It's Easter! So What?

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. It is great to see everybody today. Thank you so much for being here. If this is not your normal church home, I just want to say good morning and welcome. We really, we are honored that you would spend any of your time with us. And you should also know, I’m not afraid to call names. So as we come back to our seats, I’m going to start encouraging folks like Mr. Arthur to go ahead and sit down. And I see Pastor Al making the rounds too. I’m going to encourage him to go ahead and sit down too, man. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Hasn’t this morning been pretty special already? Man, goodness gracious. I’m super excited about that.

One of the other things that I believe makes this a special church is because we don’t just pray, but we are striving and aspiring to become a praying church. So if you are new to Sauldam, what we’re about to do might feel a little interesting or odd to you, but I hope it becomes very normal. We spend a portion of our service just praying because we don’t just, like I said, we don’t just want to be a church that prays. We want to be a praying church. We know that folks like, or moments like that where folks make their faith in Jesus public through baptism and starting new ministries, that only comes from the power of God. It doesn’t come from the power of us. So we pray because we are just desperate for more and more of God to get ahold of us.

So what we’re going to pray for this morning, we’re actually going to pray for other churches. You know, my great goal here at Sauldam is not that we would be the biggest, best church in town. My great goal is that the community or the kingdom of God, man, would be so present in this community. So I actually want to spend a few moments praying for other churches on the screen, asking that God would get ahold of them and give them a blessed Easter and a great service as well. So what I’m going to invite you to do, grab a neighbor, just buddy up and pray for a few moments for one of those churches on the screen. Or if there is another church in the area that’s near and dear to you, feel free to pray for them. I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Y’all take it away.

Thank you. Holy Spirit, thank you so much for today. Praise your name. God, we glorify your name. God, you are so kind to us. So merciful, so sweet. Thank you. Lord, thank you for getting ahold of Randy Braxton, using him to get ahold of Robbie Cranford, and then making Randy a grandparent in the faith by getting ahold of Rob Marino. Lord, I pray that all of us in the room would become spiritual parents and grandparents, that you would use us to get ahold of others. Please, Lord. God, I’m not content just to be your son. Lord, in your name, I want to be a granddad, helping others help others meet you as Lord and Savior. Would you please do that for us? But God, would you also do that in the lives of people in other churches? Lord, I’m thinking about Adams Run and Calvary, Charleston Baptist and FBC Ravenel. Lord, pray for Harbor City and Hopewell and Live Oak Fellowship. God, I’m begging that you would give them a great morning and a great day of celebrating you. God, would there be a lot of people that meet you as Lord and Savior in this community? God, whether you do it here at Sauldam this morning or not, would you just do it? But God, I do pray that you would do it here. I pray for everybody here, God. If there’s someone here that does not yet know you as Lord and Savior, who has not tasted the sweet grace of God in their soul, Lord, I’m begging that you would get ahold of them. Use me. Speak through me. Get me out of the way. Whatever verb you want there, God. And do something in their lives. God, they could share with others like the woman at the well and the entire community believe. Please. God, we love you. Thank you for loving us. It’s in your great name that we pray. Amen.

Awesome. Well, man, so grateful that you are here this morning. But, you know, if we were sitting down over a cup of coffee or over some lunch after this, I’d ask you the question, why’d you come? I want to ask you in like a non-offensive way, why are you here today? I think some of us, if we’re being honest, we are here for an Easter service, mostly out of tradition. It’s, you know, it’s just like, it’s Easter. It’s what I do. I come for Christmas. I come for Easter. It’s church. Like, why not come? I mean, you know, find enough reason.

Some of us, honestly, I think that we, if we just be kind of real with me, you’re here because somebody invited you and you’re trying to get them off your back, right? All right. Anybody nervous laughing with me about that? You know, you might be sitting next to that person. You’re elbowing them in the side. Thank you for being here. You are a valued guest.

