Alive Again

Jesus, thank you so much for being alive.

Thank you for doing what we couldn't do, and thank you for giving us a relationship with God that we could never earn ourselves.

We love you, and we just want you to speak to us.

We just want you to move this morning.

So, Holy Spirit, we we ask for your presence just to be here and to move and stir within our hearts, and we pray all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

We've been saying for the last few weeks that every single Sunday is a celebration of the fact that Jesus is alive.

But there is something special about Easter.

It's the reason that we're not celebrating the memory of Jesus, we're celebrating the reality of Jesus in our lives today.

We've been building up to this moment in his life for the last few weeks.

A couple weeks ago, Bill talked about the roller coaster ride of emotions that Jesus experienced in the days leading up to the cross.

More so than any of us could even really imagine.

He goes into Jerusalem and everyone is shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest, they're celebrating his entry into Jerusalem.

But a week later, those same people are saying, Crucify him, crucify him.

One of his best friends betrayed him.

The rest of his friends abandon him in his darkest hour.

He gets put through this charade of a trial.

He's beaten, he's tortured, and he's killed.

It was an incredible week that he went through.

And it's moments like that that are so important for us because it's moments like that in his life that remind us that we don't just have a God that we can go to and get the answers that we need, get the help that we need, but we have a God that we can go to who can look us in the eye and say, I know how you feel.

I understand what you're going through.

My heart breaks with you and for you.

We have a God that gets us because he lived our life.

Last week, Ken talked about the mentality that Jesus had going to the cross.

How in the world could he desire the cross?

We know that it's it's not some last ditch effort that God had to put together.

It was the plan from the beginning.

How could that be?

And Ken shared about his daughter's battle with cancer when she was very young and one of his children having an injury.

It was very painful, and watching his kids in pain and thinking the same thing any of us as parents would think.

If I could trade places with them, I would do it in a heartbeat.

And that is exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross.

In 2 Corinthians 5 21, it says, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus took our place.

He traded places with us.

He took the penalty of our sin, and now we get the reward of his life.

That's our daddy trading places with us because he could.

He loves us that much.

And all of that has led up to this morning where we're celebrating Easter Sunday.

We wake up on Easter Sunday with joy because we know how the story ends.

We celebrate this day, but as much as it's possible this morning, I would love for us to get into the mindset of Jesus' friends and disciples that first Easter morning when they woke up completely unaware that Jesus was about to rise from the dead.

None of them anticipated that.

And so for them, that first Easter Sunday was not joy and celebration, it was waking up with that realization that everything that had just happened is real.

It wasn't a dream.

And Jesus is gone.

To them, that Sunday was just their third day without their Jesus.

And we really can't imagine what they had gone through those days leading up to that.

Just a few days before, they were in this garden called Gethsemane with Jesus.

And he was praying, and some Roman guards came to arrest Jesus.

It wasn't the first time that the authorities had tried had tried to get in Jesus' way.

They had seen this before, but this this time things went differently.

The authorities asked who Jesus was.

He stepped forward, said the same exact words that he spoke to Moses through the burning bush.

He said, I am Jesus.

When he said those words, everyone fell to the ground.

It was Jesus reminding them that you're not taking me.

I'm going willingly.

I just need you to know that.

Even still, though, his disciples, they didn't want to see that happen.

They got violent.

Peter drew a sword and attacked one of the men coming to take Jesus.

Jesus tells Peter, put it away, I'm going with them.

And then the disciples had to watch their Jesus be led away by a few soldiers.

How could they have processed that?

I mean, this is the Jesus that they have seen heal every disease you can imagine, heal the blind, heal the lame.

This is the same Jesus they have seen tell a storm, a raging storm to stop, and it stopped.

I sit at a stoplight on Sixes Road and beg it to turn green every single morning, and nothing ever happens.

And Jesus tells a storm to stop and it does.

That's the Jesus they know.

How can they watch that Jesus be led away by a few guards?

Most of their reactions were so full of fear that they just ran at that point in time.

They didn't know what to do.

A few of the disciples followed at a safe distance to see what would happen to Jesus.

We know, for example, that Peter gets as far as the trial of Jesus.

