Intro:
Good morning and welcome to our Resurrection Sunday as we celebrate our Lord Jesus’ resurrection. This is the first time after 2 years of pandemic that we are gathered here today to celebrate God’s goodness. For some this season is their time to enjoy vacation with their families and friends. For other manufacturing and transportation companies, this time is for their annual maintenance of their machines. For many this is the time to relax for a while and contemplate the busyness of work after 2 years of restriction staying at home.
But for Christians, what could the resurrection of Jesus means to all of us? Others may have compromised their faith to festivities in celebrating this season by celebrating “Easter” as they called this Sunday as “Easter” Sunday. This Easter is a pagan worship of Ashtoreth, Semiramis, and Astarte all considered as pagan gods. It has this activity to find these Easter eggs with many colors while the children are busy finding them.
But is this the real meaning of the resurrection of Jesus to us? What God wants is that for all of us who understands the importance of this season must live with its true meaning. Today let us know how to live a resurrected hope with Jesus.
Living a Resurrected Hope
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of who are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
ASND
3 Sapagkat ibinigay ko sa inyo ang pinakamahalagang aral na ibinigay sa akin: Na si Cristo'y namatay upang iligtas tayo sa ating mga kasalanan, ayon sa Kasulatan. 4 Inilibing siya ngunit muling nabuhay sa ikatlong araw, ayon din sa Kasulatan. 5 Nagpakita siya kay Pedro, at sa iba pang 12 apostol. 6 Pagkatapos, nagpakita rin siya sa mahigit 500 na mga kapatid na nagkakatipon. Karamihan sa kanila'y buhay pa hanggang ngayon, ngunit ang ilan sa kanila ay patay na. 7 Nagpakita rin siya kay Santiago, at pagkatapos sa lahat ng apostol. 8 At sa kahuli-hulihan ay nagpakita rin siya sa akin. Ang katulad ko'y isang sanggol na ipinanganak nang wala sa panahon dahil biglaan ang aking pagkakilala sa kanya.
For Apostle Paul, the most important lesson to learn about Christianity is that Jesus died and was buried and after 3 days He rose again from the grave and show Himself to His apostle and to other believers as well and lastly to Paul. This is the very foundation of our Christian faith. This is the very mission why God sent His Son only to be bruised and die on the cross with all the burden of sins of this world, be buried for 3 days and then He was back so everybody may believe for those who saw Him.
Now this is the message of all the Apostles that time to spread the Good News that Jesus is alive and has risen from the grave.
Acts 4:33 “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.”
ASND “Patuloy ang paggawa ng mga apostol ng mga kamangha-manghang gawa bilang patunay na ang Panginoong Jesus ay talagang nabuhay muli. At lubusang pinagpala ng Dios ang lahat ng mga mananampalataya.”
This is the very reason why we need to understand the reason of His resurrection so that we may continue to testify and live with the risen hope of Jesus. We need the power of His resurrection over us! So how are we going to live with His resurrected hope?
We need to live a life that will show…
1. Assurance. (buhay may katiyakan)
Because Jesus has risen from the dead, we are assured of His salvation, our inheritance and our rewards in heaven.
1 Peter 1:3-5
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
Apostle Peter who has a personal dealing with Jesus after His resurrection exhorted us an assurance that we have this living hope that will bring us a new birth, a new start, a great reset of our lives.
Romans 10:9: “If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
ASND “na kung ipapahayag mo na si Jesus ay Panginoon at sasampalataya ka nang buong puso na muli siyang binuhay ng Dios, maliligtas ka.
There is an assurance of salvation once we declare His lordship over us and believe on His resurrection. He finished His mission on the cross when He said “It is finished!” “Teteles tai” in Greek, which means God’s salvation to mankind is done and all we have to do is to confess and believe that Jesus Is Lord and His resurrection we are all saved!
“The Resurrection is God’s ‘Amen’ to Christ’s statement ‘It is finished’” – S. Lewis Johnson
And also, He has assured us of His provision by giving us inheritance that will never perish, spoil of fade and was kept in heaven. Which is the reason Jesus said in…
John 14:1-3
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
He is going back to His Father to prepare all these inheritances for us. How is He going back? Through His resurrection from the dead!
And lastly an assurance that God’s power will protect us from harm until His second coming to reveal who are His own children to be saved.
Romans 8:34: “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”
He is right there at the right hand of His Father to intercede for us so God can protect us from any harm of this world!
To show His resurrected hope in us is to life a life of assurance of His salvation, provision and protection.
