christ.
B. Believers receive resurrection life and power through the Holy Spirit. (9-10)
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)
Those of us who have resurrection life (those who are Christians) aren’t perfect, but we do have the ability to have our minds and actions governed by the Spirit of Christ living in us. Something non-believers can never have. We still sin, but we have the Holy Spirit now. And He convicts us when we sin and points it out to us. Then, we can repent and choose to obey God in our actions in a new way, even if not perfectly. We talk to Him about it in prayer because we know Him and He knows us. We turn to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing. But we are also empowered to live in a new way. Our motive is truly to glorify God. We want others to become Christians because it brings deep soulful joy and peace and glory to God.
Verse 10 summarizes this beautifully - And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life[a] because you have been made right with God.
Those who believe in Jesus and His death and resurrection have hope and power that the unbeliever does not. We all will see these bodies die. Believer and unbeliever. Our physical bodies all have the same fate with whatever expiration date God stamps us with. When sin entered the world, physical death of these bodies became the reality.
However, because of Jesus and His death and resurrection, we have spiritual life for eternity! Jesus has made it possible, through His death and resurrection, to have the wall of hostility between God and man removed!
Ephesians 2:12-14 (NIV) - remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
We will get old and feel the deterioration of these bodies if the Lord allows us to see old age. However, we have life here and now, at peace with God, that the unbeliever can’t comprehend, and life everlasting as Jesus promised!
TRANS: So, we see that those without a true belief in Jesus and His resurrection from the dead will live without hope in eternal life. Whether they recognize it or not! The resurrection impacts everything! How we think and how we act, and even how we live our life with regard to eternity.
III. The Resurrection Removes All Fear & Doubts About Eternity. (Jessie) (11)
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
This final topic we are going to be diving into is how the resurrection removes all fear and doubts about eternity. If i can have everybody look at verse 11 as I read it. Wow if this verse doesn’t get us fired up for Resurrection Sunday I don’t know what will! Our Savior rose again he was nailed to a cross and died, but not even death could have victory over him. Death and darkness thought that they had won and it was finished, but God had a different plan as he raised Jesus back to life. Through this act of sacrifice and love and him resurrecting Him, we now get to have this eternal life with him. Also this verse opens up with saying that the same spirit of God that raised Jesus from the grave lives in us. This is absolutely amazing that God loves us so much that he has given us his spirit the exact same spirit that was in his son. This brings me so much hope and joy. This is something that we need to understand. We need to truly know that we have the Holy Spirit living in us and we will be raised from the dead to have this eternal life with our Lord and Savior! We see that these verses are telling us this that we have eternal life through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the day comes that we will die, because we know thatthis day will come, we can celebrate in knowing that our lives are actually just beginning and we are going to spend the rest of eternity with God. We can relinquish all doubts about this when we go to the Bible. Let’s look at a few more verses that prove we are going to spend eternity with him.
Titus 1:1-2 (CSB) Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for[a] the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads[b] to godliness, 2 in the hope of eternal life that God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.
1 John 2:25 This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.
These are just a few of the verses in the Bible that tell us we are promised eternal life when we believe in the resurrection. We can place all doubt out of our head about our eternal life. This is promised to us. This is a guarantee that when we believe in God we will spend eternal life with Him. As we look back on how we can allow the resurrection to affect our everyday life we see that if we believe in Jesus Christ and his resurrection then this is something that should consume our lives. We are promised that we will spend eternity with God. How can we not get up and praise him? Jesus was willing to go to the cross for us. He came down from heaven this perfect place to take human form in this broken world knowing that he was going to have to die and not only die but die this painful, agonizing, and humiliating death. This is what he did for us. This is how much love he has for every single one of us so that through this sacrifice through his death and resurrection if we would believe that he is Lord that he is our Savior then we would be able to have this promised eternal life that the Bible talks about so much! As we look back on what Jesus did I want everyone in here today that believes in this to be confident and boldly know that you will spend eternity in Heaven with our Lord and Savior.
Our Response:
So what does this mean for us today? It means we can celebrate the resurrection of Jesus today because it impacts us and all humanity, continually. It was not just some amazing event that happened 2000 years ago that has little or no impact on us today. It truly changes everything today. It changes how you and I think and act in this world. Ephesians 4:17 (NIV) - So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
And this impacts us in two different ways. First:
1. We can experience resurrection power today for the first time!
For “not-yet” believers? If you haven’t yet made the decision to fully believe in and trust in Jesus and his resurrection, let me encourage you today to keep seeking! Maybe you consider yourself spiritual but have yet to make the decision, by faith, that Jesus truly is who He said He is. The Son of God who came intentionally to die on a cross for our sins and then to die, and then be raised from the dead three days later. That is the good news for all humanity! You can have what we have been talking about this morning; peace and life! You can have your eyes and ears opened to the things of God and be spiritually alive for the very first time and experience life to the fullest here and now and for eternity. That is what Jesus Promised! He said,
John 10:10 (CSB) - A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
2. We can choose to experience resurrection power each day as believers.
Because we believe, we have the HS living in us and we can submit ourselves to His governing our lives. Something unbelievers just can’t have. The result is we can choose to see how we think and act in ways that glorifies and honors, not just our own selfish selfs, but God, our creator who gives us life and peace!
In the way we think: Then we no longer are forced to think like the people who refuse to believe in the resurrection think. We have a new way of looking at the world and thinking about life as God would desire for us. We think about the world differently. Human life is sacred, prayer in schools and everywhere is important, poverty irradiated, racism eliminated, Human sexuality, Biblical justice versus social justice. It is why we think in terms of calling sin, sin and not “lifestyle preferences.” We think with regenerated minds. With a Biblical worldview. We take seriously and experience Romans 12:2 - Romans 12:2 (NIV) - 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
And the resurrection doesn’t just change how we think, it also changes the way we act as opposed to those who don’t believe.
The same God who powerfully raised Jesus from the dead and promises to one day do the same for all who believe in Him, demands that we embrace and submit to the power of God by the Holy Spirit to think and live for Him day by day.
Resurrection life moves us to get out of bed and our pajamas, on a perfectly good day for sleeping in and hanging out around the house all morning, and instead, get up and come to church and worship corporately. It empowers us to pray for others, to literally give to others in a world obsessed with getting. It moves us to vote according to what God would want for society instead of only motivated by selfish desires. And ultimately, knowing Jesus and Him resurrected causes us to do whatever the Holy Spirit leads us to do for God’s glory and honor.
So, we celebrate the resurrection today and everyday because it makes all the difference in the World. So, let me ask the obvious question. Are you living and experiencing resurrection power in your life?
