Easter: God's Plan and Our Spiritual Activation

You heard the emergency vehicles go by. I'd like for us just to stop and pray for whoever that is or whatever circumstances out there. Would you join me, please? When we hear those sirens, Father, we know that somebody is in trouble. We don't know what the circumstance or the situation is. We do know that people rushing to a scene of some kind of need are sometimes in danger themselves. And so we ask that you'd protect those emergency workers. And Father, whoever it is and whatever circumstances there are that cause this to be done, we ask that you'd be with that person or their family or the people that are there. We ask that they might know that on this day you have extended your hand of protection and care for them. In the name of our risen Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Well, I guess you guessed it's Easter. It's Easter morning for us. You may have noticed also in the paper that this is a season of Lent for people. It's 40 days before Easter. People set aside a time in their life, kind of like a revival for some churches, where they focus on God for this period of time, where they look at the sacrifices that they can make in relationship to God, they confess their sins, they're opening the Bible and reading it more regularly than they were at other times during the year, celebrating this time, getting ready for the Easter Sunday morning service. You may have noticed also that some churches have a whole week of services for Easter. Every night they meet, going through the things that happened that week in Jesus' life in preparation for this day. You may have noticed too that some churches have a service they call Monday-Thursday. What they do is they take on Thursday night the Lord's Supper as they think Jesus and his disciples did. Also, some people feel that that's the night that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and so they have a foot-washing service on that night for some churches. You see Good Friday show up on your calendar. It's the day churches set aside to say this is the day Jesus died on the cross for us. And then there is this day, the day of Easter, a celebration not only of his death but his resurrection. And we come to look at it to say this is the final victory that Jesus has given in his own life and also given for us over our greatest enemy. Now you'll notice in all these things that the focus of this is the attention given to Jesus. We focus on him and who he is and what he's done and what he is doing and what he did years ago. The focus is on him. But I want to direct your attention a little differently this morning because all of the story of the Easter experiences are really the story of what God has done for you. It wasn't that you were the primary ingredient in what he was doing, but that he was fulfilling an age-old plan that he'd set in operation. And this was merely the culmination of that great plan. I want to read a passage from Ephesians where Paul writes to a church and there he's describing to them the great plan that God has which culminates in this event of the resurrection morning for Jesus. Ephesians chapter 1, I want to begin reading at verse 3. Here Paul is writing to this church to encourage them in their own walk with God. He's focusing their attention on the things that God has intended and planned for them. He wants them to see themselves not only as just individuals living in this world, but he wants them to see themselves as a part of God's great scheme for the whole world. What God is trying to do throughout history and in the lives and hearts and minds of people. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will. The author starts off this paragraph or this sentence that I just read and it's really a long sentence. Now in our Bibles it's not very long, but if you were to get a Greek New Testament and look at it, you would see that this sentence is one of the longest sentences in all the Bible. I mean a single sentence. It starts at verse 3 and ends at verse 14. Now in our Bibles it's broken up into smaller sentences because it's not the way we write. It's hard to remember the sentence, the subject of the sentence when it's 14 lines past you and you get to the end of it. For us we don't comprehend that well. So our Bibles translate a little different chopping it up into different segments. But in this section there is over and over a reference to Christ and his work and it references in these 11 verses, it references 11 times the phrase in Christ or in him. Now this is a difficult thing for us to grasp when you read it because the phrase in Christ kind of conflicts in our minds or ears, at least it does mine. Because when you think of being in something, like in a building physically or in a store or in a job, you visit some kind of physical place or some kind of physical situation. But the phrase in Christ used a lot of different ways in the New Testament. It's a favorite one in the New Testament, but in this section he's using it in one of the ways it's used to describe what it means to be experiencing the result of the work of Christ. Because of what Christ has done, you experience these blessings. So what he's describing is the person who surrendered their lives to Christ and acknowledged the authority of Christ over their lives so they're now living in obedience to him have certain things that come to them because of the work of Christ. So when he uses this phrase in him or in Christ, he's saying because of what Christ has done, this is the benefit that comes to you. So the in Christ phrase doesn't mean that we get inside of him, but it means that we are the beneficiaries of the work that he's done. The work that he's done that ends in this event of resurrection on Easter morning. Let me take you through this passage to help you see what Paul is talking about in the great benefit that God has given us in what's taken place. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms. He starts off with an acknowledgement that God, the Father of both Jesus and us, is the one who's initiating all this and that he deserves to be seen in a light of great value and significance and importance. That's what praise means, to simply praise someone, tell what's good about them. If you have a child who's in a race and they do a very good job, you praise them. You say, good job, wonderful job. That's praise. We look to God to say we give you praise, you're doing a great and powerful and wonderful thing in this world, both as the leader of Christ, because he's the Father, and also for us. So praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and now he changes, Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Now the phrase spiritual realms is found throughout the scriptures in the New Testament. It describes the benefit that God gives us, because it's the spiritual dimension of our life. We all have a physical dimension in which we have a body, in which we eat physical food, in which we experience physical things. We are all made with a dimension of our life that's different than all the rest of creation. Now you may think your dog or your cat or your fish can pray with you to God, but really they can't. This dimension of spirituality is given only to human beings. So he's announcing to us that we have received the operation of the spiritual part of our lives because of Christ. Notice what he's saying. You have the physical part of you, and you have inside of you the spiritual capacity. Like you have the capacity, for example, to throw a ball. But you might live your entire life and never, ever throw a ball, even though you had the potential and the capacity. So you live your life in this world physically, but you have a spiritual potential inside of you. You can engage in spiritual connections to God. You might live your entire life and never activate that spiritual potential. We who are followers of Christ have had this spiritual potential activated inside of us. When you say to Christ, I receive you as my Lord, and I promise you I will live the rest of my life the way you want me to live. I will depend on you for the guidance, for providing for me, for protecting for me, and to make my life what I was put here to be. Then the spiritual dimension inside of your life is activated. You can now talk to God. When they do surveys of people in this country, they come back with answers like 90, 95 percent of the people say they pray. Well, prayer involves two different things. It involves me talking to God and God talking back to me. You can go outside in your yard, if you have a tree, and you can talk to your tree. If the tree answers you, we have a place for you to go. It has no spiritual potential to talk back to you. But when you receive Christ, he activates his spiritual potential in you, and you can talk spiritually to God. Now God does talk to all people in the world. If they've never received him as Lord, he tells them what they've done wrong. He causes them to feel guilty and shame. He helps them to understand that there are things that they should be doing differently, but that's the limit of his conversation. Now whenever Christ comes into your life, you can talk to God, and he responds to you in all the dimensions of your life in whatever way you want to talk to him. And so, Paul is writing, saying, Christ, who has blessed us in this heavenly realms, he has opened up the opportunity for us to have connection spiritually to God, which we never had before. This spiritual blessing comes in Christ. He means that it has come to us because of what Christ has done in the world. His coming into this world, teaching us how we should live, his death on the cross for our sins, his resurrection from the dead to be alive and available to us. It is through this action of Christ that the spiritual potential inside of us has been activated, that so you can pray and so you can hear. You spiritually hear God, not with your ears, but with your heart. We owe this to God and his action through Christ. The story of the crucifixion and resurrection and Christ's coming are the foundation in which this spiritual potential is alive and real for us. Now he goes back to talk about how this came about in verse 4 of chapter 1. For he, he's talking about God, chose us in him, he's talking about Christ, it's another in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. What Paul is describing is that what takes place in this event when Christ comes to our lives or what took place in this event where Christ died and was raised again so that he's alive and left this world so the Holy Spirit would come to dwell in his people, all this is part of a great plan that was from the very beginning. The plan was that in this time of spiritual living, God has made something possible for us that was never possible before. In the Old Testament, David could pray and talk to God like he was his best friend, Moses could pray and talk to God like he was his best friend, but not all the other people of Israel had this capacity to be able to do. God has given us because of what Christ has done and it is through him that this spiritual blessing has been given to us. God elected or chose us to be able to communicate with him through Christ. That was the plan from the beginning. It's not a plan for everyone in the world, but those who are in Christ, those who are spiritually living as the result of the work of Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, now alive, speaking to us through the Spirit of God. We owe this to Christ. It was God's plan, even in the beginning of the world, that our relationship with God would come through the work, the life of Christ. That's why the story of Christ is so important to us. When someone comes to commit their life to Christ, I ask them again, reading in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the story of Christ. When you finish those, go back and read it again. You need to know who Christ is. He is the person through whom all of this comes. So the Easter story is really about the reality that we have that now we can say, Lord, he not only hears, but he says, what do you need? What do you want? What do