2. Life is worth living. (buhay na karapatdapat isapamuhay)
His resurrection not just brought us an assurance of our future hope but God gave us His present and living hope – a life worth living for. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, our faith has become alive and effective.
1 Corinthians 15:
“14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
“17aAnd if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.”
“14At kung si Cristo'y hindi muling nabuhay, walang kabuluhan ang aming pangangaral, at wala ring silbi ang inyong pananampalataya.”
“17aAt kung si Cristo'y hindi muling nabuhay, walang silbi ang inyong pananampalataya
Hank Hanegraaff writes, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest feat in the annals of human history. It is the very “capstone in the arch of Christianity.” Without it, all else crumbles. When we fully comprehend the significance of resurrection, our lives will be revolutionized. Without resurrection, there is no hope. Indeed, without resurrection, there would be no Christianity.”
And once our faith is assured in God, we will have a life of infilling because of His Spirit that dwells in us giving us power to live according to His purpose.
Romans 8:11 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”
ASND “At dahil nasa inyo na ang Espiritu ng Dios na muling bumuhay kay Jesu-Cristo, siya rin ang magbibigay ng buhay sa inyong mga katawang may kamatayan. Gagawin niya ito sa pamamagitan ng kanyang Espiritung nananahan sa inyo.
There is a life worth living because we know God is alive and He is in control of everything in our lives. What was the song Bill and Gloria Gaither composed during their lowest moment of their lives?
Because He lives
I can face tomorrow
Because He lives
All fear is gone
Because I know
He holds my future
And life is worth the living
Just because He lives
When we know that because of His resurrection God is control of everything and our life is in His hands, we develop our full trust and faith to God which leads us to have…
3. Intimacy. (buhay na kapalagayang loob ang Diyos)
The life we need to live is an assurance that there is life in heaven waiting for us and also here on earth while we are still living. Yet aside from that, we need to show that the resurrection of Jesus we have intimacy with our God just as God shed light to us.
God tore the veil that divides His very presence to mankind in order to shed His light, His love and mercy towards His people Whom He loved ever since. And this brought us back our intimacy with God. His death tore the veil and His resurrection shed His light towards us.
Acts 26:23 “that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to His own people and to the Gentiles.”
Paul though he did not have a physical contact with Jesus, yet on this verse proved that the encounter he had with Jesus shed light to him as he stand by his faith to bring the same light to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles. All the disciples who have experienced the resurrection of Jesus proved to have an intimate relationship with God. That proved how they were able to stand until their own life was taken away from them for the sake of their relationship with Jesus. The death of every disciple shared the same kind of death Jesus suffered. Ex. Peter, Paul, Matthew, James, John eg.
They could not even withstand the agony of suffering if they don’t have an intimate relationship with Jesus because of His resurrection.
Apostle Paul said once in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Apostle Paul knew the power of resurrection is directly reflecting his intimacy with God even though this includes the sufferings, pain and persecutions he needed to endure.
Philippians 3:10 “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death.”
For Apostle Paul, knowing Christ is knowing how He was resurrected from the dead even to the point of experiencing the kind of sufferings Christ has suffered. It was later on according to Bible scholars that Paul’s death was instructed by Nero in Rome by beheading, while Peter was crucified on the cross and was turned upside down. The other disciples suffered the same fate as them also according to church history. And despite all of that, their intimacy with God had brought them strength and peace to endure such cruelty. Yes, the message of resurrection of Christ is about bringing back God to us, to restore that lost relationship with God. Now that the veil has torn in half so we can enter in His presence with His light shed upon us through His resurrection.
Apostle Peter was tasked to feed God’s sheep after Jesus reinstated him. It is by saying to Him “yes Lord, I love you” This shows his intimacy with God. In fact, in 2 Peter 3:18 The Passion Translation version it says “But continue to grow and increase in God’s grace and intimacy with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May He receive all the glory both now and until the day eternity begins. Amen!
4. Victory. (buhay na may katagumpayan)
His resurrection has a life of assurance, life worth living and intimacy with God. But one of the results of His resurrection is victory over sin and death.
Colossians 1:13-14 “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
But before this, mankind was a slave of sin when Adam fell into sin. We have no power to break it and so we lived with it as part of the curse of sin.
Romans 5:12-14 “12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people, because all sinned— 13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.”
But when Jesus died on the cross, He got the keys of Hades that Satan has been holding for the longest time when the first Adam fell into sin. And because of that, the slavery of mankind into sin was broken and mankind was given the chance to restore his relationship with God, all because of Jesus’ resurrection! The power of sin to enslave us has already been defeated!
