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Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
(Do You Believe In Life
After Death?)
Click Here to listen
“Do you believe in life after death?” the boss
asked his young employee. Yes sir, the employee replied. “Well that
a good thing”, said the boss, “about an hour after you left to go
to your grandfather’s funeral… he stopped by to see you.
Do you realize, how seemingly insane, what we are
celebrating here, today, seems to an unbelieving world? God, Himself,
takes on human form….. The Humanity he created rebelled against him and
found themselves bound in sin by the evil one. They could do nothing to
break themselves free from satan bondage. The only One in the universe
not under satan’s control was God himself… So God had to become man.
He loved us so much that he was willing to take our death penalty for
our sins on himself. He came to this earth on your behalf…took your
place…died for every one of your sins… Broke the chains of bondage that
sin and satan had on us, …. rose from the grave, alive from the dead…..
breaking the sentence of death over us once and for all…..and not only,
now, will Jesus Christ live on forever… he offers eternal life to each
of us as well. Wow!
Your presence here today suggests that you , at
least in theory, probably believe that! But you are living in a world
filled with people who don’t believe that.
Let me give you two illustrations, the first is an
intellectual supposedly defining why he thinks you’re an idiot to even
be here today. Here’s from his storehouse of wisdom.
For an atheist, the background probability of
the resurrection is as low as the background probability of human
flight via arm-flapping. From the atheist point of view, what
applies to miraculous claims of teleportation (beam me up Scotty)
equally applies to the claim that a dead person - especially one
that has been dead for three days and nights - can come back to
life. Everything we know about what happens to the body at death (rigormortis,
organic decomposition, etc.) plus the universal experience of
humans throughout history indicates that the stinking dead stay
dead .
There you have it. For you to get up on Easter
morning, and come to a service built around the fact that some Jewish
guy died and then rose from the dead, and that fact somehow affect your
eternal future shows, him at least, that your screen door is not
tightly latched.
Speaking of unlatched screen doors…listen to this
guy:
I don't believe in God. I don't believe Jesus
Christ was the son of a God that I don't believe in, nor do I
believe Jesus rose from the dead to ascend to a heaven that I don't
believe exists.
Given these positions, this year I did the only
thing that seemed sensible: I formally joined a Christian church.
My decision to join a church was more a political than a
theological act. As a political organizer interested in a variety
of social-justice issues, I look for places to engage people in
discussion.
The pastor and most of the congregation at St.
Andrew's understand my reasons for joining, realizing that I didn't
convert in a theological sense but joined a moral and political
community. There's nothing special about me in this regard -- many
St. Andrew's members I've talked to are seeking community and a
place for spiritual, moral and political engagement. The church is
expansive in defining faith; the degree to which members of the
congregation believe in God and Christ in traditional terms varies
widely. Many do, some don't, and a whole lot of folks seem to be
searching. St. Andrew's offers a safe space and an
exciting atmosphere for that search, in collaboration with others.
Mr. Athiest, if that’s what you really believe, get
out of your pew and go home! You should be using your few short years,
here on this earth, to immerse yourself in every wild sinful action
allowable by law. Your time is short. All you have waiting for you at
the end is a decorated box and a cold dark hole in the ground! Don’t
waste your time discussing philosophy, Live! Get out there and live…
you’re running out of time!
Can you imagine living through today…. which lead to
tomorrow….. which leads to next week, perhaps next year, maybe even a
few more decades, until ultimately you reach the final goal of………
absolutely NOTHING?....... I’m nothing more than a collection of
molecules. I’m on this earth by chance. I’ll use the stroke of luck
that caused my collection of molecules to be here to live hard so I can
get to the other end of life and ……….dissolve into dust in some dark
hole in the ground.
