Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Promises You Can Take to the Bank

by Dave Wilkinson

Isaiah 25:6-8, 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:8

April 15, 2001

I really don't want to offend anyone here this morning with ties to USC. I know you're here. I've seen the Mercedes and Lexai out in the parking lot.

I've noticed recently that USC also has a certain level of skill. It's just that I am a fan of UCLA basketball. I got hooked when I lived in West Los Angeles in the early '70s while I was a student at Fuller Seminary and worked at Bel Air Presbyterian. I got hooked by John Wooden, Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes and that incredible collection of NCAA banners.

Now the T.V. stations used to tape the games and put them on the air after the game was over and everyone knew the final outcome. When some fans complained about this, the station management responded that the ratings were just as high or higher than if they showed the game live. The reason, they surmised, is that "a lot of people prefer to watch the game knowing that UCLA had already won -- especially during their 70 game winning streak. They didn't like the anxiety and nervousness they experienced when they had to watch the game live. They are more comfortable watching the game knowing their side will win."

I'm one of those people. I like to know the outcome so I can enjoy the show. And this is a privilege God has given us -- to be able to truly enjoy His gift of life because we know the outcome -- that in Jesus Christ we have already passed from death to life.

There is a false kind of Christianity in our day that tells us that the real message of Christianity to people is "Remember Jesus Christ. He is the example. He is the moral teacher. He has given us the great example of His life and teaching for us to follow. So remember that and try to imitate Him."

But if that is all the Christian message is, then it is a delusion and mistake and I would be a fool to be up here offering you hope.

I mean, think of the life of Jesus. Think of His person. Think of His tenderness and strength, vigor and restraint, courage, humor, truth, dignity, justice and compassion -- all of those qualities that people admire and desire merging into one wonderful personality. But when you come to the end of His life, what do you find? Blood and darkness, fear and death. At the end of His life He was murdered, and that wonderful example to humankind, all that wonderful personality perished. The unforgettable voice was stilled. Jesus Christ was dead, and faith and hope went with Him into the darkness.

But that is not the end. No, this Easter morning we are gathered here to remember the greatest fact in history Jesus Christ risen from the dead. Remember that, Paul tells us. Remember that while death comes to all of us, God reserves to Himself what death does to us.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul tells us that Christianity believed only because it is good or helps us through life is pointless. We do not believe in Christianity because it is good. We believe in Christianity because it is true and that makes it good!

Paul says, "I'd be an absolute fool to do all this talking about Christ, if I just die and drift off into oblivion. He says, if Jesus Christ is not risen from the dead, if I do not have a life beyond this life, we might as well eat and drink and lose ourselves in the moment. There's nothing for which to live."

But that's not the case. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Paul says: "In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died." This means that if we belong to Him, we shall be raised with Him.

This is the fifteenth Easter sermon I have preached in this place. As I began to prepare for this morning I had a great desire to say something "different" than you have already heard on the event of Easter. But then I realized that there was nothing that I could say that could possibly be more important for you to hear, to believe and to act on than the very simple message: Jesus Christ Is Alive!!! There is no greater message in the world today. Jesus is alive and He has made you a promise. "Because I live, you shall also live."

What does this Easter message mean for you as a follower of Jesus Christ? How should Easter touch your life not just this morning but six months from now? How should it touch your life as you stand beside the grave of a loved one? How should it touch your life as you consider your own mortality?

Easter means among other things that the death of our loved ones and the certain event of our own physical deaths can take on an entirely new meaning. For Jesus is alive and He promises us life.

In our Old Testament passage, Isaiah calls death the covering which is over all peoples. The good news of Isaiah's prophecy is that one day God will act to "swallow up" this covering. " He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces."

This promise given through Isaiah was fulfilled at Easter. Because of Easter, death isn't what it used to be a shroud and a cause of fear.

In fact, rather than death being the end of the line for the man or woman or God, resurrection is first and foremost a change of dwelling place. Paul writes: "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Erma Bombeck writes about a funeral she went to for a close friend who was somewhat "eccentric" in her way of life. Everyone liked Julie but everyone considered her just a little bit cracked. At the funeral, the minister was searching for an appropriate analogy to describe the meaning of her death. He finally said, "We must remember that this body is only the husk, only the shell. The nut has gone to heaven."

Now that was probably a poor sense of phrasing. But, still, his words were accurate enough. Erma's friend Julie had moved into a new home.

A reporter came to the scene of a fire where a house was steadily burning down to the ground. He noticed standing there watching the blaze a small boy and his Dad. The reporter said, "Son, it looks like you don't have a home anymore." The little boy looked up and said, "We have a home -- we just don't have a house to put it in."

