New Life Church of the Nazarene
15 March 2020
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  • To God Be the Glory

      • Exodus 17:1–7CEB

  • Joy Unspeakable

      • Romans 5:1–11CEB

  • He Giveth More Grace
  • God Will Make A Way
  • This is a sensitive topic that I will be preaching on this morning, but it is one that we are all confronted with. We’ve experienced several deaths in our church family recently and many are still grieving. This corona virus pandemic has many worried about their own health and what will be the outcome if we should become infected with it.
    We exist in a culture that is uncomfortable with death. We avoid it, if at all possible. Our skincare regimens, our plastic surgeries, and our hair dye do their best to keep the signs of aging-and, thus, our mortality-at bay. If our employers give us bereavement leave, it's usually only a couple of days. We are part of a "get over it" culture, one that doesn't like to sit with death too long.
    But, though we avoid physical/earthly death as much as possible, we know that there are other deaths all around us. Spiritual death is not quite so rigorously avoided. At times we even see people run toward spiritual death, thinking there is no other way. Other times we see people who appear to be trapped in systems of death, some by their own making, but others in social systems of death like poverty, pollution, or racism. Whether by our own making or the making of others we live in a world that is permeated by spiritual death.
    Lent is a season to acknowledge death. Ash Wednesday urged us to confront our own mortality and reaffirm our dependency on God, but the entire season of Lent also does this. It is weighty as we fast and pray prayers of repentance.
    We are constantly reminded of death, even by the deep, dark colors that symbolize Lent and Holy Week. Death feels so pervasive it can be almost suffocating. We may know that feeling in our own lives or see it in the people around us. It can be easy to sink into hopelessness and despair in the midst of it all, to let the darkness overcome us.
    But there is a voice calling to us in the midst of that darkness. It may seem far away at times, but it is there, and it is a voice of life and hope. It pulls us from darkness and despair and reminds us that, while death holds a tight grip on our world, death does not have the final word. Life does.

    Many Jews held a belief in the someday resurrection of the dead.

    It was a common belief that God would come to restore all things one day. The day of the Lord would be one of resurrection to judgment, whether punishment or reward.
    The day of the Lord tended to revolve around judgment. While the imagery throughout the Old Testament text tends to allude to destruction, it was always toward those far from God.
    The prophet Joel wrote:
    Joel 2:1–2 CEB
    1 Blow the horn in Zion; give a shout on my holy mountain! Let all the people of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is near— 2 a day of darkness and no light, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread out upon the mountains, a great and powerful army comes, unlike any that has ever come before them, or will come after them in centuries ahead.
    The Jews didn't fear the day of the Lord; instead, they viewed it as the day that all things would be made right.
    The righteous would be raised, and they would no longer be oppressed.
    The idea that a time was coming when the dead would hear the voice of God would already have been familiar.
    There is an eschatological bent to this text as well. In the language of "coming," we see that Jesus is affirming their belief that there will be a day that God restores all things.

    We hold this belief of someday as well.

    Often our views of salvation and resurrection revolve around something to come in the far-off future.
    We focus heavily on what happens to us when we die. Where do we go? What happens?
    We also focus on the idea of Jesus coming again to restore things, or of God coming to bring judgment. It is not a someday thing, it is something that we believe today. Jesus could come at any moment.
    The Message of John a. Sabbath Controversies (5:16–30)

    The power of Jesus in bringing life to the ‘dead’ limbs of the man at the pool is the identical power which will one day call the dead of every generation into life from the power of death. Further, this power is already at work. The voice of the Son is sounding in the world;

    John 5:24 CEB
    24 “I assure you that whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and won’t come under judgment but has passed from death into life.

    The Jews would have also been familiar with a system of family apprenticeship.