Revelation 1:18 “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
Romans 5:17-18 “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”
His act of righteousness by dying on that cross defeated Satan, death and sin forever!
Death can never contain the power of resurrection and raised Jesus from the dead!
Romans 6:9-10 “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.”
1 Corinthians 15:21 “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.”
Therefore, since Jesus has broken the power of sin and death over our lives, we must live victoriously against these power of darkness over our lives.
Romans 6:6-7,11-14 “6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Not only sin and death but even sickness and diseases had to bow down in the name of Jesus!
Romans 8:11 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”
5. Eternity. (buhay na magpasawalang hanggan)
Jesus promised us eternity with Him and with the same power of resurrection, we too will be raised up from the dead in order to be with Him in heaven.
John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’”
We may suffer physical death as part of our sinful nature, but the promise of eternity with Jesus is assured! It is only through believing and having faith in Him!
1 Corinthians 6:14: “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.”
Romans 6:8-11: "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
2 Corinthians 4:14 “because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.”
1 Thessalonians 4:14 “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.”
We will have our lives in eternity and so we don’t live here that much in this world. Therefore, we must put our focus on the things that are eternal and permanent. We should not put too much effort on earthly things such as entitlements, wealth and prestige. But rather we must put our minds on heavenly things.
Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
Conclusion:
How can we show our resurrected hope to others? We need to live a life of
1. Assurance
2. Life worth living
3. Intimacy
4. Victory
5. Eternity
Illustration:
Philip was born with Downs Syndrome. He was a pleasant child, happy it seemed, but increasingly aware of the difference between himself and other children. Philip went to Sunday School faithfully every week. He was in the third-grade class with nine other eight-year olds.
You know eight-year olds. And Philip, with his differences, was not readily accepted. But his teacher was sensitive to Philip and he helped this group of eight-year olds to love each other as best they could, under the circumstances. They learned, they laughed, they played together. And they really cared about one another, even though eight-year olds don’t say they care about one another out loud.
But don’t forget. There was an exception to all this. Philip was not really a part of the group. Philip did not choose, nor did he want to be different. He just was. And that was the way things were.
His teacher had a marvelous idea for his class the Sunday after Easter. You know those things that pantyhose comes in . . . the containers that look like great big eggs? The teacher collected ten of them. The children loved it when he brought them into the room and gave one to each child. It was a beautiful spring day, and the assignment was for each child to go outside, find the symbol for new life, put it into the egg, and bring it back to the classroom. They would then open and share their new life symbols and surprises, one by one.
It was glorious. It was confusing. It was wild. They ran all around the church grounds, gathering their symbols, and returned to the classroom. They put all the eggs on a table, and then the teacher began to open them. All the children gathered around the table. He opened one and there was a flower, and they ooh-ed and aah-ed. He opened another and there was a little butterfly. “Beautiful!” the girls all said, since it is hard for eight-year-old boys to say ‘beautiful.’ He opened another and there was a rock. And as third-graders will, some laughed, and some said, “That’s crazy! How’s a rock supposed to be like new life?” But the smart little boy who’d put it in ther spoke up: “That’s mine. And I knew all of you would get flowers and buds and leaves and butterflies and stuff like that. So I got a rock because I wanted to be different. And for me, that’s new life.” They all laughed.
The teacher said something about the wisdom of eight-year olds and opened the next one. There was nothing inside. The children, as eight-year olds will, said, “That’s not fair. That’s stupid! Somebody didn’t do it right.” Then the teacher felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down. “It’s mine, Philip said. It’s mine.” And the children said, “You don’t ever do things right, Philip. There’s nothing there!” “I did so do it right!” Philip said. “I did do it right. The tomb is empty!”
There was silence, a very full silence. And for you people who don’t believe in miracles, I want to tell you that one happened that day. From that time on, it was different. Philip suddenly became a part of that group of eight-year-old children. They took him in. He was set free from the tomb of his differentness.
Philip died last summer. His family had known since the time he was born that he wouldn’t live out a full life span. Many other things were wrong with his little body. And so, late last July, with an infection that most normal children could have quickly shrugged off, Philip died.
At his memorial service, nine eight-year-old children marched up to the altar, not with flowers to cover over the stark reality of death . . . but nine eight-year-old, along with their Sunday School teacher, marched right up to that altar, and laid on it an empty egg . . . an empty, old, discarded pantyhose egg.
And the tomb is empty!
And until today, His tomb is empty. And all our hope has been resurrected! And that’s why we need to live according to our resurrected hope!
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