Easter 2026

How are we doing today, guys?

Happy Easter.

Happy Easter.

Quick shout out.

There's definitely people in the overflow room.

And so thank you guys for being in there today.

It's good to see all of you.

God loves you so much that He decided to shower you this morning with His love and kindness as you walked in.

So there you go.

You guys actually, honestly, thanks for braving the weather and just being here today to celebrate Jesus.

What an awesome day.

Today is Easter.

And if you've never been here before, my name's Justin.

It's awesome to, I can't think of a place I'd rather be than right here.

In fact, I was thinking on the way in this morning.

This is my 19th Easter at His Hands.

19, that's a lot.

And uh so next year's gonna be a real big deal.

And you would think that after 19 years in the same place, talking about the same thing, spoiler alert, Jesus gets back up.

That's what we're gonna talk about today.

You think it would get old, but it does not.

It really does not.

How could it get old?

Listen, Acts 2.24 puts it this way.

Think about how epic of a statement this is.

But God the Father released him, talking about Jesus, from the horrors of death and raised him back to life.

For death could not keep him in its grip.

Death could not hold on to Jesus.

And here we are 2,000 years later, and we are still reflecting on this.

We're still unpacking that, we're still celebrating that.

We're still doing everything we can to rethink our lives, reorient our lives so that we can live in response to what happened on Easter.

Jesus is alive.

So happy Easter.

Come on, Jesus is alive.

Let's go.

I love it.

To be completely honest, every Christmas, every Easter, I have a slight bit of panic in the weeks leading up to it.

Um, because, like I joked about a few moments ago, it's pretty clear what we're gonna talk about.

There's no reason to reinvent the wheel, there's no reason to get too creative and find some different topic to cover on Easter.

We're gonna talk about Jesus and his victory over death.

And I have this little moment of panic because I'm like, God, they've heard it before.

I mean, I've I've done this message a bunch of different times.

Please give me something new.

Would you give me something just a little bit different?

Give me a different angle, a fresh take on it so that it's not just a repeat, please.

And every year, God's pretty faithful with that.

About a month ago, there was this question, and it's a question directly from the story of Easter, and it just hit me, and it's been playing in my mind over and over again, and I knew that this was what God wanted us to focus on this morning.

That this was the lens that we need to see this story through today for right now.

It's a question that at first glance seems like a pretty obvious question, maybe even a question that's only intended for a very small group of people at a very specific moment in time, but I believe it's a question that is so meaningful and powerful and really pertinent to our lives that we need to think through the reality of Jesus and his victory over death through the lens of this question.

And so, Luke chapter 24, starting in verse one, it says, On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not here.

He is risen.

Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee?

The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again.

Then they remembered his words.

That question, why do you search?

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

I mean, to be honest, that's where they left him.

So there's a pretty obvious answer to why they're there looking for him.

Maybe the angels are being facetious, maybe they're kind of messing with him a little bit, but I think it's way more than that.

Imagine if you're an angel and you spend all your time in heaven with the Lord, with God, in his presence, a lot of what we do here on earth must seem pretty silly.

And I think that there's a genuine air of curiosity in the question that these angels ask: why on earth would you look for Jesus in a tomb?

He's the living God.

This is the last place you should look for Jesus.

Why do you search for the living among the dead?

That question's been playing in my mind constantly for the last month.

And like I said, I think it's a question that's meant for much more than just these women who came to the tomb that morning, that first Easter morning.

I think it's a question that those angels may ask us.

Why do we search for the living among the dead?

Why do we search for life?

Why do we search for meaning?

And try to find meaning, try to build our lives, base our lives, put our hopes in things that are dead, that are dying, that can crumble, that can decay, that can be taken away from us when we could put everything, all of our hope, everything on the living God, the author of life, Jesus Christ, the one who conquered death.

Why do we search for life among the dead?

Jesus put it this way in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

Don't be concerned about perishable things.

He uses food as his example.

Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you.

Don't waste your energy on perishable things.

It's always interesting to think about how differently God sees the world than we see the world.

We might see certain things as valuable, and God would say perishable.

