Mike Rothwell: I AM the Resurrection and the Life
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To a special day. And I know you're not going to have much sympathy. But it is a difficult thing to stand up here on Easter Sunday because there's so much expectation. And they could have reeled in all sorts of great people to speak. But you've got the best one for today.
I was wondering where to start. And I was listening to a program on the radio the other day.
Out 60 years since the film, which gives us an idea of where to start. Sound of music. Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Now you're going to have to do some work today, because my good friend Ryan has put loads of verses in. But unfortunately, the technology has let him down. So we thank Ryan for all his hard work before the meeting.
So we're going to start at the beginning. A very good place to start. It also means I'm going to do lots of work because I can't read these verses either anyway. Okay, here we go. Let's start at the very beginning. Genesis one one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And Genesis one, verse 31. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
There was evening, and there was morning. The sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. Genesis two, verse eight.
Lord God planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees ground to the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Moving down to verse 15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat from it, you will certainly die.
The Lord God said, these are not good for man. To be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Moving over to Genesis chapter three and verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?
The woman said to the serpent, serpent, you may. We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. You will not certainly die. The serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat for me, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it, and also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.
So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Now moving over to verse 11 and see God and the verse. Go comes. Walk in the garden. And they've gone hiding. And they're saying, why were you hiding? Well we were naked. And God says, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, the woman.
You put me here with. She gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate it. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals.
You will crawl in your belly and will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put amnesty between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. And then moving over to verse 22, and the Lord God said, the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.
He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
We haven't got time this morning to go through all God's rescue plan for the way that he took man and woman from where they were separated from him, banished from his presence. We haven't got time to go through all that. God promised. We need to go to where we are now. And today we have a big hole. There's all sorts of types of holes.
I looked it up and in engineering, and I'm going to tickle. Jeff says here because he'll go. If you've seen Jeff's tool shed, you'll know he'll have all sorts of souls to make all sorts of holes. So this through hole, there's a blind hole. There's a tapped hole. There's an interrupted hole.
Now, I also. And there's a thing called to put topology has holes. So I have a question, and I have a prize. How many holes does a straw have? And. Okay. Sorry, Camille. You said two. Okay, somebody said one. Over here. Three. I told you particularly. Jeff says the answer, apparently, is one. There's one holes and two openings because it's a continuous hollow running through the straw, which is the hole, not the separate openings at either end.
There you go. Topology. Apparently. We hear a lot in the news about potholes. About potholes. Apparently the government keeps giving money to sort out potholes, but I know they've been around for a long time. I've only because some of us can remember that in 1967 there were 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And, you know, although they were very small, they had to count them all because we now know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
That's Beatles for anybody who didn't know. Okay. Just in case you were getting wonder what the heck is going on there. And then we got sinkholes. There was one earlier on in the year, a Godstone in Surrey. Headlines in the news. But that one there is nothing like the one. I do apologize for any people from China who might be listening or hear.
I'm going to call it Zhao Zai. Jiang Qing, which has a sinkhole not like the one that keeps appearing across the road in where we live from our house is the one that keeps appearing there, and they keep coming and filling. And that's about 3 or 4m deep. This sinkhole is 660m deep.
Big holes. A holes where something should be. We reached out to those of, you know, Hong Kong. As we look out the back of our garden, there's lots of trees, and we can see trees not just in our garden, but down the bottom, many of the people's gardens. And suddenly, way down the bottom, decided to take some of the trees down.
And you look out and you think it doesn't quite look right now. There's a hole, there's a hole, and I don't know if you've ever have. You should have a favorite place of leaving something. And if you live with someone, you'll know this happens very often. You know that your screwdriver lives in that drawer, or the pair of scissors slipped in natural, or your knitting lives over here, and you put your hand there to get it.
Fixed. It's not there. There's a hole.
There's a hole.
There's something missing.
There's something not where it should be. And sometimes we take it. People take a great put a great deal of effort in making sure that the hole is not there. Put a lot of effort. Put a lot of planning into it. Put a lot of expense. Do. Very grateful to the people who've come and filled the hole outside our house in the in the road.
And they'll be back again because it will keep saying keep.
In Matthew chapter 27, go. Yeah. Chapter 27. And verse 57. This is where we've left things on Good Friday. As evening approached, there came a rich man from our estate named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph wrapped the body, wrapped it in a clean, clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of rock.
He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the two. And then we read this the next day, the one after preparation day. Preparation day being the one which Jesus died, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. Sir, they said, we remember that while he was alive, still alive, that deceiver said, after three days I will rise again.