Bertrand Russell, famous English philosopher and
essayist…won a Pulitzer prize…. wrote articles like ‘Why I am not a
Christian”…. He wrote this about the end of life:
The life of man is a long march through the
night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and
pain, toward the goal that few can hope to reach and where none can
tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our
sight, seized by the silent order of omnipotent death. Brief and
powerless is man’s life, on his and all his race the slow, sure
doom falls, pitiless and dark, blind to good and evil, reckless
destructions rolls on its relentless way. For man, condemned today
to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself… to pass through the gates of
darkness, it remains to cherish before the blow falls, the lofty
thoughts that fill his little day.
I want to contrast that with another picture; On one
side is Russell, with his morbid view of life and death… on the other
side is a wildly different picture. Everybody’s got a choice …. Ole
Doom and Gloom or this:
Luke 24:1-12 (New Living Translation)
1 But very early on Sunday morning the women came
to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2They found that the
stone covering the entrance had been rolled aside. 3 So they went in,
but they couldn't find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 They were puzzled,
trying to think what could have happened to it. Suddenly, two men
appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. 5 The women were terrified
and bowed low before them. Then the men asked, "Why are you looking
in a tomb for someone who is alive? 6 He isn't here! He has risen from
the dead! Don't you remember what he told you back in Galilee, 7
that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and
be crucified, and that he would rise again the third day?"
That actually has a better ring to it than “One by
one our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent order of
omnipotent death”.
Does the idea of a Savior dying, then rising back to
life make logical sense? No. Will my standing up here declaring it so,
convince everyone beyond a reasonable doubt? No!
But if what I’m saying is true….it will
affects every other aspect of your life.
I ended up in quite a discussion in the dentist
office Friday. All I did was ask the Doctor if he had observed
Passover with his Jewish wife and whether he was planning to be in
church today to celebrate His Christian roots. He said he hadn’t
been in church in 27 years, and literally left all other patients
waiting while he launched into a long discussion about his
unfulfilled search for faith. The girl working on the wires in my
mouth, unloaded about her need to find something she could believe
in….. the receptionist ask me if I celebrated Easter and I
explained that Resurrection Day was the most important day of the
year. There was literally a longing in her voice as she responded
back to me.
If Russell can offer you a decorated box in a dark
hole and Jesus offers you eternal life which should be more appealing?
It is amazing to me that so many people look at the claims of Jesus
Christ… His offer of eternal life and then choose, either consciously
or unconsciously, to go with Russell’s hole in the ground.
The disciples…. were at ground zero and even they
struggled to believe…. Let’s read more of Luke 24:
Luke 24:8 Then they remembered that he had said
this. 9 So they rushed back to tell his eleven disciples--and
everyone else--what had happened. 10 The women who went to the tomb
were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several
others. They told the apostles what had happened, 11 but the
story sounded like nonsense, so they didn't believe it.
There’s something here that you really need to see.
12 However, Peter ran to the tomb to
look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings;
then he went home again, wondering what had happened. (We actually
know, from Scripture, exactly what he was thinking)
John, in his gospel, fills in some additional
information:
John 20:4-7 The other disciple outran Peter and
got there first. 5 He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth
lying there, but he didn't go in. 6 Then Simon Peter arrived and
went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, 7
while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and
lying to the side.
Why, why did Jesus go to the trouble of folding up
his face cloth and separating it from the linen wrappings?.... First
century tradesmen had an interesting custom. As a carpenter Jesus would
have observed the custom many times. When they would finish a project
they would indicate completion by washing their hands and face and
wiping it with their sweat rag. This rag they would carefully fold and
laying over the completed project. When the homeowners came in from
their fields they would see the rag and know that the job was done.
Jesus went to all the trouble to fold his face rag and lay it off to
one side. The moment John and Peter looked into the tomb, they knew
that Jesus had left them a message. What was the message?
The job is done… I’ve finished the task!
What was Jesus task? To pay for your salvation! He
knew that you would one day be born into this earth. He knew you, and
I, would rebel against him and live on our own terms. He knew that even
when he extended all his love in our direction… many of us would keep
running in the opposite direction.
He didn’t base His willingness to pay for our
sins on whether we would ever turn to Him and accept his payment.
He didn’t condition his response on our willingness
or our worthiness.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not
perish but have eternal life.
