Easter Sunday 2026 // Why was it necessary for Jesus to come back to life?

Amen.

Hey, turn to your neighbor and say, Happy Easter right now.

Yeah.

Yes.

Also, turn to your neighbor and say, no matter what, Jesus is alive.

Yeah.

And we've been saying that a lot, Sherry and I have this week, because sometimes weird, unexpected things happen and it's Easter season.

We're supposed to be like, yay, Jesus is alive.

Yay, we're worshiping.

Yay, we got family coming over.

And then out of the blue, my cat starts throwing up yesterday.

All night long.

And I'm like, but he's still alive.

We're going to make it through.

We're going to make it through.

But I love Easter season so much.

I look forward to it every year.

And I look forward to just the newness, even the season of the time of the year that Easter is celebrated.

Things are blooming, much to your allergy chagrin.

But things are becoming new.

Things are refreshing.

And I hope that maybe as we just for a moment, you got plans today.

There's things happening.

You got a little bit extra dressed up today.

Like Missy said, maybe even had to match someone today.

That's cool.

But for just a moment, let's lean into the most amazing thing that's ever happened on planet Earth and how it changes us.

How it really does make a difference in your life.

I really am thankful for my parents.

I was reminiscing about Easter.

And I've told my story and my family story a little bit from the platform here before.

I always am afraid that mom and dad will watch online and say, like, come on, give us a little bit more credit because I will talk about how we really weren't raised in church and that we were sent to church.

Now, not every I was CEO Christmas and Easter only.

Can I get an amen for those of you who are come on?

Hey, no judgment, man.

I did that for like the first third of my life, and see now I got to be here every week.

So watch yourself.

You may be here just for Easter.

Say, I'm peaceing out till Christmas, but you might be coming back next week.

I don't know.

We'll see what God does.

But they would send me, dress me and my sister up, send us to Easter Sunday.

And I remember the earliest memory of Easter I have, I was probably kindergarten, and went up to little West Cumberland Baptist Church there in Harlan County.

Could walk there from my house.

And they had an egg hunt afterwards out on the lawn of the church, and I won that thing, man.

I had the most eggs.

And I got the it seemed like it was a three-foot Easter bunny, chocolate Easter bunny.

And it was not one of them hollow things, man.

No, it was solid.

And uh it was probably not that big, but it was the biggest thing I'd ever, biggest piece of chocolate I'd ever seen in my life, and I remember it to this day.

I can't remember what I wore yesterday, but I can still picture me keeping this chocolate solid Easter bunny.

We were kind of upscale Appalachian Americans, so we had a deep freeze on our porch.

And my mama kept that thing stocked so that when we went outside to play, we could stay outside.

We didn't have to come back in for snacks.

They were right there in that freezer.

They done like the padlock, I guess, when we go outside and play.

But I kept that bunny in there, and I swear I ate on that thing for seven months.

I guarantee I did.

But I had this awesome memory of Easter, and I found out later from subsequent Easters that the youngest kid there, they target them.

And all them adults are putting eggs in their basket without them knowing it.

And that's how they win.

I don't remember that happening when I won, but you know, I don't know.

But there's those memories of just this is new, it's a new spring, it's a new season, but it all points us to something happened long ago, man.

Something big happened.

And it makes a difference today, and it's the resurrection of Jesus.

I want to actually pose a question.

I'm gonna invite you to wrestle with a question that I've wrestled with before.

Not necessarily recently, but I've wrestled with it.

And the question is, why was it necessary for Jesus to come back to life?

And some of you might be like, listen, I'm good.

I don't need to wrestle with that.

Like, yay, Jesus is alive.

Let's let's keep worshiping, praying, whatever.

But I want to invite you just for a moment to wrestle with it a little bit with me, because in wrestling with it, it's powerful to see why it had to happen.

I'm gonna read you a statement that I wrote for myself because I mean, I went through a season, it was probably about three years after I came to faith in Christ, where I just doubted everything and questioned everything.

And I put everything that I thought I knew about God, about Jesus, about the Bible through the ringer of my brain and just soaked in doubt for a while.

And it was it was a really hard season.

Uh, I I'm glad I went through it now, but it was so difficult then that I wouldn't want to go through it again.

But I wondered, like, like, could this be a hoax?

Like, I didn't I didn't see this, I've not seen Jesus.

I'd what if all this is just kind of made up?

Like, what if this isn't real?

And so I wrestled with this question at one point too, but I want to give you a statement, and it's a statement that I've arrived at through my own personal wrestling over the years.

Without the resurrection of Jesus, we would have another religion and system of living taught by another dead man that causes us to live some type of disciplined life while hoping it pays off when we die.