We might see something as worthwhile, and God may look at it and say, ultimately meaningless.

There are things that are perishable, and there are things that are eternal.

Why would we search for the living among the dead?

Why would we build our lives on anything short of Jesus Christ, the one who has conquered death?

In reality, we do it all the time.

At least I do.

I actually had a really silly example of this, like a very silly, innocuous example of how easy it is to put all your hopes to build your life on something that will ultimately let you down very recently.

In fact, I want to thank many of you.

I got to learn this week how much some of you really love me and care about me.

I've gotten a lot of texts this week asking if I'm okay.

Uh a lot of even this morning, multiple people stopped me and said, Hey, I've just been thinking, are you okay?

And for those of you that maybe you don't know me, um, so I'm a Duke fan.

And uh and if you don't follow sports, you're probably smart, you're smarter than me, honestly.

But if if you do and you follow the the tournament, then you you know you may know what happened.

Um I've had a lot of people genuinely reach out going, are are you are you okay?

It hasn't been making fun of me, it has it's it's actually felt different than in previous years.

It's been genuine concern, and I want to I want to let you guys know I'm fine.

I'm fine.

It's not my first rodeo.

I'm actually numb inside at this point in life.

But as for a few other people in my family, pray.

I'll ask that you pray.

Uh so this game, basically the story goes, Duke had it won, they should have won.

And I was actually gonna show the clip of it, but I thought there might be some first-time visitors who are Duke fans.

I don't want this place to be associated with trauma in your memory, and so I'm not gonna show the clip of what happened.

But suffice it to say, uh, if you're not familiar, they just found a really creative way to lose.

And so um, I'm watching the game with my oldest who's 16, who's like a basketball junkie, and he was angry.

Like I had no response.

I just kind of nodded my head and went, Yep.

And he threw his phone.

I think he was offended as a basketball player at like the how he would have handled it differently.

But my 10-year-old Judah, let me let me try to put it this way.

I I watched hope die inside of a 10-year-old child five days ago.

Like my 10-year-old is now more cynical about the world.

Like, it grew him up in not the right ways.

This is the first year he's really gotten into it.

It's the first year he's really been into following it, to watching games, and and his older brother plays on a really good travel team, and that team's kind of adopted him as their little brother.

And so, like last week we went to, or a couple weeks ago, we were in Alabama for a tournament, and he got to come and he got to sit on the bench, and he has his own version of their jersey, and they all hang out with him, and they even let him enter a bracket into their official team bracket pool.

The prize was$100, which to a 10-year-old might as well be a million, right?

And somehow, even though he's only 10 and he's not nearly as knowledgeable as these high school guys, as of a few days ago, his bracket was ranked number one.

And so here he is watching this game, and he's got his little iPad, his brackets pulled up, and it's ranked number one, and he's he's watching it.

Duke's up by 19 at one point, he's living large.

And then I watched gradually as his nerves began to change.

And in that moment, when that last second shot went in, I was despondent, Liam was angry, Judah crumbled into the ground.

Like, and it wasn't even like one of those moments as a dad where you're like, hey, come on, man, hop up.

You're just like, ooh.

Someone, we need to surround him with love right now.

Surround him with support.

Like that's what we did.

We're talking about this morning on the way here, because I mentioned I was gonna tell that story, and I said, How would you describe what happened?

And without even a hesitation, he said, Oh, I died inside.

That's what he said, 10 years old.

I died inside.

You know, after it was over, he was just, he was mad, he was saying things like, I'm never watching basketball again.

I'm like, maybe that's a good choice.

I don't know what to tell you.

But what I did tell him, like, honestly, I did have a like a dad pastor moment where I said, Hey man, look, you do whatever you want.

Just know that in the future, if you pin your hopes to your bracket, this is going to be a yearly experience for you.

This is what you're signing up for.

Now, again, it's a silly example, it's an innocent example, but man, how easy is it for us to become so wrapped up in the things of this world?

Even put our hopes in them, let them be deeply connected to how much joy we experience in life, how much fulfillment we experience, and at the end of the day, they are things destined to die.

