Pastor Kyle recounts the history and story of Jesus’ death and resurrection (raising from the dead).  This is a cornerstone of the Christian faith because it means that Jesus wasn’t just a man, but that he was the son of God. His death and resurrection is our promise of salvation and eternal life – through Jesus.

 

If this is true, what does it mean for you?

 

Excerpts from the sermon:

This news messes with our head. It hard for us to get our head around, because of how much of us is going to change if it’s true.

 

The reason that we put our intellect out there as a barrier is because don’t want that change. We are afraid of what that change is going to mean for our lives. Our intellect is only the barrier before the true barrier. Because we resist it with our heart and indeed our very soul, which refuses to finally accept or believe in the resurrection.

 

We are afraid of that change. How will tell our friends? What will we tell our family? How will break this news at work? What will tell our spouse or our children? Our heart is slow to accept this because, on this deeper level, where the nattering of the intellect is finally quieted, the resurrection of Christ is calling our heart, our whole selves to a place of vulnerability. A place of change and to an opportunity to walk outside of our own desires, to walk outside of a life that we’re in absolute total control of and into a place where we can walk in God’s desire for our life

 

The resurrection is more than ideology that we can believe in and be adamant about. The resurrection is Good News

 

It is crucial to understand what the resurrection means for your whole life.

 

It changes everything.

It will change the way that you understand death.

It will also change how you understand life.

It will change how you spend money or what you do with your free time.

It’s going to change the way you understand that spare room in the bottom of your house.

It’s going to change the way you raise your kids.

It’s going to change the way you view your spouse.

It’s going ability to love, be loved.

It’s going to change your ability to forgive, be forgiven.

It’s going to change the way that you treat your enemies. It is even going to change who you think your enemy is.

It’s going to change the way you see yourself, your sense of self-worth.

 

Because if Christ thought that you were worth dying for, even when you were still his enemy, then we must have some great value for him beyond our actions, beyond our lives themselves.

Christ values us for something more than that.

 

When we accept this undeserved forgiveness we are finally free to forgive others, to care for our enemies, to make our life about who Jesus is, and not about ourselves. We are free to walk away from all of these plans and all of these ideas about what we do and who we are because the resurrection changes this.

 

If Jesus actually walked out of that tomb as those early Christians say that he did, then he is more than just a prophet who lived a good life. He is our only gateway back to God.

1 John 1:1-4

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

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