INTRO: 1. ILL. A little boy and his father driving down the road on a spring day when a bee flew into the window. The boy began to panic because he was deathly allergic to it’s sting. The father quickly reached out and grabbed the bee, squeezing it and releasing it letting the bee buzz again near the boy. The boy began to panic again, but his father stretched out his hand and showed him the stinger stuck in his hand and said, “You don’t need to be afraid anymore, I’ve taken the sting for you”.
a. This is the same message Easter holds for us.
b. Jesus has taken the sting of death for us & we can know live a life without fear.
c. Just like the father who released the powerless bee, no longer with a stinger - although we will one day have to face the reality of death, we will never have to face the sting or the fear of death.
2. From this first gospel message we can surely see how central the fact of the resurrection of Jesus is to Christianity.
a. Not an original message but one taught him by the “risen Lord” himself.
b. If our faith stops at the cross we loose the greatest truth of Christianity.
c. ILL. Thousands climb a particular mountain in the alps every year to stand at a huge outdoor crucifix. One tourist noticed an overgrown trail that lead behind this cross. Fighting through the thick brush he came to another shrine, symbolizing the empty tomb. Thousands had seen the crucifix but had stopped there when there was more to be seen.
d. When we stop at the cross, we will see Jesus’ pain and His love, but we miss His Hope and His Power to release our lives to the fullness of life He’s promised.
e. When we stop at the cross we will see the penalty and seriousness of our sin, but we miss the “Resurrection Life” that he holds for us all.
4. Peter unapologetically proclaimed what he knew to be true, in verse 24 he boasts that Jesus was risen because,
Acts 2:24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
a. Peter was saying that when it come to Jesus, the undefeated opponent called death lost it’s grip.
b. Peter proclaimed this as not a chance victory, it was impossible for death to hold him.
c. Such a simple truth, but one that holds for each us some wonderful implications.
I. IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE THAT THE GRIP OF DEATH KEEP HOLD OF HIM.
a. You can’t keep a prisoner locked up when he’s gotten his own set of keys.
b. As a result of Calvary, Jesus had regained the keys of “death, hell and the grave” and he was more than able to use these keys.
c. On Easter Sunday morning, Jesus swung wide the door of the grave and he wasn’t the only one seen walking around.
A. BECAUSE HE HELD THE INHERENT POWER TO DIE AND TO LIVE AGAIN.
Jn 10:17,18 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
1. Not only did he hold the key but he held the authority.
2. He inherently held not only the power of life, but the power of resurrection.
3. He proclaimed to Mary & Martha at Lazarus’ tomb, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
4. Ask Lazarus who he raised after three days in a hot tomb.
5. Just ask the Widow who’s son was being carried in a funeral procession through town, when Jesus stopped the grieving crowd and spoke life into this boy.
6. Ask Jarius, whose daughter had been dead for hours and mourners had already gathered at her door, when Jesus took her by the hand and said “Daughter live”
7. ILL. A certain countess live about 100 years ago that held in contempt all that Christianity claimed and especially the doctrine of resurrection. She died at the age of thirty and left strict instructions for her burial. She order that her grave be covered by a slab of granite, that square blocks of stone be put at each corner and that heavy iron clamps would clamp it together. she also asked that the inscription be put on this tomb, THIS BURIAL PLACE PURCHASED TO ALL ETERNITY MUST NEVER BE OPENED. But over the years a little birch tree sprouted and it’s roots took hold under the slab, today that slab is broken leaning against this huge tree. The great efforts of this atheist was nothing to a little seed that held the inherent power of life.
8. The stone and the soldiers that guarded the tomb of Christ was no obstacle to the “resurrection and the Life”.
B. BECAUSE HIS LOVE FOR US WAS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE GRAVE.
1. Jesus didn’t go to that grave to prove anything, he went to that grave for us - love placed him on that cross and sealed him in that tomb.
2. The same love that put him there was what called him forth, He gained victory for you.
3. Although he rose from the grave, he kept the scars - to be a reminder of his love for us.
4. ILL. Sign language for Jesus is the middle finger of one hand placed in the palm of the other, every time they sign his name they are reminded of those scars, every time we say Jesus should be a reminder of his love for us.
