The Resurrection Is For YOU - Acts 10

[Acts 10:34-43 and 1 Corinthians 15:19-26]

You are a child of God. One of my favorite things about being a parent is watching my kids and just watching their brains process the world as they learn how things connect and how things work. As many of you know, I have four little boys and a beautiful baby girl. And years ago, when my oldest was still really little - we had a tradition in my house where we would pray together every morning. Kids would wake up, and come into the living room, and we’d sit on the couch with a notebook and write out all the things we wanted to pray for, and then we would pray. And the prayer list became this beautiful chaotic hodge podge of serious prayers and silly things. Some things come from my prayer list, and other things were really only things a 2 year old or a 4 year old would pray for. So we would end up praying for batman legos and then we pray for someone who is sick, and then we pray for people to be nice in politics, and then we pray that maybe we can have donuts for breakfast. This is how the list went - praying with my toddlers. And at that time, I was serving a church on the east side of the state, and someone from the church had passed away. His name was Marshall Knight, a very sweet older man from the church, and because of COVID his service had gotten postponed, and so his family had been on my heart a lot, and I wanted to pray for them.

And so that morning I sat down with the boys and we started our prayer list. And we prayed for a few things, and then I mentioned Marshall. I wanted to pray for my friend Marshall who had died, and to pray for his family. And because my children are the cutest things ever created, my oldest Liam, I think he was 4 at this time - he asked, “You want to pray for marshmallows?” No buddy, Marshall. My friend Marshall who died. “Oh. Well I want to pray for marshmallows. Maybe I can pray to God to give Marshall some marshmallows, and then maybe he will feel better from being dead.” [pause]. Okay buddy, sure - we can pray that God will give Marshall some marshmallows. And we laugh because it’s adorable, but also because it’s ridiculous. Marshmallows can’t help you feel better from being dead, right? [pull out a bag of marshmallows and the cardboard box]. Truth is, Marshmallows are wonderful (pop one in your mouth). My wife doesn’t like marshmallows, but I do. They taste good, but they dont really help much. It feels good in my tummy, but it doesn’t really do anything. I mean, if this box is death, there’s not a lot a marshmallow can do to change it. We throw a lot of things at death, but we just cannot defeat it. We could try throwing marshmallows (throw one in the box). Or maybe we try to throw money at the problem (throw one in). Or if we just work harder, do more, buckle down, power through - that doesn’t stop death. (throw) Or maybe we throw a little FOMO at it - the fear of missing out. And we just try to cram as much as we physically can into this one wild and precious life we have. Take more trips (throw), sign your kids up for more events (throw), see more shows (throw), eat more food in more places (throw). And none of it, not a single one, even makes a dent in the success rate of death. 

Today is Easter Sunday, and I know that normally in church we read about those two ladies who found the empty tomb and told the whole world the good news of Jesus Christ, that he rose from the dead and defeated death and is alive for you and me today. But today I want to do something a little different. What I want to do is show you that the resurrection is not just an event, isolated in history. It’s not just something that happened a long time ago that’s really cool - the resurrection is for you. It’s like dropping a massive stone into a lake, with ripples stretching all the way into our lives here today. And to show you this, I’m going to tell you the stories of two different men - Peter and Paul, and what the resurrection did for each of them.

