Living the Risen Way

Let me tell you a story. You may not believe me. I barely believe it myself. But I can't dispute what my soul knows. Peter! John! It's all true. Come see this! Everything he said. The tomb! Every impossible detail. It's empty! It's all true. There may be days when we doubt. When we lose hope. When we forget. There may be days when we deny. I don't know him. When our faith loses its footing. You have me confused. I don't know him. And we stumble along our way. I said I don't know him! But if that day comes, may we remember what has been found. What has been defeated. What has been forgiven. What was once dead has new life. What was once old has been made new. What was once finite has been made eternal. May we remember and follow the risen way.

One of the things I love about the Easter story is how radically it transforms the life of the disciples, including Peter, John, and all of them as they learn to live the risen way. My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Good morning, Happy Easter! I am very, very stoked about starting a brand new series we call Rise. It's all about resurrection living today. Because Easter is not just about something that happened 2,000 years ago. It answers questions you have today. Questions like, how do I respond to failure? How do I conquer my fears? Fear of other people? Fear of death? Fear of the future? How do I reconnect with God when I feel disconnected?

Every single one of those questions is answered by looking at how much the first disciples changed. They go from being afraid and ashamed and alone to being powerful and purpose-filled and positive. Not in a matter of years or even months, but in a matter of days and hours. What happened to them? I want you to grab your message notes that look like this so you can follow along. And I want to tell you the story of Easter. Now you may be kind of an Easter veteran and you have heard this thing 50 times. Or this may be brand new to you. Wherever you are at on that scale, I want to invite you not just to listen, but really to enter into the story emotionally. So you can understand the shock and the surprise that so radically changed the world of these first disciples.

The first thing I want to do is look at the before picture, before they met the risen Christ. And here's the thing that always strikes me. There is zero positive spin in this story about the disciples, right? A guy named Andy Stanley says, and I think it's a great point, if you were making this up, there would have been positive spin, right? If Jesus died and now you're going to write about the successors of Jesus in such a way that the people would be inspired to follow them, you would have had them go and all ramble against the Romans, right? You would have had them lay down their lives to try to save Jesus. You would have had them showing some kind of leadership skill to give them credit so people would want to follow them, right?

Well, instead, the Bible says Jesus is arrested. He's not even put on trial yet. He's not even crucified yet. He's just arrested. And it says at that point, all the disciples did what? They deserted him and fled. All four gospels say that all of his followers ran for their lives. In fact, it's kind of a funny detail. One guy gets so scared that when one of the soldiers reaches out and grabs his tunic, this guy shrugs off his tunic to escape and he runs away naked. Yeah, that's in the Bible. You should read your Bible because there's all kinds of interesting details like that. So there's your courageous disciples of Jesus Christ. They all boast, "We will never leave you, Jesus," and first sign of trouble, they all take off. Every last one of them, especially their purported leader, Peter, who bragged he would never, ever, ever deny Jesus.

And then a middle school-aged girl around a fire at night says, "Aren't you one of his disciples?" I never heard of the guy. But I saw you. I never heard of the guy. And somebody else with her says, "No, I think she's right. I'm pretty sure I saw you." And then it says he swore an oath. Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I'm telling you, I don't know the man." So this is the great Peter crumbling under this mild inquisition by a junior high-aged girl, which actually, how many of you would say secretly you are afraid of mean junior high-aged girls? Because they can be kind of scary because I am. So I'm willing to give Peter a small break here, but not only do they leave when Jesus is arrested, none of them even stick around for his trial or his crucifixion or even his burial when presumably the threat to them is gone. He's dead.

But instead, here's what happens in Jesus' case. A rich man named Joseph is actually a secret follower of Jesus and he asks for Jesus' body to put it in his tomb. He was so afraid he didn't want people to know he followed Jesus so he asks for his body in the night. And with him, helping him take the body of Christ off the cross is a guy named Nicodemus who's a Pharisee. And the Pharisees are not exactly the good guys of the Bible. And so you have a coward and a Pharisee bury Jesus, probably say a few last words while they put him in the tomb, and not one of his closest 12 disciples even show up. Somebody said, "René, this would be like Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt officiating at Obi-Wan's funeral. This is just unbelievable, right?"

If you were making this up, if you were trying to get people jazzed and say, "Let's follow these men. They follow Jesus," there's no way you would discredit them like this in the official biography of the movement, right? They run from him when he's arrested. Peter, their leader, denies him by swearing. They're all still gone at his burial. And here's another very important detail that rings so true. The only ones who stick around are some of the women. Women are at the cross. The women are helping Joseph and Nicodemus. And here's why this is such a huge point. In that patriarchal culture, that male chauvinist first-century culture, you would never make up a story where the women are braver than the men, unless they were. You see what I'm saying? This does not sound like mythology. This sounds like reporting.

