Why the Resurrection Still Matters

Well, if you brought a Bible with you this morning, and I hope you did, I want you to turn in the
second half, actually about two-thirds of the way in your Bible, to the Gospel of John. There are
four Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We're going to
be in the fourth one in John's Gospel this morning. And we're going to be in chapter 20.
And before we look at the passage that will have our attention at the beginning of this message
this morning, I want to share with you a story. This is actually an historical account. Some of you
have heard about this man. His name is Hiro Unuta. And this is a picture of Hiro who was taken
shortly before his... Actually, this picture was taken in 1974 when he was 52 years old.
And this next picture shows him at the age of 92, shortly before his death in 2014.
And we'll go back to the first picture. Hiro was a Japanese soldier during World War II.
He was a commando who was sent to an island in the Philippines during the war to conduct guerrilla
warfare, to... intelligence, military intelligence. His mission was to infiltrate behind enemy
lines, to gather intelligence, to disrupt what was going on, and to continue fighting until he
received further orders. And he did exactly that. In fact, from 1944 until 1974,
30 years, He continued his mission, hiding out, living off the land, a guerrilla soldier who was
fighting for his country, convinced that the greater East Asia war was still going on. During that
30-year period, he survived on bananas and coconuts and stolen rice and cattle.
On several occasions, he was involved in shootouts with locals, with police.
He successfully evaded American and Filipino search parties. He attacked villagers.
They believed he was an enemy guerrilla.
Allegedly, he killed up to 30 civilians during that 29-year period. During those years,
he had heard reports of the Japanese surrender, but he did not believe them.
He had heard, but he refused to back down, refused to believe it was true.
Finally, it was in March of 1994. or that he, excuse me, in 1974,
that he was engaged in the Philippines with somebody who persuaded him that he needed to believe
that the war was over. And he would not believe it unless his commanding officer came. So the
Japanese officials tracked down 30 years later his commanding officer, flew him to the Philippines
so that he could stand in front of Hiro and say, the war is over, you're free to go.
Two things happened in 1974 for Hiro Onoda.
Two things. First, he finally came to believe that World War II had ended and that what people had
been telling him about the war being over was actually true. Secondly, that reoriented his whole
life. He came out of the jungle. He went back home. He began to live a new life in Japan as a
result of the war being over. We're here this morning to celebrate the greatest news that's ever
been declared, the news that Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter who claimed to be the Son of God and
was put to death on a Roman cross, was hung and died,
that he was resurrected, that after being put in the tomb three days later,
he came back out and is still alive today. That's the news. And if we believe that news,
Everything changes for us. It's reorienting. It's reprioritizing.
It changes everything. C.S. Lewis, the British author and professor, famously said that if the
Christian message and the resurrection, if it's false, then it's of little importance.
If it's true, it's of ultimate importance. He said the one thing it can't be is moderately
important. And that's good for all of us to recognize. What we're talking about here this morning
is either so significant that it changes everything, or it's completely untrue.
But it can't just be moderately important. It can't be something that you just tuck away and say,
oh, that's a compartment of my life. So the two questions I want us to think about this morning
regarding the resurrection of Jesus are these two questions. First of all, is it really true?
Can I believe that a man who was dead rose again and secondly if it's true what difference does
that make for me in 2026 and i want us to read together a long passage of scripture We're going to
read most of John chapter 20 together this morning. It's the account, one account,
of the resurrection of Jesus. There are actually four accounts of the resurrection in the Bible. In
each of the four gospels, we have an account of the resurrection. We're just going to read one of
them this morning. This one from an eyewitness, a follower of Jesus, who refers to himself in this
account. He was a participant. He was there. On the day that Jesus was resurrected, he calls
himself the disciple who Jesus loved. So we're going to read it, but I want to pray again before we
start. Father, we need your help now. We ask that the Holy Spirit would come and would soften our
hearts and declutter our minds and help us to hear clearly from you this morning.
Help us also not just to be hearers of your word, help us to be doers of your word. We ask these
things in your name. Amen.
It's a long passage, but I'm going to ask you to stand as I read it, as we read it together. John
chapter 20, beginning at verse 1. This is the word of God for the people of God. The Bible says,
Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early,
while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved,
and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid
him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb.
Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
Now I just have to stop here. I love the fact that John wants to make sure we know he beat Peter to
the tomb.
It's going to come up again. Verse 5. Stooping to look in, he saw the linen clothes lying there.
but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb.
He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head,
not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple,
who had reached the tomb first, also went in and he saw and believed.
For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.
Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
And as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where
the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her,
Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, they've taken away my Lord.
and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus
standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman,
why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him,
Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.
Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in Aramaic,
Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not cling to me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to
my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the
disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.
On the evening of that day, The first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples
were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them,
Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this,
he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they
are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now Thomas, one of the
twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him,
We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see his hands, the mark of the nails,
and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never
believe. Eight days later, the disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.
Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.
Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my
side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.
Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have believed. Amen. You may be seated. May God bless this reading of his word.
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will last forever. Now, as I said
at the beginning of this message, this resurrection account in the Gospel of John is one of four in
the Bible. Let me just acknowledge here that if you hear this account being read and you find
yourself skeptical, that is as it ought to be. We're talking here about something pretty
remarkable. we're talking about a man being hung on a cross brutalized tortured put to death taken
from the cross laid in a tomb left there for three days and then coming back to life that does not
happen every day it is not wrong to be skeptical in fact the reason i wanted us to read all these
verses in john 20 is because John expects that his readers are going to be skeptical.
That's why he doesn't just offer his own account of what happened. It's why he tells us about what
happened in the presence of others. He tells us Mary's story. He tells us Thomas' story. He gives
us his eyewitness testimony. He is trying to lay out the evidence that this is believable,
verifiable. This is not a myth. This is an historical account.
He even tells us the story of the biggest skeptic of them all, whose name is now synonymous with
skepticism. We call him Doubting Thomas, in order that those who are reading might understand even
the disciples were skeptical, but they ultimately came to believe.
John is not surprised that you and I might be skeptical about this report of the resurrection. He
expects that. In fact, he wraps up. chapter 20, the last two verses which we didn't read,
he says Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this
book, but these are written for this purpose, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John says, I wrote all of this
so that you who were not there who did not see the resurrection of Jesus for yourself as I did,
that you might believe our testimony and in believing you might have life.
That's where life comes from.
He wants you to believe this account because he understands that the key to experiencing life as
God intends for us to experience it, it begins with believing. Believing that Jesus did in fact
rise from the dead that first Easter. So is it true?
Did it really happen? Can we, 21st century rational scientific people,
can we actually believe a story like this? The answer is yes. You're not surprised to hear a pastor
on Easter Sunday say the answer is yes, are you? But we stand with millions throughout the
centuries who have investigated who have questioned,
who have doubted, and have ultimately come to conclude that what happened is exactly the way it's
recorded for us in John's Gospel and the other Gospels. This is history,
not mythology. This really happened. And we've had Easter Sundays through the years here at
Redeemer where I've taken time to explain to you some of the evidences that support the idea of the
resurrection. We're not going to do that this morning. If you're curious about that, I can point
you to past sermons that are online. I can point you to articles or books that will help you get a
better picture of the evidence that supports the resurrection of Jesus. But I will share with you
this morning what I think is one very convincing truth of the resurrection, a proof of the...
It's this. Those who were the eyewitnesses to this event, they believed it was true.
They had nothing to gain from believing it was true. It was not going to make them rich.
In fact, it was going to make them poor. It was not going to make them popular. It was going to
make them unpopular. It was not going to make them safe. It was going to put them in danger. It was
not going to give them power. It was going to take power away from them. And they believed in the
resurrection. They couldn't not believe it because they had seen it. Like Thomas,
they had touched and they had spoken and they had been with the resurrected Jesus.
A few weeks ago in our church newsletter, which we send out via email once a week.
By the way, if you're here as a visitor and you'd like to get the email, you can subscribe and
unsubscribe anytime you want, but we've got a clipboard in the lobby where you can sign up to get
the email each week and it tells you what's going on in the church. I usually share something just
to... you some spiritual input during the week. But I shared with you about something that happened
on one of the artificial intelligence websites, a website called Claude. And somebody had gone to
Claude, to this website, and they had typed in the following prompt. They had said, Claude,
don't be biased by my beliefs. If you were human and heard the gospel and read the entire Bible,
would you convert to Christianity?
And Claude had a lengthy response. I'm just going to share with you a portion of what Claude said
in that response, related to the resurrection. He cited 1 Corinthians 15, and he said,
if Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain. You may not be able to read, that's pretty small,
but let me just read. He said, the historical case for the resurrection is stronger than most
people realize, believer or skeptic. You have a movement that exploded out of Jerusalem within
weeks of the crucifixion. led by people who claim to have seen the risen Christ and who died for
that claim. He said people die for beliefs that they hold sincerely but are false. Martyrdom proves
sincerity, not truth. But the apostles weren't dying for a belief. They were dying for a claim
about something they had personally witnessed. People don't die for something they know to be a
hoax that they invented. Peter didn't go to his own crucifixion, upside down according to
tradition, to protect a lie he had made up. James, the brother of Jesus,
who didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah during his lifetime, didn't suddenly lead the
Jerusalem church because he was committed to a family conspiracy. Something happened to these
people that they interpreted as encountering the physically risen Jesus.