I actually believe there's a chance that if Jesus had not come back to life, there might still be some religion that exists in his name.

I don't know what it would be called, but yes, Jesus historically proven existed and did a lot of amazing great things.

We have more proof about who he is historically than we have proof that Homer, uh, that Homer wrote Iliad.

And so we know that he was real.

We know he did all these amazing things, or at least if maybe if he didn't come back to life, maybe we would relegate the stories of the miracles he did to some type of legend of some sorts.

But somebody would probably still latch on and say, Man, look at how he lived, look at what he said.

Let's let's live like that, and just that's a good way to live.

And maybe something good will come of it after we die, even.

But you know, this statement describes, I believe, every religion on planet Earth.

That there was some human that said this is a good way to live, this is a disciplined life, this is something you could adhere to.

If you believe these things, if you do these things, could be a better life, a proper way to live.

And then maybe something good might come after you die, but we don't know for sure, but that's something that could be achieved if you do certain things.

That describes almost every religion that's ever been created on planet earth.

And then Jesus comes along, man, and it changes everything.

We're gonna be looking in Romans 5 today in the Bible, but it's important that before we read the first few verses of Romans 5, that we see the last verse in Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

And here's what it says He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.

I have had whether you call it the difficulty or the honor of sitting near people who are approaching death, whether it be in a hospice room or a hospital room.

And there have been times I've been invited by a friend or a family member to be in that spot, specifically because they did not know whether or not this person they deeply care about had ever put their faith in God.

And for some reason, in those scenarios, the phrase right with God tends to just come up.

I don't often go around thinking about, is someone right with God?

Am I right with God?

I don't really think in those terms often until that.

That someone who is literally, literally staring down the barrel of death, their own personal death, are they right with God?

They may be asking, am I right with God?

How do I get right with God?

I want to be right with God before I breathe my last.

And here we see that it wasn't just him dying on the cross that makes us right with God.

It's a package deal.

The death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus.

All of it together, that's what makes us right with God.

In some of the English translations of this verse, it would say, makes us justified by God.

And justified, legal term meaning not guilty, declared not guilty by the judge of the universe.

The only way we can be declared not guilty of our sins before the God of the universe is because of the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus.

How?

Why?

How does that happen?

Let's keep reading.

In verse 1 of Romans 5, it says, therefore.

And one of our former staff members, John Burdett, he used to always say when he would preach, anytime you read the word therefore in the Bible, you should ask the question, what's that therefore?

And we just looked at the verse before it.

You have to do that.

Every time you see the word therefore in the Bible, look at what it says before it and after it.

And like it said in verse 25, the verse before, he was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.

We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.

And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

And this hope will not lead to disappointment, for we know how dearly God loves us, but he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

There's a lot there.

We're going to revisit those verses in a moment.

But I'm going to give you a list today that answers the question: why is it necessary?

Why was it crucial that Jesus Christ not only died on the cross for our sins, but he also on the third day came back to life?

This is why.

Because Jesus came back to life, we know that Jesus Christ is our Lord.

Let's park there for a minute.

It's easy to miss this.

That very first verse of Romans 5, it says we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

There's a great quote from C.S.

Lewis in a book, a classic book that I highly recommend, entitled Mere Christianity.

If you wrest with faith, if you aren't sure about this whole Jesus or Christianity stuff, I highly recommend reading C.S.

Lewis's Mere Christianity.

And one of his famous quotes from that book is that Jesus Christ is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.

Based on everything he said and everything he did, one of those has to be true about him.

And I would agree with this.

He often hinted at his messiahship.

He often spoke as being one with the Father, one with God.

It's what got him in hot water with the Jewish leaders who orchestrated and uh worked alongside and uh the Roman government to make sure he was silenced and killed, which didn't happen.

But the reason they did that is because of blasphemy that he claimed to be one with God.

He actually forgave sins before he healed a paralytic.

Who is this guy think he is to say he's one with God?

He would often say some pretty incredible things after the words, I am.

I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

The people who grew up uh in the Jewish religion of that day were very familiar with those words, I am.

It's basically the name for God, Yahweh, in Hebrew.

I am the I am.

That's what God told Moses.

Like, people ask you who I am, who sent you?

If Pharaoh asks you, who sent you to let my people go, you tell him, Yahweh, I am the I am.

Jesus basically, in so many ways throughout his life, declared to be God in the flesh.

And so, friends, if he died on that cross and stayed in that grave, then he was a liar or another crazy guide with a with a huge ego.

But today we celebrate the fact that he's neither of those two things.

