Hope Has Come
Easter 4/11/2004 Psalm 137:1-5 Matthew 28:1-10
What road has brought us here to church today? No matter where we started from, all of us eventually chose either St. Clair, Helena, East 105th, or Elgin to come to this building, but that’s not the kind of road I’m talking about. There is something in our lives that led us to be in church this morning. It may have been habit, or an invitation, or Easter, or a desire to simply here from God. It’s neither an accident or coincidence that we’re all together in this place. It has never happened before and it will never happen again. Someone here today, we’ll be on the other side of eternity come the next Easter.
Let’s go back to the first century and meet a man called Jesus of Nazereth. Actually he was more than just a man, because He was sent by God to make a difference in the life that each person ever born would live and to determine where each person who dies will spend eternity. Jesus told us what he planned to do with his life during his final years.
One day at the very beginning of his ministry Jesus walked into a place very similar to a church. He walked over to the pulpit and said, Luke 4:18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
Well this was not the first time this passage had been read, so everyone was eager to see how Jesus was going to preach from the text. But instead of preaching, he sat back down. Now if I did that, you might start clapping, but I’m not Jesus so I will go on with the sermon.
Jesus could feel the eyes on him in the room, as people were thinking, “okay man, you’ve announced the text, now go ahead and preach it. Don’t be shy. Go ahead and finish what you started.” To end the awkwardness of the moment, Jesus said, “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Now for hundreds of years, the people had been waiting for someone who would come into their lives and bring them hope. They were looking for someone who would be sent from God with power and authority to change their lives. When Jesus said, “today this scripture has been fulfilled, Jesus was saying, “I’m the one you’ve been looking for all these years. I’m the one sent by God to make a difference in your lives. The one you have been hoping for has come.”
If someone were to ask you, “what is Easter all about?”, what would you tell them. “Well it’s a time to dress nice, a time to have additional special services, a time to give Easter egg hunts and it’s a time to think about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Well you’re right, Easter does involve all of these `things in today’s world. But one of the things that stand out most about Easter is that if offers Hope. Is there anybody here who needs a little hope for their lives.
When we look at what Jesus said about why He came, we can find Hope. Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. What does that mean? Today some of us think we’re poor, but we are no where near as poor as we use to be.
When I was born, we use to live near the butcher pen where they slaughtered animals. It was always stinking and smelling from the rotting remains of the animals slaughtered. But I found out from my aunt, that my grandmother, who had 13 kids, would go and sometimes get out meat from the trash bins at the butcher pen in order to put some food on our table. For us to have lived on welfare and food stamps would have been moving up to the middle class.
What good news did Jesus have the poor. Well first of all, Jesus lets us know that God had not forgotten the poor. God identifies with the poor. In Proverbs, God says, whoever gives to the poor, lends to the Lord. God has equipped the poor to strive for something better and offers a hope for something greater than they have today. I know where my family was, and I know where we are today. You can’t tell me that God is not good. Some of us were poor because of racism and institutional structures like segregation, red lining, and discrimination with last hired and first fired. God has removed many of those barriers for us today.
Today however, we are poor more often than not because of the road we choose to travel. The income gap between whites and blacks continue to increase, but some of it is due to our own actions. Nothing keeps African American poorer, than our sexual appetites. We see the glitzy videos on BET with the bling, bling, and the dances, and the free wild kind of love, and the music and we think that’s where life is to be lived. None of the people own all the stuff we see, but we think they do and try to be like them.
As guys, we spend a lot of our time chasing after girls and women, and they spend a lot of time teasing us with the way they dress and talk, and eventually we hook up in somebody’s apartment, hotel, back seat or some other place. The result is usually not what we plan. Sex is a very expensive form of pleasure even though in the beginning it looks free. It is one of the most expensive activities in the world, but you don’t even have to have good credit to participate.
Babies are expensive, but you don’t see them in the videos. Child support payments are expensive but you don’t see them pop into the videos either. It’s nice to play with other teens babies in church, but don’t think for a moment, it cost a lot of time and energy to be a parent. You have to give up your youth in order to do it.
