Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?
Isaiah 53; Matthew 27:55 - 28:15
God wants you. This is the reason for the resurrection. God made you to be with you then things changed in the garden. We are all Adam and we are all Eve. We are all guilty of sin which is what moved us away from the God of our creation.
Now what? After hundreds of years of wondering and finding meaningless gods on our own -- gods like money, power, prestige and beauty -- the only true God brings us back to himself. Jesus came to walk this earth to teach us how to come back to our true selves. He taught us through his life, his death due to no crime he committed and most of all through his defeat of death what our path is to be.
He showed us that this earth has no power over those of us who know and trust in our creator God. Back in Isaiah 53 we see the great prophet's prediction that Jesus would be crushed by pain and death and look it all in the face without flinching. This is because Jesus knew that going through this pain would bring us all who believe over to the other side of it.
Look at Matthew 27:55 to pick up from where we left off last week. Jesus is dead and many women who had been following him were standing by and grieving the death. Where were the disciples? They had left the scene because they were probably afraid that they might be next! This is a lesson for the men today: we must stand up the for the right even if we might suffer some penalty. The women didn't run. The women were not afraid of the authorities.
A wealthy man who loved Jesus took the body and wrapped it in clean linen and placed it in his own tomb. The Temple Police were to take care of sealing the grave and this was important because Pilate wanted this story to end. He had heard that Jesus had predicted that he would rise from the dead and Pilate did not want grave robbers to steal the body of Jesus so that his followers could claim a resurrection had occurred.
Matthew 28: 1 says, "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to keep vigil at the tomb." So it was women would see and hear from the angel that Jesus had walked out of the tomb and they were to run to tell the disciples, "He is risen from the dead." The Bible says they wasted no time and on their way to find the disciples they saw Jesus and fell to their knees in praise. Jesus told them to continue on their assignment to inform the disciples.
What just happened? Remember in Luke 2 that an angel announced the birth of Jesus. How perfect that God sent a angel to announce the resurrection and what a magnificent assignment that was for any angel.
The stone that was rolled in place to seal the grave was as big as a VW Beetle. When the authorities heard that Jesus was no longer in the grave, they ran to the scene of what must have been a crime. There they found no body and the clean, white linens neatly folded. Would robbers bother to fold linens? Could a few guys quickly move the VW Beetle-sized stone?
No, because resurrection is an inside job. Jesus did it from the inside for himself and he'll do it from the inside for you. Let Jesus roll the stone in your heart away so you can live free with him forever.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Palms Turn to Passion
Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?
Isaiah 53; John 19
This is Palm Sunday. This is the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. The people were thrilled to see the man who had gone about the area healing and feeding people and even raising some from the dead. The city was full of Jews who had come to celebrate Passover which meant the crowds who recognized and cheered Jesus were large. People took off their outer garments and cut down branches to create a carpet for this miracle worker. Matthew 21:9 says that the people shouted, "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest."
This seemed to be the last straw for the ensconced Jewish leadership. How dare this street preacher be treated to a royal procession. We know that on Thursday of this week Jesus would be betrayed by one of his own. Judas, for money, would sell his soul and the information about the whereabouts of Jesus so the temple police could arrest Jesus.
Have you ever had a dear friend betray you? The pain Jesus suffered from this betrayal was the beginning of his suffering for us. His turn-coat friend's action combined with the Jewish leaders' fear that they would lose their power turned the triumphal entry into a gruesome death.
Isaiah wrote, 700 years before the crucifixion, how Jesus would suffer and die. Isaiah is graphic and detailed. Jesus would suffer, be pierced, would take the pain of all of our sin and through this act, we find peace. There is nothing you can do for yourself to bring peace that lasts. You can try drugs, alcohol, work, play, television, art, books and hobbies. The only lasting peace comes from accepting the action Jesus took to suffer and die for you and for me.
How quickly the mob changes its cry. On Palm Sunday it is chanting, "Hosanna" as Jesus passes. On Friday at the open court being run by Pilate the same crowd is chanting, "crucify him." This shows us that we are all capable of betraying our friends, we capable of following the crowd rather than standing on our own beliefs.