But then even the women do not expect what happens next. It says, "On the first day of the week, very early in the morning." By the way, I actually looked up this phrase. It's elsewhere used in Greek literature to mean between the hours of 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Now, just a quick show of hands. How many of you are morning people and you're like, "Yeah, I like waking up before 6." How many of you? Raise your hands. Okay. How many of you, 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. isn't morning? That's nighttime. How many of you, that's you? Yeah, that's me, right? Well, they're very early in the morning, and it says they took spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. These were spices to re-embalm Jesus, not snacks to refresh Jesus. In other words, what they expected was exactly what you would expect if your loved one died and it was 3 days later; they expected him dead. They were despondent.

And then when they find the tomb empty, they don't go, "Oh, yay, he's resurrected." They say exactly what you would think. They go, "Somebody stole the body. This is unbelievable. It's going from bad to worse." And they go tell the men who are where? Hiding, says, "On the evening of that..." This is how I know John was not a morning person, because for him, it's nighttime. "On the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were together with the doors locked for..." What? Fear. What were they afraid of? "These men had seen Jesus covered in his own blood, screaming, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' And they thought, 'We're next.'" And not only that, they thought, "Why should we stick our necks out for a lie?" Because here's the deal. The center of Jesus' message was Jesus. And the fact that he's now dead totally discredited his entire message.

I mean, you think about it. He claimed to be the resurrection and the life, and now he's dead. He claimed to be the Son of God, and now he's dead. He claimed the gates of Hades won't ever stop us, and now he's dead. He claimed to be the Messiah, and now he's dead. The fact that Jesus was dead absolutely made everything else that he said a lie, because he sent his whole message on his identity. So why would they be motivated to purport a lie? So here's the before picture. You have terrified apostles, despondent women, and a completely discredited leader. What you don't have is anybody waiting at the tomb going, "Hey, guys, it's morning of the third day. Remember what he promised? 10, 9, 8, 6, 7, here we go, resurrection!" No, you'd have—you had exactly what you would expect if this really happened, which it did, which was a bunch of followers completely, absolutely, and totally discouraged. Because, put it this way, nobody expected nobody. Get the picture?

Then after the morning of the third day, not a few years later, very important, just a few days later, and not in some far-off city, in the same city, within walking distance of his tomb, the very men who ran away, the very women who were despondent, expecting to find a body in the tomb, the very same group goes into the streets of the very same city and says, "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead, and we're witnesses of this fact." You know what's interesting is they don't go, "Humanity killed Jesus so long ago." No, they say, "You killed," as in, "you," and "you were there," and "I saw you." That's what they mean. They mean, "You killed him!" But guess what? He's alive again. We're witnesses. And that's good news to you because he's proclaiming forgiveness to you.

And it says thousands of people in Jerusalem almost instantly rejoin the seemingly dead Jesus movement. And this is important. Weirdly, it was not because of anything Jesus taught. It was because of the message that he's alive again. Now, does this exciting new movement kind of win the world's approval? No. Instantly, a bunch of people try to wipe it out and kill all the followers of Jesus, including the Roman government, including religious fundamentalists at the time who see these people as heretics, and one of the guys leading the conspiracy to wipe out all these new followers of Christ is a guy named Saul, a Christian hater who, it says, is breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, and then, against all expectations, on his way to imprison and kill some more Christians, Saul becomes a Christ follower.

Suddenly, why? He has an encounter with the risen Christ. And just a few years later, Saul, having changed his name to Paul, writes this. He says, "I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me." And now, the next things that he says in the next three verses, scholars say these were part of the very first creed that the very first Christians 2,000 years ago used to say in unison together at their first meetings. And I'd love us to say this in unison together. We are keeping a 2,000-year-old Easter tradition alive here. Let me hear you. Christ died for our sins just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter, and then by the twelve...

Now, hit pause there for just a second. Because why would Paul put it this way? He was seen by Peter and the twelve because Peter was one of the twelve. Right? So why would he put it this way? I think he's referencing something that's a little detail in one of the Gospels that I just love so much. When Jesus appears to one of the women, and he says, "Go tell the twelve disciples and Peter." Now, why did he put it that way? "Go tell the disciples and Peter." Again, Peter was one of the twelve disciples. Why would he single Peter out? I so love this because of how Peter denied Jesus. Because of all the disciples who all felt bad, who do you think felt the worst? Peter. He probably didn't even want to be counted anymore as one of the disciples. Probably in Peter's mind it was, "Yep, me and Judas left. Now it's not the twelve. It's the ten, you know?"

