The Purpose of the Resurrection - Holy Week

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

So I want to welcome you, and if you've been a part of kind of this journey of Passion Week, it's been really interesting because God spoke to me to speak on the kingdom of God during Passion Week.

So if you recall, if you were part of the church back then, that was last Sunday, by the way, that was Palm Sunday.

That was the inauguration, in a sense, going viral of Jesus.

So before that, if you recall, every time Jesus healed the sick, every time Jesus cast out a demon, he told everybody, shh, don't tell anyone, don't tell anyone.

But when he comes on Palm Sunday, when he comes down that road from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem, he wants everybody to know.

He's going viral.

It's on his Facebook page.

I mean, he's really letting the world know I'm the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

He's pronouncing the kingdom of God.

If you recall, when I spoke on that, I spoke on the fact that there were two opposition groups to Jesus when he came in.

And by the way, men and women, when you become a Jesus follower, if you truly become a disciple, you'll always have opposition in these two areas.

The first one was religious.

Religion hates Jesus followers.

And I remember when I first got saved, when I first came to know the Lord, I was at the University of Georgia, it was religion that opposed me.

In other words, my it's kind of funny because I grew up in a family where I went through catechism and all this stuff that I did, which was supposed to make me like a good Christian and everything.

And then when I became one, nobody liked it.

So here's the real problem.

The second thing is political.

You'll always have political opposition to Jesus followers.

People who are really fired up for Jesus, and here's why: because we have a different king.

So because we have a different king and we're about a different kingdom, the kingdoms of this earth oppose that.

They don't like that.

And so Jesus comes in and he's opposed by the religious leaders, he's opposed by the political leaders.

Then on Wednesday, we had our Seder.

How many of you were at the Seder?

Okay, a lot of you.

We had three, over 300 people came to the Seder.

Awesome.

Tables everywhere, fantastic time together.

But we were reenacting the Last Supper and we were going through the symbols of that, and it's at the Seder or the Last Supper that Jesus said, it's going to be my blood that's going to redeem the world.

It's going to be my body broken for you, my blood shed for you.

I'm going to redeem you as a king.

Then on Good Friday, some of you are part of Good Friday, on Good Friday, we talked about the fact that Jesus was not crucified for being a prophet.

The world is not that animated by nor fearful of prophets and priests.

No, not.

Prophets and priests tend to be religious.

Jesus came as a king of a kingdom.

And that really started freaking everybody out from the beginning.

If you remember, Herod couldn't care less about babies being born in Bethlehem.

But when he heard from these three magicians, these three magi, these three astrologers, that a king of the Jews, the star of the king, the kingly star had led them to Bethlehem, and that there was a king of the Jews that was going to be born, Herod gets animated.

Herod starts saying, Well, oh, well, if you find him, let me know, so that I can come and worship him.

So Jesus comes with this kingdom, and it makes him an outlaw.

So by that day, four days later, he's nailed to a cross and he's put in a tomb for being a king.

Over his head was the banner, Jesus Christ, King of the Jews.

King of the Jews.

He was crucified for being a king.

So now we come up to this third day.

So turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, we've got Bibles in the back of the chairs in front of you.

If you came, you don't have a Bible at all, take it.

Or if you like our Bible better, take it.

It's your Bible.

So as you're turning, remember what I said on Good Friday.

Let me say it again.

The kingdom began.

The kingdom revolution began on Good Friday.

On that day Christ was crucified, that's when it all started.

In other words, men and women, we would not have a resurrection if we didn't have a cross.

You have to have a cross before you have a resurrection.

By the way, that's true in all of our lives.

If you can't take on the cross, you're not going to have a resurrection.

So in Matthew 28, Matthew is summing up the final part of his book.

It's the final chapter.

Now, after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene, another Mary, came to see the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake.

For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it.

His countenance was like lightning and his clothing as white as snow.

I can't imagine how many people I've heard through the years say, if an angel would appear to me, I'd believe.

And what kind of angel are you talking about?

If you're talking about Monica from touched by an angle who has an Irish accent and looks really good, no.