5. He loved us too much to leave us.
D. BECAUSE HIS WORK OF REDEMPTION IS DONE.
1. He rose because he had accomplished what he came to do.
2. No longer was it necessary for him to submit himself the fleshly limits he had accepted, now he arose with all of his power and authority.
3. Jesus could have hung a “gone fishing” sign over the door of the tomb - his work of redemption was done.
4. We can rest in the fact that nothing more needs to be done to secure our standing with God, just to simply receive what Easter sealed.
II. IF DEATH COULDN’T HOLD HIM, NO OTHER BOND CAN HOLD HIM.
a. Death is life’s greatest foe, nothing is as cold, as certain, as undefeatable as death.
b. But Jesus effortlessly walked out of it’s grip.
c. Because of Easter we follow a “Living Lord” who has already defeated life’s greatest foe , we can follow him because we know he is also the “unstoppable Lord”.
d. Since the empty tomb Jesus and his gospel has marched across this world and nothing has been able to stop him.
A. THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD CAN’T CONTAIN HIM.
1. Atheism tried to mock him away, but when atheism went out of style, Jesus was still lord.
2. Humanism tried to exalt man above him, but generations of humanist have past away, but His Kingdom is without end.
3. Communism tired to crush Christianity beneath it’s iron fist, but today in what used to be soviet Russia, thousand are choosing Jesus Christ.
4. ILL. About 1930, the communist leader Bukharin journeyed from Moscow to Kiev. His mission was to address a huge assembly. His subject atheism. For a solid hour he aimed his attack at Christianity. When he finished he stood confident that he had succeeded in destroying any faith they may have had in Jesus. “Are there any questions.” he boldly asked. A solitary man asked to say something, when allowed he looked around and he shouted “CHRIST, IS RISEN!” The vast assembly arose as one man and the response came crashing back like a cymbal, “HE IS RISEN INDEED”.
5. Let the arrogance of man try to stop it if they can, after death nothing is an obstacle.
III. IF DEATH COULDN’T HOLD HIM, IT’S JUST AS IMPOSSIBLE TO
KEEP IN BONDAGE ANYTHING THAT BELONGS TO HIM
a. ILL. Remember Moses as he stood before Pharaoh who wanted Moses to take his people but to leave his flocks behind, Moses responded that not one hoof would remain.
b. God won’t settle for anything that belongs to him to be kept in bondage.
c. Because of what happened on Easter Sunday morning, our lives doesn’t have to be lived chained to the taskmasters of this life.
A. THE CHAINS OF HABIT CAN’T HOLD US.
1. Because of Jesus past sins and failures no longer have control over us.
2. His blood and power can loose the habits that we could never shake.
3. I don’t have to live bond to sin, because Jesus proclaimed liberty from an empty tomb.
B. THE CHAINS OF HELL CAN’T HOLD US.
1. Jesus let us know that because of what he came to do we’d be a church that the “Gates of Hell would not prevail against us.”
2. We don’t have to live bound by the lies and the oppression of the devil, the doors to freedom has been flung wide open.
3. We need not be looking for a demon behind every door, we belong to the Liberator.
C. THE CHAINS OF DEPRESSION CAN’T HOLD US.
1. Because of that empty tomb I don’t have to live without hope, in the chains of depression, but I can live in the liberty of knowing I’m loved by the one who spoke it all into existence and that hope is without end.
2. If you’ve come here this morning despondent and discouraged, theirs a new day dawning in your life, if you’ll only visit the “living Lord”.
E. THE CHAINS OF DEATH CAN’T HOLD US.
1. Paul tells us that the same thing that happened to Christ will some day happen to us, as we face the mysterious darkness of death in our life.
2. ILL. Ancient fisherman and explorers did not dare to ever go out to see beyond what they could see the land behind them. Then such courageous explorers as Christopher Columbus dared to strike out into the unknown. But had he not returned to the Queen bearing the fruits of America and the inhabitants, Europe may had to wait for many more generations to learn what was beyond the horizon.
3. Many today live in the fear and the uncertainty of what lies beyond the grave, but a trusted friend called Jesus has been there and he returned to let us know that it’s nothing to fear. He’s brought us the fruit of heaven for us to taste and the inhabitants of heaven, his angels to guard over us.
4. My life need not be lived in the fear of death, but lived fully even anticipating when Jesus escorts me through that passage.