But the death of Jesus was not the whole picture. I
was at the dentist on Good Friday but didn’t say, this is the most
important day in the year. Resurrection Sunday is the most important
day. We don’t hang crosses around with Jesus still on them because that
doesn’t give us the whole picture.
1 Corinthians 15:3 What was most important and
what had also been passed on to me--that Christ died for our sins,
just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised
from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said. 5 He was
seen by Peter and then by the twelve apostles. 6 After that, he was
seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time….
How important is that?
1 Corinthians 15:14 And if Christ was not
raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is
useless…. if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is
useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins.
Jesus defeat of satan’s power over us, his
destroying the hold of hell over our future, his wrestling the keys of
death from satan and rising victorious from the suction of the grave
…..that is the turning point in history. Before that Sunday morning,
you were condemned to eternal death, you had no hope of life beyond the
grave, there could not have been any such thing, as an eternity spent
with God in heaven.
In the split second, when a crack appeared in the
stone wall and that stone began to rumble away from that hole, your
next hundred million years of existence sprang into being.
Ill: A second grade teacher had a very sick
student named Jeremy in her class. As Easter approached the teacher
gave each child a large plastic egg. Take this home and bring it
back filled with something that illustrates new life.
The next morning 19 children placed their eggs
on her desk. In one she found a flower, in another a plastic
butterfly, in another a mossy rock. When she opened the fourth egg,
it was empty. She knew it was Jeremy’s and not wanting to embarrass
him she sat his egg aside.
At the end Jeremy spoke up, Aren’t you going to
open my egg, Miss Miller? I did, Jeremy, and your egg was empty,
she replied. Very softly, Jeremy said, So was Jesus tomb!
Three months later Jeremy died. Those paying
respects were puzzled to see, on his casket, 19 plastic eggs……. All
empty!
That’s the whole point. Some of us have heard the
Good News of what Christ did for us, until it has become just another
story. Probably most of us…perhaps all of us, actually believe, that
Jesus died and we accept, by faith, that he rose again. But, for some,
that knowledge in our head has never made it into our heart.
It occurred to me this week that I have preached or
taught the story of the resurrection thirty years in a row. Some of us,
here, have heard the story, and heard the story, 10…15…20 Resurrection
Sundays in a row. Yet amazingly, some find themselves running away from
the arms of a loving Savior rather than toward Him.
One here has agreed to acknowledge his run away from
God…listen to him:
Dave Castaldo here…
Jeremy Camp Video here…._
Christina longed to leave her Brazilian
neighborhood… she wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home
with only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, a wood burning stove,
she dreamed of the good life in the city.
One morning she slipped away, breaking her
mother’s heart. Her mother knew what life would be like on the
streets for her young attractive daughter. Maria, Christina’s
mother, packed supplies to follow her daughter to the city. Before
she left she spent all she could afford at the corner drugstore
making black and white photos, then boarded the bus for Rio de
Janiero. Maria knew that her daughter had no way of earning money.
Once hungry, she worried her daughter would do things unthinkable.
She began to search…. Bars, hotels, nightclubs every place a girl
dragged to the depths might end up. At each place she left a
picture, taped to a mirror… tacked to a bulletin board. On the back
of each picture she wrote a note. Finally, out of money, she wept
her way home.
A few weeks later Christina descended hotel
stairs…her young face tired, her dreams now nightmares. Her young
eyes were filled with pain and fear. How she longed to trade
countless beds for her hard pallet at home…. She saw a picture
taped to the lobby mirror…she looked closer, startled. It was
picture of her mother. Written on the back were these words.
Whatever you have done, whatever you have
become… it doesn’t matter. Please come home!
1 Peter 1:18-20 For you know that God paid a ransom
to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors
(sin). And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. 19 He paid
for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless
Lamb of God. 20 God chose him for this purpose long before the world
began, but now in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to
see. And he did this for you. (NLT)
Whatever you have done, whatever you have
become… it doesn’t matter. Please come home!
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