So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise his disciples may come and steal the body, and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first. Take a guard, Paul answered. Go make the tomb as secure as you know how. So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting a guard.
There were a lot of nervousness. There was a lot of twitching as.
They wanted to make sure that the hole did not appear. They wanted to make sure that tomb is going to be sealed. Jesus is going to stay inside that tomb.
The song by a Christian artist called common, it's called Sunday is on the way. We played it last year. We're not going to play this year to apologize, but I'm going to read from it. And this is a dialog about the demons celebrating Jesus is dead. But the devil is a bit twitchy. So he takes essentially the line and he takes his crooked finger and he dials a number on the phone by his bed to call an old, faithful friend.
The grave. Who'd know for sure if Jesus was dead? To make sure that his plan had worked? Sunday morning, Satan woke with a jump ready to blow a fuze. He was shaking from the tips to be pointed ears to the toes of his pointed shoes. He said grave. Tell me he's he alive? I don't want to lose my neck.
Grave, said your evilness. Maintain your cool devil. You are a wreck from grave, said. Cool your jets, big D. My sting is still intact. You see, Jesus is dead forever. Take it from the grave, brother. He ain't never coming back.
After the Sabbath. At dawn on the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven. And going to this tomb. Roll back the stone and sat on it.
We have a whole. We have an empty tomb. Yeah, we have a Jesus who is risen.
I love this song. This is this. And this is talking about Mary running through the back streets. A little promise of sunrise. Her heart's completely broken. And tears are streaming from her eyes, slowing down as she reached the tomb. Because the stone's been rolled away. She covered her mouth in complete surprise as she heard the angel say, he is risen.
The angel said to the woman, do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as he said, come and see the place where he lay.
You see, if you look on the internet as I did, and you can look in a very learned Islamic document, and he talks about Medina, and he says these words, Medina, the prophet, is buried in the sacred chamber.
Buddha cremated, and it remains his relics distributed around eight kingdoms. Krishna cremated.
We do not have a savior who is buried. We do not have a tomb that we can go and build a shrine over because we have a god who is risen. He is not here. He is not in that tomb. He has risen! Come and see the place where he lay. We have a hole that is changed. Eternity.
Now, those of you who have been, who are part of the church, who've been coming along for the last few weeks, will know we were in the middle of a series. So this is where I have to dive into the bit of the series that we're going to do, but it ties in because we're going to look at somewhere where there was no hole.
Except in the hearts of the friends and family of this loved one. So in John chapter 11, it says this. We're reading verse 17. So this is Jesus. This has got some good friends Mary, Martha, a brother, Lazarus. He's learned that brother's not very well. So he says, well, yeah, don't worry. We'll just wait a couple of days and then we'll go.
I says this in verse 17. On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. Now, Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him.
But Mary stayed at home. Lord Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha answered, I know we will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? And then moving over to verse 38, Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the two. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Take away the stone, he said. But Lord, save Martha, the sister of the dead man.
By this time there is a bad odor, for he's been there for days. Then Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me.
But I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me. Then he said, this. When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips, sibling him, and a cloth across his face. Jesus said to them, take off the grave clothes and let him go.
John 1125 Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. Right then, right now, Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Not he was. Not he will be. Not for some time way in the future, but right now. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
If you look in verse 23, Jesus says this. Jesus said to her, To Martha, your brother will rise again. And Martha answered. I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
There was a hymn many years ago.
I was going to make some sarcastic comment about how long ago, but I won't reference Jeff John's age, which was. This is called In the Sweet by and by. There's a land that is fairer than day. And by faith we can see it afar. For the father waits over the way to prepare. As a dwelling place. There in the sweet.
By and by we shall meet. On that beautiful shore. We shall sing on that beautiful shore the melodious songs of the blessed. And our spirits shall sorrow no more. Not a sign for the blessing of rest in the sweet. By and by we shall meet on that beautiful shore. In the sweet. By and by we shall meet. On that beautiful shore.
Jesus says, I am the resurrection. It's for now. Yes, it's for then, but it's for now. There was a parody of that song. Written, which is called The Preacher and the slave, and it says these lines work and pray, live in the hay. You'll get pie in the sky when you die. Now, these days, if you say something's pie in the sky, the meaning has really been corrupted.
And it means it's something's fanciful. It's never gonna happen. It's just pie in the sky. Was actually the guy who wrote that originally was making a parody of the you get pie in the sky. Don't worry. When you when you die, it'll all be okay. Yeah. You'll know the resurrection. Then you can know Jesus. Then. That was the parody that he was trying to make out that he was all for the future was actually.