Because he came back to life, he is everything he said he was, and everything he said and everything he did is absolutely positively true.

That he actually meant it when he said, For whoever believes in him will not perish, but will die.

That was real, that that is true, that he made a way for that to be possible.

The one thing I've learned through reading scripture is that, especially in the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus is a huge tipping point.

That people almost immediately said, nuh-uh, no way, no way that that is really true.

In fact, you go back and read the story of Easter, because the guards, the Roman guards, were like, uh oh, like we could die for this.

Jesus' body is missing.

They were instructed, we're gonna spread a rumor that the disciples came and stole the body.

Jewish people were like, cool, we're gonna help you do that.

Because we don't want this getting out of hand.

We don't want this new movement that has started to continue to fan the flame.

And so immediately people began to doubt and discredit the resurrection of Jesus.

But for those who knew it, for those who believed it, especially those who saw him alive, Thomas able to put his very hands in the wounds and the holes in his hands and in his side.

He appeared over 40, for 40 days, he appeared to so many people.

At one point, the resurrected Jesus showed up among 500 people.

They were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

See, yeah, because he came back to life, he's not a liar, he's not a lunatic, he is our Lord.

He's even your Lord, even if you don't believe him to be your Lord.

Because every knee, at some point, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Here's the second thing.

In addition to us knowing that he is our Lord, we can have peace, confidence, and joy about our future, which we just sang about that.

I want to reread to you the first two verses of Romans 5.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, like, can there be any greater accomplishment on this earth than to be to be declared right with God, that you are right with God?

And he says, since we've been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace.

Peace with God.

Because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

Not because of what you've done, not because of any spiritual hoops you've jumped through, not because of how good you have lived.

None of us can live good enough to deserve and receive the free, amazing grace that God bestows on anyone who would believe.

We have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand.

And we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.

I just picture this just standing like I'm saved, I'm forgiven, I'm right with God, I'm loved by Him.

He is with me, He is in me.

What else could possibly happen to take me down?

Now, a lot of things can happen to take us down.

A lot of first-world problems can happen to cause us to get down, but then a lot of terrible things can happen that pull us down.

And we're gonna talk about that in just a moment.

But hear the word of God, to be made right with God, to stand confidently in his presence, knowing that we're his and that he is gonna be with us forever, that we get to live with him forever.

Honestly, I want to stand before you and say, I don't know what's gonna happen to me in the next hour, the next day, the next week, the next month.

It might be something terrible, but nothing can take that away.

None of my what my circumstances and my own behavior cannot falter this.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I can have peace with him, I can stand in this place of undeserved privilege, and I look can look forward with joy and confidence that even though I might be having the worst day ever, nothing can take away my eternal life in Jesus Christ.

I mentioned to you that the resurrection of Jesus is a tipping point.

And almost immediately people were doubting it.

Thomas saw Jesus and doubted it.

Paul, great missionary, greatest missionary to ever live.

God inspired him to write most of the books in our New Testament of the Bible.

And he was on a missionary journey, and he ended up kind of rarely being by himself in Athens, not really with the rest of his team.

In Athens, Greece, I mean, they had shrines everywhere for all the different gods and goddesses, the pantheon of different deities that they would be okay with people worshiping.

And they were just wide open, man.

Like they would hang out in the marketplace and share philosophical ideas, and they would hear anybody's ideas and say, hmm, that's interesting, and move on.

And this was happening, and Paul walked into it, and he happened to notice they had a shrine labeled to an unknown God.

And just like a great missionary would do, he leveraged it and he kind of stood up in the marketplace and said, You have that.

I'm gonna tell you about this unknown God.

And he began to tell them about Jesus Christ.

And if you read it in the book of Acts, they're like hanging with him.

All right, cool.

Tell us more, tell us more, tell us more.

And then he talks about Jesus coming back to life on the third day.

And then they were like, eh, nope, okay, you lost me there.

Now you're just crazy, you're just nuts.

And that was the tipping point.

They kind of were done at that point.

Turns out, one ruling council member in Athens who did believe.

And it was the beginning of God doing a great work in that area for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

People since Jesus came back to life have been trying to extract the resurrection away from Christianity.

I will confess to you that during my dark season of doubting, when I was I was trying to make sense of things and decide like, could this be true or not, I reached a point where I was like, I believe in the death on the cross for our sins.

I'm tracking, I'm still wrestling with resurrection.

I remember actually so egotistically saying to myself, but maybe my faith is stronger because I don't need a resurrection to believe in Jesus.

If he didn't come back to life, I still think Jesus is the Lord.

You know, I still think he died for my sins.