Why do we search for the living among the dead?

Why do we search for life and joy and purpose and meaning in things that are perishable, in things that can be taken away from us?

Talking about finances, Jesus once said, Don't store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them and rust destroys them.

In our day and age, he might just talk about inflation and the devaluing of the dollar, something fun like that.

Where thieves break in and steal.

Store your treasure in heaven where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.

Jesus says again, why put your trust in something perishable?

Why build your life and put any of your hope in something that can be destroyed?

Why search for the living among the dead?

Man, it is so easy to do.

You think about all the things in life that you can build your life on, you can base your life on.

Sometimes, man, it's it's stuff that's really good.

Like I got a lot of friends who are in their 20s, and I'm 43.

I remember my 20s.

It feels like it was much further ago than it used to be, I guess because it is.

But I got some friends that are like really fit.

I don't know if any of you have fit friends.

Anyone raise your hand?

You've got like a really fit friend, and they like measure things like protein levels and you know like that, and they're in great shape, and that must feel awesome.

You know?

And when you're young and you're fit and you're you're crushing it and you're hitting all your macros and all that, you might you might feel like you've got it, you might feel like, man, everything's going great.

This body of mine, peak performance.

It will fail you.

Amen?

Amen.

Trust us, we're not just a bunch of people who let ourselves go.

Those of you who are young, we're people who woke up one morning and pulled our backs while sleeping.

Like we went to bed, we felt fine, we woke up, and now there's something wrong with this, and we don't even know what happened.

Do not search for living among the dead, right?

Do not don't put your hope on something that falls apart and breaks down.

Even if you do your absolute best, I'm not being, I'm not being cynical here, I'm not trying to like make life gloomy.

I'm just saying everything, everything is in a state of decay.

Everything can change.

Even the most amazing relationships that we have in this world are earthly relationships.

They're wonderful, they're beautiful.

Enjoy them, but don't build your lives on them.

Because they'll change.

I have a daughter who just turned 12.

I have one girl, three boys, one girl.

The other day, just turned 12.

And some of you, raise your hand, dads of daughters, I would just love to see you because you can feel my pain.

Um we were actually here at the church, we were outside on Wednesday, and just the way the light hit my daughter, she's 12.

I I feel like she aged five years in a week.

Like I see glimpses now of her as an adult, and it terrifies me.

And I had this moment, like, this all happened in a 10-second span where I looked at her and I thought, oh, she's so beautiful.

And then I was like, and some boy's gonna think she's beautiful really soon.

And he's gonna fall in love with her, and she's gonna fall in love with him, and he's gonna ask her to marry him, and she's gonna say yes.

Then she's gonna move in with him, and he's an idiot, and he doesn't know anything, and he hasn't done anything for her, and she's gonna listen to him, and everything I say is gonna be dumb, and and it doesn't matter how much I've sacrificed and paid for, he's gonna get all the credit, and he's gonna enjoy every and it's like that.

All hit.

That was 10 seconds in my brain.

It was like I looked at her and she's beautiful, and I thought to myself, it's all gonna end.

You know?

Because it will.

It will.

Everything in this world, even the good stuff, it's it's perishable.

It expires, it changes.

It can be taken away from you.

Why search for the living among the dead?

Why put your hope in anything that is less than Jesus?

Again, we we see things in such different terms than the way that God and you know, the angels in this story must have seen things.

We see things that are valuable, God sees things that are temporary.

Even something like sin.

You know, sometimes, guys, life is hard and we're struggling and we're not happy, and there's things out there that make us feel alive.

They may be wrong, they may be somewhat destructive, but in the moment we go, yeah, but it helps me cope, it helps me get through, it makes me feel alive.

But no, that's not life, that's death.

Romans 6.23 puts it simply: the wages of sin is death.

All sin leads to death, even if it's just death of your own self-respect.

And yet sometimes we go to those things because it, at least for a moment, it makes us feel alive.

Never search for life from death.

There is one thing.

If Easter teaches us anything, there is one thing, one thing and one thing alone that is life and life that endures, life that is eternal, life that death cannot overcome, and that is Jesus Christ.