Scripture

If you want to grab your bible, or just google it on your phone - we’re going to be in Acts, chapter 10, verse 20. Normally I encourage you guys to grab bibles off the back wall, or look it up on your bible app. But today is a special day, and I know maybe not everyone in the room is comfortable or even knows how to flip through the bible - so we’re going to put it on the screen as well, don’t worry. Now before we get into it, I want to set the stage just a little bit. After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to hundreds of people, and then ascended into heaven. And the disciples, Peter included, they spread out all over the world - sharing the good news of God’s love. So Peter went and set up shop in Rome - basically, he started the Christian church in the city of Rome. And another thing you need to know is that Jewish people at this time have very strict laws about who they can hang out with. There were laws that say you can’t even associate with people outside of the Jewish faith. And Peter was jewish, before he became a Christian, so he’s been hanging out pretty much only with Jewish people for years and years. And this is a lot like us in our lives - isn’t it? We kind of like to hang out, with people who are a lot like us. If you’re a young family, you’re looking to hang out with other young families. If you’re recently retired, you’re looking for buddies who are also retired. If you’re single or if you just got married - you’re looking to hang out with people who are in that same life stage. In fact, all around the country - we’re finding that people are moving, on purpose, they’re moving to places all around the country so that the people around them will be similar to them. Liberals want to live in neighborhoods that are full of liberals and conservatives want to live in towns surrounded by other conservatives. Peter is very good at what a lot of us are good at - keeping to our own kind. And then there’s this guy Cornelius - he was a Roman soldier. Normally, that’s a huge red flag. Jewish people and Roman soldiers do NOT hang out, like ever. But Cornelius was a really great guy, and God told him, “hey, go talk to Peter. He’s one of my followers, he’s staying in this house over here - go get him.” And at the same time, God has been working on Peter’s heart, showing him that he should be reaching beyond just his little inner circle of people who are just like him. And it’s sort of awkward, Cornelius sends for Peter and normally Peter would say, “No thank you.” But because of what God has been showing him, he agrees to go. We jump in when Peter and Cornelius meet, down in verse 28, and it says, [read v.28-29]. And it’s kind of this awkward situation, because Cornelius says, “Okay, so here’s the deal - I had this vision and God said I should come ask you about it: what can you tell me.” And so Peter is responding to this stranger, this non-Jewish, ROman soldier guy who he is NOT supposed to talk to, and he shares the story of Jesus with Cornelius.

Verse 34, [read v.34-35]. You see, for Peter, the resurrection of Jesus ripped away the boundaries. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, all people have a chance to be connected to God. God accepts from any group, the people who fear him and do what is right. And then Peter starts to tell them the story, something they’ve probably heard about. They’re in Rome, but Peter is asking, “you’ve heard about what’s going on over there in Judea, right? There was this guy Jesus, and he was doing all this amazing stuff - healing people, and doing good.” Verse 39, it keeps going, [read v39-41]. Peter’s talking to this group of people saying, “look, you’ve probably heard about Jesus, and he was doing all this cool stuff - and this next part, you’re not going to believe it, but we were witnesses - we saw it with our own eyes. They killed him on the cross, and God raised him from the dead on the third day. And not everybody say him, but Peter says, those of us who did see him - we really saw him. Not like far away, like a bigfoot sighting, squinting - Oh man, I think I just saw Jesus, right next to that UFO. No, Peter says, we sat down and ate and drank with him AFTER he rose from the dead. Jesus is alive. He’s like ALIVE alive - he eats and drinks and everything. Scholars actually estimate that Jesus appeared to about five hundred people in the forty days that he was alive on this earth before he went back up into heaven. That’s a whole lot of eye-witnesses. 

[Read v.42-43]. Remember Peter is telling this story to Cornelius, right? Jesus told us to tell everyone about him. He said to testify, we are eye-witnesses, who tell people what we saw. Even though my upbringing, my comfort level, my laws say I’m not supposed to talk to strangers - especially not you Roman soldiers. My background gives me boundaries - and I was told I’m not supposed to talk to you, but there was this guy Jesus, and he rose from the dead, and he told me to talk to you - so here I am talking to you. The resurrection of Jesus ripped down barriers in Peter’s life. And check out what happens next, [read v.44-45]. Peter shares the story of Jesus, and those people experience God, and two verses later they get baptized and become Christians. The resurrection of Jesus opened up the presence of God to the entire world, not just Jewish people. It rips down barriers and offers God’s love to everyone. 

So that’s Peter, but now I want to move over to Paul. Peter, was a follower of Jesus from the beginning - he’s one of the original 12 disciples. He was a goof ball who made a lot of mistakes, but he was always trying his best to follow Jesus. Now enter Paul, the Jesus hater. If you’re not familiar with the story, Paul was a jewish leader who hated all those crazy Jesus followers. In the beginning, Paul’s goal in life was to hunt down and destroy these new Jesus followers. Now that’s a whole other story for another day, but long story short - Paul meets the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, and has this radical conversion where he realizes that he was wrong. Jesus actually IS the son of God, and so Paul dedicates his life to spreading Jesus’ name all over the world. He became one of the most successful missionaries in history. He travelled all over the ancient middle east, mostly on foot or by boat, and he started churches pretty much everywhere he traveled. And this is one of the best things about the bible - a lot of the stuff in the New Testament, a lot of the stuff after Jesus is letters written to churches who were struggling to understand. And as Christians, even in the modern world, this is our project - right? We want to understand. And so Paul, the former Jesus hater, writes a letter to the people in a church in a town called Corinth. 