Think about the trade we’re asked to make. We will trade a chance of a high school diploma, a college degree, a beautiful home, and nice car for an hour of sexual pleasure and the possibility of welfare, minimum wage job, hours spent in child care and doing it by ourselves, and 18 years of child support payments. Why do we eagerly choose to risk traveling the road of poverty, and not only the road to poverty but to death.
Did you know that AIDS is spreading rapidly through African Americans teens 13 to 19. Young people this means you could pick up AIDS at the prom this year, or after the movie you see next week. It may be a couple of years before you know you carry the virus. Can you imagine getting engaged 5 years from now, only to discover you have Herpes or AIDS. Will you tell your fiancée before or after the wedding? Being a Christian does not stop it from happening, but living as a Christian will. There was a song that came out a number of years ago, “Oh it’s sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along.” Don’t settle for less than you are worth.
Continued poverty is not the message Jesus preached to the poor. Jesus’s message is that you are of great value in the eyes of God. Do not let others use and abuse you. Everything Jesus has to offer leads down the road to life. Today is a good day to get on that road. I pray you have not already been infected or are already pregnant or got someone pregnant, but even if you are, God still loves you and wants to give you the best that you can have. The longer you do it your way, the more you will lose out.
Don’t rob yourself of your future for some cheap thrill or temporary relationship today. I know you think it’s going to last a life time, but it won’t. If it was going to last, he or she would have already committed himself or herself to you.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ means that Hope has come for you to have the strength in God to save yourself sexually for God, and to whom God wants you to give it away to. Shock the person who asks for sex, and say, “right now I’m saving all my lovemaking for God.” It will certainly change the mood of the moment We do not have to give in to our urges, but it’s up to us not to put ourselves in situation where we will either be tempted or forced to do something by somebody else. I’m talking to both sexes, because today we do not know who is going to take advantage of whom.
Jesus came to heal the broken hearted. Have you ever been disappointed by life? Have you ever had something happen to you that you just can’t believe happened? Have you ever had to bury someone you loved even more than you loved your own life. Ever felt like, why did this have to happen to me?
Jesus wants you to know He knows how it feels to be abandoned and left alone. There was a crowd at the cross, and he felt lonely. But when God turned away from Him because of our sin, Jesus felt all alone as He cried out, “My God, My God why have You Forsaken Me.” Time does not heal broken hearts. It’s the comfort that we can receive from God that puts our lives back together.
Jesus said “I came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners”. Anybody who has been locked in prison knows what’s it like to want to be free and have it denied. How do most people arrive in prison. They take a road that promises some kind of satisfaction in life. But somehow something unintended happened and now there’s no way of escape. There’s a road of no escape that too many of us are on in search of some satisfaction. That road for us in the African American community is drugs.
I’m including the illegal ones like cocaine and crack as well as the legal ones like Johnny Walker Red and Vodka. You’re in prison when you’re addicted to drugs or addicted to alcohol. But you’re also thrown into prison when you’re the parent or the child or someone who loves a person whose been labeled an addict or alcoholic. For all of you who think you’re an addict, I want you to know that God calls you “a lost child who needs to come home.” You’re no greater sinner than the rest of us, but you need to come to your senses and come home.
Drugs destroy families. They fill our prisons. They hurt our churches. They shatter our communities. We are under the delusion, that I can handle this. The reality is some of us can handle more than others, but not of us can handle as much as we think we can. Sometimes addictions will come upon us like the speed of lightening, but other times it’s a slow storm brewing over the plains coming ever so slowly but coming all the less. Drugs can put us on the road to despair and make us believe think nothing will ever change. But Jesus said he came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.
The first step to freedom is a desire to leave your chains of bondage behind. How many more lives will you need to hurt, how many more times will you steal, how many more times will you be dead if God doesn’t intervene before you come to your senses. Do you want to think differently? Do you want to live differently? Do you want to be something different. If your answer is yes, then I want you to know that Hope has come.
