Easter 2016: Rising Strong - Holy Week

You're listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Hole.

God wants us men and women and our young people to be fully alive, to be wholehearted.

And we foster that by a relationship with Christ that's not built on sin management, but it's built on a free spirit through the power of God.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

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

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

Mark 16.

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

Very early in the morning, maybe it was like 6 a.m.

On the first day of the week, it was a Sunday, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.

Verse 3.

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 already been rolled away, for it was very large.

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

But he said to them, Do not be alarmed.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who is crucified.

He is risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him.

But go tell his disciples and Peter.

I love that part.

Go tell the disciples and Peter.

And Peter denied him three times, and it was at the heart of the Lord that he would be one of the first to know, because they they knew the sense of guilt that he was carrying.

That he is going before you into Galilee, and 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, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Isn't it interesting that the very first men and women who had this encounter with the Lord actually were filled with fear?

Now when he arose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons.

She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept, and when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

And yet here they see him, and later we know that 500 saw him.

And it even says, many did not believe, because there's more to it than just physical evidence.

There has to be a heart transformation.

And so this tonight I want to talk about what I'm calling rising strong.

And I took the title from a Brene Brown book.

She's one of my favorite authors, and I love this book, Rising Strong.

And I thought it was a perfect synopsis and a title of what I want to talk about this idea of rising strong, actualizing the resurrection of Jesus Christ in your own life.

And how and why this resurrection is so key to living the Christian life and so key to living a life of victory over hardship.

I don't know how many of you figured this out.

Took me a long time to figure it out, but most of our life is not on mountaintops.

I've got news for you.

Most of it is in the valleys.

Even in the Christian life, most of our experiences are in valleys, not mountaintops.

Now, our young people just got back from retreat.

And they went up literally to a mountaintop, and they had a mountaintop experience.

And the tears that flowed and the repentance that occurred and the testimonies have just been awesome.

But now those young people are gonna have to go back into their high schools.

They're gonna have to be back with their parents, they're gonna be back in sort of normal life, and that's where most of us live.

So here's what I'm talking about here tonight about rising strong is how do we actualize the resurrection of Jesus Christ from more than just an historical event of the past.

I want to give you five things.

Let me just start with five things, and then I'm gonna go to four things.

We're gonna go five to four.

But the first is five things that I believe you must believe in order to rise up strong daily for a lifetime.

And here's the first one.

Number one is this you must believe that Jesus literally died on a cross and rose again on the third day.

That is actually an historical event that occurred that we believe in.

That's the starting point.

That we believe that literally in history, some 2,000 years ago, Jesus, the prophet, the priest, the one who called himself the king of the Jews, the Son of God, was crucified on a cross, was laid into a tomb, and on the third day, Mary and those with her found him risen, and then the disciples discovered him in Galilee, risen, then 500 saw him risen, and then they went to a mountaintop, as depicted in Matthew chapter 28, and he ascended to heaven.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

So literally we believe it.

That's the first thing.

Second thing, Jesus is the first fruits of our resurrection.

In other words, the resurrection of Christ, his bodily resurrection is a fruit, the Bible says a first fruit.

What that means is this first, this second Adam, this first resurrected Adam is a picture and a prophetic picture of the ideal that will be true for us.

That when you die, you will rise.

Not bodily at first, but your soul will be in the presence of the Lord if you're a Jesus follower.

Now, if you're not a Jesus follower, you can believe that, but yet it's not a reality for you.

But for those who are Christians, those who are Jesus' disciples, first of all, he bodily rose in history.

Secondly, there's actually a future resurrection for all of us.

But listen now.

Thirdly, when we surrender our life to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live in our life.

So his spirit comes into your life.

When you put your faith in Christ, the Spirit comes to live within you.

And here's what's exciting: is that that power is a dynamis and a dunamis.

It's a dynamis and a dunamis.

So in other words, it's it's a dynamic that transforms you, but it's also dunamis, which is where we get the word dynamite, dunamis, it's the power of God to transform you that begins to work in your life.

So there is actually, you're not doing this alone.

What I'm going to talk about, rising strong.

This is done through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Fourthly, to rise strong, you must actualize these truths in your life.

Now, the reason I threw this in as a truth is because most believers don't do this.

Most Christians not only are not rising strong, they're actually becoming weaker as the years go by.

I've been doing this thing called the Christian life for over 35 years, and I can tell you, most believers don't last very long because they don't actualize their faith.