And he wrote these words to the people in that church about the resurrection. [1 Corinthians 15:13-14]. I’ll have to check my scholarly notes, but I’m pretty sure this is the moment in history where Paul invented the mic drop. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. Can you believe he actually just said that? Paul says, “look, if there’s no resurrection, what are we even doing here?” And I know, I know we’ve probably got some visitors this morning, or people watching on the livestream or sitting in their seats right now thinking, “I don’t know man, Grandma said I have to come and watch this guy talk if I want to get any candy.” And I know, I know it’s Easter, I’m supposed to sugar coat it, just make everybody feel good and send them all home happy - but the truth is if Jesus did not actually rise from the dead, then there is no point and purpose to the Christian religion. BUT, Pauls says, BUT if Jesus HAS been raised from the dead, that resurrection affects our life too. Down in verse 20, [read v.20a]. Paul says INDEED he has been raised, which is basically just Paul saying, “No, seriously - he was raised from the dead, it happened.” 

And then, if you keep reading, in the next few verses he does this thing where he compares Jesus to Adam. Adam, like Adam and Eve - the very first human to live. Adam, the first man, he sort of represents the broken, human side of us. We’re all people, and we’re all broken. We are children of Adam. And because we are humans, we make mistakes and we die. That’s what humans do. Every person you have ever known, or ever will know - there are two things I can guarantee about all of them - they’re going to make mistakes, and someday they’re going to die. But Jesus brings resurrection into the equation. With Jesus, with the resurrection, there is another option. Think about it like this, Adam and Eve where in the garden where they were disobedient. But Jesus went into the garden last week to be OBEDIENT. Adam and Eve hid behind a tree, naked and covered in shame. Jesus hung on a tree, naked and he conquered all shame. Adam started out in paradise, and sin pushed them out the gates. Jesus died outside the gates, but ends up in paradise. Do you see it? Paul pointed to Adam and Jesus, and he says, “we might start out with Adam, we are a child of Adam - but with the resurrection we can become like Jesus, we can become a child of God.” 

His whole point here is that the resurrection affects YOUR life. Jesus was raised from the dead, and you can be too. Eternal life is out there. This is something you can have. What I’m trying to say is that the resurrection of Jesus is not about reanimating the corpse of Jesus’ earthly body, it’s about changing your life. It’s about bringing you new life, and giving you a second chance. The resurrection was not for Jesus. The resurrection was for you. Have you ever looked at the mistakes of your life, and wished you could start over? Have you ever had a conversation you wish you could put back inside of your mouth? Have you ever wished you could take this life you have lived, take the bad parts - all the sin - and let it be washed away? To be clean? As if you had never sinned? Our sins, our connection to Adam dies, like all earthly bodies do. But with the resurrection, a dead body buried becomes a seed that is planted. Jesus offers us a new life, lived in his grace. If you call on his name,  Like Paul says in verse 22, [read v.22]. As humans all we can do in life is live, make mistakes and die. That’s the only option in front of us. But this morning, because of Jesus and the resurrection he brings, we have another option. There is forgiveness and eternal life for those who would follow Jesus.

Now, if you came in here this morning and you don’t really know anything about Jesus - or maybe you grew up with that stuff as a kid, and you never rejected it or whatever, but you just sort of.. Drifted? I want you to know that I’m going to give you an opportunity at the end of this to dedicate your life to Jesus, if that’s something God is putting on your heart this morning. There is a God out there who loves you, and he sees you - stuck in this cycle of mistakes and death, stuck as a child of Adam. But he doesn’t want you to stay that way. He sent his son Jesus, to do what you couldn’t - to live a perfect life, to die on your behalf. The garbage in your life, the stuff you feel trapped under, the stuff that is holding you down and holding you back - he took it, it put it on the cross and killed it so that you could be free. And that’s why we Christians freak out about today, about Easter. Promising freedom from brokenness, that’s a huge promise! That’s very pie in the sky - how could God ever set me free from all the crap in my life? How could God ever clean up the absolute mess I have made of my life? But when he rose. He defeated death, fulfilling the promise and showing us - I actually can do this for you. You can walk free if you would give your life to Jesus. 