And I'm sure I've heard Jeff say this, but this isn't a quote from Jeff. It's not pie in the sky when you die, but steak on the plate while you wait or okay, tofu or whatever on the plate while you wait. It's not something that he's out there. Something. Whoa. It's over there somewhere. I make a commitment here for Jesus.
But, in resurrection life. So that when I die, no, it's for now.
I've got a few verses, so I do apologize. We're going to do a bit of a quick whizz through. At 27 and verse 13 says this. I remain confident to this I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Psalm 23 verse five says this you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Moving forward twice I. And we say, okay.
Sometimes the steak on the plate comes with side salad. Some of us don't necessarily go for the side salad. We prefer the other unhealthier options. Then sometimes in life we get stuff on the side that we don't really like. Isaiah 43 verse two says this. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze.
God does not. Deserters. When the going gets tough.
Bit further forward in the Bible, Deuteronomy 31 verse eight says this. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged.
John 16 and verse 33. This is this Jesus speaking. I have told you these things so that he may you may have peace in this world. You will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome this world.
And we're going to come back to this verse at some point, but we'll read it now, which is John 1010, the thief that's the devil comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.
Somebody has said, the Lord affirms to each disciple, treading in the land of the living, I will still play to stake for you. It isn't sweet. By and by, though it is sweet by and by. In John 14, verse two and three, you can see how much the rain had worked before the meeting to get all these down.
But.
Hopefully you keeping up. My father's house. This is Jesus speaking again. My father's house has many rooms. If they were not. If that were not so would I have told you that I'm going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me.
That you also may be where I am.
But as we've seem, yes, it is a future. But it isn't now.
John 1125 in the message says this Jesus said to Martha, this is a verse, slightly verse for Jesus said, your brother will be raised up. Martha replied, I know that you be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time. Jesus said, you don't have to wait for the end. I am right now. Resurrection and life. And in the passion he says, you don't have to wait.
Martha replied, yes, I know he will rise with everyone else on Resurrection Day. Jesus said, you don't have to wait until then.
Paul talks in Philippians three verse ten. In the passion. It says this that he wanted to experience the overflow in power, have his resurrection, the overflowing power of his resurrection.
We're going to move to Ephesians chapter two and verse one. Where Paul says this, and then we're going to read verse one. I'm going to read 4 to 6. Verse one says, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.
Edited by grace, you have been saved, and God raised it up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly realms, in Christ Jesus.
While we were dead.
He has made us alive in Christ. We can have that resurrection life now.
Colossians two says this verses start at verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us.
He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of the triumph over them by the cross.
And Romans six, verses three and five. Says this.
For if we've been united with him in death like this, we will certainly also be united with him in resurrection. Like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him. So the body rule by sin might be done away with that we should be no longer say slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we will believe that we will also live with him.
Going back to John 1125, in verse 26. Jesus challenges Martha and simply says, do you believe this? Do you believe this? This is really a rubber hits the road moment.
Do you believe it? I am the resurrection and the life.
The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? Do you believe as he says in Philippians one?
And verse six. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Not just now. Yes, I can, I can believe for now. So we've moved from the yes I can believe in to by the way, way over there somewhere we've looked at we've got resurrection life now. Christ lives in us now. We are raised with him. Now we are seated in heavenly places. Now.
The challenge is, do we now believe that he will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus?
See, there was some, even in the early days, who struggled with the concept of resurrection. I'm going to read this bit out of. This is one Corinthians 15. I'm going to read this bit out to the, the message. Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say there is no such thing as the resurrection if there is no resurrection, there's no living Christ.
And face it, if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors and everything you've snatched at stake your life on a smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God. All these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ.
Sheer fabrications. If there's no resurrection, if corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't because he indeed dead. He was indeed dead. And if Christ wasn't raised, then all you're doing is wondering about in the Dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot.
But the truth is that Christ has been raised the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.
If God's power stops at the cemetery gates, why do we keep doing things that suggest he's going to come and clean the place out someday? Putting everyone up. Pulling everyone up on their feet alive. Why do you think I keep risking my neck in this dangerous work I looked at in the place practically every day I live. Do you think I do this?
If I wasn't convinced of your resurrection of mine as guaranteed by the resurrected Messiah, Jesus, do you think I was just trying to act heroic when I fought the wild beasts? Ephesus. Hoping it wouldn't be the end of me. Not on your life. It's resurrection. Resurrection. Always resurrection that undergirds what I do and what I say and the way I live.