Now I'm not saying they ditch their faith.

I'm not saying that they quit their faith.

Most people don't do that.

But there's no power in it.

There's no anointing in it.

And actually, if you look at their lives, it's not really all that different than anybody else, except they go to church on Sunday.

Or the roads, you go to church on Saturday night.

Oh, you go to church on Sunday, why, oh yeah, you're one of those religious types.

Wouldn't it be cool if more and more among us and the saints, people could actually notice a difference in the way you do life because you know Christ and because you love Christ.

So that's the fourth point.

We actualize that.

And then fifthly, and this is the hard one, if the fourth one wasn't hard enough.

The fifth one gets harder.

To rise strong as a Jesus disciple, you have to have courage.

It takes bravery, it takes courage, it takes resiliency, it takes everything within you to rise strong.

Now I was a gymnast in college.

And the only reason I was a gymnast in college and most of the guys on my high school team weren't gymnasts in college is because I worked harder than they did.

I was not more talented.

I just worked my buns off to be the best gymnast I could be.

So, where did that come from?

That comes from in all in everything that we do, it takes courage to change.

It takes courage to be transformed.

And so, in this idea of rising strong, it takes a courage and it takes a bravery to say, I want to be changed and transformed in these ugly areas of my life where I'm just getting beaten down all the time.

And at some point, I'm actually gonna quit blaming others and I'm gonna take responsibility for my life, and I'm gonna start rising strong through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

And it means, listen, don't miss this, being wholehearted.

And so what I mean by being wholehearted isn't just that you're all in, even though it does mean that.

Being wholehearted means that you fail continually, that you fall all the time, that you sin, that you have shame, that you have hurt and you have pain, but you face it.

You face it.

The reason I say you face it is because Jesus said this love me with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor is yourself, and it sums up everything in life.

That's the key to success.

The key to success is to love me with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Well, if you've got this dark part of your heart called shame or lust or jealousy or envy or strife, and guess what?

Everybody does, and if you think you don't, you're really messed up.

But the key to loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength is to face it, not run from it anymore.

Quit hiding.

And so when we stop hiding and harboring our stuff and we face it, that wholehearted devotion begins a process by which we can start to rise strong in our lives.

So it means cultivating the courage to wake up in the morning and think, no matter how much I fail today, no matter how many mistakes I make today, Christ is still enough.

The risen Christ is still enough, and I'm still worthy of love.

You are still worthy of love when you fail, because you will.

You're still worthy of love with that shame that you carry because Jesus is healing you as you rise strong.

It's going to bed at night and looking back and saying, I blew it here, and I shouldn't have said that there, but I am beloved of the Lord.

I'm forgiven.

I'm still enough.

He's still enough, and I'm going to go to bed tonight.

I'm going to get a good night's late, and I'm going to start off tomorrow.

Being wholehearted is saying to yourself this I will face the dark places of my heart because Jesus rose from the dead.

And in his power I can rise out of my own darkness.

Because if I don't, if I keep hiding out in my addictions and my selfishness and my shame, I will continually kill myself.

I will kill my vision, I will kill my spirit, I will kill my heart, I will kill my creativity, and I will kill my ability to experience love, forgiveness, and joy.

But I will choose the risen Christ to live his life and his power through me.

That's rising strong.

So let me give you four things.

Four things that are true about you.

You don't know this, but it's true about you.

If you're a Jesus follower, this is true about every one of you.

First, you're beloved.

You are beloved.

You are loved.

You see, what we sometimes forget in the story of Jesus because we let the deity of Jesus overshadow the humanity of Jesus.

But because he was fully man, even his heavenly father said to him at his baptism, You are my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

Now most of us in this room did not hear that from our earthly fathers.

Most of us in this room did not hear that from our earthly mothers.

Maybe you've never heard it.

But by the work of the risen Christ created in the image of God, each one of you, you are beloved.

No matter what that coach said, no matter what that teacher said, no matter what that parent said, it is true, you are beloved.

You're loved.

You're loved.

And it's out of that belovedness that Jesus could love others.

It was out of the forgiveness that Jesus experienced from his heavenly father, and probably from his earthly mother and his earthly father too, that he could then forgive others.

It was the healing that he experienced through being proclaimed through and by his heavenly father as he came up out of the water, you are my beloved son, that he could show and share that love with all those around him.

So even Jesus needed that.