Some of us, man, we’re here for the pictures. I never wear a suit and I’ve already got so many compliments from our church family. Like, man, you own a suit. Okay, cool. You know, I’ve already gotten a picture before church. I think I’m getting another picture after church. You know, it’s, you know, there’s a fine reasons, but honestly, none of those reasons are good enough.

Maybe you’re here because like me, Lord, you’re here because you need peace. Man, life feels like chaos to you. And you’re like, man, there’s got to be peace. There’s got to be something to stabilize me here. Maybe you’re here because life does feel overwhelming and you’re looking for some respite from that. You know, like the bills are mounting. The problems are piling up and I don’t know how to get out of this. And I just feel so stressed and overwhelmed by life.

Maybe you’re here because you’ve hit some other setback, some medical diagnosis and you don’t know how to get out of it. Some family rift and you don’t know the way of reconciliation. Man, there’s lots of great reasons to be here. And what I just want to say this morning is that wherever you are, no matter what pew you’re sitting in, no matter what your motivation is for being here, God loves you. He’s wild about You and He gave up His very best thing, His own Son, so that He could have you. Not to burden and shackle you with rules, but to set you free and to give you an abundant life of joy and peace starting now, going into eternity.

This is the message of the gospel. And this morning, we’re just going to talk for a few more moments about that message. We’ve all heard the story before, but let me remind you what occurred about 2000 years ago. A man came on the scene calling Himself Jesus Christ. Over 300, some scholars say over 500 prophecies and promises from the Old Testament, Jesus started to fulfill about where He was born, where He grew up and the type of ministry that He would have as He went through the course of His life.

Jesus, over a short but explosive, in a good way, three-year ministry, started to spread the kingdom of God in a place called Israel. But in that process, Jesus is starting to offend and create some opposition with the religious leaders. Even though His life and His ministry was one where broken people always found healing, where hurting people always found hope, where outcasts always found a family. Jesus would routinely go to the down and out and lift them up. Yet, that was extremely offensive for the religious leaders at the time.

Jesus was sent on a divine mission. This God-directed rescue plan to rescue and redeem, to save and recapture a group of people for God’s own glory and name. People that were made for God but have fallen away from Him so that Jesus, through His life, they would become reconciled, made right with God. Jesus was sent on a divine mission. gave His life voluntarily. Before time began, Jesus set His sights on you. Say that again. Before time began, He set His sights on you so that through His perfect life and sacrificial death and victorious resurrection, Jesus would free you from hell and win you to His family forever.

So on Good Friday, Jesus is lifted up and He proclaims on the cross, it is finished and He dies. He’s taken down from the cross, He’s placed in a new tomb where the early disciples, the early church, though they knew Him, though they loved Him, though they believed so much about Him, they did not understand this part of the story. And they thought that the tomb was the end of the road for Jesus.

Christ. Yet what we now know is that on the third day, Jesus would rise from the grave. He would defeat all those things, and Jesus would complete this rescue mission. It’s good news, right? But does it feel a little old this morning? This morning, I wanna remind you of the glory of this news. Romans 4:25 says that Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. If you’re taking notes, write this down. Justification simply means declared innocent of all wrong. Man, you and me, we have done wrong. The Bible says everybody falls short. I mean, I felt that today. Anybody else have an argument with your spouse on the way to church this morning? You may not have done wrong, but your spouse thinks so. All right. We’ve all done wrong. We all need to be made right with a holy God. So that’s why Jesus came.

You see, Jesus, like I said, did not die on the cross because He was powerless to defend Himself. He died so that He would be delivered up to pay for our sin. Romans 4:25, as I said, Jesus was delivered for our trespasses. Let’s talk about trespassing for a moment. If I show up on your property uninvited, I am trespassing. All right. Now the penalty for that trespass, according to the state of South Carolina, may vary with your interpretation of the law. And your penalty for my trespass may not exactly match our state laws. I’ll leave that to you and Smith and Wesson and who else you may be friends with. If I trespass on private property, that’s a misdemeanor. I might pay $200 to the county, whatever. I might spend 30 days in jail if it’s aggravated, whatever it is. If I go to Columbia and trespass on the South Carolina State House, I’m charged with disorderly conduct immediately. I’m paying at least $1,000, and I could spend up to 90 days in jail. That’s not fun, but eventually I’m getting out. If I go to Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., and I go trespass on the White House grounds, that’s a federal crime. I’m charged with a felony. I’m put on some sort of watch list that I don’t think I ever get off of, right? I pay so much money, and I could end up in jail for years. You see, the crime and the punishment for it depends on the person I trespassed against. I trespass against you, that’s a misdemeanor. I trespass against the president and the federal government, that’s a totally different matter.

