Dead Man Walking Series

Illustration from Sermon Central: An Illinois man left Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him the next day. When he reached his hotel he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it from memory.

Unfortunately, he missed one letter and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher’s wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor dead.

At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

“Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.

Your Loving Husband.

P.S: Sure is hot down here.”

What could be more powerful than news from someone on the other side of death: someone who’s actually been there and seen what it’s like?

The message of Easter is all about LIFE after this life. Easter is a message of LIFE!

· Not an email message, but an everlasting covenant.

· Not from an ordinary man, but from God Himself.

· Not from hell but from the Kingdom of Everlasting Life…

Whoever you are, however you got to the place where you are in life and for whatever reason you’re here today, The Lord Jesus wants you to know He has a gift for you today.

It’s not a chocolate Easter bunny or an egg, a Corvette convertible or the granting of your wish.

It’s something far greater, much more costly: something that will make you jump for joy and shout THANK YOU JESUS! It’s LIFE to the FULL. SATISFACTION, PEACE, HAPPINESS!

FINALLY!!! The meaning of life!

Illustration: misleading lures of life… Friday morning I was completing the finishing touches for our Good Friday service and I looked on line for a good song to go along with our communion. Somehow, I came across a song from Ray Boltz, “Hammer” about the hammer that nailed Jesus to the cross, how some way or another, we all held it in our hands… Every one of us is guilty of some sin for which Jesus had to die.

Some web site service was offering 10 free mp3 downloads to fill out a questionnaire and they promised they had the song I needed. A few minutes after giving them my email address I find myself wading through page after page of offers and solicitations from literally hundreds of different companies. Finally, I made it through to the other side: the page where you get to pick your free mp3s. It was like making the top level on a video game: I was poised at the mouse for my reward.

Turns out they didn’t have that song… Just a bunch of worthless titles, none of which I could use.

All that effort for a lie…

Today, when you read a magazine or get online or watch television, people will tell you what you must have to make you happy, and at the end of all the hard work you go through to obtain it, you find another magazine telling you what you must have to be complete. None of it brings any happiness. None of it makes life complete. In the end we will all learn we wasted a lot of time, resources and effort running after promises no one could deliver on.

Matt 10:39, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Jesus said this to emphasize the fact that LIFE ETERNAL is the price of great price, worth everything you have here: even your very life. This is what He died to give us…

TRUE LIFE ISN’T FOUND BY OBTAINING THE THINGS OF THE WORLD.

IT ISN’T EARNED BY WHAT WE DO OR GIVE, but by a relationship with Jesus Christ.

A Sunday School teacher asked his class, “If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?”

“NO!” the children all answered.

“If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?”

Again, the answer was, “NO!”

Again the teacher asked, “Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my wife, would that get me into Heaven?”

Again, they all answered, "NO!"

“Well then how can I get into Heaven?”

A five-year-old boy shouted out, “YOU GOTTA BE DEAD!” -- Sermon Central

TRUE LIFE IS FOUND THROUGH A PROCESS OF DEATH AND REBIRTH.