He Has Risen!

So good.

Oh, yes.

Thank you ki and thank you to everybody who participated in bringing our

Good Friday experience to bear.

It was a, uh, beautiful and precious time.

If you don't know me, my name is.

Dale, I am one of the pastors here, and it is my very great honor and privilege

to bring the word to you this morning.

And my hope and my prayer is that we will be a word of encouragement to us all.

And hasn't this morning already been deeply and profoundly encouraging?

What a blessing to worship our risen king with our church family on Resurrection

Sunday and be so beautifully led.

In that with our amazing music team here who have really worked and been

so intentional to, uh, bring this act of devotion that we've been able to

participate and join in with this morning.

It is a precious, precious thing indeed.

So thank you to everyone for all of your efforts.

Um, your devotion to that.

Alright, so.

The title for my message this morning, and I've managed to keep it pretty

short, so I should only be here for another hour and 10 minutes or so.

No, no, no, no.

I'm gonna try and keep it tight 'cause I recognize it's, uh, there's a lot of

us in here, there's a lot of kids, and it's a big day for many of us as well.

And so the title of my message today is very simply, he has risen.

And I really, yeah.

Haha.

Very good.

And I really want us to hold onto that declaration this morning.

And so let us begin by looking at Mark's gospel, the account of the empty tomb

here, found in chapter 16 verses one to seven when the Sabbath was over.

Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Sal, brought spices so that

they might go to anoint Jesus' body.

Very early on, on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on

their way to the tomb and they asked each other who will roll the stone

away from the entrance of the tomb.

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was

very large, had been rolled away.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on

the right side, and they were alarmed.

Don't be alarmed.

He said, you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified.

He has risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him?

But go tell his disciples and Peter, he's going ahead of you into Galilee.

There you will see him just as he told you.

Amen.

He has risen three little words, four little syllables that mean.

Everything.

Something new happened that day, which touched and still touches every

aspect of creation to this day, on the first day in Genesis chapter

one, creation is birth, life, and order are brought forth from chaos.

And on this day, the first day of the week, new creation begins.

New creation.

Life is brought forth from death.

This is day one, day one of the new creation order.

This is why the church shifted its day of worship from a Saturday to

Sunday because those who belong to the lamb are now born again.

New creation people to worship on a Sunday is meant to remind

us that we are born again.

New creation people.

To remind us of the eternal new life that we have now because of those

three little words he has risen.

If you're a part of our Good Friday threads experience, you would have

received a bracelet like this one that I am wearing, a red thread, running

through a cross tied to your wrist, a symbol that if you believe Jesus is

who he said he is, and if you believe in the declaration he has risen, then

your life is now bound to his life.

His death defeating, indestructible life.

And while we may find ourselves often commenting on the fragility of life,

not so, the life of Jesus for His is a life that overcomes the grave.

And this is what we celebrate today.

And so to borrow from the script, from the thread's experience that

speaks to the symbolism of the bracelet and what we celebrate today.

From the foundation of the world, a scarlet blood red thread runs

through the story of God and humanity from creation to the cross.

The scarlet blood red thread remains unbroken and unbreakable.

Not even death can sever it From the cross to new creation, the thread holds true.

This is the story of redemption that is present from the beginning,

spoken out, and revealed by God.

In Genesis three 15, when God curses Satan with this promise here, and

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring

and hers, he will crush your head and you'll strike his heel.

Moments after sin and death enter the world, God speaks

this promise into the darkness.

One day through the offspring of the woman, evil will be

crushed from the beginning.

God's response to sin and betrayal is not abandonment, but a promise that evil will

be defeated through a coming redeemer.

And so what do we mean by this word?

Redemption.

It can be a bit of a Christian word, but it is such a good and

powerful and rich and beautiful word.

It is a word with multiple layers of meaning, all of which have relevance

for understanding the story of God's redemption that weaves through the whole

arc of scripture, the word redemption.

It can mean to buy back.

I am redeeming with this coupon, that thing it means to bring good from bad.

It was a terrible day, but this good thing came from it.

Therefore, the bad day was redeemed.

It can mean to rescue and saved.

I was lost, but another came as my redeemer.

In a biblical sense, redemption is all of these things.

It is God's act of liberating and freeing people and creation from

bondage to sin and evil and death through a costly intervention.

So that they, so that we are restored to right relationship with him and

renewed for our intended purpose.

God doesn't just rescue and save, he redeems and praise the Lord.

He doesn't just hit the reset button, he takes all that is

broken and he makes it new.