And it was convincing enough that they chose death. rather than recantation. Now,
let me just be quick to say, AI is not infallible. I don't want you to start trusting AI. You can't
put any question in, whatever response you get back, you got to pressure test that. AI doesn't know
it all. It's not infallible, but... response from the Claude AI tool is a great synthesis of what
Christians have come to understand and believe through the centuries about the compelling argument
for the resurrection of Jesus, one of the most compelling arguments. It was not a mass delusion
that hundreds of people then gave their lives supporting. It was not an elaborate hoax or a
conspiracy of some sort. In fact, the idea that the resurrection account could have been a hoax
that was dreamed up by the apostles, some kind of conspiracy that they came up with,
has been addressed very eloquently by this man. His name is Charles Colson. Chuck Colson worked as
a special counsel for Richard Nixon during the late 60s and early 70s,
and he eventually went to prison as one of the conspirators in the Watergate conspiracy.
He did prison time because he had attempted to cover up the Watergate break-in. And it was during
that time when Coulson was confronted with the gospel and when he gave his own life to Christ and
became a follower of Jesus, in part because he found the evidence for the resurrection to be so
compelling. And it was his involvement in the Watergate cover-up that ultimately convinced him
that the... of the resurrection could not be an elaborate hoax. Here's what he said.
He said that before all the facts about Watergate were known to the public back in March of 1973,
it was becoming clear that Nixon's closest aides were involved in a cover-up of the Watergate
break-in. And he wrote this. He said there were no more than a dozen of us. Could we maintain a
cover-up to save the president? Consider that we were political zealots. We enjoyed enormous
political power and prestige. With all of that at stake, you'd expect us to be capable of
maintaining a lie to protect the president. He said, but we couldn't do it. The first to crack was
a guy named John Dean. He went to the president, told him everything. Two weeks later, he went to
prosecutors and he cut a deal to testify against the president. And when asked why he did it,
he said, I did it to save my own skin. After that, everyone started scrambling to protect himself.
Colson says, what we know today is the great Watergate cover-up lasted about three weeks. Some of
the most powerful politicians in the world couldn't keep up the lie any longer than that. He says,
so back to the question of historic Christianity and Christ's resurrection. Can anyone believe that
for 50 years, the disciples, Jesus' disciples were willing to be ostracized,
beaten, persecuted and all but one of them suffer a martyr's death without ever renouncing their
conviction that they had seen Jesus bodily resurrected? Does anyone really think the disciples
could have maintained a lie all that time under that kind of pressure? No, someone would have
cracked just as we did easily at Watergate. Someone would have acted as John Dean did and turned
state's evidence. There would have been some smoking gun or deathbed confession, but nobody cracked
because they had all come face to face with the living God. They could not deny what they had seen.
And his conclusion is, the fact is that people will give their lives for what they believe is true,
but they will never give their lives for what they know is a lie. The Watergate cover-up proves 12
powerful men in modern America couldn't keep a lie, and that 12 powerless men 2,000 years ago
couldn't have been telling anything but the truth. And he's right. The evidence for the reality of
the resurrection is compelling. Is it true? If you approach the question with an open mind and with
an open heart as objectively as you possibly can, you will find that the answer to that is yes.
But let me switch to the other question this morning. Is it true is an important question,
but if it's true, does it matter? Today, 2,000 years later. Why does it matter to me if Jesus rose
from the dead 2,000 years ago? I'm going to give you six reasons this morning why I think it
matters. And this is not an exhaustive list, but it'll give us something to think about today on
this Easter Sunday. Why does it matter? The first reason it matters is because if the resurrection
is true, then Jesus is who he claimed to be. This is exactly what Thomas realized in the passage we
read earlier. When he realized that Jesus was indeed resurrected, what was his response?
My Lord and my God. He knew that the only conclusion you could logically draw standing before a man
who had been dead and is now alive was that this man had to be God. The resurrection is part of the
definitive proof that Jesus is both Lord and God. Writing to the Romans,
the Apostle Paul begins his letter by saying this. He says, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God
in power. according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ the
Lord his resurrection is a testimony to the reality of his deity and throughout the gospels over
and over again we see Jesus speaking about his own deity he says things like I and the father are
one before Abraham was I am it was so clear to everyone what he was saying that his enemies accused
him of blasphemy, and picked up stones to kill him. But the resurrection is proof that what he was
claiming is legit. He was, as Thomas said, and still is, Lord and God.
