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Elevate - Resurrection Sunday 2024 - Neal DiQuattro
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Jesus disarmed powers and authorities, triumphing over them on the cross. Easter Resurrection Sunday is significant because it brought hope and life to believers. To understand its importance, we need to look at the scandalous life of Jesus and His outrageous claims. He claimed authority to forgive sins, to be the only way to the Father, and the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. He also claimed He would be resurrected and that He is the Son of God. These claims got Him crucified. If His claims are true, then the Old Testament is reliable, we can receive eternal salvation and forgiveness of sins, and the New Testament is God's inspired Word. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Listen, this is something of cosmic proportions that all authorities, whether it's on this earth, or supernatural, any form of evil that could be lurking, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them on the cross. Welcome to Elevate, the radio ministry of Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama. We pray that it builds your faith, helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live, and that it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Today's message is from Authentic Life Church youth minister and worship leader, Neil DiQuatro. Easter Resurrection Sunday is the greatest day in the Christian calendar, without exception. You might say to yourself, well, why not the birth of Jesus? Well, or why not Pentecost, or why not Good Friday, or some of the other holidays we celebrate? And what I want to tell you this morning is that Resurrection Sunday's different because on the first Easter, something of cosmic proportions took place. And what happened gave hope and life to whoever believes it. Every man, woman, and child on this earth can have hope because of what happened on Resurrection Sunday. But to understand why the resurrection matters and what truly happened on the first Easter, we need to step back just a little bit and understand the seemingly scandalous life of Jesus. It's really hard to truly grasp it without looking at the backdrop and the scene with which Jesus' ministry started. And that's what I want to talk about this morning. So we're going to look at the historical backdrop for the time in history where God revealed Himself through Jesus Christ, a humble man from Nazareth. So here we go. If you were a first century Jew, a good Jew, you would have known your Old Testament. And there's some things you would have known. You would have known that in that Old Testament there were prophecies about a coming Messiah. Now you probably thought this Messiah was going to be a governmental leader, political leader, a military leader, but you still believed in a coming Messiah and you were looking for hope. In fact, if you were a good Jew, you would be clinging to those hopeful words day after day. But there was one fact that sort of dulled the reality that the ancient Jews lived in, and it was this fact, that from the time of Malachi, the last prophet you have in your Old Testament, to the time of Jesus' ministry, the prophets were silent. God wasn't saying anything to them. I don't know if you know that. Just silent. All they had was the prophets from way back when and the written word from these prophets. They had the hope of what they said, but God wasn't saying anything else for 400 years. The Jews had been returned for a while from their last exile. Herod the Great at that time had built a beautiful temple for them, rivaled only by that that was built from King Solomon. The sacrificial system was in place. Everything was in place, yet God was silent. And that's when a man who was little known begins to create a stir. And this man that begins to create a stir that no one really knows gathers for himself 12 disciples and they start following Him and learning from Him as He teaches them. Wow, what's He up to? Well, the crowds go from 12 to more than that. As crowds grew and grew and they follow Him. And then this man starts doing miracles. That's the report. The word on the street is this man's been creating a stir. His followers are getting greater. The crowds are greater. Now he's doing miracles. But then, suddenly, this man begins to make outrageous claims. And you have to see them. If you're a first century Jew, you have to see these claims as outrageous. Whether they're true or not, they were out there. And these claims are the starting point for understanding the significance of the resurrection and why we're here today celebrating. So what were these claims that this carpenter that was making, this man who was little known? Well, the first claim is that he has the authority to forgive sins. Can you imagine that? Someone saying that? We see this in Luke 5, verse 18. Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they did not find out how they might bring Him in because of the crowds, they went up on the housetop and let Him down with His bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus. And when He saw their faith, He said to him, this is crazy. Man, your sins are forgiven you. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? They were starting to figure out what was going on, or at least what Jesus was really saying. But that wasn't it. These claims continued and began to get even more outrageous in their view. Jesus said suddenly in John chapter 14 that He's the only way to the Father. Now, if you're a Jewish person, you have great pride in the fact that you're God's chosen people, and that you have mediated access to God through the priest, through the temple system. That was a pride point for a Jewish person. Now, in John 14, verse 6, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. You see how scandalous that is? If you've got your mindset in the first century AD, then Jesus goes on by saying He's the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. So if you don't know what He's driving at, it starts to get more clear at this point. In Luke chapter 4, verse 14, we see here... Actually, we'll start with 16, I think. So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He, Jesus, went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it is written. Here it is, one of the most popular passages in all of Scripture. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Then He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Can you imagine that? Try to imagine what it was like to be there. I bet you could hear a pin drop. He quietly closes the book and He's like, Yep, I'm the guy. This is talking about Me. Now you understand why the Jews were getting more infuriated and angry with Him. They didn't know what to do with this guy. And just when things got bad enough, He says that He would be resurrected from the dead. Something that only God can do. John 2, verse 18, you see this. This is right after Jesus finished overturning the tables in the temple, because folks were making it a den of thieves. You remember this portion of Scripture. And they were ripping off people who were coming to buy the animals for sacrifice. And Jesus, in anger, turns over the temple tables and rebukes everyone. And in verse 18, we see, So the Jews answered and said to Him, What sign do You show us, since You do these things? Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Now they didn't know He was talking about raising Himself up at that point. But their question is revealing about what was going on and what the word on the street was about Jesus. Because what they were saying is, Show us a sign. What gives You the authority? What gives You the right? How can You come in here and say those things? And His answer to that question, no matter what the question is when you say, What gives Him the right? He says, watch what happens to Me. I'm going to raise from the dead. I'm going to raise from the dead. And there was other claims. He claimed He was the Son of God, the Giver of eternal life. He claimed He was one with the Father, that He's the future Judge, the Door of Salvation, the Healer, the Savior, the Great I Am, and the list goes on. And the last one got Him killed. The last one got Him crucified. I'm the Great I Am. A Jewish person knew that that was a holy name only designated for Yahweh. It's the name that God used when He revealed Himself to Moses. When Moses said, who do I tell them sent Me? When He's in the desert, and God says, tell them that I Am. So Jesus now in no uncertain terms was saying, I am God. You think that was a scandalous claim? It certainly was in their view back then. That last one got Him crucified. So if you put yourself in the mindset of a first century Jew, would you have believed Him? Would you have believed Him? Would you think He's crazy? Do you believe Him now? Do you believe Him now? You see, it matters what you think about Christ. Because if Christ is really who He said He was, if His outrageous claims are true, we can learn an awful lot about the world and Christianity. One of the things we learn, if Jesus is who He said He is, is that the Old Testament is true. How do we know that? Because Jesus quoted it authoritatively as the Word of God. So if Jesus is the real deal, we know we have a reliable Old Testament. We also know how to receive eternal salvation and the forgiveness of sins. How do we know? Jesus told us. We can know that the New Testament, for those who will say, how do we know that this is really God's Word? How do we know? Well, you can know it's God's inspired Word because of the authority He gave the apostles who would later write an authoritative New Testament. In other words, if everything Jesus said about Himself is true, we have a rock to stand on that is a sure foundation for our Christian beliefs, if it's all true. If it's all true. So church, why is Easter and Resurrection Sunday the most important day for Christians to celebrate? It's important because if God raised Jesus from the dead, hear this, because this is what everything hangs on today. If God raised Jesus from the dead, it's all true. Do you see that? It's all true. All of it. He conquered death, sin, and hell. He made a way for us to be forgiven. He's really God's Son. He's really God. It's all true. You see, Resurrection Sunday is so important because when God raised Jesus from the dead, He gave Him, amidst a whole lot of controversy and scandal in the eyes of the Jewish people, when He raised Him from the dead, He gave Jesus the ultimate stamp of approval. He said, you all are wrong. Jesus is right. He's the real deal. He's my Son. Everything He did, everything He said, everything He claimed is true. Why? Because God raised Him from the dead and validated Him. And when He did, the Apostle Paul tells us what happened that is of cosmic proportions. In Colossians 2, verse 13, Paul says, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness to God, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And this is one of my favorite verses that follows. Verse 15, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Listen, this is something of cosmic proportions. That all authorities, whether it's on this earth, or supernatural, any form of evil that could be lurking, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them on the cross. Let's praise God for what He's done. It's Resurrection Sunday. Thank You, Jesus. As good of news as that is, there are sadly those who don't believe Christ. They don't believe He was resurrected. And so they live a different reality. You see, if Jesus