And then Jesus rises from the dead, and he says, "Hey, go get the disciples and Peter." Don't you love that? I love it because the truth is many of us have those times in our lives where we've messed up. I have, haven't you? Where you feel like, "I'm not really worthy of the name Christian." You know, maybe you grew up in church, and one day in your past, maybe at a camp or youth group or something, you said, "Yeah, I will follow Jesus." And then your life didn't go that direction. And I love that the resurrected Christ is actually, I believe, here today. And he's telling me, "Hey, René, tell everyone my story, but especially I hope Bob hears this, you know? Oh, but especially tell Lisa, especially tell Kim, or insert your name." Because he's saying, "I don't want them to ever feel left out. I still want him. I still want her." That's awesome, isn't it?

And then Paul says, "And after that, Jesus was seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some have died." What he's saying is, "Hey, if you don't believe me, you can ask one of these hundreds of other people who saw him. They're still alive." Again, this is reporting it. This is mythology. And he says, "And then he was seen by James, and later by all the apostles." Who is James? James was Jesus' brother. True story. True. In the Gospels, he's one of the skeptics who thinks Jesus is crazy. Now, what would it, how many of you raise your hand? How many of you have siblings? You've got at least one brother or sister. Raise your hand. Okay. What would it take for you to be convinced that your brother or sister was the son of God? Pretty impossible, right? They'd have to, like, rise from the dead, right? Well, James is like, "Yeah, that happened."

And then Paul says, "And lastly, you can just feel the emotion and last of all." As though I'd been born at the wrong time, he says, "I also saw him, for I'm the least of all the apostles. In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God's church." What could change somebody like this? There's only one thing that could have shifted his life paradigm around. And here's the thing. This is huge. Scholars say, even the most kind of liberal scholars say that he writes this down at the most about 20 years after the crucifixion of Christ. And I mention that because sometimes you hear people say, "Well, Jesus' resurrection was a myth that evolved like 300 years later under Constantine." No, it was preached instantly. Not 100 years later, not 300 years later, not enough time went by for all these fables to obscure the real event. No, he says, 20-something years later, he says, "I'm just repeating to you what I was told years before." That's not a very long time. You know, I became pastor of this church 22 years ago, and to a lot of people here, I'm still the new guy. 20 years goes by really fast.

So here's the before picture. Something changed. They were changed from cowardly to courageous, and it was contagious. The world was altered. But why? Why did they change so much? And these are not words I'm putting in their mouths. This is what they said in their writings. The resurrection gave them three things. Number one, proof of Christ's claims. Right? I mean, Jesus said some great stuff, but how do you know it's true? They said, well, we know it's true because God proved it by raising Him from the dead, kind of the ultimate stamp of approval for somebody. And second, it gave them a promise for the future. They believed just as Jesus, they saw Jesus raised from the dead into this amazing physical body, they believed that would also happen to them after they died, and they'd be resurrected to a newly restored earth. So this made them into the most courageous people on the planet.

You say, why? Well, let me put it this way. How many of you recognize this man? Who is this? Shout it out. This is... Yeah, this is Jack Bauer, greatest secret agent in American history. For years, 24 was a massive TV show, and every single season, Jack Bauer single-handedly saves America. But here's the thing, 24 is not that big a deal anymore. I know a lot of people watch it in repeats, even though it was so huge the first time around. And I realized why when I tried to watch it the other day. I was watching season five because that's when I stopped watching it the first time. And in one scene, there are these terrorists in a room, and they're about to launch a drone attack on the White House. And Jack is watching them through a basement window, and he's on the intercom to Chloe back at headquarters, and he says, "Chloe, I need reinforcements." And Chloe says, "Backup's on the way." And Jack says, "How long's it gonna take them to get here?" And he takes 20 minutes, and he goes, "That's too long. I'm going in by myself." And I'm literally, my heart's pounding, and I stand up and I go, "No, Jack, don't go in! There's like 20 terrorists in there. You're not gonna survive!"

And then it strikes me there's four more seasons on iTunes. Jack'll be just fine. And do you see how this took all the tension out of it for the first disciples, too? You know, the Romans are going, "We're gonna crucify you." And the disciples are, "You know what? We don't wanna be crucified, but the deal is we've seen what happens after crucifixion, and it's really good. And we know we're still gonna be around in season like one trillion. So go ahead and do your worst!" They had this promise of the resurrection. They had proof of Christ's claims. And third, they had power to live on today. See, they believed, and this is what this Rise series is all about. They believed—don't miss this, look up here for a second—they believed that the same power that energized the body of Jesus that was as dead as this stool, it was dead. And yet God's Spirit re-energized that body and transformed it into something new. That takes a lot of power, and they believed that same power was working in them to turn anything around because God is amazingly powerful.