And that matters to us today because if Jesus is both Lord and God,
then whatever he has called us to, that we are under his authority.
He has the authority and the power to require of us that we obey,
that we follow. He rose from the dead. He is who he has claimed to be.
He is God. He is Lord. And the implication of that for each one of us in 2026 is staggering.
It means that he is not just a Lord, he is... Lord. He's not just a God,
he is the God, and that we must bow to his deity.
Here's the second reason why the resurrection matters in our day, because if it's true, death,
our greatest enemy, has been defeated. It's Benjamin Franklin back in 1789 who made famous the
statement that there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes. I don't know about
taxes, but I can tell you death is batting a thousand. Death always wins.
The Bible says it is appointed to man once to die. In the book of Ecclesiastes, it says,
all men come to an end, the righteous and the unrighteous, the good and the bad. Psalm 89,
the psalmist says, what man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power
of Sheol? It's a rhetorical question. We're all going to die. It's coming for all of us.
Some of you have heard maybe of this man. His name is Brian Johnson. Brian is a 47-year-old tech
millionaire who has been called the father of biohacking. He spends about $2 million a year to
follow his established regimen. He's got about 30 doctors on his payroll who monitor his progress
cellular degeneration and stop aging. He wants to live forever.
There's a Netflix documentary called Don't Die, The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.
I have some bad news this morning for Brian Johnson. His two million a year is not going to work.
He will die. He may live longer than you. He may live healthier than you. But death comes for
everybody. But I have good news for Brian Johnson as well. Death has been defeated.
1 Corinthians 15. This is what the Bible says. In the resurrection of Jesus, we declare death is
swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh,
death, where is the victory? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Death comes to everyone.
And the reason it comes to everyone is because the wages of our sin is death. We're all sinners.
Death comes to all of us because we are all sinners. But victory over death,
eternal life with God, can be found in Christ. In submitting your life to him and following him.
Doesn't mean... won't ever die, of course, but the Bible talks about two kinds of death,
the first death and the second death. We will all go through the first death, but those who are in
Christ will not experience the second death. Death for a Christian is a passage into eternal life
with Jesus. Death still comes, but the sting of death is gone.
The victory of death is gone. The destroying power of the grave is taken away.
Death is dead because Jesus rose from the dead. Here's the third implication of the resurrection of
Jesus in our day. Because Jesus has been resurrected, if we are in him, we have nothing to fear.
If death has been destroyed, it's the great enemy. It's the thing that we fear most.
We have nothing now to fear. Now that's a pretty bold statement. But look at what Jesus said in
Matthew 10, 28. He said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Rather, fear those who can destroy both soul and body in hell. If the worst thing that can happen
to you is that you die because of the resurrection of Jesus, that's not so bad anymore.
The resurrection... also means that Jesus, who has promised that he will never forsake us or never
leave us, will keep that promise. He's alive today, and not only has death lost its sting,
but we have someone who protects us in this life. Psalm 46, God is our refuge and our strength,
a very present help in trouble. He is with us because he's resurrected, therefore we will not fear.
Though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved to the heart of the sea, though its waters
roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
The one who has conquered death and has taken away the sting of death and the power of death has
pledged to keep watch over your soul in this life and in the life to come.
And when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you don't need to fear because he's
with you.
Because he lives, we're going to sing this in a few minutes, all fear is gone.
Number four, because the resurrection is true, we can stand before God.
In the book of Hebrews, it tells us that we can come into his presence without fear,
without trembling. We can stand before him. We have confidence, the passage says in Hebrews,
to enter the holy place. That's a reference, by the way, to the place in the temple called the Holy
of Holies that was cordoned off by a curtain. No one could enter the Holy of Holies except the high
priest one day a year. He would go in to make intercession for the people because that was drawing
near to the presence of God. You couldn't go in there. If you did, you'd die.
On the day that Jesus was crucified, that veil in the temple was torn in two from the top to the
bottom. opening up the way. That was a foreshadowing of the coming resurrection.
So the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, we can draw near, we can enter the holy places by the
blood of Jesus. And the pathway is a new and living way that he opened up.
It's opened by his resurrection through the curtain that is through his flesh. The veil that was
torn in two when Jesus died on the cross that separated us from God, that anticipates the
resurrection and we have a living way into God's presence now through the resurrection of Jesus.
And by the way, we can go boldly and confidently into his presence without shame,
without fear, without concern for judgment because God has shown us through the death of his son,
His great love for us. You are not walking into the presence of an angry judge.
You're walking into the presence of a loving father if you are in Christ. You can come into his
presence with joy and with singing and with celebration, not with fear and trembling.
