EASTER – A NEW FOCUS
When Cynthia Manley realized she had only twenty minutes left to live, she figured the best thing she could do with the time she had left was to send text messages to her two daughters. Her one daughter, Alanna, was a student at Seattle University. She texted, “Stay strong and no matter what happens take care of yourself and your sister. Find a way to get to California and be together soon and be a family. I love you so much.” To her other daughter, Alyssa, she wrote, “No matter what happens get your degree! Have a good life and be successful! And take care of your sister.”
What would you do if you had twenty minutes left to live? Who would you write and what would you say? It turned out that Cynthia Manley had much more than twenty minutes to live. In fact, she and most of the state of Hawaii are still alive today. Maybe you read how in January of 2018, a state worker chose the wrong menu item for the state missile alert system and sent an alert to the entire island that said, “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.” For about half an hour, many people in the state thought they were just about to die in a nuclear blast. Maybe you saw the photos of parents lowering their children down into manholes for shelter.
Fortunately, it was a happy ending for everyone. Well, maybe not so much for the guy who sent out the wrong message alert! I am sure he is enjoying his new job in Alaska. In fact, I would say that it could have been a gift to some people because it caused them to think about what really matters in life. What would you have done if you thought you only had 20 minutes to live? One thing is for sure, it would have been an indicator for what was really important in your life.
Today we are continuing in our series Easter Challenge. We have looked at the fact that, because of Easter, our Foundation and Fellowship is different. Today I want to talk about the fact that, because of Easter, our Focus is different.
2Co 5:11-15 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13 If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
What is the primary focus of your life? This passage of scripture reminds us of what it should be.
1. Our Worldview – we know the truth
It says in verse 11, “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.” Because of Easter we know the truth. I do not know if you have 20 minutes left to live or 20 years. What I do know is one day all of us are going to have to stand before God and give account for our lives. You may die this afternoon, or you may remain alive until Jesus returns. I believe that we are in the Last Days, but that could be a few weeks or a hundred years. One day we will have to give an account. Hopefully that conversation will be like what is recorded in Matt 25;
Mat 25:23 His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
It is only by faith in Jesus that we go to heaven. It is only by accepting His gift of salvation that we are saved. As it says in verse 11, “Since … we know what it is to fear the Lord.” That means that we know the truth and have received it into our lives. What is the truth?
A million years from now every person that has ever existed will still be alive. They will be living in one of two locations. They will either be in heaven with Jesus or they will be in hell, forever separated from his love and presence. This is what the bible says;
2 Cor 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
What does it mean to fear the Lord? It does not means that we are afraid of God. It means that we understand that there is a heaven and a hell, and that what we do in this life determines where we will spend the next. Fearing the Lord simply means that we understand the truth of our existence;
1Jn 4:15-18 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
I do not fear God, I love Him – and I know that He loves me. There is no fear in love. If someone loves you then you know that they would never hurt you. I know that someday I will have to stand in heaven and give an account of my life. I know that, on that day, my sins will be covered by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. I know that, because of Easter, my sins are paid for. Because I know that truth I have zero fear of death. If you have never received Jesus, then your sins are not paid for. When you die you will stand before God and have to pay for those sins yourself. If you do not have Jesus in your life, you should be afraid, very afraid.
I told the following story 9 years ago, so hopefully that is enough time so that I can tell it again. In 1985 I was home one summer from University and living in Thornhill, north of Toronto. The only job I could find that summer was at Canada's Wonderland. I was one of the first operators of their new stand up roller coaster called Skyrider. Anyone remember it?
When it first opened, Skyrider was a very scary ride. One of the things I loved to do as an operator was to play upon people’s fears. E.g. going to check for things lost on the ride and bringing up the extra wheels. We liked messing with people because we knew the ride was totally safe. It was controlled by a computer. There were three sections – the track, the brakes and the station. The computer made sure that the two trains were never in the same place at the same time. It made sure that nothing could go wrong. At least that is what I thought.
One day I was operating the ride. I had said my speech and pressed the button moving the full train from the station unto the lift beneath me. I pressed the button to bring the other train in from the brakes like I had done a million times before. I wasn’t really paying attention. Eventually I looked up and saw that the train on the brakes was not moving. I pushed the button again and it did not move. No problem I thought, even though the other train was going up the lift the computer would stop it. But the lift was not stopping. Only then did I notice on the control panel that the computer was reading one train on the brakes and one train in the station.
The computer had made a mistake. In a moment that train on the lift would go down the hill. It would go through the loop, around the track and then it would slam into the train on the brakes probably killing everyone on board. Once in cleared the lift there was no way to stop it. On the control panel was a button that we were told never to touch. In fact, we were told that if we touched it we would be fired. It was called the Emergency Stop. I figured this was an emergency so I pulled off the plastic cover, rotated the button 90 degrees and pulled up with all my might.
The entire platform shook as all the hydraulic brakes locked up. Lights and sirens started going off everywhere. The computer was shut down. In fact, every roller coaster in the park was shut down. I saw an ambulance and fire engine with sirens blazing heading towards us. I saw my supervisor running down the path towards the ride – with his supervisor behind him. I looked up the track behind me. The ride had stopped and the last brake had caught the very last car on the train.