Theology

Paul finishes up in verse 25, [read v.25-26]. The good news this morning, the thing I want you to really hang on to today is that Jesus rose from the dead for you. That’s what we celebrate every single Easter. Jesus rose from the dead. We’ve got all these eye witness and historical accounts - people ate and drank with him after he was dead. He rose from the dead. But what I want you to take with you this morning is that the resurrection is really the core message of every single Sunday. Jesus rose from the dead, and that resurrection changes our lives. Everything is different because this guy actually rose from the dead. Think about what it did for Peter. He was this goofy Jewish follower of Jesus - “I’m not even supposed to talk to you because you’re a Roman soldier and Jewish people don’t talk to strangers.” But because of the resurrection, he shared the entire story of Jesus with a room full of Gentiles. Strangers who gave their life to Jesus and were baptized, because there was nothing more important. Think about what it did to Paul - the Jesus hater who became a Jesus worshipper. He’s over there thinking, “Man, I hate those people who worship Jesus, because they’re so dumb. Jesus was just a nice teacher, a guy who did some good deeds - we shouldn’t worship him. We shouldn’t change our lives to follow his way.” But then Paul met the resurrected Jesus and realized that he had been wrong. Jesus really did come back, Jesus really did conquer sin and death and if that’s true I need to be worshipping Jesus. It completely transformed his life. The resurrection changes lives. The good news today is that Jesus rose from the dead. And if there is resurrection for Jesus, then there is resurrection for you too. 

Application

And so to close out this message, I just want to ask you one question: What can the resurrection do for you? With knowledge of the resurrection, with the understanding that Jesus rose from the dead - how does that change your life? The challenge for us this morning, and every morning from now on is to let the resurrection transform your life. I’m going to put it in three boxes for you - worship, priorities and behavior. How does the resurrection change your worship? In our lives, we all worship something. Even if you came in this morning and you’re not a Christian - you’re still a worshipper. We spend time in our lives idolizing and lifting up things in this world. For some of us it’s money, or the job. For some of us, we worship movie stars, artists, musicians, famous people. For others, it’s power - powerful people, leaders, politicians, the kings and queens of this life that we hold up and venerate. For others it’s technology. That little rectangle in your pocket. We may not call it worship, but we give them our attention, our devotion, our time, we let them influence us. But Jesus rose from the dead. Did any of your idols do that? Is there a talk show hose, or a senator, or a rock star out there right now who is alive because he died and then rose again three days later? The resurrection gives us a standard for what we should worship. If it didn’t die for my sins, and then conquer death and rise - it doesn’t deserve my worship.

Second - priorities. How does the resurrection change your priorities? I mean, some of us in life - maybe we grew up with this stuff. Yeah, yeah - I believe in Jesus, the resurrection, but I don’t have time for God - I’ve got more important things to do. I can’t read my bible everyday, I need to watch my tv everyday. I can’t pray and talk to God everyday, I need to take pictures of my face and send them to everyone else in my life first. I can’t carve out time to go to church every single week - that’s too much time for God. I’ve even heard rumors that the preacher at that one church goes on and on - I know, ti’s horrifying. And yes, of course, I can carve out time in my life for sports, and carve out time for school and carve out time for work - but God? God’s not that important. But wait… did any of those things rise from the dead? Did my tv rise from the dead? Did my work or my school or my tiktok die for my sins and rise from the dead? And I’m not saying those things are bad - I watch TV too, but on teh scale of priorities it should probably be [put hand up high] The one who has authority and dominion over death, and then [put hand down here] all that other stuff. The resurrection changes our worship, and it changes our priorities. 

