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- [00:00]
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Well, welcome to River Valley Church here at all of our campuses. And I want to try this here at all the campuses. I'm going to say, he is risen, and then you're going to respond with, he is risen indeed. All right, now do it good, so I don't have to do it two times. All right, let's do it good. All right, Ready? He is risen.
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He is risen indeed.
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Amen. I just like the way that sounds. And I want to say welcome to all of our campuses. And if you're new, we're having a shared sermon today. So I. I'm gonna do part of it, and then at your campus, it will go live. Because on many weekends, we broadcast from our broadcast location, and the sermon will go to all the locations. And then sometimes we have live. And so this is a little different, little shared sermon. And also this is a little different. I don't usually dress this fancy, but my wife said, that suit looks good. I might wear it next week, too.
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All right.
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You know, the title of our sermon today that we're working on together is why do you look for the living among the dead? Why do you look for the living among the dead? This Easter, we wanna focus on the angel's question that was, why do you look for the living among the dead? And we're gonna see from the text that we're gonna read that they were dead wrong. They went to look for the living among the dead, and they were dead wrong. We're also gonna see that we look in dead ends, and then we're gonna see that he is dead no more. So dead wrong, dead ends and dead no more. Luke, chapter 24. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them in their fright. The women bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here.
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He.
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He has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee, the Son of man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners. Be crucified, and on the third day be raised again. Then they remembered his words that when they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11 and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene. Joanna. Mary, the mother of James. And the others with them, who told this to the apostles. Now, you can imagine this scene. I mean, if, you know, Good Friday. And we had a great Good Friday service. They were packed at all of our locations. And we're celebrating that Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins. And we know that on Good Friday, it was a different tone. It wasn't about the resurrection, even as we celebrated. But for them, it was very real. They just saw him die on the cross. They just saw the excruciating pain that he went through. They didn't fully understand that all of our sins, everything we did wrong, was placed on Him. But they knew this. He was dead. He was dead. They saw him die on the cross. And so it's the very first Easter morning, and there's no lilies. There's no Sunday mass. I mean, they are in a time of mourning, as the Jewish custom would be. They were entering seven days of great grief and mourning. And these three ladies are walking towards the tomb, and they're carrying spices. They're. And they're not carrying any hope. They're just realizing, like, he died, he died. They have no context of he's risen. And so they're going to the only place that makes sense, which would be the tomb. That's where dead people go. They go into the tomb. They saw that the stone was rolled in place. They saw that the body. You know, like, they saw all these things happen. And now they get there. After seeing all this happen on Friday, now they get there and they see the stone is gone. That'd be like, number one. Like, we're up early and we're going. Now it's gone. And then they see that he's not there. And then they see two angels dressed up. How many know this? This story is taking a major shift. And they're like, we've come to do this. And now you're saying, why are we looking for the living among the dead? Like, he's not here. This is like, we can't understand that the living Savior is not here. They thought he was dead. And you know what? They were dead wrong. Dead wrong. And if you don't know what dead wrong means, that's a English idiom that means completely wrong, entirely incorrect, utterly mistaken.
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They were all those things because they
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were showing up now. It wasn't like they didn't have faith. They weren't told to. Like, they. Well, Jesus told them to have faith, but they couldn't understand it. They're going there with the only. They're just trying to Be faithful to Jesus. They're just trying to take care of someone they loved that they thought was dead. And it's an interesting thing. When they were coming up there, they were absolutely certain that Jesus was dead, but their absolute certainty had been overturned. Overturned, overruled. And it's a beautiful thing, the angel, when he says to them, why do you look for the living amongst the dead? You could read that a lot of different ways, a lot of different tones. How many know? You could be like, hey, why you look at, you know, like, he's dismissive. Or you could be like, he was angry. Like, why are you. Why are you here? Didn't you pay attention when he was talking? Like, he could have read it that way, right? That's not how the angel said it. The angel said it in the most gentle way possible. The two angels there that talking to them, like, said it in the most gentle way. And the way that it's written is, hey, hey, you're looking in the wrong place. Let me show you the right place to look. Let me show you the right place to look. And can I say this church, I pray that when we reach out to people in the world that they don't see a church that's like, oh, look at you looking in the wrong place. Oh, you should know better. Don't you know what the church has to say? I pray that we'd have that same posture, that you're just looking in the wrong place. Let me show you the right place to look. And he says this. He says, remember he told you, like, when he was still in God, he's gonna come back after three days. And he did. See, they heard the words that Jesus spoke, but they just didn't have a category for resurrection. They were thinking in the natural. They were not thinking in the supernatural. They weren't realizing that Jesus was gonna do the impossible. And we have a song that's coming out on our new album coming up, and the recording's coming up, and it's called impossible is what you do best. I love when we sing it around our church because we get to sing them before they go out to the world and go on the recording.