What would it have been like for Peter to watch his Jesus?

The same Jesus that walked on water and called out to him, Peter, walk on water with me.

And then Peter did.

He broke every law of nature and walked on water while his eyes were on Jesus.

And then even when his faith faltered, Jesus walked on the water to him, picked him up, and then walked him back to the boat.

That's the Jesus that Peter knows.

How could Peter watch Jesus put on trial by men?

What authority did they have over Jesus?

We know that a few of his followers even got all the way to the cross.

Mary, his mother, did.

We know that John, one of his disciples and best friends, did.

And what could it have been like for them to be there at Golgotha?

The place that Jesus was crucified, Golgotha literally means skull.

Some people believe it was called that because the rock face of the hill that it was on looks like a skull.

Some people believe it was called that because when people were crucified, they were rarely buried.

Their bodies were just left there for the birds, and so you would have had bones and skulls literally everywhere.

Nonetheless, it was a place of death, and there is the author of life itself hanging on a cross.

What could it have been like for them to watch him struggle to breathe?

To yell out those last words, it is finished, and then to actually see his breathing stop and to look at one another and know that Jesus is dead, to see that soldier pierce his side with a spear just to check.

What could it have been like for Joseph of Arimathea, this wealthy, successful secret follower of Jesus that had so much to lose in life that he was afraid to let people know he was one of Jesus' friends?

But something about the crucifixion gave him a new boldness and he came and claimed Jesus' body.

What could it have been like for him to hold the dead body of Jesus in his arms?

To wrap that body in linen and in spices that were fit for a king in that day, and then to physically place Jesus' body in a tomb and watch as a stone rolled in front of it.

That moment that the stone sealed that tomb, what could that have been like for Joseph?

To see that happen and go, It's over.

It's done.

That's what the disciples and the friends of Jesus are experiencing on their Easter Sunday.

That's what they're thinking about when they wake up.

It's sadness, it's confusion, it's it's disgust in their own failure to stand by him.

And they don't know it yet, but early that morning they're about to get a bombshell that's going to be much more difficult to process than Jesus' death, actually.

The Bible says that the disciples were in hiding.

They were terrified of being arrested.

Every single time you see them, it says they were hiding behind locked doors.

There were some women, though, that followed Jesus and they weren't as scared.

They had a lot more boldness and courage.

It speaks a lot to who they were.

And that morning they didn't care who saw, they wanted to go pay honor to Jesus, and they arrived at this tomb and they did not see what they expected to see.

They saw a stone rolled away, an empty tomb, grave clothes but no body, and a few angels that show up and say, What are you doing here?

This is a tomb, if you haven't noticed, and you can't kill Jesus.

You need to look somewhere else.

Mary Magdalene actually has a conversation with the risen Jesus.

And he tells her, Go back and tell my friends, tell my disciples what you've seen.

So that's exactly what the women do.

And I love, I love to picture the disciples behind these locked doors, terrified that at any moment these guards are going to come and arrest them.

And what it must have felt like to them to hear all this commotion going on outside the door as these women are coming to tell them what's happened.

They must have thought, that's it, we're done.

They're here.

And turns out, no, it's it's not any guards, it's just seven or eight hysterical women, which is way more terrifying.

Anyway, let's be honest.

And they open these doors, and these women are telling them he's alive.

He is alive.

How do you process that?

What do you mean he's alive?

He's not alive, he's dead.

We all know he's dead.

We know that the disciples don't start jumping for joy.

There's no celebration, there's no dancing, there's no high fives.

There's no one in the back of the room going, I called it, I knew it, I said it.

No one ever listens to Bartholomew.

He just he's there.

You know, nothing like that's going on.

We actually find out their reaction in Luke chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

In Luke 24, it says, But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they did not believe.

They didn't believe.

It's funny, I was thinking about that this this last few weeks as I was getting ready for this morning, about how it's so easy to criticize the disciples for their reaction to the news of Jesus being risen, their lack of faith and belief.

But if we really ask ourselves how we would really respond to news like that, we'd probably be in the same place.

And it's very strange, but this memory came to my mind of a time that I have actually seen someone receive similar news, believe it or not.