was just a nice man, if He was just confused or some kind of a liar, or as C.S. Lewis says, if He was a lunatic, we have no comfort in this world. Do you realize that? There's no comfort in this world if Jesus didn't raise from the dead and conquer every conceivable thing that could be conquered. We have no hope of eternal life. You have no assurance of the forgiveness of sins and salvation. You don't have assurance that if you died today, that you'd be okay with God and He would be okay with you. You don't know. And you have no promise of a future heaven where there is no pain and sorrow. And that's difficult to say out loud, but it's true. If Christ wasn't raised, or if you don't believe it, you don't have hope. So the question at hand is, is the resurrection true? And it's a fair question. You know, the primary way we know that it's true is because of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us. He said He would convict us of sin. He would convict the world of sin. And so we have the Holy Spirit that's inside of us that many people in this room at one point in their lives heard the Gospel and said, I believe it. It's true. How do you know it's true? It happened 2,000 years ago. I know. That's the Holy Spirit. But if you're here this morning and you're seeking and you're wondering about all of this, I want you to know that you don't have to check your brain at the door to believe in Christ. You see, the Spirit convinces us, but do you know that there's also good reasons to believe? Maybe you've never heard them. And I'd like to share a few with you if that's okay. I'm gonna talk about proof for just a moment that you can understand that believing in Christ is one of the most rational things you could ever do. You see, there are two facts that are held by Christian and most non-Christian historians alike. And here are the two facts. So this is not Christian propaganda. This is non-Christian historians. There indeed existed a historical Jesus in Nazareth. And number two, this Jesus claimed He was God and ultimately died at the hands of the Romans by crucifixion. Everyone agrees on that. But there's a third fact that gets less press you may not be aware of. But it's this. Some of the most well-known non-Christian historians in the world, most well-known in the world of non-Christian historians believe that the disciples and the other followers saw Jesus after His death. Now, they won't say resurrection. But the evidence is too overwhelming for them to say that they didn't see Jesus. You see sort of the conundrum they're in now? What was this evidence? Why was it so compelling? Well, before we get to that, I'll say some historians are so sure, non-Christian historians, that the disciples saw Jesus after His death that they've had to come up with theories to explain how the early church could have expanded so quickly and how people willingly ran headlong into martyrdom. How could this possibly be? It befuddles historians. So they come up with reasons. Oh, the swoon theory. He wasn't really dead. He just sort of swooned and came back to life in the cold tomb and 40 days later, he finally succumbed from his wounds. And modern doctors, knowing how crucifixion works, have thoroughly debunked that. Some have said it's a mass hallucination. Psychiatrists have debunked that. There's nothing on record of two people having the same exact hallucination at the same time, much less hundreds of people. Or the stolen body. The stolen body theory that the disciples stole the body. Well, they would have just produced the body instead of getting martyred. Right? And so they've got to come up with these crazy reasons to explain it. So why do non-Christian historians believe they saw Jesus after His death? A couple reasons. One, the biblical writers invite their readers to verify the facts. Now, I want you to know, if you're a believer right now, great, right? This is just going to encourage your faith. But I'm speaking to those who are seeking right now, who need a reason to believe. 1 Corinthians 15, see what Paul says. For I have delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, that's Peter, then by the Twelve. Now check out verse 6. After that, He was seen by over 500 brethren at once. Oh, it gets better. Of whom the greater part remain to the present. It means they're still alive. But some have fallen asleep. Some have died. After that, He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all, He was seen by me. This is not something you say when you're making things up. In other words, Paul was saying, if you don't believe me, there's at least 500 people living today that you can just go ask. That they saw the risen Christ after His death. Historians don't know what to do with this. They don't know what to do with it. The second reason, the disciples and their early followers were willing to give up everything for the cause of Christ. Everything. They were so convinced of what they personally saw, they gave up their Jewish heritage, that cultural link for a Jewish person. I mean, you lose everything if you lose your Jewishness. They were willing to give that up. Think about that for a moment. Why would you do it for something phony that you made up? Oh, because like many cults that we see today, it's financially beneficial to them. Well, we can rule that one out pretty quick. These folks were poor. These folks traveled around not knowing where they would sleep next. They were persecuted and ridiculed. They got no financial benefit. They endured unimaginable physical punishment, imprisonment, and torture. And most startlingly, they were willing to die for what they saw. Not what they heard about. For what they saw. They could have recanted at any time. You know, hey, it's a great hoax until someone has got a gun to your head. And then suddenly you go, just