Easter Sermons

Inspirational Message Preached At House Of Praise Home Church

Kuils River

Easter sermons Title: Life From Death

I think it is appropriate to remind ourselves that our entire faith is built on the fact that Jesus rose from the death. If that were not the case then nothing we believe is true.

1 Corinthians 15:12-20 (New Living Translation)

The Resurrection of the Dead

12 But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? 13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.
20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.

Easter sermons

• It was not God’s voice at His baptism, not the voice in the cloud on the mount of Transfiguration, no the loudest statement was made by the resurrection from the dead.

Romans 1:3-4 (New Living Translation)

3 The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David’s family line, 4 and he was shown to be[a] the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.[b] He is Jesus Christ our Lord.

Easter sermons

• OK but these are very elementary principles of our faith. Just to remind ourselves of these things.

Life from Death

• The concepts of life and death are used to illustrate and explain many of the experiences that we have on our Journey with the Lord.
• Life and death are never found too far apart.
• They seem to go hand in hand even though they are complete opposites.
• The Gospel is like a coin with 2 sides. The one side is called Life and the other is called death.
• You can’t talk about the Gospel without touching the topic of life and death. The Gospel really is about life and death and it’s true on many levels.

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 (New International Version)

Easter sermons

15For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?

• With Jesus being our example we can clearly see from Scripture that the death of Jesus was necessary, for our sakes, but also for His.
• Through His death Jesus gained things that were out of His reach. In Resurrection these things were His.
• He can do for us now, that He could not do before. He can now give eternal life, that He was unable to do before. In His death and resurrection He could open the way for us into the holies of Holies, where He is now able to intercede for us.
• I want to talk about this principle of life from death. It is a principle that works on many levels and it is essential for us to know about it lest we find ourselves working against God. We must understand how God applies it in our own life.
• If we don’t we will be like Peter did when Jesus told the disciples he had to die and Peter tried to prevent that.
• As I said at the start that I am interested in honouring Jesus the most appropriate way on this day. And to me it would be to try and see how we get access to the resurrection life that God has made available to us.
• I believe there is much resurrection life to be had, and I am frustrated with what I have.

Easter sermons

I can identify with Paul when he says …

Philippians 3:10 (New King James Version)

10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,

Philippians 3:10 (New Living Translation)

10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,

• Paul says he wants to experience the power of His resurrection. Now I want us to think a moment about that. This is Paul who has performed many miracles, healed many etc. Yet he is saying he wants to know the power of the resurrection.
• Can you agree with me that Paul is saying that he wants to experience more of the resurrection life? I am sure that Paul has already experienced much at this point even as he had already known Christ, yet he wants more …
• Paul says that I want to suffer with Him, I want to share in his death. Paul connects the experiencing of resurrection life with suffering with Christ and sharing in His death.

Easter sermons

What I want you to see is the connection again between resurrection life coming from death.

2 Corinthians 4:8-11 (New International Version)

8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

In another place Paul says I die daily.

1 Corinthians 15:30-32 (New King James Version)

30 And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? 31 I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

• Can you see the connection between death and experiencing resurrection life? Paul says because he dies, the life of Christ is manifested in his life.
• We die so that we can live.
• Now you can say Eduard, but all this seems to be dealing with internal spiritual experiences. Something that Paul longed for. Does this principle of death extend beyond the internal spiritual sphere of life?
• Earlier I said that this principle of life from death work on many levels.

Easter sermons

Let’s look at the next example from scripture.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (New Living Translation)

8 We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters,[a] about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. 9 In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.

• Here we again have that link between death and life. Here though Paul seems to be saying that God through very trying circumstances forced him into ‘death’. To such an extent that and they died to their ability to save themselves and as a result were forced to trust God, and because of that they were ‘resurrected’!
• Here this principle of dying has a greater effect than just an inward experience of power, here he got his life back. His physical life. How much more practical can we get than that!

Easter sermons

Can you agree with me, that for us to experience resurrection life, there are some deaths to die!

• We know that as Christians we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. We are to reckon that were buried with Christ and resurrected with Him to live to God, that is foundational Christianity.
• These principles come from the Holy Spirit through the pen of Paul, but it should be clear from the examples used that we don’t only recon ourselves dead,
• but that we indeed have to die continuously for resurrection life to manifest itself. The principle extends way beyond foundations of Christianity, right on our homes, our families, our jobs, our church in fact into every area of our life.

So if like Paul, we desire more of the resurrection life, we need to die more. And now the real question, the point of this entire sermon …

If we know that resurrection life comes through death, why do we so resist the dying?

I want to read 2 portions of scripture out of context …

1 Corinthians 15:54-56 (New International Version)

Easter sermons

54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."[Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

Hebrews 2:14-16 (New International Version)

14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.

• Earlier I said that we must understand the principle lest we find ourselves resisting God. We ought to know that if God brings us into a position that requires us to die, that what He has in mind is Life.

Matthew 16:21-23 (New Living Translation)

Jesus Predicts His Death

21 From then on Jesus[a] began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.

22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him[b] for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”

23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

• Much life is locked up behind a death, hidden from view.
• Purchased by Jesus for us to have, but entered into only by death.
• Every time we or God puts something to death in ourselves, we can expect a greater measure of the life of Jesus Christ!

Easter sermons

So what is this dying I keep referring to …

It really boils down to letting go of your opinions and reasoning and aligning yourself with what God says about you or a situation. But let’s look at it from a experiential perspective …

The death can be brought about ourselves willingly when we recognize a problem and repent and respond in faith to God, or God in His great wisdom can bring it about through circumstance.

The process is extremely personal, it is between you and God.

You don’t enter death with someone, you die alone.