This is a different kind of angel.

This is a biblical angel.

This is what angels are actually like.

And probably with one centurion and a group, a garrison of soldiers, this was their reaction.

And the guards, verse 4, shook for fear of him and became like dead men.

You probably don't want to meet an angel, gang.

But if that's what it takes, then so be it.

But just be ready.

You'll be changed forever.

But the angel answered and said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified.

He's not here, for he is risen, as he said.

Come see the place where the Lord lay, and go quickly and tell his disciples that he's risen from the dead, and indeed he is going before you into Galilee.

There you will see him.

Behold, I have told you.

So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to bring his disciples' word.

And as he went to his disciples, behold, Jesus met them.

I love this.

The first words of Jesus after the resurrection are, rejoice.

That's a good word, man.

That's a bad, you can preach a message on that.

When Christ comes into your life, he says to you, rejoice.

Rejoice.

It's a new day, man.

It's a new revolution in your heart.

So they came and they held him by his feet and they worshiped him.

Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid.

Second words of Jesus, do not be afraid.

Some of you are here and you are full of anxiety.

You're full of panic.

And Christ is going to begin the process of setting you free today.

He says, Rejoice, don't be afraid.

Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.

Now while they were going, behold, some of the guards came into the city, reported to the chief priest all the things that had happened.

And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, Tell them, his disciples came at night and stole him away while we slept.

And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him, make you secure.

So they took the money, did as they were instructed, and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews even to this day.

So, folks, you can always, you can always pay people off if you're a part of the political kingdom or the religious kingdom.

If you've been following any of the politics since COVID, you know what I'm talking about.

You can pay people off.

Didn't start here.

This is kind of the way humans are.

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed to them.

And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Can you imagine?

So here's Jesus right in front of you, fully in human form.

You watched him die on the cross.

Here he is resurrected with the scars on his hands and his side, and you still doubt?

And Jesus came and he spoke some of the most powerful words ever given to man.

All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even until the end of the age.

Amen.

So let me do something strange today.

I'll just be the first to admit this is gonna be weird.

So hang with me.

There is a method to my madness.

We're gonna start with the garden.

The garden of Eden.

So when God created man and woman, he created them to be a kingdom people.

Eden was going to be his kingdom.

The purpose of man and woman, creating the image of God, was to plant Eden's all over the earth.

They were born for immortality.

They weren't supposed to die.

The king was going to have intimacy with them.

And the first commandment was not love the Lord your God with all your heart.

The first commandment found in Genesis, God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.

We were commanded by God to have dominion.

The man had the image of God.

The woman had the image of God.

The anointing of the king as a citizen of the kingdom was upon them.

It was a community of the kingdom.

And then Adam and Eve chose by their free will to rebel.

They made the first declaration of independence.

That declaration of independence, we're going to go our way.

And in so doing, they lost the kingdom.

They ran from God.

We inherited that, and three things happened.

If you're taking notes, write down these three things.

Number one, they lost the kingdom of God.

We lost the kingdom of God.

In other words, everything that we had of a kingdom of God was there.

They lost that.

And what happened, church, is this that where they were thirsty, they started eating bread.

Because here's what we do: we replace the kingdom with religion.

That's what we always do.

And you can see you follow the book of Genesis, you follow the entire Old Testament, it's religion, religion.

We take the relationship that we have with God and we place it with rules and regulations.

And so where we were thirst, where we are thirsty, we eat bread.

And it could be raisin bread.

It could be homemade sourdough bread.

It could be organic bread.

It could be raisin, walnut, organic, sourdough, bread.

But if you're thirsty, it doesn't quench your thirst.

You're made for the fountain of living water that quenches your thirst and never runs dry through Jesus Christ.

But we replace it with bread.

First thing we lost the kingdom.

Second, we lost fellowship with the king.

We lost a personal, vital, dynamic relationship with the king.

With Christ.

They turned their back on the king, they replaced it with religion, and a new sheriff came into town.

An unelected sheriff took over the earth, and his name is Satan.

Satan took over.

So third, number three, Satan and demons took over the earth.

