Death is not the End

Thank you, Esther. And happy Easter to tapestry LA. And those of you who are visiting for the first time, maybe we can start with that greeting again. He is risen. - He is risen. - That's actually a common response. Let's do that one more time. He is risen. - He is risen and teed. - And I want to tell you actually where that comes from. All the way back in Luke chapter 24. Do you remember the story of the two disciples? They're walking along and the stranger appears and they start having this conversation. At some point they realize this is the risen Christ, walking and teaching and our hearts are burning from within. Immediately after they decide, we've got to go back to Jerusalem. We've got to tell the disciples. And when they return and they announce it to the disciples, the disciples respond by saying, "He has risen indeed." And that has been stated from that moment in the early church. It became a liturgical tradition. But what I love about it is, I mean just think about this. Our moment here right now, however big or small it might be, it's actually connecting us to that very first hour when people discovered Christ, the risen Christ. And not just that, consider the three billion people right now on this Sunday, Easter Sunday declaring in their own languages, in their own styles, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. You're part of that story. You're part of something so much bigger than your needs and your preferences. You're part of a story that is the true story of the world, a risen king that we find in Christ Jesus. Amen? So I want to welcome you to tapestry LA on this Easter Sunday. You picked a good Sunday to come. This is the one Sunday everyone in the city realized, "Oh, I can actually make it to church." (audience laughs) I can get up and go to church on Sunday, which is great. And we're so happy that you're able to come and join us today. If you are in one of the rooms upstairs, we want to welcome you too. We can't see you, but I hope that the service up there will be just as good this morning. So on Easter, we come from different places, maybe with different interests. We have different stories, maybe different kinds of burdens. All of that unspoken is actually brought with you, carried with you into this place. Perhaps something that you hold in your own hearts, something that you don't share. Some things where it feels too hard to share. Part of the story, part of your life, where no one knows. And sometimes you're overwhelmed by it, trying to decide how to go about life, how to find resolutions to some of your difficult feelings. While Easter is a reminder that we don't have to be overwhelmed, that if you're wondering if there is a possibility of a new life, Easter is your answer. I don't know if you're much of a reader, but before I got married and had kids, I used to read quite a bit. Used to have a little thing for like best sellers, I tried to read as many as I can. One of those books was "Angulous Ashes." And I gotta tell you, I had a love-hate relationship with this book, it's one of those books you hate reading, but you can't not read. I found myself reading and wanting to throw the way at the same time. Why? Not because he was boring, but this was a story that was really difficult. As I try to place myself in the protagonist, I found myself feeling really bad that this is where humanity is. The story takes place in young Frank's life in Limrich, Ireland in 1930, surely after the war, and he's trying to make sense of his life, where everything is just difficult. There was abject poverty everywhere. Everywhere he looked, there would be young people actually dying, and if they weren't dying, there were restless, but there were no jobs. This is a world where fathers would spend their wages and drinking, where kids would prematurely pass away because they can't afford medicine. And families who were stuck in the cycle of despair and death, it seemed like there was no purpose to life whatsoever, a dark, gray place. But there was something about Frank that was different. Frank had to zeal or a passion to live and to live well. And so he started asking questions about his world, why things were the way they were. And as he did that, he started to learn, to education seriously. And then all of a sudden there was a hole that started to rise up within him. And the possibility of a different kind of life. The story goes on to sort of document how many of the Irish came to the US in the 1930s. He was part of that group and he began a new life here. But I thought in that story that it actually depicts, it encapsulates a little bit, what the Easter story is, that in the midst of death and despair, there is the possibility of life and a new way of being. That's what the story is depicting. Christians believe that Easter is not only the most important day on the calendar. This is our most important Sunday. But we would actually say that Easter is the most important event of all of human history. There is nothing like it. What Paul here calls a first importance. He is literally telling us, there's nothing more important than all of scriptures than the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without the death and resurrection, without resurrection, there is no Christianity. What you have is just another religion. That helps us to be good or moral. But it is no distinct. It's no different from any