You know who’s bigger than America? You know who’s bigger than the federal government? It’s God. God is holy, and He’s perfect in every way. So when I trespass against God, I have accrued a debt, and I earn a punishment that is infinite in value. I can’t pay that. There is no amount of religious work we can do to pay off God. There is no amount of good deeds you can do to get God to forgive you of your trespasses. And here’s the issue. Your sin is not just something you dabbled in in the past. It is a line that you cross every day, doing the hokey pokey, putting one foot in, taking another foot out. That’s how we live our lives, constantly going against God’s law. We are by nature trespassers. We’re all guilty. This is a weird way to start an Easter message, but anybody feel guilty today? Let me rephrase. Anybody know that they have done wrong? Anybody aware of the fact that at least at some point in your life, you have sinned? What the Bible says for us is that there is nothing we can do to make God forgive us. You can’t call your buddy to bail you out. You can’t earn enough credits with the big guy upstairs. So God, in His infinite holiness, came up with a plan that would not deal away with His standards, but would also recognize our sin and wipe it away. What’s His name? Jesus Christ. Amen.

The bad news is we are all guilty, and the good news is God has made a way for us to become innocent. You see, our trespasses aren’t just forgiven at one point, but God, through Jesus, forgets all record of our wrongdoing, totally strikes it from the books of His infinite wisdom and knowledge, so that when God looks at Rob Marino this morning, God doesn’t see your alcoholism. When God looks at Jeremy Simmons, He doesn’t see my lust and my sexual sin. When God looks at you, He doesn’t see your tax fraud. When God looks at you, He doesn’t see your bitterness or your greed. When God looks at you through the perfect work of what Jesus has done, God sees perfection. Man, God’s wild about you. Instead of penalties for our trespasses, the resurrection of Jesus secures benefits. The God you have sinned against does not just, he doesn’t just wipe it away and say, it’s okay, whatever, man. The God you’ve sinned against runs toward you, not in anger, but with outstretched arms, saying, I love you. Just come home to me. Just embrace the forgiveness I have for you. And He does that through Jesus.

If you’ve got your Bibles, I want you to open them up to Romans chapter five, verses one through five. And we’re gonna talk about what this resurrection and justification do in our lives. It’ll be on the screen if you don’t have it. Romans five, one through five.

Therefore, since Jesus died on the cross and since Jesus rose from the grave, therefore, we have been justified by faith. We’ve been made right with God. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse two. We have also obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions. Yes, because we know that affliction produces endurance. Endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope. And this hope won’t disappoint us, no, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has given us.

There’s five incredible benefits of justification. The first one is this, peace with God. I mean, if you were taking notes, just write this down. Peace with God. Remember, without Christ, you and me, we are trespassers against God’s holy law. We have crossed the line. We have gone into His territory. And God would be right to look at us with judgment. But because of what Jesus has done, God looks at trespassers and He makes them invited guests. God transforms our identity so that we are no longer sinning against Him, but we are wayward kids coming home.

Now here’s the deal. You and me are all naturally trespassers. We are like invaders to God. In fact, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 puts it this way. You, that means you. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all, that means me. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts. And we were by nature children under wrath as others were also. Man, but before Jesus came, you and me, we deserve punishment, wrath, and consequence. But through Jesus Christ, God gives us peace.