If there's no resurrection, we eat, we drink. The next day we die. And that's all there is to it. But don't fool yourselves. Don't let any. Don't let yourself be poisoned by this anti resurrection. Loose talk. Bad company ruins good manners. It's resurrection. Resurrection. Always resurrection that undergirds while I do and say the way I live. Resurrection.
Okay, let's quickly look at the second bit of that verse in John 1125 where Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life.
Right here, right now. Not for the by and by. Right here, right now. Eternal life.
One Peter one verses three and four.
Peter Apostle writing this. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.
I'm Friday. I don't know if you can see the back of my sheets here, but on on Friday those are gathered on Good Friday. If you can read that it's tweaks his new outfit. This is only half the story.
And we had packets of Twinkies and we had one bar given out. For those of you there on Friday, you should now have a second bar. Some of you haven't yet, but there is one for you. Jesus is death on the cross. Finished. What God needed to happen.
The other half of the story is the resurrection, which Peter says it is in his great mercy. He has given us new hope into a live new birth, into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. If Christ is not risen, we do not have the complete story. And we've read what Paul said out of one Corinthians.
We are most foolish. We are to be most pitied. We do not want half the story. Now, said excited, because I was going to play the other thing we played on Friday. But unfortunately the technology's broken or we can't get the technology working, which is that some of us were old enough to remember this piece of commentary that says they think it all over.
Some people are running on the pitch. They think it's all over. It is now. Which was England winning the World Cup in 1966? England were winning three two.
Jesus died. He had won. We'll read that soon. The death on the cross is the victory over death.
They were winning and they went up. Some people were running on the pitch in excitement, thinking it was done. It was finished and they scored a fourth goal. And the commentator went. It is now. Jesus finished the work on the cross. God raised him from the dead and the work is finished. Now. It's not that Jesus was lying.
That's not what I'm saying. But the completeness is the resurrection. Because if Jesus has just died, that was a just a man done all these things, died on the cross. But he was more than that. And what he did was more than that. It is only half the story. And we can't have the resurrection without the cross. You need both.
Let's be a little lost on him. Sign a little pack somewhere. Dynamite will be back.
I don't want it. Okay.
Let's have a look at some verses pertaining to this life that we've got.
Two Corinthians 517 says this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here.
Colossians three.
Verses 1 to 5. Say this is this. Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts and things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also will appear with him in glory.
Two Peter one.
And verse three says, this. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life. Through your knowledge of him who called us by his own grace and goodness, through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature. Having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
In the message it is put like this. Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us. By getting to know personally and intimately the one who invited us to God. The best invitation ever received. We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you your tickets to participation in the life of God.
After you turned your back on the world and our world, corrupted by lost. I love that absolutely terrific promises.
Just for those of you who have never okay. I think Dave quoted it earlier. Very well known verse. John 316.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
There was a time in Jesus ministry where difficult questions were being asked. Some of the disciples are turned away from him, and Jesus asked this says this in John six, verse 67. Oh, for 66 from this time many disciples turned back and no longer followed him. Do you not want to leave? Leave two. You do not want to leave two, do you?
Jesus asked the 12. Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Now you will know that I'm no Greek scholar, but apparently the Greek word for eternal is a he. Only. I was a a Helios, which is a term used to emphasize a concept of timelessness, a perpetuity transcending above the temporal limitations of the earthly realm. It's a character of what? That which lasts for an age, as contrasted with that which is brief and fleeting.
It's a unique quality of God's life at work in the believer, as the Lord manifests his self-existent life.
Eternal life operates simultaneously, outside of time, inside of time, and beyond time. Now, as I read what that theologian had written, I just went to Jesus Christ is the same yesterday. Today, and forever. His character, who he is, is the same.
To life does not focus on the future per se, but rather on the quality of the age it relates to. Thus, the believer's life is eternal life right now, experiencing the quality of God's life now as a present possession.
And the word for life, as we heard recently from Malcolm, Zoe. Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, we go for that. Okay. Sometimes the smallest ones. The trivial for how you pronounce them. The word life. You alone have the words of eternal life. Eternal. Now and forever. Life. Life in its fullest sense. Encompassing both physical and spiritual dimensions.
Not merely an unending existence, but a quality of life that is abundant and fulfilling. Characterized by a relationship with God. John 1010 I have come to you my life, a life in all its fullness.
We were going to take me to a place I like to go. You know, Easter's sort of the time. This is unspiritual. I will warn you this. Be careful, you know. Nothing like a good bit of James Bond at Easter. Good bit of James Bond. And we were we were going to. I'm going to try and do this.