So the story is my little brother, when he was in the first grade, bought a dog.

There was a little pug, and he named the dog Baby because she was a baby.

He was in the first grade.

You gotta just bear with him.

Uh, we had had a lot of dogs growing up.

We were a dog family, a lot of big dogs.

Newfoundlands, collies, giant schnauzers, big dogs.

And we had this little pug.

And if you asked me to rank the dogs that we had growing up, it'd be really hard to pick the top two or three.

There's a lot of competition at the top.

At the bottom, easy choice.

Baby.

Terrible dog.

I'm not trying to offend you if you own a pug, but this one in particular, not so much.

Just a strange and annoying dog.

So baby was driving my family nuts, and one day, while my little brother was at school, my mom gave baby away to a woman that wanted a dog.

I know, it's sad, but it gets better.

So my brother got back, and it came time to tell my brother.

This is his dog, the first dog he's ever chosen for himself.

And I was in the room, my mom sat my brother down in the first grade and said, Aaron, we need to talk about baby.

Well, you were at school today.

She was hit by a car and she's dead.

I know, right?

That's the opposite approach that you would usually take if the dog dies.

You know, now, my mom's a very good woman.

And so I actually talked to her this last week and I said, Mom, what, as an as an adult and a parent now, what were you thinking?

Like, what was that?

Explain this to me.

And I loved her answer.

It was very, very brutally honest and actually very shrewd.

She said, Look, he was in the first grade.

I knew that whether we gave the dog away or the dog died, two or three days, tops, he was gonna be over it.

I just didn't want him mad at me for those two or three days.

So that was her her rationale.

So years later, my little brother's in high school at this time, and I'm I'm spending time with him, and somehow this comes up and he says, Oh man, when baby died, that was so hard for me.

And I looked at him, I said, Wait, you mean mom never told you?

And he just looked at me with this look of confusion.

He said, Told me what?

I was like, Aaron, baby didn't die.

Mom, mom gave her away.

Baby is alive.

And just like the disciples, my brother did not jump for joy.

He did not celebrate, he was shocked, he was confused, a little bit angry.

He couldn't process it.

It was too much.

But you know, these men, they don't get news that says, oh, Jesus was never dead in the first place.

You heard wrong.

This news is much more difficult to deal with.

This news is he is dead, he has been dead for three days, he's just not dead anymore.

And they don't believe it.

Only two of the disciples actually feel the need to see for themselves.

I find that really fascinating.

That the rest, I don't know if they were just in shock or still afraid to go out, but they couldn't even go see.

Peter and John do though.

They actually run all the way to the tomb.

John's gospel adds this little nugget, just letting us know that he got there first.

So Peter and John race, John wins, they get to the empty tomb, and it's exactly like it was described.

And they see that and they believe.

But even when they get back and tell the other disciples, the other disciples still can't process this.

They can't believe that it's true.

We know that after he appeared to Mary Magdalene, Jesus appeared to a few of his other friends on this road to a place called Emmaus, about seven miles away from Jerusalem.

And he talks with them the whole time that they're walking to Emmaus, disguising who he is.

And then right when they get to Emmaus, he reveals that it's it's him.

And I love this about Jesus because that means that these men now have to run seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell their friends what they've seen.

But they do that, and we get there late in Luke chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

It says, Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread, and just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them.

Peace be with you, he said.

For the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking that they were seeing a ghost.

Why are you frightened?

he asked.

Why are your hearts filled with doubt?

Look at my hands, look at my feet.

You can see that it's really me.

Touch me and make sure that I'm not a ghost, because ghosts don't have bodies, as you can see that I do.

And as he spoke, he showed them his hands and feet.

Still, they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder.

Then he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat?

They gave him a piece of broiled fish and they watched it as he ate.

Apparently, resurrection makes you hungry.

And Jesus wants some fish.

And I love to think about the disciples watching Jesus eat this fish, half expecting it to fall straight through his body.

Because they think he's a ghost and it doesn't, and that's enough for them.

They're like, We've seen him, we've touched him, the man ate fish, he is alive.

And they believed.

But even still, there were some who weren't there that night.

And when they heard the news, they couldn't believe it.