Well God has promised that He will not leave us homeless. He has prepared a place for us to be.

The Bible also describes resurrection for the believer as a change of relationship. Not only do you move into a new home, you move into a whole new depth of relationship. Paul writes: "We are of good courage, we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." God is here, right on earth in the power of His Holy Spirit. But, in heaven, you will know the Lord in an ever fuller way. You will have an immediacy of relationship with Him. To be absent from the body is not to float in the never-never land of eternal space or to continue a cycle of death and rebirth until you reach the nothingness which is the literal meaning of the word Nirvana. It is to be present with the Lord for eternity. Jesus said, "I will prepare a place for you."

James Bjorge in a book, Living Without Fear, tells of a dying man who asked a doctor who was also his friend what death would be like. The doctor fumbled for a reply and then he heard his dog scratching at the door of the man's room. The doctor looked at his friend and said, "Did you hear that noise? That is my dog. I brought him with me tonight and I left him downstairs with your daughter before coming up to your room. He climbed those stairs because he knows I'm in here. He has no other ideas about what is in this room for he has never been here. All he knows is that I am in here and that is good enough for him. You don't know what is on the other side of the door of death, but you do know that your Master is there."

We will never walk through the valley of death alone. Jesus will always be there to go with us through the door to the other side.

If you are here today but do not know that Jesus died for you I invite you -- I entreat you -- to consider the confidence and hope in life that can be yours if you choose to put your trust in our Lord. As Paul writes: "I beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

For if you choose to be reconciled to God through what Jesus did for you on the cross, You will be resurrected from the dead. Because Jesus died for you, there is nothing in the world that can separate you from the love of God.

A young mother was trying to comfort her daughter when her pet kitten died saying, "Remember, dear, Fluffy is up in heaven with God now."

"But Mommy", the girl sobbed. "What in the world would God want with a dead cat?"

To tell the truth, not much use at all no more use than God has for our dead bodies. But here is an Easter promise. If you trust Jesus, You will have a resurrection body.

Does your present body have limitations? Perhaps you're suffering from arthritis. Your joints don't have their former agility. A day is coming when you, as a man or a woman of Jesus Christ, will be given a brand new body.

When you look in the mirror do you see less than you would like to see -- or perhaps more than you would like to see? The day is coming when you will have the most magnificent body imaginable. The Bible relates how our present bodies are perishable. We are born in weakness, but raised in power. What we are now is created from dust. What we will be, will be a body fit for God's perfect world.

A second Easter promise: You will continue to be yourself after death. Jesus said: "Of all whom the Father gives to Me, nothing is lost, for I shall raise it up on the last day." Jesus promises us that the resurrection He brings is a resurrection of everything that makes us the people we are -- our personalities, our abilities -- everything that makes us the people we are and makes our loved ones the people they are. That is why I so firmly believe that it is never too late to learn to do something new. An eighty-year-old person has every reason to start learning to play the guitar -- because nothing is lost. All that makes us who we are is resurrected in perfection.

Promise three: When you die, you will experience the immediate presence of Jesus Christ. How else can you explain the words of Paul when he said that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord? He puts a great emphasis on this. How else can we explain the conversation Jesus had with the repentant thief who was crucified beside Him? Responding to the heart felt cry of this man who wanted to be remembered when Christ entered into His kingdom, He said, "This day you shall be with Me in Paradise." Jesus was promising that this very day, he would know the fullness of relationship in eternity with his Savior. The next consciousness of the believer who dies is realized in the presence of Jesus Christ.

It is exciting to know that we have been given so many specific promises about the future. We can enjoy life because we know the outcome.

When we forget Easter, You and I tend to look at death as an awesome specter -- as the shroud. And that is what it is for the one who has no hope -- like the atheist at his funeral who was described as "all dressed up with no place to go." But for those of us who have received Jesus Christ as Savior, have accepted His promises as deserving of our trust, we have the buoyancy of knowing that eternity is nothing to be feared. Death is just a passageway through to the presence forever of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Easter! From the earliest moment of history, people viewed life as a downhill trek, a melancholy fall away from God toward the abyss. Time runs like a fuse through the fabric of life and that fuse is burning.

The astonishing news of this Easter morning is that life can begin again. The news is so astounding that it literally turns the world upside down. Since the announcement "He is not here, He is risen" was first made, death has been on the run -- left bickering outside the tomb with anxiety and hate. No longer must sin destroy. God empowers people to work in love and to discover a strength in their lives that transcends the hardships they face. By grace they can believe, even in the face of death, that the very best is yet to be.

Let this good news fill your life today. THE LORD IS RISEN!!