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And.
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And the line is, impossible is what you do best. And the other day, I was just singing around the house, and I was like, impossible is what you do next. And Becca goes, that's not right. I go, I like my version. Hey, impossible is what he does next. He's gonna do it in your life. He did it there for them, and he will do it in Your life, He will change you. You think that's impossible. And he says, impossible is what I'm gonna do next and it's what I do best. And so before I hand it to the pastor at your campus, and I love that we get to share this, I just wanna pray real quick that we will realize that people are dead wrong, but we're gonna point them in the right spirit to what's right about Jesus. So Lord, I thank you that we can look at this and realize that they were dead wrong. Absolutely wrong. And the angels didn't mock them. The angels explained in such a way that they were like, oh, this is beautiful. I pray that we as a church would explain it today in such a way that many would respond at the end of this service when they're given an opportunity to give their life to you, Lord Jesus, because we've done a right way of explaining this, a gentle way of explaining this and letting them know that they can have life in Jesus Christ. In your name we pray. Amen and amen.
- [08:13]
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Hey, as we continue, can we give God praise that he does the impossible? Amen. Amen. The women going to the tomb, they realize they were dead wrong gently. And the second point, like Pastor Rob shared earlier, they're also realizing they're at a dead end. They've reached a dead end. And we at times, we find ourselves reaching a dead end in life. And if there's anybody here that's never given their life to Christ, you know what it feels like to be searching, to be hungry, to be trying to get to this destination that would satisfy. But you find yourself in life, meeting dead end after dead end after dead end. The angel, he redirects them and says, this is not your final destination, but I'm gonna lead you toward Jesus, towards this new life. And we have that opportunity today for anybody here. At the end of this service, you have the opportunity to give your life to Jesus Christ. To out that your life does not have to reach the dead end. The, the angel was saying, why are you looking for the living among the dead? You're in the wrong spot, you're in the wrong destination, but we're going to get you there. And if we're, if we're honest, this is the human condition. God said eternity in the hearts of man. That we're searching, we're hungry, we're searching for peace and love and meaning or relief from the pain or the shame in life. Augustine says this in modern day language. He says, God made us for himself and our heart will be Restless until it finds its home in him. There are dead ends in this life and maybe you can identify with this. I know for me, running from God in high school, I found dead end after dead end after dead end. And at 18 years old, came alive in Christ. Maybe you've been at the dead end of performance. I'm just gonna be. I'm gonna try harder, I'm gonna be good enough. I'm searching for significance, I'm searching for success. And you find out that when you achieve, it doesn't satisfy the way you thought it would satisfy. There's the next thing. Pastor Rob wrote a book called Thrill Sequence. As soon as you reach this goal, this thrill in life, all of a sudden it runs dry. I need the next thrill, I need the next adventure, I need the next challenge. I that's a dead end in life. Ecclesiastes 1:2. Solomon, who lived the thrill, the thrill of life, wise, rich, everything, he reached dead end in his life, dead end. After he ran from God, he did what was disobedient and he wrote vanity of vanities. Says the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What is he saying? He's saying in this life, the things that are not eternal, the things not connected to the kingdom of God. It's like a vapor here today and gone tomorrow. Maybe you know, this dead end called the dead end of escape. Escapism is very popular in today's world. Whatever numbs the weight of life. Is it a screen, is it a substance? Is it doom scrolling? Is it some addiction or obsession just to take away the pain? It's a dead end. And we're using this service right now and the word of God to say, hey, hey, no shame on you. Jesus wants to take the shame off of you. Maybe you've experienced the dead end of relationships without it. Founded in godly relationships, godly family. But even then, sometimes we fall into this trap or dead end of my identity is in this relationship. My identity is in my marriage. My identity is in how successful my kids could be. My identity is how many friends I have. And can I tell you, without Christ, all of that is a dead end. But with Christ, he is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. The last dead end is at least in this message, the dead end of religion. Without resurrection. You can perform this Christian life. I attend, I serve, I give, I check the boxes, but there's still something that's, that's