Let me explain it this way. Somebody said there's two possible life narratives. The first one is the contamination narrative. This is what you say to yourself about your life. And the contamination narrative is something like this, "You know what? Every time something good happens in my life, something bad comes along to mess it up. I'm a victim of the man. I'm a victim of the world. I'm a victim of fate. I'm a victim of my own stupidity. I'm a victim of other people's unreliability. Every single time it gets contaminated. I thought it was going to be good, but no." And then there's the redemption narrative, which is, "You know what? I've seen every time something bad happens, if I wait for it, God turns it around to something amazing, and I can't wait to see how he's going to do that this time." And do you see how the disciples turned from a contamination narrative to a redemption narrative almost overnight? Why? They had seen the worst plot twist in history, the crucifixion of their Lord, turn into the best plot twist ever.

And living the risen way means you see this possibility sort of latent everywhere you look. And that's what this new series is all about. We're giving away these free daily meditation booklets. What these have in them are every single day for the next four weeks. There's a daily meditation with some scripture and a prayer. We wrote these to synchronize with our series that we start today. And then for the next three weekends, you're going to be hearing messages about how you can, with the power of the resurrection, rise above your circumstances. Next week, rise above people-pleasing. That's huge. The week after that, rise above unforgiveness. You're going to see a new mini-documentary that we've produced about the amazing, inspiring story of Dan and Lynn Wagner and how they went through a journey of forgiving the woman who killed their only children. I mean, as you've never seen anything like this, it's awesome. And lots more. This is all synchronized with that. I hope you pick up one of these free books, and at the very least, it'll turn all this negative input that you get from the world all the time into something positive.

And God can use this to do great things in your life, because here's the deal. I don't just believe in the risen Jesus because the first disciples changed. That's part of what I believe. But I also believe because the risen Jesus still changes lives today. Do you believe that? Let me show you a surprising example, and I'll close with this. This week, I was watching TV on the web, and I saw on the National Irish Broadcasting Network an interview with Bono, the lead singer of the supergroup U2. It was a long interview, like an hour long, but I wanted to show you a minute and a half, because listen to what he says in answer to a very bold question. Watch this.

What or who was Jesus as far as you're concerned? I think it's a defining question for a Christian who was Christ. And I don't think you're let off easily by saying a great thinker or a great philosopher, you know, because actually he went round saying he was the Messiah. That's why he was crucified. He was crucified because he said he was the Son of God. So he either, in my view, was the Son of God or he was not. No, no, not. Forget rock and roll messianic complexes. This is like, I mean, Charlie Manson type delirium. And I find it hard to accept that all the millions and millions of lives, half the earth for 2000 years have been touched, have felt their lives touched and inspired by some nutter. I just, I don't believe it. So therefore it follows that you believe he was divine. Yes. And therefore it follows that you believe that he rose physically from the dead. Yes. Yeah. I'm into it. I have no problem with miracles. I'm living around them. I am one.

So when you pray then you pray to Jesus. Yes. The risen Jesus. Yes. And you believe that he made promises which will come true. Yes. I do. Isn't that awesome? Well, here's my closing question to you. If some Irish TV reporter asked you that same question, what would be your answer? Yes, I do. Well, let me suggest that you put your answer into the form of a prayer this morning. As we close, you might want to pray something as simple as Heavenly Father, I believe. Just kind of reaffirm that. Feels good to do that on Easter morning. Or maybe you want to pray Heavenly Father, I'm back. I've been away a long time. I'm back starting today. But maybe you're not there yet. Can I suggest Heavenly Father, I'm curious. I have some questions. And I'm willing to follow up on those questions.

We're starting a new group that you heard Adrian and Mark talk about earlier called Starting Point. And the reason we're starting this is we realized that we needed a place to go for people not to hear some lecture, not to hear some hard sales pitch, but to just meet some people who actually believe this stuff and to just have an informal environment where they can just ask them any question they want to. We thought that would be pretty productive. We call it Starting Point, and it starts next weekend, and all the details are on this card. If you're curious or you're back, I encourage you to check this out. Because maybe like Peter in that opening video clip, you sort of hesitate at the empty tomb. Let me just encourage you. Walk in. Investigate. Maybe not all your questions will be answered. Not all my questions have been answered yet. But the investigation will be well, well worth your time. In fact, I think it'll change your life.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, many of us are praying right now, "I just want to reaffirm I believe. I do. And I want to live the risen way." Others are praying, "Heavenly Father, I'm back, starting today." And some are saying, "Heavenly Father, I don't know if I believe or not, but I'm curious. And I think this is pretty important, so I'm willing to devote some time to exploring this. And God, I want to pray right now. I am seeking. I'm knocking on the door. If you are real, please show me." In the name of the risen Jesus we pray, amen.