He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee. - Luke 24:6
Today we will meditate on the title of “Hope of Resurrection.” How the resurrection gives us hope. When Jesus Christ was crucified in 33 AD, there were only about 120 followers. They were meeting in the upper room, about 120 followers. Today, 2,000 years later, 2.3 billion people in the world claim to be followers of Christ, 2.3 billion. That means one out of every three people on this planet, one out of every three would say I am a follower of Jesus Christ. [Why did Christianity spread so far and so fast?] How did 12 disciples, the people that Jesus chose to be his first followers, expand into one out of every three people on planet Earth? The answer can be put into one word, the resurrection.
Resurrection means you've died and came back to life. The resurrection is the event that changed all of history. Because when Jesus had come back to life, it changed everything. Let us look at the four reasons why followers of Jesus Christ are the most hopeful people on the planet. We have more hope than anybody else, there's no contest. We have far more hope than anybody else in the world because of what Jesus Christ did at the resurrection. Why do we have hope?
I. Hope of Forgiveness:
We have been completely forgiven. Jesus repeatedly said over and over, “I'm going to die on the cross to pay for all your sins”. The Bible says this. Ephesians 1:7 “In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death. And so we have forgiveness of sins because of God's rich grace.”
Now we're all imperfect, so we all carry regrets and we all carry guilt and we always wish we had done things differently, we all have sins and things that we feel bad about or guilty about. The Bible says, in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. God doesn't want you carrying guilt through your life. God doesn't want you carrying a load of shame through your life.
The whole reason He died on the cross. So that you could be set free from all of that guilt, all of that shame. Guilt ties you down, it robs you of peace of mind. But Jesus came to die for you, so you don't have to die for your sins. We see in 1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed”.
Have you ever asked this question or thought about it, Who really killed Jesus? Who put Jesus on the cross? Who is to blame for Jesus being on the cross? Well, it wasn't Judas, and it wasn't Caiaphas the high priest, and it wasn't Pilate the governor, and it wasn't the Romans, and it wasn't the religious leaders, and it wasn't even the crowd.
[Who put Jesus on the Cross?] Who put Jesus on the cross, and this may shock you. The first answer is this, God did. God put Jesus on the cross. It was his plan from the very beginning. Genesis 3:15 tells us, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed.” That’s why Jesus came to Earth, to die for our sins. Here's what the Bible says in Isaiah 53:6-10. “All of us have strayed away like sheep. We've all left God's plan to follow our own. And the Lord has laid on Him, the iniquity of us all. Isaiah is talking about Jesus, the guilt and sins of us all. But it was God's plan that he should suffer, it was God's plan.
The second answer for who put Jesus on the cross is us. We did, I did, you did. If none of us had ever sinned, Jesus wouldn't have had to die for our sins. The Bible says this in Romans 4:25 “Jesus was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God.” In your Bibles, underline the word us. He was raised from the dead, this is what Easter's all about. He was raised from the dead to make us right with God. Who's included in us? You, me, and us. We are made right with God. So we've been completely forgiven. That gives us hope, we are not facing any judgment because we have hope because we have been completely forgiven.
II. Hope of Courage:
When Jesus Christ got on the cross, one of the things he did was he broke the power of death and he broke the power of the fear of death. The fear of death is a universal fear, everybody has it. We find the fear of death everywhere. Because it's unknown, we don't know much about it. But what did Jesus do? He came back to life. Let me explain this. If Jesus Christ had not been resurrected from the dead, you wouldn't even know that there's life after death. You might say, well I hope there's life after death. But you'd have nothing to prove it, but Jesus Christ came back and said, I've conquered death, there is greater life after death. And that gives us hope. Here's what Jesus said, John chapter 11:25. Jesus promised,” I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” Rev.1:17-18. “Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen. And I have the keys of the Hades and of Death.” That's a reason for hope. If Jesus Christ had not resurrected on Easter Sunday, we’d all be helpless and hopeless, death would have been the end. Now, when Jesus died, they buried him in a tomb. Now, the 12 disciples were afraid. They ran and ran. None of them believed that the resurrection would happen. And so they hid in fear. [Why were the disciples of Jesus running and hiding in fear?] They thought that they would be executed next as the followers of Jesus.