I still believe in the gospel.

Well, Paul, if he were standing here, would yank me off of this stage and say, Baro, get in the corner, let me take over.

That's baloney.

And he says as much in 1 Corinthians 15, because in the very beginning of the church of Jesus Christ, people were saying, We don't have to have that.

We don't have to have this resurrection stuff.

And Paul confronts it.

1 Corinthians 15 17.

And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless.

And you are still guilty of your sins.

It tracks with what we said earlier in Romans 4 25 that it's a packaged deal death on the cross, burial, resurrection.

That is the whole salvation burrito right there.

All of it.

You got to have it all.

All of that is what makes us declared not guilty before God.

So he says, if he's not been raised, you're still guilty of your sins.

In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost.

Game over.

Life done.

No heaven.

And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.

So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man.

In other words, just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.

New life made possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So let's go back to our list.

Because Jesus came back to life.

Number one, we know that Jesus Christ is our Lord.

Number two, we can have peace, confidence, and joy about our future because we too will live forever.

We too will rise again.

That's awesome news.

But there's a third thing, and that's this.

We can endure anything that happens to us in this life.

The resurrection of Jesus doesn't just impact your thinking about what happens when you breathe your last breath on this earth.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ matters today.

It can help you get through anything.

I want to reread to you verses 3 through 5 of Romans 5.

He says, we can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.

And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

And this hope will not lead to disappointment, for we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Man, the resurrection power has the ability to help you live life no matter what happens to you in this life.

In the first hour this morning, I watched one of our church members, Charlie Thornton, who has been confined to a wheelchair for a year and a half now because of a bad fall in the wintertime, fell on his head.

It was a terrible thing that happened to him.

He had made a promise that today, this Easter Sunday, he would walk through those doors rather than wheel through them.

And he did.

And it took him a long time, but he did it with this special walker that he had.

And I got to go talk to him about it, and he had tears in his eyes about it.

And he has an enduring faith.

You know, I think the greatest miracle of all isn't just the incredible healing of disease that we sometimes see also.

I think some of the greatest miracles is the deep abiding faith of the one who says, I may not walk anymore, but he's still my God.

And I love him.

And he strengthens me every day.

He gets me through every hard day that I must face.

Not long before he came in, one of my friends, Joe Kane, came in.

She's been battling cancer for years and years and years.

She's been kicked out of trials.

And she walks in with a head covering and a sweatshirt that said he is risen.

And I'm like, that's the gospel in one person's body.

Right there.

My faith isn't dependent upon if life goes the way I want it to go.

My faith is dependent on a person who stepped out of his own grave and who says, I will never leave you or forsake you.

And yea, though you walk through a valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you.

I am the good shepherd.

I am the bread of life.

I will sustain you and I will be with you.

And there will come a day when you will step into eternity and actually see what I look like.

And there will be no more death, no more dying, no more pain.

And I made all of that possible through my blood on the cross and the empty tomb.

You don't have to do it.

I did it.

I paid it all.

I finished the work of salvation.

Friends, that'd get you through anything.

And we have people right here in this room that could get up here and say, Let me tell you my story.

Let me tell you my story.

Let me tell you my story.

The resurrection of Jesus is powerful.

There's a silver line in every new terrible disease that I learn about seemingly every other month is that, well, that disease is temporary.

God will heal that either now or after that last breath is taken.

People I have in my life that I love, they're battling addiction, and man, it's so hard for them, and they struggle and they struggle and they struggle.

And that might be you today.

And I'm here to tell you, Jesus Christ will come in you and help you battle that addiction.

He did it for me, he will do it for you.

And you may fall down.

Well, guess what?

The resurrection power of Jesus says, get back up.

I'm not leaving you.

I'm not done with you.

I'll forgive you 70 times seven times seven times seven times.

My grace is sufficient for you.

That tank will never run dry.

You keep fighting, and I will battle with you and for you.

And one day you'll see me face to face, and there will be nothing mastering you anymore.

Sometimes we celebrate Easter Sunday, but man, we got some broken friendships, broken relationships, and they're difficult.

There are people in your life that have hurt you, and you're like, Jesus is alive, but I'm hurt and I'm sad.

But I'm here to tell you the resurrection of Jesus Christ can take hold of your life and say, you know what, though?

I love you, and I am love and I am in you.

I'm gonna fill you with my love, and I'm gonna give you the strength to love and forgive no matter what, no matter how low other people go.

I will help you take the high road.

I will have you walk another mile.

I will have you turn the other cheek.

I'll have you live completely differently.