you want to talk with me about? And we hear him. All of this was God's great plan that through Christ, we who are chosen to be his followers would be able to communicate with him in the heavenly or the spiritual realm of this world. And then he says, in love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and his will. Now the Bible makes it clear that not everyone who is chosen by God really is someone who is headed to heaven. So whenever you hear the word election, some people like to limit that to only the people who are saved and going to heaven. But you know, in the Old Testament, the people of Israel are called the chosen ones or the ones elect. But when you see what took place when Jesus came into this earth, they did not completely receive him as the Lord sent from God. So he said to these leaders of the chosen people of Israel, and you'd think if they were chosen, they would automatically go to heaven. But the fact that they've been chosen does not mean that they've responded to the choice God has made of them. Woe to you. The word woe in the Bible means you have got something coming to you that you cannot stop. You're in deep trouble. The judgment of God is at hand. It's all tied up in that word woe. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. They did this by saying you can only get into the kingdom of heaven if you do all these good things. You can earn your way into the kingdom of heaven. Instead of placing your faith and trust in God, you count on your good deeds and your good works. And so you slam the door of the kingdom which is open to people who trust God with their life. You yourselves do not enter. He's talking to the teachers and preachers of the nation of Israel. You will not get in the kingdom of God. These were the chosen people. But you see the fact that you've been chosen does not mean that you respond in the way God wants you to. That's the story of Jesus' enemies in the New Testament. They were chosen but they did not respond to the choice. The people of Israel divided themselves up into two groups. There were the remnant of Israel who were faithful to God as they should be. They were chosen and responded in the proper way. And then there were the others. He's saying to them, the leaders, you're the others. You're not the remnant. You yourselves enter but you will not let those enter who are trying to. So his condemnation was to say, while you may be the chosen people of God, it does not automatically mean that you enter the kingdom of God with him. For there is an element that is missing. It is the surrender of your life to him. To trust your life to his authority and power. Faith, we call that. So Jesus was clear to let it be known that not everyone who was the chosen would actually make it into heaven for there was this response of faith that was required. And once when Jesus was in the city of Jerusalem near the end of his ministry, he looked over the city of Jerusalem, the lights on the hill, see all the city. He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those who God sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you were not willing. Look your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus said to Jerusalem, how much I've tried to give you the message that God wants you to have. But you've said no. Not every person who hears the word of God and is chosen of God says yes. You have the capacity to hear the message of God, to read the Bible, to study the Bible, to hear preaching and say no to God. The passage starts here by saying in love, God predestined us. I know there are some who see predestination is a different picture than what I'm saying here. They say God has two kinds of predestination. He says to some who are born, you can go to heaven and some who are born, you will die and never be able to go to heaven. Before people are born, they're predestined to a life in hell. The phrase Paul uses here, he said in love, you were predestined. I think he means that out of God's love for all the people he created, he made it possible for everyone and predetermined before they were born that it was possible for them to respond to him in faith and in trust. And while you've had that possibility before you and the opportunity available, it is possible for you as Jerusalem to say, I don't want to hear this. I want to live my life the way I want to live it. I think God gives you that freedom. And I think just as Jesus looked over Jerusalem and wept over what he saw, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times I would have gathered you under my wings as a mother hen does her chicks. I want you to belong to me. I want to be your savior. I want to be your redeemer. But you would not. In spite of the great plans of God and what God wants to do in our lives, he's given us an option to say to him, no, I do not want to do that. Paul is writing to these Ephesian believers, letting them know that what has happened to them, having heard the message of Christ and opened their hearts to him, was not only their part of this, but they were a part of a great plan that God had from the very beginning of the world. He looked out at all the people and said, I want these people to be followers of mine. I want them to come into my kingdom. I want to provide a place for them so we can be with each other forever. But they've chosen not to do it. His purpose was to create a community of people who were holy and without blame. That's what he says. That through Christ you might be holy and without blame. What he wants is for you to say to him, Lord, I give myself to you. He doesn't ask you to get ready and to be nice about this by the time you do it. I have heard people say, you know, I'd like to follow Christ, but my life is such a mess. I've done so many things wrong. When I get my life straightened out and I'm a good person, then I want to come to Christ and say, now I give my life to you. It's sort of like a person who says, you know, I've been sick, really sick. I don't know what's wrong, but I can hardly breathe. I don't have enough energy to get up and walk around. And