So the kingdom was flossed, the king was pushed aside, and Satan and the powers of darkness took over the earth.

And the first thing that we hear about Satan is he's a murderer.

And the first thing that happens in Genesis is murder.

Cain kills Abel.

Then from that point, this demonic stronghold, these principalities and powers took over the globe.

And this is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 4, whose minds the God of this age, he's called the God of this age, has blinded who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

Ephesians 2.2, Paul says, You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

Guess what?

If you do not have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Christ, there's only one option.

You're under the unelected sheriff of Satan.

He rules this world.

That's your option.

You follow Christ, freedom.

If you don't follow Christ, you're following the enemy, and it's bondage, man.

It's bondage.

I've lived it.

Every one of us in this room, we've lived it, and I'll never go back to that bondage.

The freedom that we have in Christ was inaugurated through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So first, the kingdom was lost.

Second, the king and intimacy with the king was broken.

Third, the principalities and powers took over the earth.

So when Jesus shows up, he starts speaking about a king and a kingdom, a kingdom of freedom.

He says, You shall know the truth, the truth shall set you what?

Free.

It's a freedom, it's a freedom kingdom.

That's why communist governments, that's why some of the government that's happening in the United States wants to lock you guys down into bondage.

Because, and the first thing they want to do is, you got to outlaw prayer, man.

You got to outlaw the Bible.

You got to get that out.

Because when people start believing this stuff, guess what happens?

They start having a mind of their own.

You start having a mind of your own, you start getting creative.

Wow.

You start to have freedom.

You start to have joy.

You start to know what righteousness, peace, and joy is, which is the fruit of the kingdom.

And what happens is that nobody can lock that down.

No government, no religion can lock down the kingdom over our lives.

So Jesus said this when he came.

The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

That's the job description of the enemy.

Steal, kill, destroy.

But I came and you might have life and might have it abundantly.

So the abundant life, the joyful life, the power-filled life through the Holy Spirit comes through Jesus.

Now write this down, it's really important.

Jesus modeled the kingdom through healing the sick and casting out demons.

Jesus modeled the kingdom by healing the sick and casting out demons.

He established the kingdom by dying on the cross.

He established the kingdom of God through dying on the cross.

He inaugurated the kingdom through the resurrection.

He inaugurated the kingdom through the resurrection.

And that's why we pray.

Now Jesus taught us to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

I learned this when I was seven years old.

I shared this a couple weeks ago.

I always thought it was not, I always thought, why do they call it the Lord's Prayer?

It's Pastor Hart's prayer.

Because I was, I was, dad was planting a church in Huntsville, Alabama at the time, and we were going to Pastor Hart's Church, St.

Mark's Lutheran Church, and that's where I learned it.

My dad corrected me a few years ago and said, I taught you that prayer.

I said, No, Pastor Hart taught me.

I said, how could Pastor Hart?

Pastor Hart never came to our house.

But it was when we were at anybody know that you have some skewed views of your childhood usually, and they're like, there's no reality in a lot of it.

So so do I.

So I thought it was Pastor Hart's burger.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

And by the way, in this in the scriptures, the name of God and God's presence are one and the same.

Our Father, who art in heaven, in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy what?

Kingdom come.

He's telling us to pray this.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on as it is in.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from, in the Greek, the evil one.

This is a spiritual warfare prayer that I prayed almost every night as a kid.

Didn't even know what I was praying.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be down on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil from the evil one, for thine is the what?

And the and the glory.

Forever and ever, amen.

So Jesus comes, he's now got these disciples, and he's planning a heist.

He's planning to break out of the sheriff's prison and inaugurate the overall strategy of God in Eden, the kingdom of God has come.

The kingdom of God has come, and Jesus has come to reign on the earth.

So Jesus had two messages.

His first message was the kingdom of God.

All through the Gospels, a hundred times, kingdom of God, kingdom of God, kingdom of God.

But then in Passion Week, in the final week, he makes a switch.

He makes a transition.

And the transition is I'm leaving.

I'm leaving.

The king is leaving his kingdom.

