RESURRECTION REVERBERATIONS
3 April 2005

I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
-- this morning is the first Sunday following Easter -- the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ -- historically, following the resurrection, the Bible tells us that Jesus stayed with His disciples for forty days -- discipling them and teaching them the meaning of His death and His resurrection in light of the Hebrew Scriptures
-- the New Testament reflects what the Apostles learned from Christ and from their own experiences about what the death and resurrection of Christ meant and why it should matter to us
-- so, now that we have had the Bible for almost 2000 years and we have had almost 2000 years of interpretation and study of the Bible, let me ask you a simple question: Why did Jesus come? -- Why did God send His Son to earth?
-- the most obvious answer, of course, is that Jesus came to forgive our sins -- we should all know that we were born sinners and that we all have need for the forgiveness of our sins -- Romans 3:23 says as much, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" -- so, in order for us to come to God, we have to have our sins forgiven -- that is one purpose for which Christ came
-- when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to the Jordan River to be baptized, John cried out, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" -- and it was through the blood of Christ that we were given forgiveness of our sins -- during the last supper, when Jesus took the cup of wine and passed it among His disciples, He pointed this out to them -- He told them to take and drink it, it was the blood of the covenant, being poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins
-- but, that's only part of the answer -- Jesus did come to offer forgiveness of sin, but what else did He come for?
-- Jesus also came to bring us life -- Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin are death but that the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ -- through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead on the third day, Jesus overcame the power of death and brought us life
-- Jesus tells us that Himself in John 10:10 -- "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" -- the King James version says, "I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly"
-- the forgiveness of sins comes through the blood of Christ, but eternal and abundant life comes through the cross of Christ -- through dying to self and being raised to new life in Christ
-- it is this new life that I want to talk about a little more this morning -- it is the next step in our Christian experience following salvation -- but it is a step that very few Christians seem to be taking
-- you see, we tend to get lost at the cross -- we understand the meaning of the forgiveness of sins -- we understand what it means to have our sins forgiven -- we know what it takes to get to that point
-- but, we don't seem to understand how to move past the cross and into the eternal and abundant life that Jesus offered -- we don't fully understand and appreciate just what the cross and the resurrection mean to us -- that is why our churches are full on Easter and back to normal on the Sunday after
-- St. Irenaeus said "the glory of God is a man fully alive" -- that is what a normal Christian looks like -- that is the picture we see of Christians in the Bible -- but that is not what we see when we look around our churches and our communities today
-- the cross is more than just a symbol of our faith -- it was the tool by which Christ destroyed our sin nature
-- as the great Chinese Evangelist, Watchman Nee, said, "The Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are. The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at the root of our capacity for sin."
-- in other words, because of the cross we have been given the capacity to live eternal, abundant, and sin-free lives -- because of the cross we are not who were were -- we are new creations -- we have been transformed and set free and been restored to the image of God -- as it says in 2 Cor 5:17, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
-- the cross should be a passageway for us into a new life -- into an abundant life -- that was why Christ came
-- Watchman Nee said that "Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection. The Cross terminates the first creation, and out of death there is brought a new creation in Christ, the second Man"
-- this second Man -- this new creation that Watchman Nee and the Bible talk about -- is a man or woman fully alive in Christ -- forgiven of their sins and living an abundant, eternal, and sin-free life through the power of Christ
-- but, we have a problem believing and understanding this concept for a couple of reasons
-- first, we look at this as a future blessing -- when the Bible tells us that Christ died to bring us eternal life, we generally assume that this means that we will receive eternal life after we die
-- but in his book, Waking the Dead, John Eldredge pointed out that when the Bible says that Christ died to bring us eternal life, it didn't mean that this life would begin after we die -- the word "eternal" doesn't mean that -- it means "never-ending" -- it means "continuing forever"
-- eternal life should begin at the cross after our sins are forgiven and after we die to self and are raised with Christ -- in John 10:10, when Christ talks about living life to the full or living the abundant life, He is not talking about in the future after we die, but here and now
-- look with me now at Romans 6 -- in the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul deals with the two purposes of Christ -- in the first five chapters of the book of Romans, Paul has built the case for the need for the forgiveness of sins and he has shown that we all have this sin nature within us that causes us to sin
-- now, in Romans 6, he begins a new section showing how the cross destroyed our old sin nature and made possible the new and abundant life that Christ offered
-- look at verse 1 1. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2. By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3. Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. -- some people in Rome were living lives just like most of the Christians here in America -- they had come to the cross and been forgiven of their sins, but they were not living the abundant lives that Christ had come to offer -- they were still living lives of sin -- so Paul dramatically says that they should stop sinning -- that they had died to sin so that they might live a new life with Christ -- then he goes on to tell us how that happened
-- verse 5 -- 5. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
6. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--
7. because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
10. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. -- we are dead to sin but alive to Christ -- notice that Paul is saying the same thing here as Watchman Nee and John Eldredge and others -- this life in Christ -- this abundant and eternal life is not to be lived in the future, but in the here and now
-- this is one reason why we are not seeing more Christians living the victorious life -- we simply are not taking hold of the promise of Christ -- we think that this eternal and abundant life is in the future, so why try now?