Have you ever been totally forgiven by someone you know you totally wronged? Think about a time early in our marriage where me and Becca are having this conversation and we just got, it got very real, very fast. And I had been caught in some sexual sin. I remember talking to Becca about it and she looks at me with tears in her eyes and she says, I love you and I forgive you. I knew in that moment, moment I had sinned against her I also knew in that moment that I was totally forgiven that’s what God has for you total peace with Him but He doesn’t just have peace for your past He has sustaining grace today that’s the second benefit write that down sustaining grace in verse number two Paul says we obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand you see grace the grace of God is like a river and God just wants you to stand in that river so that God’s grace is constantly washing over you constantly cooling you constantly refreshing you grace is not a river you get cleaned in it then you walk out of and then you have to come back to get cleaned in and walk out of again no God says just stay in the river we get to stay in this grace we stand in this grace God sustains you by His grace we aren’t just saved in the past but God sustains us today by His grace man do you know that nothing can separate you from God’s love if you’re in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior there is not a single thing that can take you out of God’s grace if God has placed you in it so whenever you go through the next family rift and you’re fighting with your spouse or your kid or your brother, God’s grace wants to sustain you. Whenever you’re going through your next medical issue and the doctor calls with that diagnosis, God wants to sustain you. Whenever you are battling the inner darkness and the demons and the lies in your head that you can’t shout out, God wants to sustain you. And when you are on your deathbed and you know it is any day now that you will take your final breath here, God’s grace wants to sustain you.

Man, do you know this? If Jesus is big enough to rise from the dead, man, He’s big enough to handle whatever you’re gonna go through. And I’m not trying to make anything smaller than it is. I’m trying to lift up Jesus so that despite how big your problem seems, Jesus is bigger still. Is He bigger still for you? Is He? God wants to sustain you with this grace.

So I could tell you, man, when you go through the family problem or the medical issue or you’re looking at death and you’re not doing it with God, that never goes well. Come bitter, you lash out, or maybe you just need people and you’re constantly codependently, man, living on people, man, God has grace to sustain you.

But the third benefit Jesus gives us in His resurrection is real hope. Real hope. The sustaining grace of God means that you can have true hope in your circumstances. I’m not saying wishy-washy hope like, “I hope it does rain later,” or “I hope it doesn’t rain later.” I’m not even talking about hope like, “I hope my medical situation turns around,” or “I hope I can get out of this financial problem.” No, I’m talking real hope, something stronger than the foundation of this church building that you can stand on. That means that no matter what you experience because Jesus rose from the grave, no matter what you go through because Jesus rose from the grave, no matter what you endure because Jesus rose from the grave, you have a sure and lasting hope that’s better and bigger and stronger than any pain you could endure in this life. Amen.

And this hope is stronger than anything the world can offer you. Man, we go through our problems and the world might want to throw some money at it, hire a better lawyer, just get a better house, better whatever. Man, money fails. Money’s fickle like that. People might say time heals all wounds. I also know people that are still dealing with trauma from 30 years ago. 30 years, a lot of time. Time doesn’t heal all wounds.

Some people try to solve their problems just through a new relationship. This spouse isn’t working out for me, I’ll just go get another one. This friend isn’t working out for me, I’ll just go make another one. This church isn’t working out for me, I’ll just go get another one.

Some people try to go through their problems and they want to self-medicate with substances. Man, if I could just drown my problem in alcohol, if I could just numb it with pills, if I could just smoke it away, or their phones and they just want to distract themselves. Man, if I could just binge YouTube for 30 minutes, it turns into three hours and you feel gross afterwards. Not speaking from experience, man. Jesus gives us real hope, something better than substance or phones or people. Last time I checked, Jesus is the only one that’s ever beat death. Everybody else’s, man, we’re over against death. Jesus is one, and no, He has secured a living real hope for us, which means the fourth benefit is yours. You can have strength in affliction. You can boast in it. Paul says we can boast in our afflictions. Oh man, your spouse is leaving you because she found somebody else? Dude, look at my problem. I’m having to go get dialysis because my blood’s all whacked out. You can boast in your afflictions. You can one up each other because you know that God is going to sustain you through it.

