Easter 2022

Amen.

My name is Rust, and I want to say happy Easter.

He is risen.

Oh man, you guys got it.

You got it.

Let's do it one more time.

He is risen.

He is.

Yes, he is.

Happy Easter.

So excited you're with us to celebrate Easter.

Excited for those of you that are watching and join with us online.

Some of you are part of our Church at the Grove family.

Some of you might be worshiping with us for the first time.

And I want to encourage you, you can text Grove Guests at 9700, and we'd love to connect with you and build a relationship with you, whether it's online or whether it's in person, excited about this Easter weekend in a huge way.

When I was growing up, I grew up as one of three boys, and I was the youngest, and I got pummeled all the time.

See, see, you're supposed to say, oh, Russ.

Oh, yeah.

Y'all, come on, get with it.

I know, get you got to get with it.

I got beat up all the time.

Either laugh or say, oh me, one or the other.

Yeah, thank you.

So uh, so but but we would be out on the field, and many of you know how this is.

Even if you had siblings, or if you were just out with friends, you would be playing, and there was always a game that would come up.

And it might be kickball or it might be baseball, or it might be some organized game that, or you just made a game up, and somebody kept score.

And I don't know how it was with your family, but with my my family and the friends that I hung out on my street, everything was subjective.

It was subjective.

Whoever was the biggest and the strongest is the one who decided what the score was.

And it was never in favor of those of us that were younger and smaller.

And so victory was decided by the person that had the most strength and who was the biggest.

It didn't matter what happened in the game in reality, they they won the game.

It was always subjective.

And we live in a world where things are like that often in all of life.

We are defining the rules.

People define the rules as they go in life.

Even in organized sports at higher levels, when there are trained officials, everybody's gonna argue.

They're gonna argue.

Well, you didn't make the right call.

We lost because there's always we lost because.

Something happened.

Now, those of us that are believers, we believe that a Jewish rabbi named Yeshua, Jesus, he gave his life for us to win our hearts, to win our lives.

And there is no doubting the score.

And when that weekend, that first Easter weekend concluded, forgiveness was given, death was defeated, and demons were disarmed.

Forgiveness was given, death was defeated, and demons disarmed.

Now I want to speak primarily, most of us probably in this room, probably most of us are believers.

We're followers of Jesus.

Some of you may not be.

You may be standing on the outside, and you may be, uh you might be spiritually curious, or maybe you feel like you're not interested, and you came with somebody that asked you to come, or you came because somebody made you come.

But regardless, I'm gonna speak primarily to believers about what Christ accomplished 2,000 years ago.

And we're gonna read out of a letter called the Letter of Colossians, written to the church at a place called Colossae.

And it was a church that was planted by a guy named Epaphras.

Um, and Paul had never been there at this point.

He had not planted this church, he had not pastored that church to the best of our ability, he had never visited this church, but through correspondence, Ephras had had related to Paul some of the struggles that were taking place at the church in Colossae.

Not uncommon with what uh some of the struggles with many of the other churches um um during the early days of the New Testament.

But specific specifically in Colossae, um, Epaphras is telling Paul we're struggling.

We started this church with this the with strong believers who had put their faith in what Christ had done in his life and his death and his resurrection.

But over time, just like it happens today, 2,000 years later, we get distracted and we get pulled in many directions.

And so history tells us that the they they lived in what was a Greco-Roman culture where there was a God for everything.

There was a Roman God for just about anything and everything in life, and so that pulled, that constantly pulled at those that had grown up with that Greco-Roman influence.

On the other end of the extreme, you had the Jewish believers that, regardless of how strong they started in their faith, putting their faith in Jesus as being their savior, their rabbi, who had suffered and died on their behalf, they would revert back to Jewish legalism and Jewish ritual.

And so Paphrist is telling Paul, saying, saying, we've got some that are falling back into these worshiping multiple gods, uh, the these Greco-Roman gods.

We've got others that are falling back into their Jewish roots and and worshiping uh through wanting to worship through sacrifice, placing value on circumcision, placing um value on certain ritual and practices.

And Epaphras is begging Paul, help me, help me pastor these people toward the truth, toward Jesus, toward Jesus' work at the cross and what he provides through his bodily resurrection.

And so what what Epaphras does, and if you I won't let you read back through that letter, but in chapter one, he he gives a beautiful poem that really points to the supremacy of Christ and who Christ is, the identity of Christ.