You have access to the presence of God. He delights in you drawing near to him.
And because of the resurrection of Jesus, you can draw near. Here's the fifth implication. The
reason why the resurrection still matters today. If the resurrection is true, we have new life.
We can have new life.
For those of you who are here regularly, we are working our way through the book of Ephesians in
the New Testament, Sunday by Sunday. And we just were recently in chapter 2.
And in chapter 2 of Ephesians, it describes all of us as being spiritually dead people,
unresponsive to God, dead in our trespasses and sins. And then it says this,
God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in
our trespasses and sins, God has made us alive together with Christ.
We were spiritually dead. God, by His grace, makes us alive. This is the new life that the Bible's
talking about, bringing us from spiritual death to now spiritual life. The Bible also calls this
being born again. We're made alive together with Christ. We're raised up with Him. And this
resurrection opens the door. for this new life to any and all who will believe.
And this Easter morning, I just have to ask you, have you experienced what the Bible's talking
about here? Have you had this new birth, this new life?
Are you still living your life with you at the center, your agenda driving you,
your desires, your appetites controlling your behavior, or Are you living the life that God now
promises to all who will acknowledge him and confess their sins, who turn to him and follow him and
obey him? This resurrected life that Jesus is talking about is a new life that's possible for any
who will believe.
I think there are some of you here this morning who would say, if you're being honest, that you
could use a new life, that you would like a fresh start, that you could use a new beginning,
that when you are in control, It doesn't always go well.
Well, here's what the Bible says. It says that Jesus came to his own, his own people,
and they did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, and I'll just say to all who will
receive him today, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God.
Are you ready for a fresh start to life? You ready for a new life? It can start this morning,
this Easter morning. And by the way, all of you are invited back next Sunday when we're going to
celebrate new life with five people who are going to be baptized next Sunday. And that baptism is a
public declaration that you have surrendered your life to Christ and you intend to follow Him and
you want everybody to know that. It's the first step of obedience for a Christian. And if you'd
like to join the five who are being baptized, you've not been baptized, you've trusted Christ, and
you'd like to find out more about that, hit me up. I'd love to talk to you about that. Finally this
morning, because the resurrection is true, we have help for today and hope for tomorrow.
Some of you know that I spent 28 and a half years as the co-host of a radio program.
called Family Life Today with my friend and colleague, Dennis Rainey. And for most of those 28 and
a half years, at the end of every program, I said those words. I said, help for today,
hope for tomorrow, because that's what the gospel offers. The message of the resurrection offers us
help for what we're facing today and hope for what's coming tomorrow. It gives us the help we need
in the midst of the spiritual battles we're dealing with and the hope we need to know that this
life is not all there is. There are two verses that show how the resurrection gives us both help
and hope. Romans 8, 11 says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give you life to your mortal bodies through his
spirit who dwells in you. You have the help you need today because you have the spirit of God
dwelling in you, the same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. And if this spirit can raise a
dead man to life, What can he not do?
What do you need that the Holy Spirit can't pull off?
If you are in Christ, you have that spirit in you. And greater is he who is in you than he who is
in the world. You also have a hope. In 1 Peter 1, the Bible says,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused
us to be born again, this new life, to a living hope. through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you. The resurrection of Jesus matters today because it means we have the help
we need for this life, and we have the power to overcome, and it gives us hope for what's ahead.
Which all brings us back to Hiru Hanuda. Back in 1974,
when he finally came to accept and believe that the war was truly over, he could come out of
hiding, that there was a new life waiting for him. All he had to do was believe and surrender.
And he did.
His new life started when he believed the good news that the war had ended. And then everything
changed from there. This morning, believing the good news that Jesus had died,
and was raised again to new life can bring for you the same kind of transformation,
the same kind of change. It can be a turning point for your life.
It can bring you new life. It can give you help for today and hope for tomorrow.
Will you believe today? Do you believe? Will you receive from him the new life?
that sets you free from the power and the control of sin and self. Will you follow the one who died
and rose again so that you can know this new life? Pray with me.
Father, we thank you for the truth of the resurrection. We thank you for how this truth impacts our
lives today.
Lord, we thank you for this Easter Sunday and for the message of the resurrection.
And Lord, we pray that all of us here would would know that,
would believe that, would receive the new life that you offer. Lord, I pray for any who are here
who are doubting and questioning, skeptical. I pray that you would meet with them by your Spirit.
I pray that they would get the answers and the help that they need. And Lord, I pray that today
would be the beginning of a new day for them, a new life for them. And for all of us who are here,
Lord, help us to find our strength and our hope in the resurrection of your Son,
our Lord Jesus. I ask these things in your name. Amen.