The last area where the resurrection changes our life is our behaviors. If Jesus was just this nice guy who had a couple of good ideas - a teacher or maybe a prophet. We could just sort of take the stuff we like and ignore the rest. “I like the part where he says that God is love, and that other part when he said that we should take care of people, you know - when we feel like it.” But if he died. Dead. And then rose from the dead - that guy probably deserves more than our cherry picked obedience. So when he says love your enemy, or when he tells us you have to sacrifice in your life to take care of poor people - feed the hungry, clothe the naked, even if you don’t feel like it… we’ve got to change our behaviors to match his teaching. And we can be honest about it - I don’t always want to do this stuff. I read this bible, I don’t want to follow all your commands Jesus, but you are the one who died for my sins and then rose again from the dead, so I’m going to change my behaviors to match your teachings, because I want to follow you because you’re the one. You’re the one who was resurrected. And I don’t want you to be in here this morning thinking this is abstract. This is concrete. This is real world. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be in an argument, or I’ll be fighting with my wife. And I’ll say something or I’ll do something, and I know it’s not what Jesus wants me to do. ANd i’m angry, and I don’t want to apologize, I don’t want to go back and fix it - I just want to get the last word and storm off. I don’t want to repent, I want to win the fight. But in those moments Jesus comes to me and he says to me, “you don’t get to use my name, and wear your little cross necklace and tell people you are a Christian if you’re going to act like that.” And I wrestle with it, I fight with Jesus. I don’t like your rules, I don’t like your teachings right now. But Jesus is the one who died for my sins, and rose from the dead. And so I go back, and I obey Jesus, and I love and I serve my wife - even when I’m angry and I don’t want to. And I’ll tell you what - over the years, we fight a lot less. I’m still super dumb and make a lot of mistakes, but I’m getting better. Because Jesus has been working on my heart. Because the resurrection changes our behaviors. 

Conclusion

A few years ago, my little boy thought that maybe marshmallows could help someone feel better from being dead. And if it was that easy, we probably wouldn’t even be here worshipping this morning. If these delicious, squishy blobs of corn starch represent every human effort to fix our lives by ourselves. [pour the whole bag in the box]. Death swallows up every single piece. There’s no marshmallow that can bring you back to life - what you’re missing is a relationship with Jeuss. But Jesus rose from the dead, and that resurrection was for you. And so if you are here this morning, or even tuning in on the livestream - if you are ready to give your life to Jesus. You’ve been feeling that tug for maybe even a long time now, and you’ve been fighting it - but you are ready. If you want to dedicate your life to Jesus, I want to encourage you to pray this prayer with me. Let’s pray

Dear Jesus, we come to you just as we are. We are aware of our mistakes. We know we are broken and far away from you. We are living in death, living as children of Adam, and God - we’re tired of it. Please come into our hearts, forgive us of our sins and give us a new life. We are ready to claim you as our Lord and savior, we are ready to be free from sin, we are ready to live into your resurrection and to let it change our lives. Please walk with us today and everyday from here on out. We love you Amen. 

Now, I’m not going to make anybody say anything - or put anybody on the spot. But as we get ready for our last song, I wanted to give you a chance to physically demonstrate your following of Jesus. And so I’ll ask everyone to stay seated, and I’m going to have you stand up in groups, okay? First, if you came in here this morning - and you know Jesus already, and you’ve been following Jesus for a long time - if you were sold out for Jesus before you walked in this church this morning, will you please stand? Now, if today is your day to begin following Jesus Christ, will you also stand. Can we celebrate those people - that’s an amazing decision. Now, if you are still sitting - whether in this room or on the livestream - I want you to know, I’m so glad you’re here. This church exists for you. We exist for people to explore who Jesus really is. I’m proud of you for making it in the room, for starting this journey. We love you and we’re here for you. 

And so now, in just a moment, we are going to dedicate our new baptism tub. For those who don’t know. We have this amazing other tub, but it’s ginormous. And so for years, we’ve had to actually do baptisms out in the lobby - which was a lot of fun, but we really wanted to move it back into our worship space. So we got a new tub, and we’re going to pray over it during this last song. We don’t have any baptisms scheduled - and if you’re ready to take that step today, I want to encourage you to come forward - come talk to Jack or Blake, and we’re ready for you. But being a small church, a lot of us know each other really well - and so if you’ve been a christian for a long time -  I want to encourage you during this last song to come forward and place your hand on this tub. Pray for those who should be here. Pray for those who need to hear the beautiful words of Jesus - “You are forgiven.”  Pray generally, pray specifically - during this song, I hope you will come forward and pray that every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is lord. We will dedicate this tub and this water to washing away people’s sins. People in your lives, who you love. Let’s pray. 

Heavenly father, this is just a feeding trough full of water. But we know that you are a God who puts holiness in feeding troughs. We dedicate this tub to your work. We pray for all people, anywhere in our lives who need to hear your healing words. For those who are living in shame, who are walking around everyday carrying the burden of the world, for those who are completely overwhelmed, burnt out, drifting and without purpose - Jesus we dedicate this tub to your work. May every person who plunges beneath the waters have their sins forgiven, may the old self die with Christ, that new believers may be born in these waters. We love you so much Jesus, Amen.