kidding. But they did not do that. Why would you be so compelled to the point of unimaginable death and torture to affirm this new Christian movement? Why would you do that? Because you saw Him. You saw Him. There was no doubt in your mind. 1 John 1, we see this, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes. Doesn't this verse take a whole new spin on it? Now that you know this. That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at in our hands of touch, this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared. We have seen it and testified to it. We proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. The whole foundation of their evangelistic efforts revolved around what they saw with their own eyes and historians, non-Christian historians, to this day don't know what to do with that fact. Don't know what to do with it. One, I even read a quote, and I forget his name, but he says, not just they saw him after death, he said, I believe in the resurrection. Yet he's an atheist. He can't reconcile it because it's a fact, historically. The only rational explanation, church, for the advancement of the Gospel and the fact that we're still here today celebrating the resurrected Jesus is that He actually rose on Easter morning. He actually rose. They actually saw Him that morning. And over the next 40 days, along with over 500 people. This is why the church exploded and was unstoppable. How do we know that this guy was actually the Messiah? Okay, He rose from the dead. Jesus met all of the requirements to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. And this is what they started to figure out after He resurrected. And they only got even more convinced about who He was. So you're here this morning, maybe I've helped you to see that the resurrection happened, but you still want to know who this guy is? Is He really who He said He was? Check this out. We started talking today about the Old Testament Jews and how they knew their Scriptures regarding the Messiah. And you know this, that there's nearly 48 key prophecies that point to the identity of the Messiah. Prophecies like, the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem. That's Micah 5.2. Fulfilled in Matthew. Messiah is to be sold for 30 pieces of silver. Zechariah 11.12. Fulfilled in Matthew. Messiah is to be executed by crucifixion by having His hands and feet pierced. That's Psalm 22. Fulfilled in John. Messiah is to be given vinegar to quench His thirst. What an unusual detail. That's Psalm 69. Fulfilled in Matthew 27. And then one of the most popular Scriptures of all, Isaiah 53. He was despised and rejected by mankind. A man of suffering and familiar with pain. Isaiah 53.3 is the one I'm referencing if you have that. Like one from whom people hid their faces, He was despised. And we held Him in low esteem. Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him. And by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. What does that mean? This man who was going to die and later raise, He had laid on Him the iniquity, the sin, the rebellion, the filth of all of mankind. And He went to the cross with all of that on Him. And when God looked at all of our sin, your sin and my sin, He saw that that sin was bore on the shoulders of Jesus. The only worthy sacrifice to pay the penalty for all of those sins. And Jesus took that sin and He died paying the penalty that we should have paid. This is the man they're talking about in Isaiah 53. This is why we're here and we're saved because we believe this good news. We've believed it. And what are the chances that one man could fulfill all those prophecies? Lee Strobel in the case of Christ notes that the chance of one man fulfilling just 8 of the 48 prophecies is 100 million billion. And then provides this visual so we can understand how big of a number that is. The entire state of Texas, if you filled it with quarters 2 feet deep, the entire state, 2 feet deep in quarters, and blindfolded someone and said there's one very special quarter in this state and had them roam around for days and eventually pick one out, that's what 1 in 100 million billion looks like for just 8 of these. These statisticians have calculated the odds. Did you know that? They've calculated the odds that this one man, much of what happened was out of his control. Like the wine vinegar, out of his control. So what about 48? 48 prophecies he fulfills. Well, the odds of that are 1 in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, and 13 trillions behind it. Church, it's true. It happened. You can have great confidence in your faith and in your salvation and everything that goes along with it. Your Old Testament, your New Testament being the inspired Word of God. It's all reliable. Why? Because Jesus proved to be the Messiah. There are rational, good reasons to put your faith in Him. You can be forgiven and reconciled to God. It's all true, church. History bears it over and over again with one transformed life after another. It's true. So here you are, 2,000 years later, confronted with the same Jesus that walked this earth, publicly died, and visibly resurrected. But now He no longer speaks as just lowly Jesus of Nazareth. No, He speaks as a risen Savior who stands at the right hand of God and He beckons you to put your faith in Him, to trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. The same Jesus that they saw. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We pray that this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, authenticlife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church, to find out what we have going on, or to make a donation. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs so bring the family. Thanks again for listening to Elevate and may God bless you.
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