other religions in the world. Listen to how Paul says it. In verse 14, "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain." Our faith rises and falls on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Moral, where Paul says this in verse 15, "We are making God out to be a liar." How? Because we are testifying about God that he raised Christ, who did not, in fact, raise Christ. There wasn't, that the resurrection wasn't true, then he could not have raised Christ. That's his argument there. And that's, this makes the point. Without the resurrection, we do not have Christianity. But here's the line that really captured my heart, that I meditated on all week. And this is where I want us to linger today. But this is an incredible passage that deserves a careful teaching. But we don't have time for that today. So we're going to dwell on, verse 19 there, where it says, "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, where all of all people most to be pitted." Now, why would Paul say something like this? Because I heard somewhere that even if God did not exist, even if Jesus did not resurrect, just to be a religious person, there's plenty of research on this, is a good thing. If you're a person who prays like you have access to peace, you have access to a sense of purpose in life and joy. Without actually needing to be true, you can actually still benefit from being a religious person. You've heard of that, right? There's plenty of research around that ideal. In fact, it was Pascal, if you remember, the great philosopher. What is now known as Pascal's wager. He simply said this, "Either God exists or he doesn't." Maybe we don't know. But if he exists, everything is gained from it. Why? Whatever he promises, and if you follow, he's going to give you the blessings of his promises. But if he happens not to exist, what do you have to lose? You've gained a good religious life, a moral life, people's respect, a peace in your home. So there's nothing to lose. That was his argument. But listen, Paul does not make that argument. He seems to actually contradict it. He says here, "If Christ is not risen, they are to be the most piti. If Christ, the resurrection, did not take place, they ought to be most piti." Why? There must have been something about the way that early Christians lived, that they were all in because of the resurrection. There must have been something about the way value things, or spent their time, or their resources, that it was directly connected to their beliefs about the resurrection. Do you see it? If I'm banking on the resurrection to be true, and I am re-centering my life, reorienting everything, my values, my resources, and if it turns out to be not true, then I should be piti. I made a foolish mistake. But Paul is saying, "Look at these people. Look at these apostles. They've given up everything. They're following after God because the resurrection is true." Which begs the question this morning, "Is there anything in my life or your life that only makes sense because the resurrection is true?" Does your life bear witness? It's the veracity of the resurrection. That's the question we're going to center this message around. Okay? I believe Easter is kind of compelling us to ask this question, whether you are a believer or skeptic, maybe you're on the fence, maybe you're here because my friend asked me to come to wherever we are, whoever we are, the question this morning for us to consider is, what kind of life only makes sense if Jesus rose from the grave? What kind of life? Let's get a glimpse of that life together. I have three things I want to share about the resurrection. First, the resurrection tells us that the grave is not the end of the story, that there is more to the story beyond the grave. Now, we have all been touched by death. We all have memories of losing somebody we care about and love. I've had my share of gravesite moments, standing and watching somebody go down six feet and the dirt coming over the coffin. Maybe too many of those memories. But here's what Easter is declaring. That moment is not the end. That is a declaration this morning. That is not the end of life. That in fact, death is a doorway to even more life, which sounds so incredulous. But remember the words of Jesus himself when he said, whoever lives and believes in me, though he died, though you die, yet shall he live. Though you die, yet you shall live if you place your faith in Jesus, that is the promise of the resurrection. But this morning, we are modern and a little skeptical in some ways. We've been taught well to question things, okay, I get it. So what do we do with this? Because really, this is a singular event. And if it's true, it does affect how we think about things and how we live our lives. How do we know that this is true? How do we know the resurrection actually took place? Ernest Hemingway in his famous book, The Sun Also Rises, it's a story of a group of men who were traveling in Europe in the 1930s again, and they were American expats. They served in the war, they were restless, they wanted adventure, they wanted to find love. And the stories are chronicles, they're searched for all these things but finding disappointment, a broken heart or just a lack of meaning. And so they're drinking away their lives. They're just haunted by the sense of emptiness of everything. The book ends with the two protagonists who had the opportunity to