Easter 2020: Invited Into Family - Holy Week

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Where are you today?

What will you do with the resurrection of Christ?

A huge rock was removed over the tomb.

And God can move any rock over any heart to give us new life.

And the springs of living water can flow into our hearts.

Victory is possible.

Resurrection joy, resurrection power is possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

So I want to ask you a question here to start off our Easter Sunday.

How many atoms are there in a Brussels sprout?

What do you think about that?

Here's a second one.

How would you measure the weight of your head?

Fourteen bizarre questions were asked in England's brightest minds, those from Oxford and Cambridge, just to see how well they could think on their feet with logic and deduction outside of their areas of study.

They had a panel of six intellectual celebrities.

Did you hear what I said?

Intellectual celebrities.

That's an oxymoron.

Answering these questions, question number 10 was, why are we here?

One person said, only God can answer that.

One philosopher said, Well, if you're religious, you believe that you're here to serve God.

But if you're not religious, you're here for no reason.

A TV journalist said, most of us spend our lives trying to answer that question.

And I certainly have not figured it all out yet.

She had to be commended for her honesty, for she speaks for most of us today.

In normal, everyday life, how would you answer?

Why am I here?

One guy I heard said, Well, I don't know, I got started and I just can't quite stop.

Woody Allen, a tragic comic figure who's actually pretty intelligent, said, the fundamental thing behind all motivation and activity is a constant struggle against annihilation and death.

It is stupefying in its terror and renders anyone's accomplishments meaningless.

Now, to the extent of his thinking, and to the extent of your thinking, your view of life is either utterly meaningless or it has real lasting value.

We live in a world that considers human beings, men and women, as walking monkeys who got an evolutionary break.

Our world tells us time plus matter plus chance equals walking monkeys or human beings.

The temptation is to escape.

Like the famous cartoonist Ralph Barton, who wrote this on his suicide note.

I've had few difficulties, many friends, great successes, have gone from wife to wife and from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill 24 hours of the day.

The question is, does what happened on Easter speak in any way to these questions?

Does Easter speak to the meaning of life?

Why is it that billions of people today, more than any one thing in all of the world, are worshiping Jesus Christ as a risen Savior?

So this is the situation on the morning 2,000 years ago.

Joseph of Arimathea had given the Jews a tomb.

The Romans had rolled a large two-ton stone against the entrance of the tomb because there was a rumor that this man Jesus might rise from the grave.

A guard of Roman soldiers were guarding the tomb 247.

And now the women are bringing spices to the tomb to reanoint the body.

The stone is looming large in the minds of the women.

Who's going to remove the stone?

They wonder.

And we pick up our story in Mark 16.

So if you have your Bibles, look at Mark 16, starting at verse 1.

Now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, the Saloon, brought spices, that they might come and anoint him.

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb, and the sun had risen.

And they said among themselves, Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very great.

And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe, sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

Verse 6.

But he said to them, Do not be alarmed, you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He is risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him, but go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee.

There you will see him, as he said to you.

So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed.

In all the records of the Bible, all the accounts agree that Jesus rose from the dead.

They all agree from the perspective of eyewitness accounts.

And what's interesting is all of the accounts are slightly different.

It's slightly different because each sharing their perspective of the resurrection of Christ from their eyewitness account and from their own personality and perspective.

For that would speak of men who did not go into a room and come up with a story where everybody agreed, which would be called collusion.

Rather, the story has different perspectives from different men who saw and experienced the same thing.

It's exactly what you would expect.

One journalist says it this way: each paper's headline has its own ideas.

And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all share from different perspectives the resurrection of Christ.

But in our story, where are the men?

Where are they?

The women come to the tomb.

The women are at the cross.

But where are the men?

Let's summarize it this way: deserted.

They fled the scene after the garden, they book it.

Denial.

Peter openly denies Jesus, and then all of them deny him also.

Disbelief.

Even when the women tell them they do not believe.

They are a group of defeated men.

But some fifty days later, you find these disillusioned, disappointed, depressed men boldly and powerfully proclaiming that Jesus has risen from the dead, totally and radically transformed.

What's amazing is that they never changed their story.

As the decades went on, eleven of the twelve disciples died martyrs' death, proclaiming that Jesus rose again on the third day.

Even secular history tells us the church is birthed out of the Calvary seed that changes the world, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Even our dating system is set up with the letters AD Ano Domini, the year of our Lord.

Clearly, something happened at what we call Easter, the resurrection day.

Twelve fearful, distressed men bringing forth a message of a resurrected Lord, all of them proclaiming that they had seen the Christ.

So what happened?

What happened on that Easter morning?

Professor Thomas Arnold, the late chair of modern history at Oxford, author of the famous three-volume set on the history of Rome, once wrote, I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them.

And I know of no one fact in the history of humankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort to the understanding of a fair inquirer than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose from the dead.

H.

G.

Wells, the famous atheist, once said, I'm an historian and not a believer, but this penniless preacher from Galilee is irresistibly the center of all history.

In June 1815, a famous day in English history, Wellington versus Napoleon at Waterloo, the French against the English.

All of the nation of England anticipating the news, either victory or defeat.

They had signal boats to tell them what was happening.

The boats in the English Channel would tell the outpost in the steeple of Westminster the news.

The message was partially obscured by the fog.

The signal seemed to say Wellington defeated.

The worst had happened, the word went out to the far reaches of England.

Wellington has been defeated.

Then the fog lifted.

And actually the message says, Wellington defeated the French.

Good Friday, blood, sweat, tears, defeat.

The message, Jesus defeated.

The new message today, on Resurrection Sunday, when the fog clears, Jesus defeated the grave.

Men and women, we are in an election year, and there's very little in politics or culture that's unanimous.

But in all surveys taken, experts will tell you there is 100% mortality.