    In Jesus time, you did the work that your father did. If your father was a fisherman, you learned to become a fisherman from your father.
    b. Jesus is illustrating beginning back in verse 19 that he is apprentice to God the Father. What the Father does, Jesus does. He said there
    John 5:19 CEB
    19 Jesus responded to the Jewish leaders, “I assure you that the Son can’t do anything by himself except what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
    The son is not working outside the will of the Father but is working as the Father works.
    This was blasphemy to those who heard Jesus words. Jesus was first accused of breaking the Sabbath. If you go back and read the earlier part of this chapter you learn that Jesus has healed a man on the sabbath. The Jews accused of violating the sabbath by performing that miracle. They accused Jesus of having that man violate the sabbath when Jesus told him to pick up his mat and go home.
    Jesus tells the the Jews that he is only doing what he sees the Father doing. God, the great creator brings healing and raises the dead. Jesus, God himself, brings healing and raises the dead.
    As I often say, there is a danger in using just a short passage of scripture and not including the context. That most famous of all Scripture verses is recorded just 2 chapters prior to this.
    John 3:16 CEB
    16 God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.
    That eternal life does not begin somewhere down the road in the future. It begins that moment when we place our faith in Jesus who died for us and rose again.
    The power of the resurrection is not relegated to a future coming but is already at work in the present because Jesus is doing the work of God in the world.
    Jesus came so that we might have life, life eternal, abundant life. Jesus said
    John 10:10 CEB
    10 The thief enters only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.
    God has given this power of life to Jesus and he doesn’t just give us life, he came so that we could live life the fullest or abundantly. That is not some grand promise for the future, it is a reality for today.
    You as a Christian are not ment to go through life like you are sucking on soar grapes. Yes, bad stuff happen, people get sick, people die but Christ came to give you life so that you can live it to the fullest.
    Jesus came to do the work of the Father.
    Verse 21 explicitly points to Jesus doing the work of resurrection because he is doing the work of his Father- and that is the work of resurrection.
    John 5:21 CEB
    21 As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so too does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.
    God has given the power to to Son to give life. When I read that I see that as a present reality. It goes along with what Jesus said in chapter 10 verse 10 about life.
    While Jesus talks about the future to come, he also speaks of a present resurrection that he is bringing.
    Jesus is the embodiment of God on earth and is doing the work of God in the present. This is all about the incarnation where God took on human form. Jesus, fully God and fully man.
    Jesus is already doing the work of the resurrection.
    This work is illustrated in various miracles that he does throughout the Gospel of John. The most obvious might be in the physical/bodily resurrection of Lazarus in John 11. Let me read you just a few verses to make my poing
    John 11:23–25 CEB
    23 Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die.
    There you see the belief that the Jews had in the resurrection in the final days.
    John 11:38–42 CEB
    38 Jesus was deeply disturbed again when he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone covered the entrance. 39 Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “Lord, the smell will be awful! He’s been dead four days.” 40 Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?” 41 So they removed the stone. Jesus looked up and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 I know you always hear me. I say this for the benefit of the crowd standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.”
    The resurrection of Lazarus was proof to those who witnessed it that Jesus was indeed sent from God! It was a demonstration of authority that Jesus had over the dead. It also speaks of the authority that Jesus will have when He returns to command all of humanity to come out of the grave and stand before him in judgement.
    The ways Jesus heals others resurrects them from disease and social death. These smaller miracles all ultimately point to the larger miracle of Jesus's resurrection.
    Resurrection is not only something that happens in the future but is also happening now. Those who listen to Jesus and follow after him experience resurrection in their current lives. When we come to faith in Jesus we are resurrected in that we were dead to sin but now we are alive in Christ Jesus. We have been born again, we have been resurrected to new life in Christ.
    The Apostle Paul wrote a grand passage on this theme in Ephesians chapter 2
    Ephesians 2:1–3 CEB
    1 At one time you were like a dead person because of the things you did wrong and your offenses against God. 2 You used to live like people of this world. You followed the rule of a destructive spiritual power. This is the spirit of disobedience to God’s will that is now at work in persons whose lives are characterized by disobedience. 3 At one time you were like those persons. All of you used to do whatever felt good and whatever you thought you wanted so that you were children headed for punishment just like everyone else.
    At one time we were like that. We lived in disobedience. We did not obey God, we followed the ruler of this world. At one time, but - and there is that great theological term.
    Ephesians 2:4–7 CEB
    4 However, God is rich in mercy. He brought us to life with Christ while we were dead as a result of those things that we did wrong. He did this because of the great love that he has for us. You are saved by God’s grace! 6 And God raised us up and seated us in the heavens with Christ Jesus. 7 God did this to show future generations the greatness of his grace by the goodness that God has shown us in Christ Jesus.
    But or however, God is rich in mercy. He brought us to life with Christ. That is a present reality. We were just as good as dead, but God brought us to life with Christ. It implies the new birth and resurrection.
    Bodily resurrection after death is just a continuation of the life abundant already being lived by those who follow after Jesus.