You can endure anything because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As I was looking at this passage in Romans, I just kept seeing all these words all popping off the pages, and it's because of the resurrection of Jesus.

Words like peace, joy, confidence, help, endurance, strength, character, hope, salvation, Holy Spirit, love.

And I'm not gonna find any of that inside of that plastic Easter egg today.

I mean, I got my eyes on some of those Easter eggs.

I helped fill them for the Clark family.

I want some Swedish fish today, man.

I'm telling you.

Best snack ever.

Good carb loading.

But man, this right here, those things, every single human being alive and breathing God's good air in this room or anywhere on planet earth can have all of this in them.

All of this in them, thanks to Jesus Christ.

That empty tomb can put all of this into your life.

All of it.

But only if one thing happens.

Faith.

Because I will say that I did not keep doubting the resurrection of Jesus.

On the tipping point of my life, I fell on the right side, believing that I can't walk away from this, man.

This right here has changed my life.

The truth within it, I am not the same person I was when I encountered the Jesus of the Bible.

I couldn't walk away.

I believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

But I'm telling you, that is the connective tissue, that is the portal, that's the thing that causes a dead man dying and coming back to life 2,000 years ago to me being different.

How can something like that that happened make me different in 2026?

It's faith.

And I can't give you a formula for that, man.

I'd love to.

Because if I did, man, I'd be putting that out every day.

I'd be like, if there was a code for that, a cheat code for that, man, I would totally reveal it to you on this screen or something.

It's kind of what Nicodemus heard Jesus say.

He was a Pharisee.

You know, his colleagues wanted Jesus dead, and they succeeded at it for three days.

But he wasn't sure about his colleagues' beliefs about that.

So late one night, he finds out where Jesus is located and he gets a meeting with him.

And that's where we get the most, probably the most famous verse in the Bible.

He said to Nicodemus, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him will not die, will not perish, but have everlasting life.

But he was full of questions, like, so how does this work?

Jesus, like, you got to be born again.

Well, how does that happen?

Do I enter back into my mother's womb?

That's crazy, Pats.

He's like, No, it's like the spirit.

It's it's the spirit, it's like the wind.

We don't, it blows and we see it, but we don't know where it comes from.

And even as I read that passage in John 3, it messes with me.

Like, no, man, like, give me the steps, give me the formula, give me the code.

There is not that at all.

It's here's what it is it's that unexplainable moment that happens when the very Spirit of God, like a wind, blows through your very heart and soul, and your eyes are opened, and you are in that moment convinced, finally convinced that the cross in the empty grave was for you, that he did it to save you, and that it does save you, and that you must have it, and that you will leave everything else in your life behind to get it, that you would lay down your life for it.

I can't tell you how many times I heard about Jesus dying on the cross.

For those handful of times a year, I went from kindergarten through middle to late elementary school to seven summers going to Bible camp.

But somehow, somehow, that seventh summer at Bible camp, God saw fit to let the wind blow through my heart.

And it changed me.

And here on Easter Sunday, I can't make that happen.

But if you're feeling that breeze blow through your soul today, would you do something?

Would you do what it says in Romans 10:9?

Romans 10:9

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.

A few verses later, it says in verse 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Perhaps the vast majority of you have had that moment already.

Watching, listening online, perhaps you've had that moment already.

But even if there's just one person either in this room or watching, listening online that hasn't done that yet, and you are feeling the breeze of the Spirit of God blowing through, I have some amazing news for you.

He orchestrated all of this here today to reach you.

This is your divine appointment.

And as I pray, before we sing one more song together, I invite you to call upon the name of the Lord, declare him your Lord today in prayer, and receive the eternal free gift of salvation so that you can have peace with God forever, that you can stand in this undeserved place of privilege and have peace and confidence about your future and endure anything life throws at you.

Call upon him now and be saved.

Let's bow together.

Father, in this moment, someone here is feeling the wind of your spirit blowing through their heart, and today is their day of salvation.

Father, hear their prayer as they call out to you.

Perhaps their prayer is something like this Jesus, I declare today that you are my Lord.

I believe you died for me, and I believe you rose again.

And I ask that you live within me and help me to live this life the way you want me to live it, and help me to cling to the hope of heaven that will get me through anything.

Father, thank you for this free gift of salvation.

Thank you for your amazing love.

Thank you for the power of the resurrection that sustains us through anything we endure in this life.

Thank you for all who have gathered here today, for all who are here watching, listening online.

And Father, may they take whatever next step you have called them to take with you.

And we pray this in the powerful name, the name that causes dead things to come alive.

The name of your Son Jesus Christ, we pray.

Amen.

Amen.