Thomas was one of the disciples, he wasn't there.

He picked a very bad day to have a conflict, and he missed it.

And when they tell him, here's what he says in John 20 I won't believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.

Eight days later, the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them.

The doors were locked, but suddenly as before, Jesus was standing among them.

Peace be with you, he said.

Then he said to Thomas, put your fingers here, look at my hands, put your hand into the wound in my side.

Don't be faithless any longer.

Believe.

And Thomas believed.

It's amazing that Jesus gives every single one of his friends exactly what they need to believe.

And it was different for all of them.

They all processed his death and his resurrection very differently.

For some of them, they just needed to talk to Jesus.

For some, it was just to see an empty tomb.

For others, it was to touch his hands.

For some, it was to watch him eat fish of all things.

But no matter what they needed, Jesus gave them whatever that was, whatever they needed to know that he was real and that he was alive.

Meet me where I'm at, fix yourself up, get things together, and then come and be with me.

We have a God that meets us exactly where we are.

Just like he did with all of his friends here.

So no matter where you're at this morning in your relationship with God, whether it's going full speed ahead, or maybe you feel like you're a little behind or you're stuck or even moving backwards, maybe you don't even think you've started the journey.

It doesn't matter because Jesus will meet you wherever you are.

That is who he is.

And he will give you whatever you need to know that he is alive and he loves you.

That's what he did with the disciples.

And it's interesting that it was so hard for them to believe that Jesus could be risen.

This is not the first time they've seen someone come back to life.

There was a day that Jesus was healing people in a town, and a man named Jairus came to Jesus.

Jairus happened to be the leader of the local synagogue.

And his daughter was very sick, so he comes to Jesus and says, Jesus, heal my daughter.

Jesus says, Okay.

But on the way to Jairus' house, she dies.

And when they got there, everyone's crying.

Everyone's in mourning because this little girl has died.

But Jesus says, Everyone out, everybody but Jairus and the mom and a few of my disciples, and he raises this little girl from the dead.

We see it in Luke 8.

It says, Then Jesus took her by the hand and said in a loud voice, My child, get up.

And at that moment her life returned, and she immediately stood up.

Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.

Again, you are hungry after being resurrected.

It's right there.

Just a few days before the cross, Jesus rose someone else from the dead.

It was a friend of his named Lazarus.

Lazarus has died, and Jesus shows up two days later.

They've already buried him.

And Jesus is actually a little upset that he's in the tomb.

So he goes there, and in John 11 it says, Then Jesus shouted, Lazarus, come out.

And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth.

Jesus told them, Unwrap him and let him go.

Someone give this man something to eat.

Please.

They've seen this happen before.

By the time Jesus is raised from the dead, we're at three.

Now we have what's called a pattern.

There's a trend that's developing here.

Dead things don't tend to stay dead around Jesus.

When brought to Jesus, dead things come back to life.

It's as if Jesus and death just don't get along very well.

They don't mix.

And that is so important for all of us this morning because there might be parts of our lives that feel a little bit dead.

Maybe it's a marriage.

Love's not there anymore.

There's just conflict, resentment, and it feels dead.

Maybe it's a relationship you have with a parent or a child or a close friend, and it's dead.

Four years ago, my relationship with my mother was dead.

We just could not see eye to eye.

We could not get along.

But it's not dead anymore because both of us know Jesus, and there's just no way for Jesus to be in something and for it to stay dead.

It doesn't happen.

Maybe it's hope that's dead.

Maybe it's hope that someone you love is gonna change.

Someone you've prayed for, someone you've begged to change, someone you've tried to change yourself, and it's just not happening.

And your hope for that change is is dead.

Could be hope for your career, for your finances.

It could be hope that you're gonna change.

Maybe you're struggling with something, maybe you're battling an addiction.

I dealt with an addiction for 10 years.

And before God got me on a path to freedom and recovery three years ago, my hope that I would ever be free from that addiction was dead.

It wasn't dying, it was dead.

But Jesus wasn't dying in the tomb, he was dead.

I remember the first day sitting in my counselor's office and him asking me, like, why are you here now?

Why now?

And I just told him, There's no fight left in me.