He is preeminent, he is supreme, he is the God, he is the creator of the universe.

And then he goes into some practical areas and how to pastor this church, and he gets to these two uh these three verses, Colossians 2, 13, 14, and 15.

And here's what he's saying: he's reminding the people there about where they've come from and where they need to keep their focus.

He says, You were dead because of your sins.

You were dead because of your sins, because of your sinful nature was not yet cut away.

Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities, he shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

And there's two primary results I want to really focus on that that come from that, from these three verses.

And the first one is the provision of God, the second is the practice of the way of Jesus.

And we won't spend a lot of time on it at the very end because it leads into the this next series we're gonna be doing after this week, starting next Sunday.

But the the most time, most of our time will be spent on the provision of God.

He says in verse 13, you were dead because of your sins, and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.

Then God made you alive with Christ.

See, we're all dead in our sins.

We're all dead in our sins.

But here's the beauty of what happens on the cross.

You can write in, take notes.

Death is defeated at the cross.

Death is defeated through the empty tomb.

You are given the gift of eternal life.

You're made alive with Jesus Christ.

And we have to be made alive because we're all dead in our sins.

We all have a sin problem.

Every since Adam and Eve decided that they would choose their own way over God's way, and they took the fruit from the forbidden tree, and they partake, they ate of it.

It opened their eyes to the reality of sin.

It opened their eyes to sin and shame, and sin became part of the equation.

What does sin mean?

Many of you know this, you know this, but it's good to be reminded.

The word sin is an archery term that literally means to miss the target, to miss the target.

God has given us the law as a target.

God has given us the law.

He's given us the written law, he's put it in our conscience, in our heart, and and sin is when we know what is right and we don't do it.

There's sins of omission, there's sins of commission, there's sins that we where we don't do the things that we should do, then there's the sins of commission where we do things that are wrong, knowing um that we should have done the right thing.

And so God, God had given Adam and Eve this perfect life, this perfect harmony with him, walking in his presence in the Garden of Eden.

The Jewish people call it the shalom of God.

Everything began with shalom.

No pain, no imperfection, no, no uh diseases, no pandemics.

They walked with God in the cool of the day, perfect joy, perfect hope, perfect love, perfect peace.

And then the enemy comes and tempts them and says, Can you really believe what God says is true?

And he leads them to partake of that fruit.

And as soon as they eat of it, this whole world of shame and pain and the consequences that come with it are open to their life.

They try to cover themselves late.

They're aware of their nakedness.

Ultimately, they're banished from the presence of God.

Eternal banishment.

Their bodies begin to decay.

They no longer are going to live without any sickness or aging or pain.

And everything changes.

They have children, and their children end up killing one another.

The first murder takes place with one child murdering another.

And as a result, the apostle Paul says in Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And Paul talks about this all through scripture, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

He says, Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins, you used to live in sin just like the rest of the world.

He's talking about us believers, obeying the devil, the commander of the powers of the unseen world.

He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.

All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature.

By our very nature, we were subject to God's anger, just like everyone else.

And so we're all sinners.

We've all been sinners.

Whether you've been in legal trouble, you've faced, I mean, like you, you know, capital S, that's me.

You've been in legal trouble, you've you've you've had, you've had the, you know, you have the shame of having to walk in and walk out of a police station.

And this was before I was a police chaplain.

This was not voluntary.

Or if you're like my wife and you just, I said, my wife's like the, you know, she's the most godly person I've ever known.

But she has sinned.

I mean, it might have been as just, you know, she might have just smoked a crayon in preschool.

I mean, it may have just been that bad.

I mean, it may not have been really bad, but I mean, she sinned at some point.

And I've probably seen it a little bit more up close since I've been married to her, but but it's there.

So all of history we've had to deal with sin.

But God doesn't leave us there.

And I love this next part of Ephesians 2.

He says, but God, the two most beautiful words in all of Scripture.

But God, but God.

Let's say it together.

But God, rich in mercy, he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.

It is only by God's grace that you've been saved, for he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.

So God can point us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us as shown in all uh in all he has done for for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

Paul writes to his disciple Titus, he in chapter 3, verses 5 and 6, he says, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, not because of anything we've done, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

Martin Luther writes in his work called The Bondage of the Will.

