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Why did God roll away the stone?  Did God roll away the stone so that Jesus could get out of the tomb?  Did he really need it rolled away?  Or is there another reason?  This sermon explores the reasons that God rolled away the stone of the tomb.  The answer gives us hope for our lives.

Jesus rides into Jerusalem in order to identify himself as the king prophesied in the scriptures and anticipated by the people of Israel, but he does not meet their exact expectations of what their king would be like. When Jesus doesn’t meet our exact expectations, is he the king we want?

The people of Israel expected and wanted a warrior-king who would battle their enemies. Some of us want Jesus to be a king who expels the people we disagree with. We want a king who legitimizes our team, our take, and our perspective, while forgetting the grace-based, open, and inclusive kingdom over which Jesus is king. Others of us want the grace-based, open, and inclusive kingdom, but are less comfortable with Jesus as a sovereign king who makes a total claim on our lives.

But, Jesus is both sovereign king and inclusive savior who rescued us that we would be the new temple of God: filled with the Spirit to extend the love of the king and his kingdom.

The desert is a place to help us see our needs both physical and spiritual. It helps us to understand what is in our heart. The desert reveals the places that need to be restored and places that new to be reframed and reshaped. Weather it’s a physical or metaphorically a desert experience it can be difficult. It is in this space desert places that God is forming us into the people of God.

And as we are lead by the Holy Spirit God begins to solidify what we believe about God and ourselves. God does this in order for us to be able to face what’s on the other side of the desert.ati

How do we listen and follow the Holy Spirit? What are ways your identity is questioned?

The devil quoted Psalm 91, God’s promise to protect Jesus.  The devil said, if you are the Son of God, then test that promise.  The undercurrent of this temptation was the presumption that “if God does not protect you, God is not with you.”  Jesus knew that he would carry the sins of humankind.  He would fall, and God would not send his angels to catch him.  Would he still believe that God was with him?  Could suffering and the will of God go together?  The devil said no.  But Jesus said yes.  Jesus would submit to the Lord’s will for his life.  He was not going to complain or quarrel with God or test God even if he had to fall out of God’s hands.

 

We are tempted to construe God’s promises on our own terms.  There are a lot of promises in the Scriptures.  What do we do with these promises when we are suffering?  The devil tries to tempt us to think that this means that God is not with us, that God is not keeping his promises, that God is not real.  The devil is constantly trying to create suffering in our lives and the world and then use the suffering to blame God.  That’s his scheme.

 

How do we resist such a temptation?  Remember the gospel, find community to remind us of God’s character, and engage in the process of building a relationship with God.

Last Sunday, we looked at the second temptation of Jesus, the temptation for the power.  The devil tempted Jesus with power over all the kingdom of the world if Jesus bowed down and worshipped him.  This is a temptation to use the power-over, the coercive power of government, to accomplish the goal of transforming the world, instead of the power of the cross.

 

At the time of Jesus, most people expected the Messiah to come and take over the Roman Empire by force.  But, Jesus refused.  There are fundamental differences between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world.

 

Kingdom of the World

Kingdom of God

Sword

Cross

Power-Over

-law and order

-justice

-external behavior control

Power-Under

-sacrificial service

-agape love

-grace

Changed by external power:

-threat/judgment/shame/social pressure

Transformed by internal transformation:

-influential but non-coercive power of sacrificial love as the Holy Spirit works in people’s heart

Trust in the power of the sword

Trust in the power of the cross

Purpose is to control behavior

Purpose is to transform life from the heart

 

But, Jesus refused to submit to the temptation for power-over (the power of the sword) but submitted to the power-under (the power of the cross).

 

We are often tempted with the same temptation.  Personally, we are tempted to put power above love.  Sometimes, there is a temptation to use anger, intimidation, violence, coercion, harassment, abusive or inconsiderate words, all in the name of getting good things done.  It is so easy to fall into this temptation because it is much easier than the hard work of love.

 

As a church, we are also tempted to accomplish good things through the ways of the Kingdom of the world instead of the ways of the Kingdom of God.  When the church, the visible presence of the Kingdom of God on earth, took over the Kingdom of this world, we made a mess of both the world and the Kingdom of God.  Christianity has a bad history because it started to wield the power of the sword.  Having said that, the church is also called to bring the Kingdom of God down to this world not by the power of the sword, but by the power of the cross, the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.