By the way, you can't have a kingdom without a king.

And by the way, either Jesus is king over your life or you are.

And at 18, I was smart enough to realize he's a lot smarter than me.

And so I gave my kingdom up to him, and he took over the throne of my life.

The king is leaving.

He says, John 14, 15, 16, 17.

He says, I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I'm leaving.

Then he says this the Holy Spirit's gonna come.

The Holy Spirit's gonna come.

So listen to me, folks, it's important.

If the king leaves his kingdom, he leaves behind in his colony a governor.

And the governor rules for the king.

And the governor ruling for the king is the Holy Spirit.

If you receive Christ, you receive the Holy Spirit.

You become a kingdom citizen.

You become a citizen of God's kingdom.

And the Spirit is ruling in your life.

Couldn't have happened without the resurrection.

And you say, well, when are we gonna get to the resurrection part?

Okay, we're getting there.

All right.

Grammar time.

Who hated grammar in school?

Okay, you might hate this part.

Okay.

Prefixes change the meanings of words.

Remember that in English class?

Prefixes change the meanings of words.

It's called a stem.

Pose doesn't mean pose.

Pose literally means in the Latin to write something.

Com, com, C-O-M, a prefix, a stem, means to come together.

So compose is to write something that comes together.

That's where we get the word composition.

Composition, right?

Okay.

Vide, V-I-D-E in the Latin means what does it mean?

It means one.

D, die, die means two.

Divide means we separate what's one into two.

Well, the favorite prefix of God is re.

That's where we get resurrection.

Re.

So how many of you own a car?

Okay.

You deem.

That's your cars with deem mean.

Deem.

D-E-M means to own something.

Redeem means to own something again.

Repent.

Repent.

Repent means to think.

Pent means to think lofty thoughts.

That's why you have penthouse.

A penthouse is the highest apartment or townhouse or whatever it is up on a building.

That's pent.

Repent means to start thinking lofty thoughts.

In other words, to quit thinking your lowly thoughts, start thinking lofty thoughts, that's what literally repent means.

Now we come to the word resurrection.

Well, resurrection comes from the word resurge in the Latin.

So resurge.

So surge, if you look up surge, it means like a fountain surging up.

Resurge is that fountain bubbling up again.

Resurrection means to bubble up again.

It means new life again.

That's resurrection.

Now here's what's important.

Re means to go back to the original.

Re-means, if you look it up, means to go back to the original.

The resurrection, the resurge, the resurrection of Christ is a return to the original plan.

That's pretty good.

I think that's a good point.

Say amen if you think that's a good point.

That's a good point.

So the resurrection is a return to the original plan.

God wants to reestablish Eden, the temple, the holy ground of God in your heart.

We're not going to have Eden anywhere on this earth, but we start having Eden in our heart.

When we repent, when we start, when we turn from our ways and we start to follow his ways, you grow up.

You become the person you were recreated to be.

You go back to the original setting.

You go back to the original purpose of your life.

That's pretty good stuff, folks.

That's what the resurrection is.

So when I talk about the resurrection, three revolutionary thoughts.

Three revolutionary thoughts.

Three thoughts on the resurrection.

Here's what the purpose of the resurrection is.

Number one, Christ's resurrection redeemed us from the power of sin.

Christ's resurrection redeemed, he took ownership of your life and broke the power of sin.

Now, to prove his victory over sin, he had to prove it, listen, he had to prove it through death.

Why?

Because listen, the power of sin is death, and death is the power of sin.

They produce each other.

When we sinned, and I'm saying we in a vicarious way in the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned, the original plan was immortality, we died, they die, we all die.

By Christ breaking the power of death through the resurrection, he had to die in the first place.

And he died because he took on sin.

Now listen to what I'm saying.

Jesus was sinless.

He could not die.

He was immortal.

But when they hammered those nails into his hand and they pierced his side and nailed his feet to that cross, and the cross was raised up, he became a scourge.

Galatians' prophecy is that anyone who's raised up on a tree has sinned, he took on your sin so he could die.