I'll tell you, as soon as I get well, I'm going to the doctor to find out what was wrong with me. It's a foolish idea, isn't it? To get the help that needs to be given to you. And to say you need to straighten yourself out before you ask for that help that God died to provide for you. His purpose from the very beginning for your life was that you would be holy. Not that you would be holy by your own power, but that you would be holy in Christ. It is as the result of what he has done. He's died on the cross to pay the price for your sin. Now you can live under the guilt and shame of your sin all your life, if you want to, if you choose to, but he has already paid your bill. I had a man tell me a story one time about going to a drive-in. And there were two lines in the drive-in, and he was next door to, his car was next to a family, and they had a small car, a couple of kids in the family, and they were obviously upset with each other. The husband was screaming at the wife, and the wife was screaming at the husband, and the kids were upset and distressed. And he said to himself, you know, I'm going to do something really nice for these people. He got called up to the window to pay his bill, and as he was doing it, he said, I'll tell you what I want to do. I want to pay for, there's a car behind me, it's a small car, it's a blue car, and whenever they get up here, I want to pay for their bill. What is it? I'll pay for it now. And the clerk said, well, I can't do that. He said, why? He said, they just pulled out of the line and they left. And he looked up, and as they were leaving, they were screaming and hollering at each other and driving away. Their meal was paid for. They had a free gift waiting for them. But they never took advantage of it. They turned away before the opportunity came. God has provided for you a life of no guilt and no shame, forgiveness for everything you've ever done. He has provided for you the opportunity for you to place your life in His hand so that He will help you. He will guide you in all the choices you make so that they're right, beneficial, and good. He will provide the needs that you have, physical, emotional, financial, whatever your needs are, all of your life. He will protect you, not from the pains of life or the difficulties of life, but from being smashed and crushed. And when your life is over, your life will have achieved everything God made you to achieve. He's made that for you. All He asks is for you to say to Him, I want to follow You. And then He will make you holy. Now by holy, He means He will set you apart from the rest of the world. Like everyone else around you, when somebody's nasty to them, they fly off the panel, cuss them out, hit them, or get mad at them. And He's going to give you a different character where you forgive them. When people hit you, you turn the other cheek. When people are mad at you, you pray for them and you do something nice to them. He's going to make you a different kind of person than all the people around you. So you will be set apart. All the other people in the world will live according to what they want and what they feel and how they're like, but you will live the way Jesus wants you to live. And you will be different. That's what the word holy means. It doesn't mean you perform miracles. It doesn't mean that you're odd or strange. It just means that you're set apart from all the rest of the world because Jesus is guiding your life. He's helping you know how to respond to the circumstances of life and providing for you. So you are holy. You belong to God. Certainly you'll live differently, you'll think differently, you'll act differently, and it will grow on you all of your life. You'll continue to be more and more like Christ. Even the negative side of it. And there'll be nothing that God has against you. You'll be holy and blameless. So that when God sees you standing before Him, because of what's happened in this week years ago, Jesus Christ died on the cross, His blood was shed for you, and God looks at you and says, Jesus Christ has paid for your sins. There is no blame or charge to you. Enter the kingdom. Your way has been paid. That's what Jesus did. And while Christ is the center of our weeks of services and liturgy and preaching, you are the beneficiaries of all of this. For all of this was so that you might come to know God as you've never known Him before. That you might walk with Him and see your life transformed. That you might find yourself with the guidance of God so that you can talk to Him and hear Him and follow His direction and know that when your life is over, it has been everything that God wanted it to be. That's why God chose each of us. But we have a choice, too. We cannot choose God if we want, or we can choose Him. I can tell you from this passage that God loved you enough to predestinate or predetermine before you were born that He wanted you in His kingdom. But He gave you the right to say, no, not me. So while all of God's great plan from the beginning of the world is going on, He's calling to everyone to say, would you please give me your life? Let me control your time and how you use it. Let me control your money and how you spend it. Let me control your mind and how you think. Let me control your head and what you see. Let me control the way you relate to people. If you will let me do that, I will make out of you a person who is like Jesus Christ. Because you've given your life to me, you're different than the rest of the world. You're holy. So because you've given your life to me, you receive the forgiveness of sin that was charged to you. So there is no blame. You come to the window to pay for your meal, and the clerk says, you don't owe me anything. Someone else has paid your tab. So when you come to face God, everyone in the world can look back and say, there are things in my life I'm so ashamed of. There are things in my life that no one in the world but me and God know, and they stand before God, and He says, I remember the time you surrendered your life to me, and we erased all the sin in your life. I remember day by day and week by week as you said, Father, forgive me and change me. And you stand before me now, because in Christ you are blameless. You stand before me now, although you have things in your life that are terrible, because of Christ and His death for you, in Christ you are holy. That is what Easter is about. You could not stop Jesus from coming nor dying on the cross, but you can stop Him from forgiving you, and you can stop Him from controlling your life, and you can stop Him from giving you the spiritual capacity to walk with Him and God every day. From the foundation of the world, God has had a plan for you. He wants you to be a son or daughter. But then He said to you, but you have a choice. I have chosen you. Will you choose me? Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? The important question is not whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead. Of course He was. But it's whether or not you have been raised from spiritual death. I'm not asking if you've joined a church or you've been baptized or you've taken communion. I'm asking you if you've said to God, I give you my life. And from that moment, you've started living in a relationship with God where He's guided you. It hasn't been perfect, but you keep trying because you know He owns your life. You've never done that. I want to ask on this Easter morning that you have a resurrection spiritually from spiritual death to life. All you have to do is to say, Lord, today I accept you as my Redeemer and Savior. And I give my life to you. I will live in direction and obedience to you as best I can the rest of my life. And what God wanted to have happen from the foundation of the earth will happen in your life today. There may be other things in your life that God is directing you to do. Maybe He's pointed out to you some sin today that you need to confess. Maybe He's made it clear to you that there's some things you need to change in your life. If the spiritual life has been open to you, He's talking to you. And maybe you feel like today is the day you should say, I know this is the church where God wants me. And when God says this is it, I say, OK, God, you are my Lord. Lord, speak to us. We know you're alive. We know that for some of us you speak to us with conviction that we need to change and give our lives to you. Others, you have guidance and direction for us. Give us spiritual ears in Christ to hear you today and give us the courage to say, I will do what you want me to do. In the name of Jesus, we pray. I'm going to ask the pianist to play for a moment. I want you to reflect on whether or not life with you is with Christ. And if not, do what he's told you this morning he wants you to do. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Come on up and stand by me. Gail Alexander has come this morning, and you may wonder about why she's here. Gail started coming to our church and we recognized in Gail the spirit and presence of the Lord and she was here in Bible studies all different times and eager to learn about God and grow. And we saw Christ in her and began to have her work with our church Bible school and Sunday school and all the different activities in the church and time went on and on and on. And she never came and said, I'm ready to become officially a part of the church. It's like you have a house and somebody moves in with you and they've lived with you for 20 years. They're part of the family, even though they may not have officially been adopted or born in the family. And I know, Gail, you've committed your life to Christ. I know that you, I'll let you hold this so you can give an answer. I know that you have committed to live your life in obedience and to read the Bible and to be faithful in your worship of God and to do the things that you know God wants you to do in service to him. Is that true? Yes, I have. I know that it is your intention to be able to be not only a servant of God, but also witness to him. We what we've already done this for you, I think received you as a part of our family to love you and support you and pray for you and encourage you and help you learn to grow and given you opportunities of service. We're thankful today to be able to recognize your place in our family. Not if you've joined us today. And I think many of us, normally we have a process by which we say, you've committed yourself to us and we're going to show our commitment to you, but we've done that. Yes, you have. I have a very good church family here. They supported me all through these years that I've come and just have been a real blessing to me. But I don't want this day to pass without us being able to say from our hearts to you, we love you and we care for you. I want to ask you, members of our congregation, you've prayed for her, if you've been, if you've accepted her, if you've cared for her, if you'd just extend your hand as a way of affirming her presence with us, we love you and we care for you. And I'd like for you to stand out there and let people say how much they love you and how much they care for you. Mostly, we promised people we're going to, but now today we'd like to say we're going to keep on doing this. Would you stand, please, for a moment of prayer together? It is really almost impossible to imagine that from the beginning of this world, you planned that each of us would be holy and blameless before you, that we would be your children set apart from the rest of the world. But you did. Each of us have been called to be in your kingdom. And Father, you alone know whether or not we've responded to that call by saying, my life is yours, God. But you tell each one of us whether or not that's true. We give thanks to you for loving us and choosing us and predestining our lives to be yours. We give thanks to you by saying to you, we yield our lives to the supreme ruler of the universe, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And today we celebrate the fact that he who was once dead now speaks to us through the spirit and he's alive not only in the universe, but in us. Praise you, Lord, for what you've done. Amen.