This is the promise of redemption, the assurance of which is found

in the fact of the resurrection.

And I think you would agree that inherit in the human heart is a

deep, deep longing for redemption.

The stories we love, be they true or fictional, nearly always

have a deep redemption narrative where evil is overcome by good.

Where there is a moment of sacrificial rescue, someone laying

down their life to save another.

We love these stories.

We are drawn to them and I was reminded recently of the movie Hack.

Acts or Ridge who has seen that movie.

It's an intense movie.

If you have not seen it, proceed with caution.

But it's a true story, a brutal, true and deeply redemptive story where the lives

of so many caught up in a bloody moment of war are rescued and saved through the

sacrificial self-giving act of one person.

Desmond Doss.

Who wanted to defend freedom by enlisting in the army, but because of his devotion

to the commandments of God, refused to take up a weapon against the enemy, and

he lays his life on the line over and over to see those, even those who had mocked

and ridiculed him for his peaceful stance.

Saved and rescued his haunting, repeated prayer.

Lord, help me get one more.

As we shredded hands, he lowers 75 men down a cliff face to safety In the

horror of a blood drenched battlefield, the light of redemption breaks

through in an act of sacrificial love.

A sacrificial act of love that cast a powerful redeeming light over

the darkness and the evil of war.

Good coming through and from death and evil.

And so we're deeply drawn to these stories of redemption like this

because we all intuitively know I think, and long for redemption.

That the world needs it.

We need it.

We all know that we are not as we should be.

We know the world is not as it should be that we and the world

needs rescue needs a redeemer.

Think of the history of humanity.

From now to the time of Adam and Eve.

There is an unbroken thread of betrayal, unforgiveness, resentment, and anger.

And we are a part of that thread.

Everyone is wounded and everyone wounds everyone's sins and

everyone is sinned against.

Everyone needs to forgive and everyone needs to be forgiven.

All of us betraying sin.

The very first sin was a betrayal and it was an act of betrayal with a kiss

from Judas that sent Jesus to the cross.

In an act of betrayal by Peter when he three times denies knowing Jesus.

We betray ourselves, we betray our loved ones, our friends, and our God.

We all stand in need of forgiveness, every single one of us, but we are

also betrayed and sinned against.

And we are betrayed by those.

We love family and friends, and yes, we can even carry the sense sometimes

that we have even been betrayed by God.

Many of us know what this feels like, and this is a feeling that Jesus himself

knew when on the cross He cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

We can all feel betrayed deeply.

Therefore, as badly as we need to be forgiven, we also need.

To forgive.

We have hurt others.

We have been hurt, we have sinned, and we have been sinned against.

Like Judas.

We can try self atonement, throwing back the pieces of silver walking

away purified, but unforgiven and walking straight into suicide.

Or we can do like Peter did after his act of betrayal, weep.

And then return.

Humbled.

Scarred, but forgiven and walk back into life.

Redemption and the promise and the of the hope of redemption is

life support for the human soul in a world of so much brokenness.

Judas could see no way of redemption for what he'd done.

The guilt, the shame of it crushing him a payment demanded.

He knew the giving back of the money was not enough to atone for his betrayal.

He couldn't see that there was one who would make that payment on

his behalf, so he ended his life.

And just this past week, we saw the tragic story in the news.

Perhaps you saw it of a young 25-year-old woman in Spain ending her

own life through assisted euthanasia because the pain of her life was

just too much for her to bear.

She could see no path of redemption for her life.

She could see no hope for her.

She saw her only hope was actually in ending it.

She like Judas, couldn't see that there was one who had died to redeem

her life, to buy her back from death and to give her new and eternal life

that overcomes death, one whose life and story is able to redeem all her

pain and suffering and restore her.

She did not know that hope, and that is a tragedy, and this is

the promise of today, friends.

Life from death, beauty from ashes order from chaos, the tangled mess

of our lives redeemed and woven into something beautiful by the hand

of the master weaver because he's love, and this is what love does.

And this is what love desires to do, delights to do, and will give all to

do for the one that love loves, for the one who cries out for it to receive it.

John three 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave Jesus his only son.

Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Eternal life that he died to give, and the truth of which was proven and vindicated.

By the declaration.

He has risen.

Now, what does the fact of these three words ask of us today?

It asks that we trust its truth, that in the end, evil will not have the last word.

Evil will fall, good will triumph.

Friends, you can look out on the landscape of our world right now,

and you can take this to the bank.

When we look out and we see.

It appear as though evil is triumphing fret, not my friends,

because of the resurrection, evil will not have the final world.