Eventually they found out that a design flaw on the ride had caused the switches that track the ride and all of it’s backups to fail at the same time. I had done the right thing. So why am I telling this story? That night I had a dream. In my dream I hesitated and I did not pull the Emergency Stop soon enough and the train cleared the lift and started down the hill. I run out of the control room yelling NO! I see all those people having the ride of their life. Their hands are in the air and they are enjoying the thrill. They will go through the loop and around the track and it will not be until that last bend when they look up and see that they are all about to die. In my mind the people on the ride began to change. Instead of strangers I could see friends, coworkers and family member that I knew did not know Jesus.
That is what it means to fear the Lord. How many people do you know today who are on that ride? They are going through life hands in the air and having a great time, not knowing that one day they are going to look up and they will be standing before the judgment seat of Christ and it will be too late.
2. Our Witness – we love others
Because we know the truth, we try to persuade people to choose life and not death. We do this because we love them. If you knew that someone was heading towards eternal separation from God and did nothing to help them, you would be a monster. You have heard the slogan “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” Friends do not let people they love perish needlessly.
Richard Hornbuckle was driving 2 friends across the Sunshine Skyway which spans Tampa Bay. It was 7:38 am on May 9th,1980. It had stated to rain and visibility was almost zero. What Mr. Hornbuckle did not know was that moments before he reached the bridge a freighter named SUMMIT VENTURE had slammed into the #2 South pier knocking out a large section of the bridge. Several cars had already gone over the edge when Mr Hornbuckle, seeing what had happened, hit his brakes stopping just 14 inches from the edge. He and his friends got out of their car and started walking back across the bridge, waving their hands and trying to warn people of the danger. A loaded greyhound bus passed by. Even though it saw the men waving for them to stop it kept going and went over the edge killing everyone on board. Millions in this world are heading for a terrible fate. It is our job to try to tell them before it is to late.
Verse 11 says “What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.” Often we as Christian are frowned upon because of our evangelistic efforts. The media is offended by our desire to share our faith.
We are compared to advertisers, trying to get people to buy something we know they do not need and cannot afford. We do not share Christ with people for our own sake. We do not do it to get brownie points with God. We do it because we love them. Our motives are pure. We are simply people that have found something that has changed our lives and we want other people to find that same power and joy as well.
Verse 14 says “Christ's love compels us.” What does that mean? It means that the love of Jesus we have experienced compels us to share that love with others. When you find something of great worth and value that gives you joy then you have to share it with others! My wife Naomi once won an antique chair in a raffle. The first thing she did was call her parents to tell them.
Charlie Peace, a criminal in England, was being taken to his execution and listened to a minister reading from the Word. When he found out he was reading about heaven and hell, he looked at the preacher and said, "Sir, if I believed what you and the church of God say, and even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that."
3. Our Works – we live for Christ
The scripture that we read today ends saying;
2 Cor 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Because of Easter, we no longer live for ourselves but for Jesus. We have been bought at a price. We have surrendered our lives and made Jesus Lord. We are different, we have a different focus – different priorities and purpose. Because of that, our lives should look different.
When I was in High School my first job was for a Drug Store. I was a cleaner, I was responsible for cleaning up the garbage and vacuuming the store. Eventually I became a delivery driver. I was then responsible to deliver things that people had ordered to their homes. Imagine if, after I had become a delivery driver, that I continued to just try and clean the store. Do you think my boss would have been happy with me? Of course not. My job had changed, and because of that the things I was expected to do changed as well.
You cannot become a Christian and just continue to act the same way you acted before coming to Christ. It is impossible, because your life has changed. You have a new role, new responsibilities. Everything about you should now be different. So, let me ask you a question. How are you different today because of Easter? What would you be like today if you had never become a Christian?
There are more than 50,000 churches and more than 50 million Christians in South Korea today. Back in the 1700s Catholic priests had gone to Korea and some Koreans had come to Christ, but in 1866 these converts (more than 8000) were killed by the government. One of the fist Protestant missionary to Korea was a man named Robert Jermain Thomas. He was a Welsh missionary with the London Missionary Society. In 1863 he went to Beijing and met two Korean traders who told him about the Catholic converts and the fact that they did not have any Bibles. Thomas became a representative of the Scottish Bible Society and travelled to Korea to distribute Bibles.
Because he could speak the language, he found a job as a translator on an American ship named the General Sherman. As the boat travelled around Korea, Thomas handed out Bibles. One day the ship was attacked by the Korean army near Pyongyang. During the shooting, Thomas jumped overboard with his Bibles and handed them out to the angry crowd on the river bank. The crowds attacked and killed him.
The Korean authorities ordered people to destroy all the Bibles that had been handed out. But instead some used them as wallpaper. In time the Korean people began to read their wallpaper and some came to believe in Jesus. Others began coming to their homes to read the words on the walls and within 15 years the first church had been planted. Within 30 years Pyongyang had become a strong Christian center with over a hundred churches.
This is what can happen when one person surrenders their life completely to Christ and is willing to do whatever God calls them to do. Robert Jermain Thomas had a change in his worldview that changed his life. It became the driving force behind his witness and works and ended up costing him everything, including his life. He was different, because of Easter. That is the difference that Easter makes. As we end the service today, I want us to talk to another person who has a similar story.