When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he conquered the most powerful force to grab a piece of our lives and that is death. Death is pulling us closer to the grave everyday. But Jesus destroyed death’s ability to destroy us. When we ask Christ to come into our lives, we are giving him permission to make a change in us. We often pray, “Lord if you do not do something to change him or her soon, I’m going to lose my mind.” Well my friend, I hate to tell you this, but you might lose your mind if that’s all you are praying. God did not call us to change someone else. God called us to change us.
What we might need is a new way of responding to the situation we are in. Our prayer should be, “God change me, so that I can handle this situation.” There’s not a thing in our lives that God can’t change if we give him permission. Change may mean you’ve got to quit trying to fix the situation. You may need to quit trying to take responsibility for somebody else’s actions. You may have to stand up to somebody and tell them no, “this is not going to go on any longer.” You may have to put out somebody you love. You know what you need to do, by you’re trying to play it safe. But playing it safe allows things to stay the same.
On the day Jesus was crucified, most of the disciples were somewhere hiding, scared for their own lives. A few weeks after the resurrection, those same disciples were boldly willing to die for their faith, because the Holy Spirit was living inside of them. They had a boldness in God they had not known before concerning their lives. It wasn’t that the people had stopped hating them and threatening them. God had just given them a new way of reacting to their threats.
Tell your neighbor, “you do not need to lose your mind. Just look at the situation differently.” You do not need to stay prisoner to what has captured you. There is a way out if you’re willing to pay a price. But don’t forget, you’re paying a price by staying where you are. Hope has come, because Jesus said, “I will never leave nor forsake you.” Take the step you need to take.
Jesus said, “I have come to give recovery of sight for the blind.” Jesus healed many blind people in His day. As a matter of fact, all the blind people that came to Jesus were healed, except according to Jesus, those who refuse to see. Have you ever seen somebody that has refused to see? You tell them, if you drop out of school in the 11th grade, your chances of getting a good job are practically out the window, but they insist they know they’re going to make it and have all the things in life they want. You tell your co-worker, “if you don’t get it together they’re going to fire you”, only to here, “I’m cool, I’m cool”. Next thing you know they’re cold with their things on the corner because they can’t pay the rent because they don’t have a job.
Have you ever refused to see what others might see when they look at you? There are some parents and grandparents who think they are simply doing an outstanding job as parents, but their kids despise them. Why, because they are overly critical, mean, cruel, and just all around messed up. All they ever do is fuss and complain. Parents remember, one day the roles are going to reverse and those kids will determine your future.
There are some kids who think they are wonderful to have around the house and any parent would be glad to have them. But their parents see them as lazy, ungrateful, unappreciative, and disobedient. Their attitudes smell and their mouths are full of back talk. We all think we look better than we really do. It’s natural because we love ourselves which is also natural.
But love has a tendency to make us blind. How many of you have said, “child what on earth do you see in him or in her.” “I know you think he’s all that, but have you noticed how he still be looking at other women. Or have you noticed how she only comes around when she needs something. Or don’t you think you should take your time with him, since he’s already had five divorces?” Since we love ourselves, we become blind to our area of weaknesses. We choose to overlook them.
When we give our lives to Christ, Jesus is going to help us to recover our sight. Jesus does not open our eyes just to show us to travel the road to heaven. He opens our eyes to put us on the road to change here on earth. Jesus says to us, “now let’s deal with this problem of selfishness.” The first thing we want to say is we’re not selfish.
Selfishness appears in a number of ways. 1) Do you have got to have your way or win every argument. 2) Do you got to have the last word. 3) Do you charge it on your credit card to spend on yourself, and know you’ve already got bills you’re not paid. 4) Do you borrow money from people, never pay it back, and don’t bring up the subject.
5) If somebody tears up your stuff, if they don’t pay for it, they out of your life as far as you’re concerned. 6) If somebody hurts you, they might eventually get forgiven, but do they have to pay a little bit first and 7 ) Are you e not going to tithe, because your money is your money and the little bit you give to God is God’s, but you expect the same benefits as everybody else in the church. Being selfish is nothing more than putting our plan for ourselves above God’s plan for our lives. The only reason we choose to disobey God is selfishness. God I want to do what I want to do right now.