In the 19th chapter of John we read the story as it unfolded and you can compare the writings of Isaiah to the writings of John and see that God's plan became reality. God's plan for man's salvation has always included the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament we read that God demanded that animals be killed and offered up to God as an act obedience. Some people think that all of our talk about the blood of Jesus is repulsive, but it is the opposite. The spilled blood of Jesus is not about death, it is about life. Without blood there is no life in any person. There are doctors here and isn't it true that without blood a person can't live? We can do without some parts but we can't do without blood. Therefore we are given life because Jesus gave us his own blood.
When a man was crucified, the officials would put a sign around his neck with his name, the town he was from and crime he committed. Pilate wrote on Jesus' sign, "Jesus the Nazarene. The King of the Jews." The people shouted to Pilate that Jesus is not the King of the Jews. His crime was that he claimed to be the King of the Jews. The people said, "We have no king but Caesar." But Pilate was fed up with these people and he knew that Jesus had committed no crime that his Roman legal training could identify and Pilate refused to change the sign.
Don't think that you are different from this mob. What is the king of your life? You have no king but money, your looks, your accumulation of things, your power, your standing in the community.
What Christ came to do was completed this week. We must learn that his blood is our life and that he is our only king.
Isaiah 53; John 19
This is Palm Sunday. This is the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. The people were thrilled to see the man who had gone about the area healing and feeding people and even raising some from the dead. The city was full of Jews who had come to celebrate Passover which meant the crowds who recognized and cheered Jesus were large. People took off their outer garments and cut down branches to create a carpet for this miracle worker. Matthew 21:9 says that the people shouted, "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest."
This seemed to be the last straw for the ensconced Jewish leadership. How dare this street preacher be treated to a royal procession. We know that on Thursday of this week Jesus would be betrayed by one of his own. Judas, for money, would sell his soul and the information about the whereabouts of Jesus so the temple police could arrest Jesus.
Have you ever had a dear friend betray you? The pain Jesus suffered from this betrayal was the beginning of his suffering for us. His turn-coat friend's action combined with the Jewish leaders' fear that they would lose their power turned the triumphal entry into a gruesome death.
Isaiah wrote, 700 years before the crucifixion, how Jesus would suffer and die. Isaiah is graphic and detailed. Jesus would suffer, be pierced, would take the pain of all of our sin and through this act, we find peace. There is nothing you can do for yourself to bring peace that lasts. You can try drugs, alcohol, work, play, television, art, books and hobbies. The only lasting peace comes from accepting the action Jesus took to suffer and die for you and for me.
How quickly the mob changes its cry. On Palm Sunday it is chanting, "Hosanna" as Jesus passes. On Friday at the open court being run by Pilate the same crowd is chanting, "crucify him." This shows us that we are all capable of betraying our friends, we capable of following the crowd rather than standing on our own beliefs.
In the 19th chapter of John we read the story as it unfolded and you can compare the writings of Isaiah to the writings of John and see that God's plan became reality. God's plan for man's salvation has always included the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament we read that God demanded that animals be killed and offered up to God as an act obedience. Some people think that all of our talk about the blood of Jesus is repulsive, but it is the opposite. The spilled blood of Jesus is not about death, it is about life. Without blood there is no life in any person. There are doctors here and isn't it true that without blood a person can't live? We can do without some parts but we can't do without blood. Therefore we are given life because Jesus gave us his own blood.
When a man was crucified, the officials would put a sign around his neck with his name, the town he was from and crime he committed. Pilate wrote on Jesus' sign, "Jesus the Nazarene. The King of the Jews." The people shouted to Pilate that Jesus is not the King of the Jews. His crime was that he claimed to be the King of the Jews. The people said, "We have no king but Caesar." But Pilate was fed up with these people and he knew that Jesus had committed no crime that his Roman legal training could identify and Pilate refused to change the sign.
Don't think that you are different from this mob. What is the king of your life? You have no king but money, your looks, your accumulation of things, your power, your standing in the community.
What Christ came to do was completed this week. We must learn that his blood is our life and that he is our only king.
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