And we all need that, and we're all beloved.

The Bible says, for God so loved the world, so loved you and me that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

That's being beloved.

Henry Nowen, a Catholic priest writing to an agnostic Jewish friend, said this.

My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being.

You are beloved.

The Bible says, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

The Bible says, in this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only Son into the world that we might live through Him.

In this is love.

Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

So first of all, church, you are beloved.

Second of all, you are courageous.

Because it takes courage to say to yourself, I'm beloved.

It takes courage for you to be here tonight.

I can't tell you how many people, even in the past week or two, said, Oh, we'll come to that.

Pastor Steve, we want to come to the Easter service, da-da-da-da-da, and they're not here.

How many times the pastor, oh yeah, we're gonna come to the road, and they're not here.

They're hardly ever here.

And then as a missionary, when I was a missionary in Japan and we were sharing Christ with the Japanese, it takes courage to follow Jesus.

It takes courage to get up and go to church.

It takes courage during tax season.

But they're never gonna know.

To tell the truth, to have integrity at your work, to have integrity with your sons and daughters.

I'm a father.

I'm a son.

I'm a dad.

I'm a husband.

Blow it all the time.

And it takes courage to say, I blow it all the time.

And to go to my son and apologize, and to go to my wife and apologize.

I'm having to do it all the time.

But that takes courage, and that's the courage that you guys have.

It takes courage to make a marriage work.

Anyone who's been married, you know what I'm talking about.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, keep coming, you'll figure it out.

But the reality is one of the hardest things is marriage.

And the next hardest is marriage with kids.

But this marriage thing, this thing where we give ourselves to another person, it takes courage.

To rise strong, it takes courage to do the right thing, church.

It takes courage to tell the truth.

It takes courage to admit it when you've lied.

It takes courage to face our shame.

Iranius, one of the church fathers, once said this the glory of God is a man fully alive.

The glory of God is a man fully alive.

Don't you want to be fully alive?

Don't you?

I watched a Creed last night, that movie in Iraqi Balboa.

Dude's really old now.

And uh and but it's a really good movie, actually.

It's a good movie.

There's one scene where you kind of go, oh, we don't need that part.

But anyway, they always have to.

Okay.

But I'll just say there's one scene.

I'm not advocating that scene, okay?

But I think the movie's good.

Just watch who you take, I guess.

But anyway, the reason we like movies like that is because the guy is wholehearted.

He's fully alive.

In this case, in the area of boxing.

God wants us men and women and our young people to be fully alive, to be wholehearted.

And we foster that by a relationship with Christ that's not built on sin management, but it's built on a free spirit through the power of God.

The reason Christ in the lives of our in the lives of our kids and the life of our marriage.

David was a man fully alive, a man who was wholehearted, and did he ever blow it?

The sins of David are legion.

He murdered a guy.

He had an affair.

He was a lousy father.

And yet, a thousand years later, Paul, in speaking of David, said this.

You see, David, in the midst of his sin, knew that he was loved.

And his identity was in the love of Christ in his life.

And some of you here tonight come with sins that are legion.

Some of you in this room carry the burden of deep sin and shame.

Come to Christ.

Lay it down before Him and let the power of His Spirit begin to rejuvenate and recover a new person in you by you giving your life to Christ.

He'll take it and he'll transform you into the image of Christ.

So, first of all, you're beloved.

Second of all, you are courageous.

Thirdly, you are successful.

Successful.

To rise strong, you can be successful.

But success, God's way, is not necessarily success, the world's way.

Henry Nowen writes, You are beloved.

It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout out, you're no good, you're ugly, you're worthless, you're despicable, you're a nobody.

Unless you can demonstrate the opposite.

These negative voices are so loud and persistent that it's easy to believe them.

That's the great trap.

The trap of self-rejection.

Over the years, I've come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection.

When we come to believe the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions.

Being the beloved is the core truth of our existence.

Men and women, being beloved and knowing and experiencing intimacy with Jesus Christ is the core of your existence.

Because if it's not at the core of our existence, we are going to be trapped in this pursuit to please everybody to pursue material wealth or success as the standard of the world.

And we're going to constantly be frustrated.

Our life is going to be highs and lows and highs and lows constantly, because sometimes you feel successful, sometimes you don't feel successful, sometimes you've made it, sometimes you haven't made it, by this imaginary measuring rod that just keeps being out of our grasp.