He says that we are not, we are so enslaved to sin, we are not even able ourselves to turn and see the grace and mercy of Jesus without the regeneration that takes place through the work of the Holy Spirit.

And when the Holy Spirit regenerates us, we are awakened to our sin and our need for Jesus, at which time we are given the ability to look and see that we need forgiveness.

That's how enslaved we are to sin.

And the Jewish people and religious people all over the world, but let me speak about Jewish people.

If you've been to Israel or if you looked up archaeology, they're constantly digging up new things over in uh Israel, in the Middle East.

And one of the things they find over and over and over are these baptismal pools called mikvas.

And many of them are so big you can walk down steps and you can go through these baptismal waters.

And they believed so much in their need for cleansing from sin.

The shame was so real in their life that they would be baptized, they would baptize themselves multiple times a day, occasionally.

The people who are thought to be the writers of the or the keepers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, they had mikvehs all over their areas down by the Dead Sea.

And it was this desperate need for cleansing.

And here's what here's what we see that what Jesus does is he gives us in his work on the cross, he gives us as a gift the eternal life of Jesus Christ.

And it's a reminder, it says, He says he nailed it to the cross.

We have the cross to look at for the eternal life of Jesus Christ.

He's given us life, he's made you alive, he's given you the gift of eternal life.

You are not held captive to death.

Death is defeated.

But we also see that your sins are forgiven.

Verse 13, you were dead because of your sins, and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away, then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

How many of our sins?

He forgave all of your sins, your past sins, your present sins, and your future sins.

He is forgiven.

If you are in Christ, you are forgiven.

You are given the gift of eternal life, eternal righteousness, and you were you are given the gift of forgiveness of sins.

He's made you alive and he's forgiven all of your sins.

I had a pastor share this letter with me not long ago from a person in his church, and he didn't share a name or anything.

He was protecting their anonymity, and but he says, I just I'm so burdened over this man.

And here's what he writes I'm 31 years old and divorced.

Though I fought the divorce bitterly, he says, I feel bad.

I have no hope for my future.

Often I go home and cry, but there's no one holding me when I cry.

Here's what he says: nobody cares.

Nothing changes, and I continue to fail.

I'm stressed out emotionally, and I feel I'm on the verge of a collapse.

Something is very wrong, but I feel so hurt and embittered that I can scarcely react or relate to others anymore.

I feel as if I'm going to have to sit out the rest of my life in the penalty box.

That's what he says.

And here's what I'm telling you tonight, today, as we celebrate Easter, you don't have to live that way.

Hallelujah.

Yes.

Praise God.

You don't have to live that way.

I look, Paul says, there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

You know why?

Because your sins are forgiven.

Psalm 103, 10 through 13.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

Your sins are forgiven.

You're given the gift of eternal life.

Death is defeated, and your sins are forgiven.

And the next, your debt is canceled.

Your debt is canceled.

Your debt is canceled.

There's been a payment made on your behalf.

The blood of Jesus has purchased you.

Your debt is canceled.

Any rebellion, anything that could be held against you ever again.

That's good news, isn't it?

See, some of you drove up in this parking lot and you thought you were driving up in your car, but in reality, it's not your car.

You know why?

Because there's a title for your car, and you don't have it.

The bank has it.

So you think it's your car, but it's really not your car.

It's the bank's car.

Now I know that's not the case for all of you because you've all taken Financial Peaks University.

But one day, you're, you're, you hope, you're gonna make a payment.

And when you make that payment, it's done.

They're gonna stamp it paid in full, and what are they gonna hand you?

The title.

Here's what Jesus has done.

He says, your debt is canceled.

Verse 14, he canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

By nailing it to the cross.

And so, so so he says, he says, I forgot, I forgot my forgiveness of sins.

I forgot to put, y'all let me forget to put this up here.

Um, and so he says there's forgiveness of sins right here, right?

Right, there's forgiveness of sins.

So we've got that from the cross, and then he says that the debt is canceled, which means there is redemption.

The debt has been uh paid.

Um, your title is is coming to you, or it is handed, it is given to you.

The debt is canceled.

No more record of wrong in your life.

You are free from any any promissory note that would be held against you.

We live.

Many of us, we know this in our minds, but we struggle with walking and living in it.

Just eighteen inches away from our brains to our heart.

And as a result, it doesn't show up in our life.

We're not living and walking in the freedom with what Christ has done, with the gift of eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, our debt has been canceled, redemption, our freedom has been bought and paid for.