empty. It's. It's not attached to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Maybe you say, I'm Catholic. I'm Lutheran. I'm Christian. It's my family. This is what we do. But still you're searching and wanting and hungry. And maybe you've never attached your religion or your faith to the risen savior of the world, whose name is Jesus. Dead. Wrong. Dead ends. And here's the encouragement. Ready? Dead no more. The final point. Dead no more. Jesus is alive. We'll do it one more time. He is risen. Come on. Anybody grateful that Jesus is alive. He's alive. He's not here. He has risen. And Jesus is alive and well right now. Jesus died to pay the price for your sin. And Jesus rose again so you could rise up out of your sin and trespasses. Ephesians 2:1:6 says, and you were dead in your trespasses in sin. Not just you, all of us, we were dead in our sin in which we once walked. We followed the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we've all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, which we were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest of mankind. Here's the good news. But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. It is by grace you have been saved. And he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. One more time on Easter, can we give God praise that we were dead in our sin, yet he made us alive in Christ Jesus is alive so that you could come alive. And as we get ready to close this message and end the service, I'm just reflecting back on this story. The women, they went first day of the week, early in the morning. I think we need to apply that principle to our life. I'm coming to Jesus first. I'm gonna seek first the kingdom of God. I'm shifting my perspective and priority. I'm going after Christ. And if you do that, and if you give your life to this, you will come alive like never before. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. I love that. Just picture yourself dead in your sin in the tomb, but then made alive in Jesus Christ. The stone was rolled away. When you come alive, the things that used to contain you must move. The things that held you back must get off of you and out of the way. Get off of my life. Old way. Of thinking. Old beliefs, how people perceived you. Limitations. Same old, same old. Just another day. I'm falling behind. I won't amount to much. My life is over. I'm not enough. I'm a failure. Maybe you've thought that before. But no. The stone must be rolled away. Lies be rolled away. Limiting frameworks, people's perceptions be rolled away. I'm alive. And you can say that in Christ. I've been made alive in Christ. When they went in, they, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. I just, I'm just thinking about that. Like, think about it for your life. Coming alive in Jesus Christ. You will have family members, friends, co workers, neighbors that go you, I can't find the old you. Where did you go? I can't find you. What happened to you? What happened in your life? Where's the anxious person I knew? Where's the depressed person? Where's the addicted person? Where's the liar, the cheater? Where's the unfaithful? Where's the lazy or undisciplined? Where's the happy go lucky? Always joking, always sarcastic. But now there's a hunger, there's a fervor, There's a fire in your eyes like never before. You have been transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. You have been resurrected. The Bible says that you become a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. So walk in this newness of life. Like when the disciples later resurrected Jesus, they would see his nail scarred hands, the nail prints in his hand. He, he looks different. There's something different. And when you give your life to Christ, you change from the inside out. You look different, you think different, you act different. And I know there's people here that have been searching for this. I want to believe the truth of God. I want the shame off of me. I want the guilt off of me. Can I tell you? Jesus paid it all. It can come off today if you're thinking right now. I'm too far gone. I'm not good enough. I don't have what it takes. I wasn't raised in church. I'm not part of the right faith family. I, I, I don't know. I don't know that Jesus can save me. The truth is Jesus can save you. Jesus can transform you. You can right now receive the free gift of salvation by faith. I believe that Jesus died and rose again. In just a moment, we're gonna pray a prayer all across this room. And you might pray this prayer for the first time. And it aligns with the belief in your heart. Jesus, come into my life. Be the Lord of my life and you will be saved. Saved today. No more dead ends. No more being dead. Wrong. You can have the conviction from the word of God that I am dead. Right. No more dead ends. I'm following Jesus. I know my eternal destination. Forever and ever and ever is in heaven. Death is defeated as a destination. I'm not afraid of death. I close my eyes on this side. I'll open them in eternity. Forever and ever and ever. Death is defeated as a power. It has no sting. We sung that earlier. Death, where is your sting? Death is defeated as a verdict. Your verdict is to be set free.