EASTER: The Promise of Forgiveness - Easter and you 4-9-23
Easter: the promise of forgiveness
The history of sin
The heritage of hope
The old promise and the law
The new promise
The Easter story
Easter and You
Easter eggs
Is Easter just a holiday,
with dyed eggs and yummy candy?
Is it a time when children play
and all dress so fine and dandy?
Is Easter when adults find
some much-needed relaxation?
Is it a break from their work
to enjoy a short vacation?
Or does Easter remind us
how Christ died our debt to pay?
And does Easter remind us
of how Christ rose on the third day?
Easter, Easter!
What a beautiful occasion!
Easter, Easter!
What a glorious celebration!
Easter, Easter!
Christ’s resurrection is in view!
Easter, Easter!
He arose for me and you!
© Loyd C Taylor, Sr., - April 2019
Jerry Jones, a gospel preacher, tells about a Christian man and his wife who lost their young SON in a TRAGIC ACCIDENT on Good Friday in 1996. The boy’s funeral was on Easter Sunday. During the MEMORIAL service the father got up and shared with his family and friends that Easter had taken on a new importance. "Until you stare death eye-to-eye," he began sobbing, "Easter is just a word. It’s a nice day with bunny rabbits and eggs . . . .but when someone so precious to you dies, Easter becomes everything . . . an anchor in a fierce storm . . . a rock on which to stand . . . a hope that raises you above despair and keeps you going."
Jerry Jones
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”
1 Peter 1:3 NIV
I. THE GOSPEL
“Sometimes we fail to eat the main course of a biblical meal because we choke on the hors-‘oeuvres.”
John Piper
“He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
Luke 24:46-47 NIV
"Fundamentally, our Lord’s message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, "I am the bread." He did not come merely to shed light; He said, "I am the light." He did not come merely to show the door; He said, "I am the door." ...He did not come merely to point the way; He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
J. Sidlow Baxter, pastor and theologian
A. Jesus is the Messiah
B. Jesus suffered and died.
C. Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.
D. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached
1. In his name
2. To all nations
3. Beginning in Jerusalem
It is said that one of the greatest disasters in the history of Christianity took place in 1271. Nichelo and and Matteo Polo, the father and the uncle of Marco Polo, were visiting the Kubla Kahn. At that time, Kubla Kahn was a world ruler. He ruled all of China, all of India, and all of the East.
Kubla Khan was attracted to the story of Christianity as Nichelo and Matteo told it to him. So he said this to them, “You shall go to your high priest and tell him on my behalf to send me 100 men skilled in your religion, and I shall be baptized. And when I am baptized, all my barons and great men will be baptized, and their subjects will receive baptism too, and so there will be more Christians here than there are in your parts.”
So Nichelo and Matteo Polo went to the highest religious authority, requesting 100 missionaries. The pope responded, “Those barbarians don’t deserve the gospel.” Nothing was done for about 30 years, and then only two or three missionaries were sent.
Too few. Too Late.
As a result of this delay, Buddhist monks, who were pleased to come, converted the largest empire history has ever known to Buddhism.
Bret Toman
II. THE LORD’S SUPPER
Philip Henry used to call the Lord’s day the queen of days, the pearl of the week, and observed it accordingly. His common salutation of his family or friends, on the Lord’s day in the morning, was that of the primitive Christians--"The Lord is risen, He is risen indeed;" making it his chief business on that day to celebrate the memory of Christ’s resurrection; and he would say sometimes, "Every Lord’s day is a true Christian’s Easter day."
“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NIV
A. His body
1. For us
2. Do this in remembrance of me.
B. His blood
1. New covenant
2. Do this in remembrance of me.
Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Last Supper scene on a dining room wall in Milan. As a visitor stood viewing the finished work, he commented on the realism of several goblets on the table, exclaiming that they were so real he felt as though he could reach out and pick them up. Upon hearing those words Da Vinci quickly grabbed a brush and painted out the goblets. Pointing to Jesus he said, “It’s His face! His face that I want you to see!”
Davon Huss
C. The Lord’s Supper
1. We proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
A man sat down to supper with his family, saying grace, thanking God for the food, for the hands which prepared it, and for the source of all life. But during the meal he complained about the freshness of the bread, the bitterness of the coffee and the sharpness of the cheese.
His young daughter asked him, “Dad, do you think God heard the grace today?” “Of course,” he answered confidently. Then she asked, “And do you think God heard what you said about the coffee, the cheese, and the bread?” Not so confidently, he answered, “Why, yes, I believe so.”
The little girl concluded, “Then which do you think God believed, Dad?”
Stephen Wright
Does God believe your contrition and piety at the Lord’s Supper or the testimony of our lives away from the supper?
III. BAPTISM
The story is told about the baptism of King Aengus by St. Patrick in the middle of the fifth century. Sometime during the rite, St. Patrick leaned on his sharp-pointed staff and inadvertently stabbed the king's foot. After the baptism was over, St. Patrick looked down at all the blood, realized what he had done, and begged the king's forgiveness. Why did you suffer this pain in silence, the Saint wanted to know. The king replied, "I thought it was part of the ritual."
Source Unknown.
A. The image of death, burial, and resurrection
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
Romans 6:1-2 NIV
“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Romans 6:3-4 NIV
“Baptism” – Comes from the Greek word - “Baptizo” which means to immerse or dunk for a ceremonial purpose.
Bapto is a word which was used to describe:
a) Sinking ships as they sank water would fill
the inside of ship.
b) Another usage describes a garment being
immersed into dye… the dye penetrates every
fiber of the fabric.
-all your insides will be filled!
-when you are dipped, immersed, dunked into the presence of God you will have a new spiritual color that will fill every fiber of your being!
B. The real death of baptism
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
Romans 6:5-7 NIV
Dr. M.R. DeHaan put it this way:
In the early days of the church. . . , baptism was a declaration that the believer was definitely identifying himself with that group of people who were called Christians and were despised and hated. To be a Christian meant something. To identify yourself with those who were called Christians meant persecution, maybe death; it meant being ostracized from your family, shunned by friends. And the one act which was the final declaration of this identification was BAPTISM. As long as a man gathered with Christians, he was tolerated, but when once he submitted to baptism, he declared to all the world, I BELONG TO THIS DESPISED GROUP, and immediately he was persecuted, hated, and despised. In baptism, therefore, the believer entered into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. A person might be a believer and keep it strictly a secret and thus avoid unpleasantness and suffering, but once he submitted to public baptism he had burned his bridges behind him. . .”
Dr. M.R. DeHaan’s pamphlet, “Water Baptism”, p. 27.
C. The new life in baptism
Recently my 7-year-old son was baptized at nearby Lake Tahoe. With tears streaming down my face, I watched as he came out of the water, then excitedly asked if he felt any different.
"Yeah, Mom, I do," he replied. "Now I have water up my nose!"
Leslie A. Williamson, Gardnerville, NV., Today’s Christian Woman, "Heart to Heart."
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”
Romans 6:8-14 NIV
1. We are dead to sin.
2. We are alive in Christ.
CONCLUSION
Easter gives us the Gospel, the Lord’s Supper, and baptism.
INVITATION
It is our custom to offer an "invitation" following the preaching of the Word. You may want to follow Jesus. You may want to proclaim your faith. You may want to repent (stop doing ungodly things and start doing Godly things). Perhaps you want to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Possibly, if you have already responded to God’s call in these ways, you would like to become a member of Kenwood Church. If you have been moved by the Holy Spirit to make a decision in your life, you can come forward now. If you would like, I would be honored to speak with you following the service about what God is doing in your life.
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