Evil cannot win.

Evil will always turn in on itself and destroy itself.

It cannot triumph.

Evil will fall good.

Goodwill, triumph.

Those who bow before God and the fullness of their being will find

meaning and joy, even when denied and deprived of earthly treasures.

This is what we can trust in when we trust the declaration he has risen.

What the resurrection promises is that things can be new Again, nothing

is irrevocable, no sin unforgivable.

Every form of death can be overcome, every suffering redeemed, and some

of you here today need to hear that and really take it to heart.

There is redemption for your suffering.

There is hope for your story.

A living hope.

If I could give you all a gift today, it would not be an Easter egg.

It would not be a chocolate bunny.

Even if it was lint?

No, there is something even better if I could give this all to you

today, and this is what I am trying to give you through this word.

It would be the gift of total and deep trust in the fact and the truth of the

resurrection, but to trust in its truth is to know the blessing of unshakeable hope.

And to be a person of unshakeable hope is to be a one who is a

precious gift in a world that is filled with so much hopelessness.

Imagine if there had have been one who could have reached that young girl

in Spain with that message of hope.

Imagine the difference that it might have made to her story.

O to be that gift to the world.

Hey, a person of unshakeable hope and one of my very great privileges of getting

to do what I do here in this space, in preaching the word of God, is that

I immerse myself in these scriptures, and that is a privilege and an honor.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of that.

It doesn't always feel that way, but it is.

And this week as I've prepared this word, it has been such a blessing

to my heart as the Lord has directed me to places of hopelessness in my

own world, dreams that I have given up on, spaces that I have just gone.

That is dead.

And it's hopeless.

That situation.

And I have been reminded again, no step into hope.

You have hope.

There is always hope because of the resurrection.

There is always the promise of new life.

There is always the promise of life coming from death because he has risen

and I have been reminded of that.

And maybe you need to be reminded of that this morning too.

Maybe there is a. Dead part of your soul.

A dream that has gone to ashes, a relationship, a desire, whatever it

might be, and God would say to you in this moment, have hope, my friends.

For I have risen.

I have risen.

Amen.

So with that in mind, let's dive a little deeper.

Not long before Jesus' death and resurrection, there was another

moment where death was overcome.

When Jesus raises his friend, Lazareth from the grave calls him out of the grave.

What is the difference between these two events?

Both came back to life after all, but to understand the difference

is to actually know this hope that I have just been talking about.

The difference is not merely one of degree, it is one of category.

Lazarus was resuscitated.

He returned to the same mortal life that he had before he would go on to die.

But Jesus was resurrected, and this is a very different reality.

This was an entry into a transformed indestructible life.

Jesus didn't just do this for, didn't just do for himself what he did for Lazarus.

If that were true, Easter would just be good news about a delay.

Not a victory.

Death would still have the final say, but because Jesus was

resurrected, death was not just interrupted, but it was overthrown.

Jesus went into and through death and came out the other side into a kind

of life that death cannot touch again.

Oh, what good news, my friends, I love this quote and I bring it out often at

this time of year from George Herbert death used to be an executioner, but

the gospel has made him just a gardener.

Wow.

Death used to be an executioner, but the gospel has made him just a gardener.

You know, this week when I go out on my daily walk, I've just been really looking

at the trees because what is a tree?

Except an example of life from death.

You think he's massive trees that came from one little dead seed.

Sorry, my friends.

What is dead in your world?

That what is in seed form that perhaps has lay buried, right?

'cause when God resurrects something, he doesn't just revive it.

He doesn't just resuscitate it.

It becomes something who new.

You think a dead sea grows into these massive trees that brings so much life.

It's an amazing witness to what the resurrection is pointing to.

Lazarus was a sign pointing forward to something greater, a powerful

sign within the old creation order.

The resurrection of Jesus on the first day began a new creation order this day.

Easter Sunday is not just proof of life after death, but it is

the launch of God's new creation.

Creation began in a garden.

The Garden of Eden.

The resurrection begins new creation, life also in a garden.

Just as all things were made through Christ in the beginning.

So now all things are made new through Christ Jesus.

Death is swallowed up into life, resurrection life in him.

The resurrection life of Jesus, actually.

Metastasizes death, it takes it up into itself and it produces life.

That's phenomenal.

That is amazing.

That is a new thing.

Indeed.

And for those who repent, who call upon his name for rescue, he will

redeem and he will deliver and he will give a rebirth into a new life

that death has no final claim on.