become lovers but they chose not to. But it ends with the famous line, perhaps one of the most famous in literature, isn't it pretty to think so? At the prospect of that love, that's the way the book ends. Isn't it pretty to think so? And I'm afraid many of us actually think of Christian and hope with those words. It's a nice idea. I hope it's true, but is it really true? And how do we know that it's true? That's the question. That's the question this morning. This Easter just a pretty little lie. We would contend that it is not. And this is why we're here this morning. In fact, even if you were a skeptic, the evidence is pretty striking and it demands a verdict on your part. First, there is the empty tomb. After the enemies of the early church wanted to destroy this little movement, they could have easily produced the body and it would have been the end. What are you talking about, the risen Christ? This man is dead. Here's the body. They could have provided proof or considered the eyewitnesses. Paul says in verse six, "The risen Jesus appeared to more than 500 people all at one time." And that's the sign. Most of them are still alive. In other words, if you doubt it, go and ask the people who saw it. You would know. Ask. This is the evidence that he has indeed risen. Any serious student of history. That's interested in fact. They have still the burden to ask the question and answer. So what do we make of this? This little group who on Friday was terrified. When I get near Jesus at the cross, how do you explain the fact that most of them paid with their lives? They were willing to go to death for this claim that Jesus has risen. I mean, it's one thing to die for the truth. I don't know if we can bear to do that. That's a tough prospect. Maybe we're courageous enough to do that. But to know that you're dying for a lie, that you've concocted. Why would you make that choice? It doesn't make any sense. Whatever you believe is good evidence, you still have to answer that question. How do you explain the early church? The willingness to pay with their own life. Maybe you say, well, maybe they were just less scientific. I mean, after all, we know more. Maybe they were just naive, you say. Perhaps. But if you think about the Greeks and the Romans, they had no such concept of the resurrection. It wasn't in their vocabulary. In fact, the very thing that they would have detested was to come back into the body that they just abandoned. The goal, as Plato would say, is to escape your body, which was a prison, and to leave it so that you can be free in the spirit. How was the goal? And so to suggest that this was what they wanted, that this was a blessing, as to not know the culture of this time. Or think about the Jewish people who made the first reports, who were the first eyewitnesses. They never believed that there was a man who can come back in the middle of history after dying. That was not also in their vocabulary. They believed that there was going to be a resurrection at the end of time, but not before. So there's nothing in the culture, or in the people's world view that would suggest that they were ready to believe in this truth, that a man could die and rise again. This is why Luke's account, when the disciples are told by the women that Jesus, indeed, was risen, what did they say? It seemed to them like nonsense, because there was no category for the resurrection. But they could not deny what they saw. And what did they see? They saw a dead man come back to life, and they could not deny that. Ancient people were not naive, as we might think. They buried their loved ones just like you and I do. And they sensed the finality of it every time someone goes down six feet. So to see Jesus come back to life, this was revolutionary. They realized for the first time there is something beyond grave. There was life after death. Yes, death is real and tragic, but it's not ottoman. It does not get the final say that there is something beyond death. There is power greater than death. And his name is Jesus. Jesus is power over death. And what this did was to change everything. People began to reorganize their lives, reprioritize their lives. They began to investigate their own values. And they began to line up that which was to be more consistent with this new truth that there is life beyond the grave. When I continue here, Easter also means that there is new life possible. There's life beyond the grave. But Easter also tells us that there is new life that is possible. You can take your old life and exchange it for a new life. That is the claim of Easter. You don't have to be the same. You don't have to continue to live and send. You can become a whole new person and actually become a person of holiness. You can become a new creation. The Bible says, do you believe that? I know the right answer is yes, you would not your head. But do you actually believe you could actually change that you can become a new person, that with all of your insecurities, all of your baggage, all of your issues, that you truly know only for yourself, that you hide so well, that you can actually become a new person. All of your addictions and hangups that you can actually change and be transformed. That is what Easter is claiming that you can have this new life, this idea of dying and coming back to life, it comes right here from the Easter. You can become a new person. And I love this message of