-- the second reason why we are not seeing more Christians living the victorious life is because we are at war -- listen as I read John 10:10 to you once more [read John 10:10] -- Jesus came that we might have life -- but the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy
-- the cross and the resurrection made the abundant, eternal life available to us -- but, one reason we don't realize this and live this out is because of Satan's deceptions
-- look at verse 12
12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
13. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
14. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16. Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17. But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
-- before the blood -- before the cross and the resurrection -- we were under bondage to Satan and to our old sin nature -- he controlled us -- he controlled our actions -- he controlled our movements -- he threw temptation after temptation at us and because of our sin nature, we fell for it hook, line, and sinker time and time again
-- and now, even though our sins have been forgiven and we've been offered new life in Christ, the devil keeps the truth hidden from us -- he continues to deceive us by making us think that we are still under his control -- he knows that old habits are hard to break -- and he uses that to keep us in bondage
-- during the Vietnam War, our troops went in and liberated a POW camp -- we killed the guards and we broke the chains and we opened up the doors to the cells where our men were being held captive -- but, do you know what happened? -- a lot of the men refused to leave their cells, even though the door was open -- they couldn't believe they were free -- they were so used to being held captive that they couldn't step out into the freedom
-- in the same way, Satan holds us captive by telling us that we're really not free -- he whispers things in our ears like, "you might be forgiven, but you know how you are -- you always give in to this sin -- you can't help yourself" -- or "you know you're going to sin again -- it's just who you are -- you can't help yourself"
-- he uses lies and deceptions to keep us from moving into the life that Jesus offers us through the cross -- he uses lies and deceptions to steal, kill and destroy
-- and if we listen to his lies long enough, we'll start to believe them with our whole heart and we'll start to live them out in our life -- you can let yourself be controlled through his words of lies and deceptions
-- let me give you an example from my own life -- when I was young, I loved baseball -- baseball was my favorite sport -- Daddy wanted me to be a football player, but I wanted to play baseball
-- so, I went out for little league and I was put on a team -- and from the very first day, my love of baseball started to leave me -- you see, the coach was very hard and very critical to me -- I don't know if he meant it as motivation, but his words started destroying my spirit
-- if we were running laps, he'd tell me how slow I was -- if I missed a catch, he'd tell me it was because I was slapping at the ball and that I couldn't catch anything -- when they were looking for someone to try out as a pitcher, he told me I couldn't try because I was too weak to get the ball across the plate
-- and, as I continued to listen to his criticisms over the course of that season, I started to believe them -- I wasn't any good at baseball -- I never would be any good -- I never would be any good at anything
-- I didn't quit the team -- that wasn't something you did -- but I can tell you it wasn't fun anymore -- the excitement and the thrill of baseball were taken away from me by this coach
-- the next year, when I tried out for little league baseball again, I did it with a completely different outlook -- I had been taught by this coach that I was no good -- I had been taught I couldn't play baseball -- and, as a result, I couldn't -- his words controlled my life -- and I didn't make the team -- I had been cut from little league
-- but something amazing happened -- several weeks after the season had started, I was in the grocery store with my mother and someone came up from behind and covered my eyes -- I heard a voice saying, "I'm looking for a good baseball player -- anyone here want to play baseball?" -- I turned around and saw a friend of our family -- he coached one of the little league teams -- the winningnest team in the county, in fact
-- he said, "I need someone to play first base -- I think you can do it -- do you want to play?"
-- and I played -- badly at first, but this coach was different -- instead of criticizing, he encouraged -- when I did something wrong, he'd show me how to do it better -- and when I did something right, he'd get excited with me -- and in the process, I quit listening to the lies and the hurtful comments of my first coach and started listening to what the new coach had to tell me
-- and, do you know what, it turns out that my old coach was wrong -- I wan't a terrible baseball player -- I may not have been a super star, but I was good enough to play and good enough to contribute to the team as a starting player -- a fact I'm still proud of since three of the boys on that team ended up getting drafted into the pros
-- our team went on to win the little league title for the county that year -- but that wasn't the victory that I celebrated at the end of the season -- I celebrated the fact that I loved the game of baseball once again -- I celebrated the fact that the lies and deceptions -- that everything that the old coach had done to steal, kill, and destroy my love of baseball was gone -- I was free
Closing
-- so, what's the take home message from today -- I think it's verse 18 "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."
-- we have been set free from the bondage of sin and from the lies and deceptions of the enemy -- we have been set free to enjoy and to live the abundant, eternal, and sin-free life that Jesus offered us through His death and resurrection
-- we need to remember that we have been more than forgiven -- we have been set free and delivered from our sin natures so that we can live the abundant life now -- not in the future -- but now
-- and we need to remember that we are not in bondage to satan or to sin any longer -- his lies and his deceptions can only keep us in our cell if we let them -- the door has been opened and a new voice is calling -- a voice that encourages and that calls us to freedom and to life
-- this morning you may find yourself lost at the cross -- you might have had your sins forgiven, but you know that you are not living the abundant and victorious life that in the Christians in the Bible -- ask yourself this question right now, "Are you living as though death has been conquered and that eternal life is available here and now?"
-- maybe you didn't realize that you could have this life now -- maybe you have been kept in chains in an open cell because you listened to the lies of the deceiver -- what ever the reason, Christ is calling you into life with Him -- all you have to do is step forward and receive it by doing what it says in this passage
-- first, if you have not already done so, by receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior and letting His blood cleanse you and forgive you of your sins
-- secondly, by counting yourself dead to sin and alive in Christ
-- thirdly, by trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross and in the life He offers and not in the lies and deceptions of the enemy
-- and, finally, by offering yourself to God as a living and holy sacrifice -- being obedient to His word and to His call on your life
-- as the last hymn is played, I would invite you to respond to God's word as you feel led
-- let us pray