He is alive, he has risen, death cannot stop him.

And he is the only thing, he is the only thing worthy of building your life upon.

He is the only thing worthy of putting all of your hope into.

And if you want life, if you want to have a life right now, if you want this life to have any any type of resemblance to the life that is to come, to the eternal life that you have to look forward to through faith in Jesus, then you have to build all of it on Jesus because he is life itself.

You look at the disciples, they gave up everything to follow Jesus.

Smart men.

In fact, there's a story in Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Jesus is uh is calling a few fishermen to follow him.

And it may seem like it's easy to stop being a fisherman to be a disciple, but this is what they build their lives on.

This is what this was their career, this was everything they knew, this was their livelihood.

And Jesus tells them, come, follow me, I'll show you how to fish for people.

And they left their nets at once and followed him.

In a moment, no hesitation, at once, they gave up everything that they had had, everything that they knew, everything that gave them some sense of identity, some sense of belonging in this world, some security, some financial security, whatever it is.

They gave up all that, they followed Jesus.

And a lot of people did.

But then a lot of those people also went back to their former lives.

A lot of people didn't stick it out when when Jesus would say something controversial.

Some people will go, ooh, this is a little bit too much heat for me, I'm out.

And at one moment in his ministry, a lot of people had left.

And Jesus looks to those same disciples who dropped their nets.

It says, Jesus turned to the twelve and asked, Are you also going to leave?

And Simon Peter replied, Lord, to whom would we go?

You have the words that give eternal life.

We believe and we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Jesus has life.

His words have life.

That's why he was able to say in Matthew chapter 7 that anyone who listens to his teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

And though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it will not collapse because it's built on bedrock.

Is your life built on bedrock?

Is your life built on your faith in the one who has eternal life?

Is your life built completely and totally on the hope that is Jesus Christ?

Because anything short of that, anything lesser than that, even if it's religion, even if it's church, even if it's this church, anything less than Jesus is something that will ultimately perish and pass away.

There is only one place to find life, eternal life.

And that is in it's faith in Jesus Christ, the one that death could not defeat.

And so I think today that question that the angels asked is a question for all of us.

It's a challenging question.

Why do you search for the living among the dead?

Are we searching for life and meaning and purpose in things that will ultimately perish?

I think about what I do.

This is what I do, this is my job.

I stand on a stage every week and I talk about God.

And when Jesus returns, I will have no job.

Like the worship team, they'll be fine.

We'll all be singing.

Like we'll be singing nonstop.

No one will ever come to me and go, hey Justin, teach us about God, because they'll just, you know, talk to him.

No one will ever be like, hey, what do you think about Jesus?

I'm like, well, just go ask Jesus.

I'm done.

Like this is a I have a very temporary job.

In eternity, I guess I'll have to find something new.

I don't know.

But even things that that seem like the most important things in the world in the light of Jesus, they're nothing.

And my hope and my prayer, and we'll wrap up, worship team, you can come out.

My hope and my prayer is really simply this.

Here it is, Easter Sunday, and you guys are here, and thank you so much for being here.

And by the way, those of you watching from home, thank you as well.

In fact, I want to shout out real quick.

Uh Monica McFarlane is an awesome part of our church.

She is incredible.

She had some major surgeries last year.

We all prayed for.

She had to go back into the hospital this weekend and was not able to be with us, and she was really bummed about that.

But I know she's watching from the hospital, so Monica, shout out.

Also, it bothers Monica when I wear a hat.

If you're new, I usually wear a hat.

So for Easter, I got a haircut, no hat, just for Monica, and she's not even here.

But she's watching from home, so love you, Monica.

Um, we do love you.

You guys, you're you're here, you're present.

And maybe you're here because there is nothing that excites you more.

Than being in the presence of God's people and worshiping Jesus.

Maybe you're here because someone invited you.

Maybe you're here with a family member, and like maybe let's be honest, a few of us are probably here because our mom kept asking us, and we're like, fine, I'll go on Easter.

You know?

And honestly, if that's you, well done.