God often chooses the setting.

The deathblow(s) are often brought about by God through circumstance. Often circumstance we find very difficult to deal with.

Often God is after something we won’t deal with by choice…

It is definitely something that stands between you and your destiny.

Their may be many things and are often layered.

It can involve humiliation.

Some deaths will be very unpleasant, its usually the ones that really matter that are. Sometimes the context is internal, sometimes it is external.

Sometimes it means turning the other cheek, other times it means confronting evil face to face.

The context is always this, something other than God is determining your approach, thinking, attitude, actions in a particular circumstance. This other thing can often be traced to pride, fear, inferiority, superiority, manipulation or a host of other things.
Easter sermons

• We need to die in that area, and when we are dead where it matters, this thing will no longer have power over us, because we are dead to it, and when we are dead to it, resurrection life is the result.
• When we view it like that we can see that resurrection life is always available, but we are prevented from experiencing it by things that need to die, but when they are dead we find that the resurrection life is has been available all the time.

I am convinced that every difficult situation has a death/life principle.

• When you are in a difficult situation and can’t seem to find any way out. Look for that something within you that needs putting to death. Even Paul had to do it. When death has done it’s work, the resurrection power of God is free to operate.
• I have not passed through any difficult situations in the last 5 years since I have learned this principle, where I was not able by the grace of God to identify a death to die! And the deaths we need to die are not always the ones we think! When I say by the grace of God I am not only using up space, I really mean by the grace of God, by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Easter sermons

Remember we don’t die for the sake of dying. We die for the sake of living.

Jesus was proven to be the son of God because of His resurrection.

Romans 8 says that The whole creation awaits the manifestation of the Sons of God, will we not be manifested as true sons of God because we are able to die to our own wills and as a result manifest the life of Christ?

Remember Paul said he dies daily. There are many deaths to die, but each will bring more resurrection power.

Some example of things that God is after

For each one the process will be different, but I want to actually name some examples, some may surprise you:

• The opinions of others is a powerful one – don’t tell me we have overcome this! How many times is our course of action not influenced by what others may think? How often do we not pray for a sick person when others are around, just in case nothing happens!
• Believing that God can’t use you – o how very convenient
• Fear of man
• Having a poverty mindset
• I can’t do this – when the Bible says I can do all things
• Inferiority – often mistaken for spirituality – Oh I can’t do this
• Any opinion of yourself that is not God’s
• Love of comfort – You want me to do what?
• Fear – so very, very powerful and influential. How many of your decisions in the last month were not based on some element of fear?
• Having a suspicious attitude towards God – Never quite convinced if we can trust Him.
• Self pity – oh my life has been so tough surely God won’t expect anything from me?
• Refusing a Word from God, because you don’t like the vessel.

Easter sermons

We can do church as much as we like, but if we pass up on the opportunities to die, we are going nowhere. Often these things torment generation after generation and we let the opportunities to die pass us by. The fear of death keeps them safe!

Do we always need to wait for God to setup a circumstance to deal with these things? Some things we need God to show us, other things we are fully aware of, but we keep them hidden. Safely tucked away. We pamper them, justify them and avoid dealing with them, when all the time resurrection life awaits.

• If God is taking you through the valley of death, be not afraid. The blows of death will be painful, but the life you will gain will be so worth it. It is a glorious privilege to have your case taken up by God in such a manner.
• When God himself gives the blows of death …Isaiah 53:10 says that it pleased God to crush Him, putting Him to grief. We read earlier that Paul wants to know the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
• Nobody can suffer like Jesus did, but when God gives a small taste of it, we should know that just like in the case of Jesus, it is not the final word…

Easter sermons

Our darkest night comes before our greatest victory (that is a Truth that will repeat itself over and over)… that does not make the night of death easy, but it can bring some perspective if we know it.

In the times when you are so troubled that you sweat blood so to speak, when you are so oppressed that you can hardly breath, you can’t think of anything and no one is interested in helping you or indeed is able to help you, know that God is at work and His plan is resurrection life.

Profetic Words

• Often we have unfulfilled promises in our lives, prophetic words that the Lord has given us many years ago, but we have seen nothing of it. Maybe we have been avoiding some dying.
• The man / woman inheriting the promises are very different to the one receiving them.. Often the things God is taking you through now seem unrelated to the Word you are waiting for. But passing through these times of death is what changes us. We come out different people to those that entered into the battle.
• Again there are many examples in Scripture, Abraham, David, Moses all had promises they were waiting for, but had to let go of their own notions and ideas before they inherited.
• I think we sometimes underestimate the role that we have to play in fulfilling the Word that God gives us. God is not going to drop things in your lap. You will be challenged on many levels and you will have to die to your petty notions of what you can or can’t do if you are to inherit them.

Easter sermons

From the Mirror Translation … Hebrews

3:8 Therefore, do not be calloused in heart like the people of Israel were, every time they faced any contradiction or temptation in the wilderness, their response immediately revealed their irritation rather than their faith. 3:9 Your fathers continued to scrutinize Me in suspicion, examining Me as if My intentions with them could not be trusted; even though they were eyewitnesses of My miraculous works for forty years. 3:10 They were a generation of people who grieved Me deeply, instead of learning My ways they habitually went astray in their hearts, intoxicated by their unbelief.

• That generation did not enter and conquer the promised land.
• When Israel eventually did conquer the promised land. After they had fought many battles. God says, see I have given you the promised land. I have fulfilled all my promises. But I tell you what, the Israelites made some major changes in the process.
• You can’t receive the life that God has for you, by staying the same!

Easter sermons

Return from Easter Sermons to Our sermons
Return from Easter Sermons to Fueling Christian Life