And he died to break the power of sin, because the power of sin is death.

That's why, which we've been studying, we've been in Romans 6 recently, this is what Paul says.

Now listen closely.

Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

You hear what he's saying?

Death, by dying to the old life, breaks the power of sin over our life.

For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we die with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more.

Death no longer has dominion over him.

Men and women, you've been redeemed.

New owners.

The owner is Christ.

He has come.

Death has lost its sting.

Death has lost its power.

One of the things that was amazing to me with COVID was the fear of death over people.

Man, people would do anything not to die.

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I have no fear of death.

And let me tell you something.

When you have no fear of death, nobody can do anything to you that matters.

But listen, listen, listen, but if you fear death, people can almost do anything to you and you freak out.

I want to challenge you.

If you're here today and you have a fear of death, you might not be redeemed yet.

Whoa, Steve, are you saying that you have to have no fear of death before you're saved?

And I'm saying, maybe.

Because I read Romans 6.

And so if your heart still fears death, get born again today.

I mean, come to Christ, man.

I mean, grow up before you grow old.

This is the time.

This is the time.

Receive Christ.

He'll break the power of the fear of death, and you become immortal.

And your immortality begins on that day.

So, number one, first thing.

Christ's resurrection redeemed us from the power of sin.

Number two, Christ's resurrection restored the power of the kingdom of God to the church.

Christ's resurrection restored the power of the kingdom of God to the church.

Guess what the church is?

The church is not this building.

The church is not this sanctuary.

The church is you.

The church is you and me.

We're the church.

We're a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1, Paul says, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe?

According to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places.

Listen now, far above all principality and power.

Those are demon powers ruling over nations, principalities and powers and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And listen to this.

And he gave him to be head over all things.

What?

To the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Listen, this is really important.

The resurrection empowers you to walk into any situation, any place on the globe, and you have dominion.

You have the garden replaced now in you called the kingdom of God.

You're now an ambassador.

You should hold your head up, chest out, and be confident in Christ.

Because that power has been restored because of what he did by rising again from the grave.

It's what he did that you receive that becomes the new life and the power over all principalities and powers.

Colossians 3.

To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church.

This is so important.

This is so important.

By the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

So when I drove in this morning, I claimed Briar Gate.

I claimed Chapel Hills.

I claimed the northern part of this city for Jesus.

That the principalities and powers would move out of the way and that the kingdom of God would come with revival and revolution.

I have authority to do that because I have the Holy Spirit living within me.

You have the power of the Holy Spirit.

You can take over principalities and powers that are trying to take over your business, that are trying to take over your family, that are trying to ruin your kids, that are trying to mess up your life and cause you to live in panic and anxiety for the rest of your life.

Stop that.

I speak to the principalities and powers to stop that.

We lose freedom.

So first, Christ's resurrection redeemed us from the power of sin.

Number two, Christ's resurrection restored the power of the kingdom of God to the church.

And then thirdly and lastly, Christ's resurrection rewrites your story through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So listen to this, it's really important.

Okay, Genesis 2.7.

Everybody say Genesis 2.7.

Genesis 2.7.

And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

See what happened?

Man did not, man and woman did not become a living being until the Lord breathed into them.

So listen to what happens.

Listen to what happens.

This is really important.

Love this.

Then the same day, John 20, that evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came, he stood in the midst, and he said to them, Peace be with you.

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his scythe.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

So Jesus said to them again, Peace be to you, as the Father has sent me, I also send you.

And when he had said this, what did he do?

He breathed on them.

Same thing as Eden.

He breathed into them, and he said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

Men and women, this is a the resurrection is the restoration of the garden with the kingdom of God coming, with powers over all principalities and powers.

And when you receive Christ, you receive the Holy Spirit.

The power of the Holy Spirit.

And through the power of the Holy Spirit, all things are possible.

You can move mountains in your life.

You can break the power of panic.

You can break the power of anxiety.

You can break the power of depression.

You cannot without the Holy Spirit.

It will come back.

But through becoming a kingdom citizen, you can be redeemed and restored.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholdonline.org.

God bless.