OPEN: Women: are there times when your husbands don’t seem to be paying attention?
One man wrote: The ears are a marvelous creation: A piano has 88 keys, but each of your ears has a range of 1500 keys. They are so finely tuned that you can hear the blood running through your vessels. The outside of your ear can catch up to 73,700 vibrations per second
He continued: My wife used to think I needed my hearing checked... there’s nothing wrong with my hearing... I just don’t listen to her. It’s not that I don’t love her… it’s just that there’s something else that has caught my attention that I regard as being more important.
APPLY: I can identify with that. How about you other men? It’s not that we can’t hear our wives. It’s just doesn’t seem as important as what we’re doing at the moment. It’s a guy thing.
BUT it’s also true of everybody. That which we consider important, that which we value, that which has worth at moment - that is what gets center stage in our minds. That’s what grabs our attention. Everything else fades into background.
ILLUS: Michelangelo observed this when he visited several great art galleries in cities across Europe. He was deeply impressed by the overwhelming number of paintings that showed Jesus hanging on the cross.
Michelangelo asked: “Why are art galleries filled with so many pictures of Christ upon the cross – Christ dying? Why do artists concentrate upon that passing episode, as if that were the last word and the final scene? Christ’s dying on the cross lasted for only a few hours. But to the end of unending eternity, Christ is alive…”
In other words, the crucifixion - vital and critical to our salvation has grabbed our attention. But what about the resurrection? Did the resurrection have any value? Was the idea of the resurrection important?
I. The idea of resurrection was so important…
…that the Chief Priests and Pharisees did everything to make sure there would no resurrection ever took place.
Matthew 27:62-66 tells us:
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."
"Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how."
So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
Do you understand their intention? They wanted no hint of a resurrected Jesus, so they went to Pilate and requested a guard. They thought "If Body was stolen they’d have real problems. WHY?
Because Jesus had predicted He would rise from the dead. And, as long as Jesus’ body was still in the tomb it would crush any further potential power this movement had. They could take people over to the tomb and say “hey, look at the body – this is Jesus – he’s dead”
AND, if he was still in that tomb, dead that proved this teacher to be a liar, because He said He would rise again.
However, if the body wasn’t in the grave any longer SUDDENLY… these Jewish leaders have nothing for "show and tell."
AND SO, these leaders (the Chief Priests & Pharisees) went to Pilate and got a Roman guard. Why go to Pilate? Because Roman soldiers were the best soldiers in the world. Not only that – they wouldn’t desert their post… under fear of death.
So these Jewish leaders went to the tomb, made sure body there, rolled stone back in place & sealed it with a Roman seal. Then they went home and went to bed… only to wake a couple of days later to find they had failed.
Why had they failed…? Because - no roman guard was gonna keep Jesus in the ground! IN FACT: An entire Roman legion couldn’t have got that done!!!
As Psalm 2 tells us, God sits in the heavens and laughs at the feeble to control the eternal.
So, the idea of the resurrection was important because, as Romans 1:4 tells us
"Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead."
The importance of resurrection: it declared Jesus was Son of God.
II. And the idea of the resurrection was so important – that it was center piece of the Gospel.
Read I Corinthians 15:1ff
ILLUS: A conversation between a Christian missionary and a Muslim illustrates a great
point. The Mohammedan wanted to impress the missionary with what he considered to be the superiority of Islam. So he said, "When we go to Mecca, we at least find a coffin, but when you Christians go the Jerusalem, your Mecca, you find nothing but an empty grave." To this the believer replied, "That is just the difference, Mohammed is dead and in his coffin. And all the other founders & teachers of religion and philosophy are in their coffins. But Christ is risen, and all power in heaven and on earth is given to Him!
The Resurrection is the CENTER PIECE of our faith!
But not only that…
III. The idea of the resurrection is so important that…
We who are Christians depend on it for everything we are and believe:
· Colossians 2:12 (we have) been buried with (Jesus) in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
· Romans 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
· 1 Peter 1:3 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,
But it doesn’t stop there… the Resurrection has an impact on our entire lives as Christians
Did you realize that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you?
Romans 8:11 declares: "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 through his Spirit, who lives in you."
How did He get "in you?" Acts 2:38 says "Repent & be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and YOU SHALL RECEIVE THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT."
In Ephesians 1:18 Paul wrote: "I pray … that you may know … his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
In other words, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work within us to give us power in our lives, control over our circumstances. It’s like someone walking up to me and giving me a blank check.
And there’s more to it than that…
1. It begins with our salvation
2. Continues thru our whole lives
3. And finally impacts the final stage of our lives on this earth – our own mortality the fact that WE WILL DIE.
II Corinthians 4:14 we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus
In other words: When Jesus comes again, there will be a loud command, the voice of archangel, the trumpet call of God AND IF YOU’RE IN THE GRAVE you will be raised up out of there. AND NO ROMAN GUARD/ LEGION/ FORCE ON EARTH can keep you down.
CLOSE: In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave on which were placed huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker were inscribed these words: "This burial place must never be opened." In time, a seed, covered over by the stones, began to grow. Slowly it pushed its way through the soil and out from beneath them. As the trunk enlarged, the great slabs were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. A tiny seed had become a tree that had pushed aside the stones.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
What Will You Do With Jesus? = Matthew 27:11-27:25
Welcome to Golgotha = Matthew 27:32-27:56
Resurrection Power = Matthew 27:62-28:15