So I do apologize if this ticket sort of doesn't quite work because as you might have gathered, we've been having some technical problems. Today. So bonus prize if this works for anybody who can and still don't know where my little prices have gone. It's 1.11 can't go. You're right. It is. Thank you very much, Lee. You can see it.
I can't see. Okay. So if I can get this to work, we'll. We'll try. And you get a prize. If you can work out which James Bond film this is.
Oh. Well, Hold on. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. We've got we've got two. Because I heard a shout from the balcony as well. Now, this is going to my wife with a health and safety hat on. If. Yeah.
Okay. GoldenEye in GoldenEye, which is some of you might well not been alive when GoldenEye was made, which is slightly frightening. You've got all these sort of baddies that James Bond's trying to. Take on and destroy, destroying whatever. And then one of the one of the the most fun characters. Within it is a guy called Boris. Boris Grushenka who who is a computer nerd.
He is a computer hacker who causes chaos, who helps these baddies take control of this satellite that's going to destroy this weapon. It's going to destroy the world, Boris. And he'll be there and he's keyboard. And every time he does, something goes, I am invincible and I am invincible. And of course, as in James Bond, they sort of, you know, towards the end of the film, James Bond is catching up with them all and he's in this, he's in this, this place where he's been working away and the the place has been there's been explosions.
And he's there and there's rubble and the speech is still hanging out from the roof and everything like that. And he, you see this sort of pictures, he as he sort of comes out from the debris with his hair. So the matted and he's, he's there and his glasses are sort of slightly skewed. And he stands up and he goes, I mean, Vinci by.
And the next minute you see these tanks behind him explode. And this whatever it is, this dry ice type stuff comes in and he is forever being frozen like that. You know, death has been plaguing this world since the fall. And he comes and he tells us, I. I'm invincible.
Let's go back to a song that I quoted from earlier. Devil on the phone to the grave. Can you remember where we left it? Take it from the grave, brother. He ain't never coming back.
So just mellow out. Just gone. Drink up or shut up. I'm not suggesting do these things, but look, devil, leave old grave alone. I'll catch you. La, la. Oh, no. Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! Somebody. He's messing with the stone! And the stone was rolled away. And he bounced the time of two. And an angel stepped inside and said.
Yo, I'm Gabriel. Who are you?
Surround than finish with a common song, which I'd love to finish with. But we can't. Two Timothy one verse ten says this.
But we're just going to verse nicely. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it is now being revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel, who has destroyed me. I am invincible, no destroyed death. Where is your sting?
Destroyed.
Hebrews chapter two.
Verse 40.
Just go slightly forward again. Backwards again.
And again. He says, here I am. And the children. This is Jesus speaking. The children God has given me. We heard about this morning that encourages we are the children of God. We are the sons and daughters of the King. Since the children have flesh and blood, he to share in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.
That is, the devil. That by his death.
Half the story he might break the power of him who holds the power of death. That is, the devil.
And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Do you believe this? That was Jesus challenge to Martha. I am the resurrection. I am the life.
He who believes in me. Even though he dies, he will live. And he who believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?
Rubber hitting the road. Time for some of us. We think I've got many years. I don't really have to work out whether I really believe that I'm going to be resurrected. Just want to enjoy this life. I want to just put it. We do not know the time or the hour. Some of us. Have walked with Jesus for a long time.
And we need that release. The Hebrews talks about. We need to know to be free from those who to be free from being held in the slavery of the fear of death. Because it is only then that we can live the life that God really has for us. Do we believe?
Let's pray.
Jesus. We get so excited. We get so excited when we look at that empty tomb, when we look at that hole, when we hear he is not here, he has risen just as he said, come and see the place where he lay, that you are not in a tomb, the you are the risen Lord. You are the Lord who lives in our lives as we have asked you to take control of our lives.
You are there and we can enjoy your resurrection life. Now and that Jesus, we can live a life that pleases you by the power of you. Work in us through your spirit.
Father, give us a fresh that certainty that you will bring to completion all that you have started in our lives. The father. It won't be that we would live a life for you, but living in fear of what comes after. But, father, you would set us free, that we might truly live in the resurrection life that you have for us now, that we might truly live in the eternal life that you have for us now, that we might not believe the devil's lies when he says, I have a power that is invincible, because you have destroyed that power.
Thank you, risen Lord. Thank you that you are with us not just today, but every single millisecond of every single day, of every single month and year that you are the risen Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for I am.