Easter because this new life is precisely possible where we thought all possibility had died. Think about the very people, think about the people who were there on Friday. I hope that Jesus was the Messiah. They had counted on Jesus restoring them and rescuing them. So they were lost on that Friday, but look at verse 17. He says, "If Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins." In other words, there is no resurrection if there is no Friday. And there is no Friday if there is no resurrection. Did I say that right? The cross is tragic, but it's powerless if there is no resurrection. That's what I'm trying to say. As once theologian has said, the resurrection has gots answered to the cross. It's the Father's amen to the Son's edis finish. What was happening during those two days? It was God saying the payment is made, justice is served, and forgiveness is offered. It was God's way of honoring the cross. See, that raises a question I want us to consider. The cross means a lot of things, but we often forget what it actually suggests about us. What does the cross say about you? The cross actually tells us that the biggest problem in your life is not the devil, it's not demons who are lurking, it's not even this world with as many temptations. The cross is actually telling us that your biggest problem is staring back from the mirror, it's yourself, and the sins that you commit, that leads to death. And that is what cross is reminding us that without fixing this problem of sin in our lives, we will never truly live the kind of lives that God wants us to. And this God's answer is the resurrection, so you have the cross, and then you have the resurrection to provide an answer to our biggest problem. That's the power of God to rescue us from sin, and it's demonstrated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the resurrection also means more than just forgiveness. It's giving us our true and proper identity. It's our new standing with Christ that we belong to Him, that we are walkin' by Him, and we are sins and daughters of the living God. We are accepted. So what is a Christian? One way to define what a Christian is, is to say along with the Apostle Paul in verse 10, "By the grace of God, I am what I am." What are you? Who are you? You're not your record. You're not your accolades, you're not your achievements, you're not your success. But you're also not your failures. We're not what the world says, the labels that we get. We're not defined by these things. What are we defined by according to Paul? We are defined by the grace of God. This is how you become a Christian. You understand you are who you are because of the grace of God. That is achieved through the cross and the resurrection. That is the story of Easter, the beginning of a new life, and new possibilities. Some of you know that, not just by way of doctrine, but by way of experience. You can testify, you can witness to how God has changed you. That you're not the same person that you once used to be. That you feel like you're a brand new person. I'm gonna continue here with our final point. Easter means, again, grave is not the end, that new life is possible. Finally, Easter means the path to life, this life that God promises, this new life, runs through death. You have to learn this in order to truly learn to live as Christ intended. You have to learn to die to yourself if you're going to come alive in Christ. Mary Carr, I don't know if you know who she is, she's the best-selling author. She wrote her book, "A Little Beyond" on the other side of a failed marriage after divorce, confessing her addiction to alcohol, and really on the brink of suicide. In the book, she mentions about, mentions her mother who would come after her with the butcher knife. So her life was rather messy. She says, "If you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling." The old world has died, and the new one is not yet fully formed. Then she adds this, "Without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible." She is suggesting, "If you want to experience real change in your life, it has to come through some kind of loss, some kind of pain, or even death of something." If you think about the people in your life that you know who have made a 180 change, like you can't recognize them. I don't know if you know any of them. They used to be this way, but they're like this way now. What you will actually see in asking questions that something was lost in their life, something died, and therefore they're this new person now. What died, often it's their pride, or is their need for control? It's their desire to be autonomous, or fully independent. It's an old way of living. That is put to death. And on the other side of that, is the possibility of becoming a new person. And that's what the resurrection means. Jesus said it this way, in one of his teachings, "Unless a seed, a kernel of seed, falls into the ground and dies, there is no possibility of producing more seeds, to have life as to find death. You can't have it both ways. The cross and the resurrection shows us that they go together." That's why Jesus calls us to take up the cross. This familiar invitation to deny yourself and take up the cross, this isn't Jesus trying to play a game with you, trying to make you miserable and to deny the good things of life. It's actually Jesus inviting us to a life of abundance, true life, life where you