And so sometimes we just gotta stop and we've gotta celebrate that the enemy is defeated, and we've gotta focus on what's been done on our behalf, and our response should be overwhelming, thankfulness.

Overwhelming, gratefulness.

Our response should be worship.

Our response is to is to consider that we are set free.

Jonah alluded to this.

And I'm gonna tell you that on Friday night of Easter weekend, it felt like Satan was one and Jesus was zero.

Because they took his lifeless body off that cross and they went and put it in a tomb.

And Jonah alluded, can you imagine what Saturday would have felt like for those that followed Jesus?

Can you imagine what every angel in the universe was thinking, what they were going through, what they thought?

Even those that knew what the outcome was supposed to be, can you imagine the weightiness of that whole day long?

And I'm gonna tell you that the empty tomb and the Roman cross that Jesus was crucified on, they go together.

It's not either or, it's the both and.

But I want you to think about first what he did on that cross for you to give you life, to forgive of you of your sins, and to cancel the debt against you.

So would you would you stand, just stand with me for a second?

And I would like to have just a time of reflection.

We're gonna reflect in song.

And I pray that it would be passionate, and it would be it would be this cognitive realization of knowing what Christ has done.

Mixed together with this heartfelt emotion of celebrating, knowing that He has set us free.

And so, Father, we love you, we thank you for what you purchased for us, what you provided for us on that Roman cross.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Death is defeated, your sins are forgiven, your debt is canceled.

In verse 15, he says, in this way he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities.

He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

And so, yes, hallelujah! Yes, and so what he's saying is this, and this is what Sunday morning gives us right here.

It gives us victory once and for all, and the enemy is defeated.

Your Savior fought for you, he died for you, he won the battle for you.

You don't have to fight anymore.

You rest in it, you receive it, you accept it.

It says he shamed the rulers publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

Everything they did to Jesus, they got worse through the victory of Jesus on the cross and his bodily resurrection.

It means literally he stripped them of their authority and their power and openly shamed them publicly.

Hebrews 10, 11 uh says this under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.

But our high priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time, and then he sat down in place of honor at God's right hand.

That means his work was done.

His work was done, and because God has raised his son from the dead, we have eternal life.

That is the provision of God.

Now, what does that lead us to?

It leads us to practicing the way of Jesus.

Here's a couple of things that I want you to just know regarding that, and we're gonna talk about this more in the coming weeks.

Following Jesus is not something you do, it's who you are.

It's not something you do, it's a beautiful new way to be.

As we begin a new series called Intentional Families, and and we uh basically walk through what it means to practice the way of Jesus in the most basic unit that God has created, which is the human family.

He has defeated the enemy and provided victory, not just so you can sit and and and do nothing.

He's he's called you into mission so more people can hear what you've heard tonight.

Let me just share something very interesting.

This is a true story.

George Sweeting in his book, The No Guilt Guide, um uh for sharing your faith, he tells of a man by the name of John Courier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Later, he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee.

But in 1968, Courier's sentence was terminated and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him.

But John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it.

Life on that farm was hard and without promise for anything in the future.

Yet John kept doing what he was told, even after the farmer for whom he worked had died.

Ten years went by, then a state parole officer learned about his situation, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated and he was now a free man.

And so Sweeting concluded that story by asking, would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message?

The most important in your life, year after year, the urgent message never got delivered.

There are people in your family, there are neighbors that live close to you, there are people that go to school with you, there are people you work with that will not celebrate Easter this weekend.

And they are waiting for a messenger.

And God has called us all into this mission.

And so part of your mission is to come back and let us walk you through how you can begin with your family and we can learn how to walk as disciples in the context of our families that lead to us becoming a community of families, carrying the good news that we celebrate at Easter with others around us.

Father, God, would you continue to give us victory?

Thank you for the fact the enemy is defeated.

God, we close this time celebrating this victory.

There is gonna be there is no parade.

The Atlanta Braves and the George Bulldogs don't hold anything.

They've got nothing on the parade that we're gonna celebrate when we celebrate Jesus Christ at his coronation as King of Kings and Lord of Lords of all time.

And so, Father, we pray that we would just even start that now, lifting you up.

Our mind's attention, our heart's affection placed upon you, thanking you for who you are and what you've won for us.

It's in Christ's name we pray.