Now three days later, on Easter Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene decides to go to the tomb. When she gets there, she finds that the stone has been rolled away, there's nobody there. She hears a voice and so she turns around and Jesus Christ is standing there. Christ the risen Savior was standing before her. And He says to her, go tell all the disciples that I'm alive and I'm coming to see them. So Mary runs to the house where the disciples were. She told them what she saw. What did these great men of faith do? They doubted her, none of them believed her.
Jesus revealed himself to all of his disciples. Not just them, but a lot of other people too. But now they had hope and courage. How? They were eyewitnesses. Here's what Peter wrote down in his book. 1 Peter 1:3, according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And not only that but the Bible says, Acts 1:3. “For 40 days after his death, Jesus appeared to people many times in many ways that proved beyond doubt that he was alive.” They saw him, and he talked with them about the kingdom of God. That would be strange. Paul lists just a few of the eyewitnesses. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 He says, Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day. Then he says, he was seen by Peter, and then he was seen by the 12 apostles. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now. Then he was seen by James. Later he was seen by all the apostles. Last of all, I saw him too. Because of the resurrection, there were so many eyewitnesses.
III. Hope of the Holy spirit:
We now have God's spirit inside us. His spirit of power, his spirit of love, his Holy spirit. The night before Jesus went to the cross, he said, 'I'm going to be leaving', I'm going back to heaven, but I'm going to send my spirit to be inside you. Now at the end of 40 days, Jesus ascends back up to heaven. But before he did he told 'em, he says, don't do anything until I send you the Holy Spirit. Don't try to do anything in your own power. Wait for my Spirit,it's going to give you power. And in Acts 1:8, Jesus says this, before he goes back to heaven. “When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and you'll tell people everywhere about me; in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.”
[What happened 50 days after Jesus' resurrection?] On the 50th day, God sends his Holy Spirit to live in every believer. This is the third reason why Christianity spreads so fast after the resurrection. They've gone from fearful to fearless. They've gone from hopeless to hopeful. They've gone from being cowards to being courageous.
God wants to have a personal connection with you. He wants to put his love, his power, and his spirit inside you. The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, is available to you on a daily basis. Look at this verse. Ephesians 1:19-20. “I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great his power is, that's God's power, to help those who believe him. It is the same mighty power that raised Jesus, raised Christ, from the dead.” What is this power? It's the power of God's spirit in your life. If God's spirit can raise a dead person, he can raise a dead marriage, he can raise a dead career, and he can raise a dead dream. He can do anything in your life. What is this power? [What power does the Holy Spirit give?] It's the power to be free from your past. It's the power to start over when you feel like giving up. It's the power to change things you think you could never ever change. It's the power to overcome wrong habits. That power is available to you, that's resurrection power. That gave them hope, the hope of courage.
IV. Hope of Love:
God will never stop loving us. God will never ever stop loving us. Jeremiah chapter 31:3 God says this. “I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you” God says, I love you with an everlasting love. How long is it everlasting? Forever, it's everlasting, God has never made a person he doesn't love. In fact, you can't make God stop loving you. You can try but you'll fail because God's love is based on who he is not who you are. God will never stop loving you, and this is the main reason why Christianity spreads so fast, it carries not just the message of hope, but it carries the message of love. God doesn't wait for you to love him before he starts loving you. God loved you first.
And the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16-17, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, (that's Jesus,) that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”.
God wants you to know his love. God not only wants you to know his love, he wants you to feel his love. Because when you feel God's love, it transforms you. He expects you to pass it on to other people. I've seen God turn hateful men into loving men. [What happens when you receive God’s love?] Because when God's love hits your heart, it changes you. When God's love comes into your life, it changes the way you react to everybody else. In John 13:34, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Years later, 1 John 3:1 he wrote this. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.
Resurrection gives us hope that we have been forgiven by our resurrected Savior. Resurrection gives us hope that we are not afraid of our death, because He overcame death. Resurrection gives us hope that the promise of the Holy Spirit is within us. Finally, we know the love of God through the resurrection. Amen.