will flourish as he intended. Does it in the call to just simply die to all your ambitions and desires? But it's an invitation to take the life that God wants for you to have. And this pattern of dying and coming to life, it's a pattern you see everywhere. Think about forgiveness. Your pride has to die for you to offer forgiveness, especially if you feel like you have righteousness in the nation or in marriage. Your selfishness has to die. If you want your marriage to live and thrive, you need your selfishness to not be part of the equation. You need to learn to serve and submit mutually and to love and honor that selfishness has to die. Or think about any kind of recovery. What's the very first step in all recoveries is to acknowledge that you're not in control, that you're powerless to this addiction. It's to recognize that something has to die, your own ability to save yourself, something has to die so that you can have life. God wrote this in all of creation. This is how you find true life. If you're going about your relationships and just destroying them because the way you're talking or behaving or assuming things, you have to look at yourself and ask, where is it hurting that I'm this way? What's making me hurt other people? You need a careful examination of these things so that you can put them to death and then find a new way of being and relating to people. This is what Jesus offers. No wonder he says in verse 31, "I die every day." He says he dies every day. Why? Because he's understood the Easter paradox. To die is to live. You find life when you put to death, you're flesh. I'm almost done here. I can hear them cheering for, and I'm really tired. Three services today. I should just relax and have a conversation with you. I said, "Stick into the script here." I don't know. I have just one last thing I want to say, okay? I love the way John is like, it's the first day of the week and then he starts describing Easter. This is John 20. Something about it struck me and I don't know how accurate this is, but I feel like he's kind of announcing something. He's kind of announcing on Friday, John chapter 19. Look, it was the end of the old world. Life as we knew it ended on Good Friday. After silent Saturday, you have the first day of the week, which is Sunday, and this is the reason why we don't worship on Saturday, but on Sunday because of the resurrection, he's kind of announcing to everyone. This is the beginning of the next video. world, where now anything is possible because of the resurrection of Jesus. The way Paul connects this in our passage is he calls Jesus his resurrection the first fruit. He's the first fruit of all that is coming our way. And then what that then means is all things will be made new. He's the first that has been made new in his body and the risen body, but it's the first fruit of everything that has come in in creation that is going to be renewed. And so you can say, Paul can say in verse 58, "Your labor and the Lord is not in vain." In other words, we're not in this world trying to make a dying world a little more comfortable or bearable. We're actually bearing witness. You and I as the church were bearing witness to this new world that is coming. And ultimately this resurrection power, this new life is going to cover the face of the earth and all things will be renewed when Christ returns for us. And baptism is the clearest sign of the renewal that is taking place in the world. Baptism is an Easter story because you go down to death and then you rise again to life. And that is the declaration that is being made on this Easter day. And that happens to be our mission as well. To live in such a way that the world recognizes that there is a new world coming, that there is new possibilities in this world. So I'm going to ask you to stand with me. We're just going to, before we invite our baptism candidates, we're going to take a moment now and have a bit of a conversation with God. And maybe I can do it this way. What I would like for you to think about back to John 20, you know, I mentioned that there was no category for the resurrection. So when the women go to prepare for the burial, they can't find the body and they ask a gardener so they thought. Like it wasn't in their imagination that Jesus could have risen and walked among them. So they asked the gardener, where is the body? And it turned out it was no gardener but it was the risen Christ. But what I want you to just, if you could just join me in a moment of prayer right now, is to just hear how Jesus replies. He gives her one word. He says, "Mary." He calls her by name. He calls her to come and meet with him, the risen Christ. And I don't know, maybe none of the evidence really speaks to your heart. It doesn't help you with your problems and your worries. But I wonder if you can hear your name. And take comfort in knowing that God is with you and He knows you. I want you to just receive the risen Christ this morning. To come back to Him. If you've been away for a long time, today is an opportunity to hear your name being called. And to be with the Lord again. So let's just pray right now. Just take a moment. I mean, you made it to church this day. Just take a moment and just talk to God and say, "God, I want to come to you. I want to meet with you. I want to find new life in you. Lord, I want my life to be transformed because of your resurrection. Let's pray together."