The good news is that we don’t have to stay selfish because Hope Has come. The word of God tells us to let the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead live inside of us. That’s how we recover our sight. We start seeing things from God’s perspective and from the perspective of others. Our decision to have limited view and limited sight can keep us in the dark.
One little girl was playing hiding and go seek with her father. Every time he would find her, she would immediately close her eyes. She thought that as long as she couldn’t see him, he could not see her. Closing our eyes to the truth doesn’t make it go away. Choosing to be blind does not eliminate the areas of our lives that need to be changed.
Jesus told us he came to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. To be oppressed means to just be burdened down with situations and people in your life that you simply just can’t seem to get away from. God does not look at the burdens in our lives and do nothing. Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.
There is a lot of suffering in life what we experience that we simply bring on ourselves. Let’s face it, if we had not of made the decisions we made, we would not be in the predicament we’re in today. The devil did not have a thing to do with it.
Our decisions do eventually catch up with us, and what seemed at the time to be the easier choice, ended up costing a lot more of our lives. How many of you here today paid a whole lot more for some situations than you had intended to pay when you made the choice to go for it.
All of these things Jesus that Jesus said he had come to do, looked like they were going to go unfinished when he was hanging their on the cross. He claimed he was voluntarily giving up his life for us, but it sure looked as those the Roman soldiers were taking it from Him. When he died, despair set into the hearts of his followers.
On the first Easter Sunday, Mary and Mary Magdalene were not really on the road to the tomb, even though that’s the way they were going. They were traveling on the road to despair. They fully expected to find a dead body in which they could pour some oil on it one last time. Their main concern was how they could roll back the stone which blocked the grave and may have weighed some 1 to 2 tons. They had no hope of seeing Jesus alive again.
When they got to the tomb, God had already sent an angel to remove the stone so that they could be escorted in. They were the first to hear the message, “He is not here; he has risen just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Now go quickly and tell his disciples. He has risen from the dead is going ahead of you into Galilee.
These two women were on the road to despair only to discover that Hope had come in the form of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When I asked you in the beginning, what road did you take to get here this morning, I was asking what in your life caused you to be here. Ultimately there is only one road that leads to God and that’s through Jesus Christ. But unless you travel the road to despair, you cannot appreciate who Jesus Christ is and what He has done on your behalf.
Despair will cause us to realize, there’s nothing I can do to measure up to being a good person acceptable in God’s eyes. For unless we recognize God’s judgment upon our lives for the wrong we have done, we cannot receive God’s mercy because we will think we will not need it. Good news is only God news, if it keeps us from some bad news.
Here’s the good news of the gospel, the hope John 3:16-20
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned,
Now comes the bad news. but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. By choosing not to believe in Christ, we remain in the condition we are in. The condition is not one of being okay. It’s one of remaining under judgment, so that when we die, we leave God no alternative but to let us pay for the wrong we have done by spending eternity into the lake of fire. Going to hell is the ultimate form of selfishness. To get there we have to say, “no thank you God, I prefer to do what I want to do. We get exactly what we demand. The right to choose our own destiny.
Easter is about the reality that Hope has come in the form of Jesus Christ, not only to change our lives today, but to alter our eternity forever. You cannot have the blessings of God indefinitely while choosing to do as you please. Do not mistake God’s blessings for His favor on your life. God is patient and waiting for you to make a change. Hope has come for that change to be made today.
Sermon Outline—Pastor Rick
Hope Has Come 4/11/2004
Psalm 137:1-5 Matt. 28:1-10 Luke 4:18-19
A. What Road Got Us Here Today
1. St. Clair, Helena, East 105th Elgin
2. Habit, Invitation, Easter, Desire
3. No Mere Coincidence
4. At Least One Will Be Missing
B. Meet Jesus Of Nazareth
1. Told Us What To Expect Of Him
2. The First Sermon Was Very Short
Luke 4:18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
3. Is The Boy Going To Preach Or Not
4. Waiting 100’s Of Years
5. Today It’s Been Fulfilled I’m The One
C. Can You Tell Me What Easter Is About
1. Dress, Bunnies, Extra Services
2. Death & Resurrection
3. It Offers Hope
D. Anointed To Preach Good News To The
Poor.