Well done.

What a loving thing to do.

But no matter what brought you here, no matter why you're in this room, you have an opportunity this morning.

And it is a life-changing opportunity.

It is a chance to think about who Jesus is and what he's done and make a decision.

What will your life be built on?

Where are you searching for your purpose?

What gives you your meaning?

And if it's Jesus, guys, you are good.

If it's Jesus, you are so good.

Because nothing can stop him.

Everyone's tried, everyone's failed.

And if it's on anything less than that, even if it's on the most incredible relationship you have, the person that you love the most, the job that you enjoy, you feel like it's it's your purpose in this life, whatever it might be, whatever accomplishment it might be, whatever investment it might be, whatever it is, I'm telling you, if it's anything other than Jesus, it can perish.

Build your life on him and him alone.

No one can ever take Jesus away from you.

They've tried.

No one can take Jesus away.

We're gonna finish by taking Lord's Supper.

And this is something we do every Sunday.

And so, by the way, when you came in, you walked past some tables.

We put them actually in the lobby today, so hopefully you'd be able to see those, and they have bread and juice.

And if you miss that, you can go grab it now.

You're not messing anything up to do that.

Also, a great opportunity just to sneak away and beat the traffic.

You'd be like, oh, I forgot the Lord's Supper, which would be a lie if you did that, so shame on you.

But then you could get out there and just bolt.

You know, you're gone, you're having lunch before the rest of us.

You could do that.

And we finish with this meal every week.

There's bread, there's juice, and this is connected to a meal that Jesus had with his disciples shortly before he was arrested and crucified.

He took a piece of bread and he broke it and he handed it out to his friends, and he said, This is my body.

This is my body.

He said, It's going to be given as a sacrifice for you.

They would have understood sacrifice.

They lived in a whole society built on the idea of sacrifice.

Sin is really serious, and something or someone has to pay the price for sin.

And it was sort of this never-ending cycle for them of just sin and sacrifice, sin and sacrifice.

But Jesus is different.

His sacrifice is different.

It's once and for all.

Because he is perfect.

He is the author of life.

He is God Himself.

And so if He pays for something, He pays in full.

And because of this, because of what He gave, all of our sin, all of our shortcomings, all of our failures wiped away.

Wiped away.

That in the eyes of God, we are now righteous, we are now made holy, and we can enter God the Father's presence as his child, as his friend, not as some sinner groveling for forgiveness.

Because he's given us everything.

Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you for this meal.

We thank you for what it represents.

This is the body of your son given as a sacrifice for us.

Thank you, Lord, because without this we would have no hope.

We would have to earn something that is impossible for us to earn.

But now we don't.

Let's take the bread.

Jesus took a cup and he said, This is my blood.

And they had a very specific understanding of blood, and we do to a certain degree as well, but they understood blood as life.

Blood always represented life.

In fact, in the the ancient times, the priests would actually sprinkle blood on their garments, and it wasn't viewed as ruining it or staining it.

It was a constant reminder of the value of life.

Jesus bled for us.

He gave his blood.

But his life is different.

It's eternal, truly eternal.

Even though he gave his blood for us, his life could not be extinguished.

And now we have that same life in us through faith in him.

We have his spirit in us.

His life becomes our life through faith.

And so as we drink this and as we pray, we remember that through Jesus we have eternal life won for us by him, given to us as a gift.

And it's simply our choice how we're going to live it.

So pray with me.

Father, we thank you for this juice and what this represents.

This is your blood.

This is life.

And here we are today, Lord, we're celebrating life.

We're celebrating your victory over death and the fact that your life endures.

And Lord, we ask that as we take this, as we drink this, as we reflect on this, that we would choose this morning, that we would choose life.

Just as you said to your people of Israel in the desert, you said, choose life that you may live.

I pray this morning, Lord, that as we drink this, we choose your life.

And we choose to build everything we have, put all of our hopes, all of it, on you, that we would settle for nothing less.

Because you're the only thing that endures.

You are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And we worship you and we praise you.

We love you, Lord.

Amen.

Let's take the juice.