Season of Promise: Easter Sunday
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NOTES:
Easter Sunday
March 31, 2024
Broken promises have a way of jading us, we can become self-protective and even cynical and pessimistic. Why? Because…
Promises are powerful.
Broken promises break people.
Fulfilled promises fill people.
The Story of God is defined by one singular promise – Redemption.
God is a personal creator not an impersonal force.
God had made them a 2-sided promise
1. Trust me and live with me in fullness forever
2. Trust yourself and live separated from me, with missing and broken pieces.
Decision is a combination of the prefix “de” = off and “cision” = “to cut”. To decide is to cut off everything but the most important.
Deceive – means “to cheat, to ensnare”. The intent of deception is to mislead, mis-represent, to give a false impression of. Deceit is a purposeful falsehood meant to harm. To be deceived is to “cut off” the wrong piece!
The motivation for this Promise/Covenant was His love for us, not our goodness. The provision for this Promise/Covenant was the death, burial and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus.
What you think about Jesus will steer the direction of your life and determine the quality of your life. Which makes our decision about Jesus the most important decision we will ever make.
Luke 24:1-12 (NIV) 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. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 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? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” 8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
The cross was necessary because sin and death had to be addressed head on.
Our sin isn’t just a wrong choice that we can correct on our own.
Our sin isn’t something we can just wash off by ourselves and move on.
Our sin isn’t something we can overcome if we just try harder, try to become the best version of ourselves.
The Bad News is God set the price for sin out of our reach.
The Good News is He paid the price Himself.
The empty tomb wasn’t the only evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. We get an explanation from not one but 2 angels who confirm 2 things…
Jesus had actually risen from the dead.
Jesus had kept His promise.
The angels’ presence and words at the empty tomb speak to the depth of love and patience that God has for each of us. He goes the extra mile with each of us so we can “get it.” God gives us chance after chance, experience after experience, evidence after evidence so we can make the life-giving decision of choosing Him.
Before Christ it is normal to feel like “there has to be more to life than this”.
After Christ it is normal to say, “so this is what life is all about!”
When you place your faith in Jesus 2 things happen.
1) A heaviness that lifts off of you that you really didn’t know how heavy it was until it is gone.
2) A hope rushes into you with an expectation that a whole new world has opened up to you. Life now comes with directions and a power source other than yourself.
What does place my faith in Jesus mean?
It means I believe in Jesus as the promise of God who redeems me (buys back), who resurrects me (bring me out of death/darkness to life/light) and who restores me (gives me a fresh start).
Hebrews 10:11-18 (Message) 11-18 Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this: This new plan I’m making with Israel isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone; This time “I’m writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts.” He concludes, I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins. Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them. 19-21 So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body. 22-25 So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.
God’s specialty is filling old dead places with life. That is God’s forever promise kept it in Christ Jesus!