You're all gonna die.

We are all gonna die.

But the Bible says, so when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Oh death, where is your sting?

Oh Hades, where is your victory?

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Men and women, the spoils go to the victor.

Jesus rose from the grave and he can rise from the grave in your heart today.

Jesus was in the grave for three days.

And some of you are in the grave right now.

You feel dead, you feel demoralized, you feel defeated, and Jesus has come to give you the ultimate victory.

The victory over death in your life.

That means victory in your life.

God has removed a two-ton stone away from the tomb of your heart, and he wants to bring victory into your life.

Jesus Christ has given us the victory over the powers of darkness.

Jesus has given us the victory over Satan and his angels.

Jesus has given us the victory over depression and anxiety.

Young man was brought to my office for prayer.

He couldn't sleep at night.

He was only 12 years old.

Contemplated committing suicide, and his parents brought them to me.

We gathered other men and women into the room and we anointed this 12-year-old young man with oil.

We prayed over him.

We cast out his demons, and he never had another bad dream.

He never had another suicidal thought.

He was set free by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

Through the cross and through the resurrection, Jesus has given us victory over sickness.

I received an email, and this is what it said.

When our daughter was two and a half years old, she developed a very strong stutter.

She started talking at 13 months old and had a huge vocabulary by the time she was two.

Then all of a sudden, she started stuttering.

It was pretty uncontrollable at the end of every three or four words.

We were so shocked we weren't sure what to do.

After a few trips to the pediatrician, we just decided one night to anoint her with oil and pray over her.

The next morning, her stutter was gone.

God has since used her speaking ability to excel in speech and debate, and I know he will use her in the near future as well.

We are incredibly thankful for his healing in our life.

Men and women, the cross and the resurrection gives us victory over a hopeless marriage.

A couple just about to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary when the bottom dropped out of their life.

Because of a revelation of a deep-rooted addiction, the husband resigned his job and entered an intensive recovery program.

Separating them for three long months.

Their two adult children seemed to abandon them.

As the husband went through therapy, the wife began to engage close friends and trusted support groups, digging into the truth of God's word, seeking hope in prayer, and doing battle with the weapon of fasting.

And she writes, I began to have hope, not in myself or my husband or my kids, but in the living God who never fails.

The message of Easter and what Christ bore for me on the cross took on new meaning.

The message of true forgiveness brought me to a place of surrender and grace and mercy for myself as well as for my husband.

True forgiveness, no strings attached, is a powerful thing.

And that was some eight years ago, and they're walking strongly still today because of the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Where are you today?

What will you do with the resurrection of Christ?

A huge rock was removed over the tomb, and God can move any rock over any heart to give us new life, and the springs of living water can flow into our hearts.

Victory is possible.

Resurrection joy, resurrection power is possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For a long time, even into the 14th century, Europeans believed that there was nothing past the coast of Portugal.

There was even a sign in the port of Lisbon written in French, ne flu ultra, meaning nothing beyond this.

Then, of course, in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered all the vastness of the New World.

They changed the sign to read flu ultra, meaning there is more beyond this.

Do you believe there's more beyond this?

Is your sign ne flu ultra?

There's nothing beyond this.

Do you believe that?

I know that you don't believe that.

God has put eternity in our hearts.

You know that's not true.

You know it is flu ultra.

There is more beyond this.

Church, men and women, Jesus rose from the grave.

And because of that fact, the resurrection is the basis for all faith.

Jesus is alive and billions concur.

There are more people alive today than ever in the history of the world combined.

He alone can give us all hope.

He alone can give us faith.

He alone can transform your life.

He alone can transform your marriage.

He alone can break the power and the stone of depression over your heart.

He can remove that stone and bring resurrection and new life and hope again into your heart.

What will you do with Jesus this resurrection day 2020?

Jesus said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens that door, I will come into him.

You see, what he's saying is, Behold, I stand at the dark tomb of your heart in a knock.

If you will open up that door of your heart, I will be risen again into your life as I have billions around the world.

The Bible says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And for you that are listening to this, if you've never opened up your heart to Jesus Christ, I'm not talking about religion.

I'm talking about to Jesus, the resurrected Christ.

You can join the billions around the world who have given their life and their future and their fortunes and their income to Christ, everything to Christ, to discover new life in Him.

You can join them by experiencing that resurrection in your heart.

So I want to give you that chance here this morning to open up your heart to Christ.

The risen Lord Jesus Christ.

So wherever you are, would you bow your head with me?

And if you've never surrendered your life to Christ, you can do that right now.

This resurrection day, this glorious day.

Like many of us who've given our hearts to Christ, we prayed a prayer similar to this.

Lord Jesus, I open my heart to you.

I want you to come in.

Thank you for going to the cross for my sins.

Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.

Thank you that you rose again on the third day.

Come into my heart and take over my life and make me a new person in Christ.

So, Father God, right now, I pray that across this land, for all those that are streaming, that Father God, those that are feeling that tug, that sense that this is what they want to do, they would open up their heart to you right now and receive you into their hearts to believe, to confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in their heart that God has raised you from the dead.

God, you promise that if we will do that, we can be saved.

So right now, if that's you, if that is what God is doing in your heart right now, if you know in your spirit, oh God, I need you.

I want to experience you.

I want to love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And pray with me right now.

Lord Jesus, I open my heart to you.

I give you my heart.

Lord, I thank you for dying on the cross for all of my sins.

Forgive me now.

Forgive me of my selfishness.

Forgive me of going my own way.

Please come into my life today.

I surrender all to you.

And Lord, begin to transform me.

Change me.

Into a new man, into a new woman, into a new child.

Thank you that I can be a son, a daughter of the King.

Thank you for rising again in the third day.

Thank you for rising now in my life.

Bless you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

Amen.

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