In the Lord of the Rings, towards the end of their quest to defeat evil.

Sam asks Gandalf a question.

I love this question.

Is everything sad going to come untrue?

And because of the declaration he has risen because of the resurrection.

The answer to this is yes.

And maybe in some way, shape, or form, you have come this morning

with that question as well.

Is there hope that everything sad in my life and in this

world could become untrue?

Yes, my friends, there is a living hope that Yes, that is true indeed.

If you need this hope, take that truth to heart this morning.

I read this quote this week and says this, to believe in the resurrection

is to be comforted at a level so deep.

Nothing in life is a threat.

The power of goodness is greater than the power of evil.

All our sins will be forgiven.

All terrors are phantoms.

Oh, what hope, what comfort.

All terrors are phantoms.

And so as I bring this home, let's return to a moment.

To Peter, the one who walked with Jesus for three years, who betrayed him in

his hour of need, failing first to keep watch with Jesus in prayer in the garden

of Gethsemane, and then after Jesus' arrest three times denying that he knows.

Jesus at all.

Peter, who then encounters the resurrected Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

And in a moment of redemption, Jesus breaks bread with Peter and restores him

to relationship and recommissions him into his calling, which Peter thought was dead.

And just as an aside, Galilee is the place where the dream was birthed

for the disciples, for the people of God, where Peter and his disciples

first met and left all to follow him.

Jerusalem was the place where the dream was crucified, but

Galilee was where it was birthed.

And then where it was rebirthed, it is significant then that Jesus goes ahead

and meets them there in the place where it all began to renew what had died.

And perhaps this is you today.

A dream has died because we live in a world and amongst a broken humanity

that is really good at killing dreams.

We live in a world that is really good at crushing divinely inspired dreams.

Perhaps today, Jesus wants to resurrect this part of you that has died.

Not to resuscitate it, but to resurrect it, to breathe new life into it, to

bring it back from the dead, just as he did for Peter three times.

Jesus asking him, do you love me?

One for each denial, three calls to be a shepherd of his sheep.

Peter's denial now fully redeemed.

Some two to three decades after this encounter, Peter is writing

to a church that he likely founded, a church that is suffering.

He writes to encourage and he gives some hope, and these are the

words, and Vinny read them at the beginning during worship as well.

These are the words he gives this church who is suffering under

deep and profound persecution.

This is what he says to them.

Praise be.

To the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope, through

the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance

that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.

No matter what you face in this life, my friends, if you hold to the truth

of the resurrection, this is your hope.

This is your promise, and it is our living hope.

And it is founded in the resurrection, as Peter says here.

So do you know this comfort?

Maybe like me, you have found yourself in deep need of being

reminded that in Jesus because of the resurrection, that I have a living hope.

You have a living hope that in Jesus there is always the hope

and the promise of redemption.

The old can be made new.

What is dead can be raised to new life.

I read something this week that deeply challenged and convicted me.

This is a quote from GK Chesterton, and it's in context of the resurrection.

And he says this, learn to look at things familiar until they look

unfamiliar again, familiarity is the greatest of all illusions.

Why is it an illusion?

Because familiarity is the belief that there is nothing new.

And yes, there is nothing new under the sun, under man on a broken

humanity, but there is under God.

God says, I am doing a new thing.

Do you not see it and perceive it?

Familiarity.

Cynically says, bar humbug.

There is nothing new to see here.

Maybe you came in with that heart, that posture, friends, and no judgment for

me because I have been that person.

There's nothing new here.

This is just what we do every year.

No, don't.

Don't.

Because of the resurrection.

Familiarity is an illusion.

There is always the promise of new.

If the resurrection is to have power in our lives, we've gotta give up the

illusion of familiarity, particularly as this pertains to all that is nearest

to us because the most common cancer that eats away at our marriages,

families, communities, friendships, our dreams, and simply at the joy we

might have in living is the cancer.

A familiarity.

We think we know.

We think we understand.

We think we have things figured out, and we give up on life.

We give up on each other.

Leaving no room for newness, for surprise, for the unfamiliar, for

redemption, for Resurrection Life.

The resurrection tells us that familiarity is an illusion,

the greatest of all illusions.

The resurrection invites us to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar

again, because in the end, all will be made new and all is being made new.

So my friends, in a moment as we bring this to a close, I wanna extend

an invitation for those of you who would feel prompted to this morning.

This is not a call to everyone, only for those who feel a prompting to,

and I want you to come and as an act of declaration to God, an act

of response to the invitation of the Spirit that you would feel pressed

upon your own spirit this morning to come to the front and take communion.