1. Anybody Knows What It Is To Be Poor
2. My Grandmother Feeding 13 Plus
3. God Has Not Forgotten The Poor
4. From Institutional Racism To
Personal Choices
E. Just How Expensive Is A Good Time
In The Bed
1. It Looks Free But It’s Not
2. The Hidden Expenses Of Pleasure
3. Will You Make The Trade Off
4. AIDS And Our 13-19 Year Olds
5. What Will You Have In 5 Years
6. It Happens To Christians When
Christians Choose Not To Act…
7. Jesus Has A Better Message
8. Today, Is A Good Day
9. Saving All My Love For God
10. You’ve Got To Do Your Part
F. Jesus, I Have Come For The
Brokenhearted
1. The Disappointment Of Life
2. I Can’t Believe It Happened To Me
3. Jesus Knows Lonely & Alone
4. My God, My God Why Have You
Forsaken Me.
5. God Mends Hearts
G. Jesus, I Came To Proclaim Freedom
For The Prisoners
1. Know What It’s Like To Be Locked
2. Prison—Road Of Satisfaction
3. Prisoners Of Legal & Illegal Drugs
4. Who All Is In Prison
5. Addict—No, Child Who Needs To
Come Home
6. The Destructive Power Around Us
7. The Ability To Deceive Ourselves
8. Make A Choice To Change
9. Hope Has Come
H. Jesus Conquered Death & More
1. Death Is Pulling On Us Every Day
2. You Must Give God Permission
3. “I’m Going To Lose My Mind”
4. Change That Prayer—Change Me
5. Change What You’re Doing
6. Stop Playing It Safe
7. Jesus Changed A Bunch Of Scared
Men
8. The Holy Spirit Will Make A
Difference
9. Don’t Lose Your Mind
10. Either Way Carries A Price Tag
11. Take The Step
I. To Give Recovery Of Sight To The Blind
1. Not All The Blind Were Healed By
Jesus
2. Refusing To See The Truth
3. The Drop Out, The Lazy Worker
4. Looking From The Other Person’s
View
5. Parents Who Need To Change
6. Youth Who Need To Chang
J. We Are In Love With Us
1. Love Can Be Blind
2. What On Earth Do You See
3. Why Can’t You See
4. Jesus Shows Us As We Are
5. Selfish Me—You’re Kidding
6. Must Win, Last Word, Charge It
7. Borrow Or Stole, You’re Out
8. Late Forgiveness, Won’t Tithe
9. I Want To Do It Now
K. Hope Has Come For Some Change
1. The Spirit That Raised Jesus
2. Choosing To Look With God’s Eyes
3. Hide N Seek With Dad
4. It Won’t Simply Go Away
L. To Release The Oppressed
1. Too Many Problems & People
2. Jesus—I Can Give You Rest
3. Suffering—We Can Bring It On
4. Did The Devil Really Do It
5. When Decisions Catch Up
6. Paying More Than You Planned
7. Jesus Voluntary Surrender
M. The Women On Road To Despair
1. Mary & Mary Magdalene Traveling
2. Looking For A Dead Body To Anoint
3. Worried About The Wrong Thing
4. The Angle With The Good News Of
Hope
5. He Is Not Here, He Is Risen
6. Leaving With Hope
N. What Brought Us Here Today
1. What Brings Us To God
2. No Mercy Without Despair
3. None Of Us Are Good Enough
4. Good News John 3:16-19
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned,
5. The Bad News
but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
6. The Ultimate Form Of Selfishness
7. The Right To Choose Our Destiny
8. Easter Is About Change
9. Today Is A Good Day