I have tried everything I can think of, I've done everything that's come to my mind.

I used to struggle against this, and now it's just like I'm dead.

I've got nothing left.

But Jesus is alive, and dead things do not stay dead when they are brought to Jesus.

It makes sense.

Just like darkness is the absence of light, death is the absence of life, and Jesus said time and time again that I am life, and I have come to give you life.

In John 10 10, he says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

In John 14 6, he says, I am.

The way the truth and the life.

In John 11, 25, he says, I am the resurrection.

And the life anyone who believes in me will live even after dying.

We have a God.

And all it takes for us to experience life is to take whatever dead things we have right to Jesus.

I was shared this last week in the Lord's Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Verse 19.

Paul wrote, I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him.

This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in a place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms.

That same power that rose Jesus from the dead is the power that the Holy Spirit brings into our lives.

And that is so fantastic because it means that we don't have to settle for dead marriages.

We don't have to settle for dead relationships or dead hope or dead faith or dead love or dead forgiveness.

We don't have to settle for death itself because we have Jesus, and Jesus is life.

He is life.

Dead things coming back to life.

It's actually a big part of the vision of this church.

In Ezekiel 37, God gives Ezekiel this vision of a valley full of dry bones.

These bones are beyond death.

They're not even fresh bones.

And he tells Ezekiel in this vision to speak.

And in verse 4, it says, Then he said to me, Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord.

This is what the sovereign Lord says.

Look, I'm going to put breath into you and make you live again.

I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin.

I will put breath into you and you will come to life.

Then you will know that I am the Lord.

And in Hebrew, the word for breath is the same word for spirit.

God is saying, I'll put my spirit in you and you will come to life.

That verse is one of the most foundational verses for us as a church.

Always has been.

And what it means to us is that if you're someone that's at a place in your relationship with Jesus that you feel like you're doing well and your legs are underneath you and you want to grow more, you want to be sharpened, or you want to serve, we have amazing teams that you can join to serve.

We have incredible small groups that meet all throughout the week that you can join to be sharpened by other believers.

But if you're someone that feels a little dead, if you're burnt out, maybe it's being burned out on life, maybe it's burned out on church, and just walking through the doors this morning took about all the energy you could put together, then this is a place that you can just come and sit and rest and revive and come back to life.

You'll be given the space, the time, and the love to have nothing happen but life be spoken over you, prayers be given for you, and a chance to come back to life.

It's a big part of what this place is all about.

But for all of us this morning, we just need to take our dry bones to Jesus and just say, Here, this is what I've got.

It's dried up, it's not alive, but you are life.

So breathe your spirit into me and make me alive again.

And he will do just that.

He does it every single day.

And maybe you've never done that before.

Maybe you've never taken your life to Jesus.

You can do that this morning.

There's no ritual you have to follow.

You don't have to walk down an aisle, you don't have to fill out a form.

You just tell him, I need life.

Because what I've done so far hasn't produced it.

I feel dead.

I need your life, Jesus, and he will come into your life and he will stay there.

If you want to do that with someone, it's always nice to have someone share that moment with you to help you get started.

The prayer room, when we're done, will be full of people that'll do that.

And maybe you have come to Jesus, you have given him your life, but there's still parts that you hold on to because you're ashamed, because you feel guilty.

As if Jesus is gonna look at it and go, Really?

That's what you've got?

And that's not Jesus.

That's not the Jesus that showed up to Thomas and gave Thomas exactly what Thomas said he needed to believe.

We have a God, a father, a daddy that loves us, that will meet us where we are, and he will bring our dead things back to life.

So if you'll stand with me, normally we just do one song at the end.

This morning we're gonna do a few more.

I think it's worth worshiping Jesus just a little bit longer this morning.

Let's go to him right now in prayer and let's thank him for being life.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Thank you for bringing our dry bones back to life.

Thank you for being a God that knows us, that loves us, that meets us where we are.

Thank you, Jesus, that we don't have to settle for death.

Because you defeated death.

We love you so much, Jesus.

We we just want to worship you a little bit more.

We want to let you know how grateful we are for you and how in love with you we are because we know how in love with us you are, and we ask all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Let's worship Jesus this morning.