 

How can we resist this temptation for power?  First, we have to work out the gospel of the cross and come to see that the power-under (the power of unconditional love and grace) is greater than the power-over of the sword (coercive power).  Second, we have to learn to detach and discern, detach from things that get a hold of us and discern what is the most important, not only the goals but also the means to those goals.  It takes wisdom and discernment.

This week we looked at stories of the desert throughout the Old Testament. The wilderness is often a setting in the scriptures for powerful encounters with God. It is also the setting for seasons of detachment and discernment. When we enter into the desert we are often stripped of the things that keep us from God so that we can encounter God in a more intimate way. We detach ourselves from the things that are not important. In that place of solitude, we begin to learn discernment in order to discern the movements of God.

The resurrection of Jesus tells us where we are going, our ultimate destiny.  From 1 Corinthians 15, Pastor Kevin shared (1) the evidence of the resurrection; and (2) the significance of the resurrection.

 

The Apostles didn’t tell people to just believe the resurrection of Jesus.  They were witnesses to the fact and presented evidence of the resurrection.  These eye-witness accounts are good evidence of the resurrection because: (1) there are numerous witness statements attesting to the fact written within 15-20 years after the resurrection, a time not long enough to become a legend; (2) the accounts are too counterproductive to be a legend (if they made it up, they would not have included some of these details); (3) the accounts are too detailed to be legends; (4) there is no other plausible explanation for the start of the church; and (5) the witnesses died for their faith.  You can’t philosophically argue away this historical fact by saying that it is a miracle and miracles don’t happen.  The only way to determine if it is true is to see if there is adequate historical evidence.  And there is good historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus.

The significance of the resurrection:  The resurrection shows us (1) that our sins are forgiven; (2) that someday, we will also be resurrected into the kind of super-physical body that Jesus resurrected into; and (3) that this resurrection power is available for us in the present.

Pastor Kevin discussed two ways to approach the issue of meaning in our lives: (1) the modern approach; (2) the gospel approach.

The modern approach starts out with the assumption that there is no God or that God does not affect our lives. Then, the inevitable conclusion is that we are just an accident in the universe; and therefore, there is no meaning whatsoever. However, because it is difficult live without meaning, this approach seeks to create meaning. But, Pastor Kevin discussed a couple of problems of this approach: (1) it is not intellectually honest because at the end, there is no meaning (at the end, there is no point to it); and (2) a created meaning of life is not durable because suffering can often destroy the meaning. So, for example, if the romantic love in your marriage is your meaning of life, and if your marriage falls apart, this would destroy your meaning of life.

The gospel approach says that Jesus is the meaning of life. In John 1:1-5, John tells us that Jesus is the Word, and in the original language (Greek), it is Logos. The word for Logos is where we get the word logic; but it means more than that; it means reason for or meaning of life. Ancient Greeks debated about what the Logos of life is. It is in this context that John declared that Jesus is the Logos of life! The Logos is not a philosophy or an idea; it is a person. This means that Jesus is the meaning of life.

Pastor Kevin discussed three ways to approach our identity: (1) discover the true self in the inside (the "self-discovery approach"); (2) be who you want to be (the "build your identity approach"); and (3) the gospel-identity approach.

The self-discovery approach says that each of us should look deep inside of him or herself and find the true self and live accordingly. The problem with this is that it is often confusing to find our true selves. How do we know? And, if we are honest with ourselves, what we find inside is often not good.

The build your identity approach says that you can be what you want to be. The problem is that when we build our identity on our own effort, we end up in with a host of problems. When we fail, it is not just a setback, it destroys us because our identity is destroyed. When we succeed, we often become more judgmental and prideful.

The gospel-identity approach says three things: (1) we are created in the image of God; (2) we have marred that image because we walked away from God and sinned; and (3) God loves us so much that he came, died, and resurrected for us so that we can be adopted as his "sons" with all the rights in His family. The second and third points say that we are sinners who are loved by God as his child through his grace. This leads to both humility (because we are sinners) and confidence (because we are his child through grace). This is a beautiful identity that has the power to change us and make us live on solid ground, and gives us the ability to face our own heart of darkness and love and embrace one another. Allow the Spirit of God to testify to your spirit that you are a child of God!