Or we can come to understand that I was created, and your heart was created to love God, to know God, and to experience his intimacy.

And men and women, that's through the word of God.

That's mainly through the word of God.

That's opening God's word every day and spending time with the Lord.

Say, well, where do I start?

I don't know the Bible very well.

Start in the Psalms.

It's the right center.

You can take your Bible and just open it up.

Psalms.

150 Psalms.

You could take the day of the week.

What's it 26 today?

So you could make Psalm 26.

And just read it and then pray it back to the Lord.

Read it and pray it back to the Lord.

Watch what God will do.

It'll start to show up.

You'll start to hear his voice.

You'll experience his love.

That's success.

The apostle Paul really understood success.

And I love the way this is paraphrased from Galatians 2.20.

Paul says this.

I've been crucified with Christ.

My ego is no longer central.

It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion.

And I'm no longer driven to impress God.

Christ lives in me.

The life you see me living is not mine, but it is lived by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I'm not going to go back on that.

And so Paul understood a relationship where his ego and his value was not in the externals, but in the internal relationship he had with him.

And he could actually say, I'm crucified with Christ.

And the risen Christ now lives within me.

That's rising strong.

That's what Easter's about.

That's what the resurrection is about.

It's God rising strong daily in our lives, giving ourselves to Him.

So you're beloved, you're courageous, you're successful.

And then lastly, fourthly, you're a lover.

You're a lover of men.

You're a lover of others.

You're a lover of people.

When we learn, here's what's so exciting.

When we learn to experience God's love, we start showing it.

You show me a man or a woman who can't love others, I'll show you someone who's never experienced the love of God.

You show me a man or woman who is showing that love to others.

That's someone is someone who knows God's love.

And that's why Jesus said it so clearly.

Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then your neighbor as yourself.

The Bible says, by this we know love, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

The Bible says, and this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another.

Wow.

So this summer, and Amy Lathan's gonna share this next week, we're gonna be doing two initiatives in the summer.

We're calling it the Springs Initiative.

And we're gonna go as a church into the poorest part of Colorado Springs and we're gonna paint houses.

We're gonna go to those who are needy and those who have just rundown homes, and we're gonna get in there and we're gonna help those folks and we're gonna bless them.

And we're gonna pick a neighborhood and we're gonna keep going back to that neighborhood year after year.

And we're gonna do it twice this summer because God has called us to be a lover of others.

You're a lover.

But you don't know you're a lover until you love.

And sometimes one of the greatest things we can do, kind of interesting.

I wish I had the research because I was just reading it today, but I didn't put it in my notes.

We're in the book of Revelation right now, but I'll I'll figure out a way to stick it in.

Um that's what a pastor can do.

I used to see it, oh, okay, that's where is that?

I don't know, I just thought I'd put that in.

But they did research and they found this.

This is a Stanford professor who found that when you take risk with something, like you take a risk, something you fear, and you take a risk on that, it's not so much what it does to you at that particular event.

What the study showed is by doing that, it's what it does to the rest of your life.

That when you took a risk of faith in this area by stepping out by faith and trusting God with something that you were kind of scared of and you weren't sure how it was going to turn out.

It's not so much about that event that impacts the people in the research study.

What they found is how it affects their whole life after that.

They start viewing everything in their life differently because you know why?

And he doesn't say this part, but this is where that's where he's just a Stanford guy.

But you, as a Jesus follower, are being released into resurrection power, and it starts to affect everything in your life.

Because you're walking by faith and not by fear.

And most of us, quite frankly, live a lot and make a lot of decisions based on fear.

And God's increasing your faith.

So that's why as we go forward this year, we're gonna take some risk as a church.

We're gonna go out, we're gonna go into this poor section, and we're gonna love on these people, and we're gonna bless them, we're gonna minister to them.

So rise strong.

Rise strong in your life.

Know that you're beloved.

Know that you're courageous.

Know that you're successful.

And know that you're a lover of others.

Because when you do that, you'll be set free.

So, Father, we thank you so much for rising from the grave.

God, we thank you so much that through your Son Jesus Christ, we're a new creation.

That we can rise strong because you tell us we're beloved.

We can rise strong because you make us courageous.

We can rise strong because our success is based on the love of God, not the love of men.

And we can rise strong because through your power we can love others.

And so, Father, we bless your work here tonight at the road.

And I pray, God, your spirit over your saints here would be strong upon them and they would know and experience your love tonight.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.