Introduction

Church, so glad you decided to join us either in person today or online! I am believing in God for a fresh perspective and breakthrough during this brand new series, He is Risen. As we move toward our Easter Sunday celebration, I want us to walk through the story of Jesus leading to His crucifixion and resurrection. These two crucial events are the reason we not only celebrate Him on Easter Sunday, but here today as well! If it weren’t for Jesus, we would have no hope and no future worth moving toward.

I want to kick things off by talking about one of the most significant consequences of Christ’s resurrection. That is, His death and resurrection grants us access to the Kingdom of Heaven!

STORY: Talk about sitting at the kids table growing up at family gatherings. Make the point that you always felt different if you got asked to come over to the adult table for anything. Why did it feel odd? Because you knew you weren’t yet an adult, and the adult table wasn’t your place.

His death and resurrection grants us access to the Kingdom of Heaven!

Main Teaching

Read Romans 6:23 - “For the wages of sin is death…”

Sin Separated Us

This key verse tells us two things in particular, but we must start with the negative. First, Paul says that the wages of sin is death. This means that sin has a price, it will cost us something! In fact, whether you would claim to be a Christian here today or not, the Bible would actually say that you and I are all guilty of sin…and the wages of sin, the payment we can expect from a life of sin, is death.

Read Romans 3:23

This means that we all deserve whatever the punishment or payment is for sin. And that, Paul says, is death! Now, when he says this, he is not talking about a physical death like we may initially think. Instead, Paul is referencing a Spiritual death, one that ultimately will separate us from God for all Eternity. You see, the Bible seems to point to two different places you and I could spend Eternity (that’s forever). One is heaven, a place where we will be with God in a personal way like we have never even experienced! But the other alternative is often referred to as Hell. This place is actually defined as the absence of God’s presence. That’s because truly, the worst possible place we could be is apart from God for all of Eternity!

So, the spiritual death Paul talks about means that, because of sin, we are on course to be forever separated from God ... View this full sermon with PRO Premium