Because at this table, we don't just remember an idea.

We receive a reality.

On the night before the cross, Jesus took bread and he takes the cup and

he says, my body broken for you.

My blood poured out for you so that you can have my death defeating

life and be saved and rescued and redeemed and be made new.

He entered fully into suffering, loss, sin, and death.

He became what we are, so that through his resurrection we might share in what he.

Is when you take the bread and the cup, you are taking in

the truth of the declaration.

He has risen.

He has defeated death for me.

He has bounties life to mine and in taking communion, I am binding my life to his.

I am redeemed.

I am made new.

I have a living hope.

All death in me will be brought to eternal life in and through him.

And also, if you don't have one, maybe you weren't able to participate

in our Good Friday gathering.

Or maybe you just missed out if you didn't get one of these bracelets.

They're amazing.

Just as such a simple, yet tangible reminder of everything that these

past few days represent and there are some here available if you go,

oh yeah, I would really like that reminder on my wrist that I could look

out throughout the coming days ahead.

I think Tim Elon down there, he is been wearing his for about a month now and, um.

Bless him, and it's just such a simple thing, but a reminder

because where does the thread go?

The thread goes through the cross.

That that's that, that remembrance that.

Life runs through death, it comes through sacrificial death.

And so if you would like one of these, they're available

here at the front as well.

So Andrew, would you mind coming up and just to play keys for a moment?

And we are, I just wanna give you a moment to respond.

If your heart has been broken and you would like, Lord, please, I

need you to bind up my broken heart.

Well, you feel like you're bound over perhaps to sin, wondering

if you will ever be free.

Yes, there is hope my friend.

Can you where you can't imagine how the suffering that you have endured

could ever be made into anything good.

Then perhaps this invitation is for you.

Perhaps you would go, my gosh, there is this dream that I had such hope

for, but it has died, and perhaps there is an invitation to you by the

spirit this morning to enter into hope in that place and to allow the

resurrection of life of Jesus to come and to resurrect what has died.

Perhaps it is your marriage, a relationship that you guys

just feel so dead, Jesus.

I need your resurrection life to come into this dead place where

death has visited and you sense God's invitation to bring it to him, that

he would breathe, hope and life.

And so I would invite you to stand right now, church, and let's just

enter into just a moment of prayer.

So close your eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Set the attention of heart and mind upon the presence of the living

God who is here amongst us now.

And is there a prompting from the spirit to come forward,

to take communion and as you do so to take into you the

resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

That that place in you that you feel has died would be brought to life again.

So let's just take a moment to allow the Holy Spirit to minister to us,

to distilling ourselves,

letting all distractions fade away.

Holy Spirit, would you come for the one who needs hope in our midst this morning?

Would you draw them to the table for the one who is bound

by chains of sin and death?

Would you draw them to the table that they would find freedom in your name

from the one who has a dream in your name that has died and just sits in ashes?

Would you call them to the table that they would find life there this morning?

Jesus, would you do a mighty and a precious work here today in your name

for the glory of your name and for the good of the ones that are here

that you would call beloved for?

This is what love does.

This is what you do for you, our love.

You come, you rescue, you redeem you bring us from darkness into light.

You bring us from death.

Into resurrection life.

Thank you Lord.

Thank you Lord.

So if that is you, my friend, I would invite you to come forward now if you

would like, no, I need to an act of demonstration of stepping in, then

this is a moment for you to do that.

This is a powerful act and it can be a humbling one to come forward in a room of

people and go, might I be the only one?

Hey, you might.

Who cares.

This is between you and the Lord.

So there is that prompting from the Holy Spirit, and you will not

please come forward in this moment.

Take the bread, take the cup, and in this act to save the Lord.

I need your hope and I need your life.

I need you to bring life in these places in me that are dead.

And if there's not, you just quietly pray for those who are coming forward.

Pray that the Lord would meet them in their place of darkness.

Their place of hopelessness, their place of suffering, their place of

brightnesses, and he would break through with his light and his redemptive power,

and that what has laid in silence in the dark in Tombed,

that the stone would be rolled away and that light and life and love

would shine through into these places.

Thank you Lord.

Thank you Lord.

Thank you Lord.

There is hope here for you this morning.

Church family.

There is a living hope that the Lord in love desires deeply to bless you

with not because you are worthy.

Remember his conversation with Peter Peter.

The one who betrayed him,

that he breaks bread with Peter and he redeems him and he brings

back to life what has died.

Thank you Lord.

Thank you, Lord.