    This is a statement of the already/not yet kingdom of God.

    While God is in fact going to come someday to judge, and there will be a bodily resurrection of the dead, the work is already happening.
    This is important for those of us living in the season of Lent. While we are in a season of grief, and of confronting our mortality and sin, we still live in the ultimate hope of resurrection.
    Lent is a time of fasting. But, in order to illustrate that the resurrection has ultimate power, we suspend our fasting on Sundays. We recognize that we live in the ultimate hope and power of Jesus's resurrection, even in a dark time.
    This is a reminder for us to do the work of resurrection in our world, even in the face of insurmountable obstacles.
    Just as Jesus was following the way of God and beginning the work of God in the world, we are to follow in the same way.
    There are often dark and dead places in our world that need the refreshing word of resurrection. We can join God in that work.
    While this work may not be yet completed, it is good resurrection work in the present.

    Are we living like people of the resurrection now, or are we only longing for the coming of God in the future?

    The word resurrection should transform our lives in the present. It should transform the ways we used to gravitate toward death are overcome by the power of the resurrection.
    The work Jesus began is a continuing work in the world through the Holy Spirit and the people of God.
    Daniel 7:13–14 CEB
    13 As I continued to watch this night vision of mine, I suddenly saw one like a human being coming with the heavenly clouds. He came to the ancient one and was presented before him. 14 Rule, glory, and kingship were given to him; all peoples, nations, and languages will serve him. His rule is an everlasting one— it will never pass away!— his kingship is indestructible.
    We do not need to fear or avoid death like the culture around us because we have confidence that the work of resurrection is already at work in the world and will one day be fulfilled.
    CONCLUSION
    The work of resurrection has already begun in us. The moment we hear the voice of Christ call out to us with words of life, and the moment we respond, we have lived in the power of the resurrection.
    Some of us have compelling stories of the ways that God has saved us from the brink of spiritual, and sometimes even physical, death. Others of us share a story of how God continues to work resurrection in our everyday lives, in no less beautiful ways. We are all people of the resurrection, called out of darkness and death into abundant life.
    While our culture avoids death and places that reek of it, we can look death in the face. We can face it with deep confidence that the resurrection is already at work in our lives. We can grieve in hope, and we can work in the dark and broken places not with despair but with hope.
    Jesus said
    John 5:25 CEB
    25 “I assure you that the time is coming—and is here!—when the dead will hear the voice of God’s Son, and those who hear it will live.
    We are not to live in fear of that day. It is a day to be longed for when all will be set right. Yet, we live now as recipients of the new birth of being raised with Christ. Going back to that grand passage of Paul.
    Ephesians 2:6 CEB
    6 And God raised us up and seated us in the heavens with Christ Jesus.
    That is not some future possibility, but it is a present reality with Jesus. We are alive with Christ. If we are indeed alive with Christ then we should live it out daily. Our world needs particularly today to see the Church alive and working in the world.
    The Church, today, needs praying men and women to execute the solemn and pressing responsibility to meet the fearful crisis which is facing it. The crying need of the times is for men and women, in increased numbers—God-fearing people, praying people, Holy Ghost people, people who can endure hardness, who will count not their lives dear unto themselves, but count all things but garbage for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Savior. The people who are so greatly needed in this age of the Church are those who have learned the business of praying, learned it upon their knees, learned it in the need and agony of their hearts. —E. M. Bounds
    The work of resurrection often feels hard and unrelenting, but when we look for it, we can see even in the darkest places. In the midst of Lent, when the days can be long, somber, and weighty, we can still celebrate. The power of resurrection is already here-in our prayers of confession, in the midst of our fasting, in our sincere repentance. The work Jesus began is still at work in the world. Thanks be to God!

      • John 5:25–29CEB

      • Joel 2:1–2CEB

      • John 5:24CEB

      • John 5:19CEB

      • John 3:16CEB

      • John 10:10CEB

      • John 5:21CEB

      • John 11:23–25CEB

      • John 11:38–42CEB

      • Ephesians 2:1–3CEB

      • Ephesians 2:4–7CEB

      • Daniel 7:13–14CEB

      • John 5:25CEB

      • Ephesians 2:6CEB

  • Room At The Cross For You
New Life Church of the Nazarene
boswellnazarene@gmail.com
814-703-0572
http://www.newlifenaz.org/
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