Okay, when the tides of frustration, pain, and death wash against the shore of your life because of Jesus, you can bear against it because Jesus experienced the deepest afflictions and pain. The book of Hebrews says that Jesus lived a life like us. He was tempted and tried like us, yet He never once gave into it. So when the tides of frustration, pain, and life beat against the shore of your life, let it. Because those same pains will drive you closer to the bedrock of Christ. Man, yesterday We’re at Edisto, and we’re sitting on the beach, and we’re looking at these breakers out there, and the tide is coming up against the breakers, and it’s splashing on these middle schoolers that somehow can endure that water. I just don’t understand it. And I was struck again how so often in life I want to avoid my problems. And I’m like the beach houses, like five streets back off the beach, way away from my problems. And God says through His Word that He brings us close to our problems. He puts us on the breakers so that every time we’d be splashed with our problems, we’d be reminded of the sure footing we have in Jesus. So that next time you go through the thing, that affliction, it doesn’t have to break you. It doesn’t need to break your pride. That affliction can drive you to create endurance. And that endurance, because God has given it, will make your character proven. And that character will result in even more hope.

You see, if Christ rose from the dead, then He can help you weather the storms of your life. And not just to endure them, but to even boast in them because you know that the afflictions, pain, and discouragements can drive you closer to God. And that’s the fifth benefit. Verse 5 says that we, because of Jesus, can experience the presence of God’s love. You know what Jesus did after He rose from the grave? Reveals Himself to His disciples, hangs out for a few weeks, and then He ascends to heaven. Remember why He does that? He ascends so that He can send the Holy Spirit down. So that instead of Jesus at one place at one time—God, He is, but He’s only in one place at one time—the Holy Spirit can be in all souls, in all places, at all times. So that we don’t have to yearn for the bodily presence of Jesus right here, though we look forward to that day. We can also know that the presence of God lives in our souls. So that we can go through the stuff of this life, trusting one day, yes, we will see Jesus physically face to face. And in light of His glory and grace, all things will grow strangely dim. Yes, amen. However, today, while I still do not yet see Him, I know He is here. Because Christ rose from the dead, you can live with the presence of God’s love in your life.

Aren’t you hungry for that? Isn’t that better than family pictures and checking a religious box at Easter? Feeling the presence of God, isn’t that stronger and bigger than your financial issue or your family crisis? The enduring love and kindness and peace of God in your life. Isn’t that a better motivation than money or success? That’s what God has for you. All of this is available today because Jesus offered His life on the cross. He really died, and then He came back to life. So did you come hungry today for something deeper and better and more lasting? It’s only found in a personal love relationship with Jesus.

So here’s what I wanna do. I wanna close this message by inviting all of y’all, close your eyes and bow your heads. I’m not outing anybody. I just wanna create a place where you can be personally with God for a moment. I just want you to ask, God, do I have that love relationship with You? If you feel the answer is no, then what I wanna invite you to do is just to pray this prayer in your own words. God, I want that love relationship. I want peace and grace and hope. I want to feel Your love in my life. I give You my life. I know I’m a sinner. I’m a trespasser. Please forgive me, God. If you already do know Jesus in this way, man, my invitation to you, pray this prayer. God, how can I go deeper in this love? I want You to have more of my life. God, how can we do that together? My final invitation for you, if you feel like you’ve made a commitment with God to either give your life to Him or go deeper with Him, don’t leave here today without telling somebody so that they can encourage, help you do it.

God, You love us. You must. You sent Your very own Son to live for us, to die for us, and be resurrected for us so that we could know You and have peace with You. For anybody here that does not yet know You that way, I pray You would break through.

The religiousness. You would break through the traditions. You would break through their hesitations. You would break through their questions, and that You would just help them to know that You love them. They would act on that. They would give their life to You just like my buddy Rob did. And God, for anybody that does know You as Lord and Savior, You please draw them deeper, please.