Easter Sunday 04.20.25

Death to Life (Story about crape myrtles after snow)

            Mark 16:1-8

¹ When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ² And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³ And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?”⁴ And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. ⁵ And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. ⁶ And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” ⁸ And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Because of what Christ Jesus has done on the cross, because He was buried, and that He rose again we too can experience a newness of life.  We can go from death to life.

Spiritually speaking, before Christ comes to live inside of our hearts, we are dead because of sin.

Ephesians 2:1-10

¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 

When we are following the passions of our flesh, doing what our flesh wants to do, following the world doing what they do we are considered dead, children of wrath and no different than the rest of mankind. 

A man who is dead in his trespasses has no desire for spiritual wholeness. He lives for the moment; he lives to gratify the flesh. When we live in sin we are living in conformity to the world.  Paul calls such people “Children of wrath” or recipients of God’s coming wrath.  

The thing about it is that we all fall into this category.  We all carry this stigma of being dead in our sins.  We all once lived according to the passions of our flesh.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

But I like the phrase “were dead” because that implies that is no longer the case.  Something has changed to make me go from a child of wrath, dead in my trespasses to a something better.

What is that something better? Paul continues in Ephesians 2

⁴ But God,

This phrase must not be overlooked.  We were dead in our trespasses But God.  In other words, there was no hope for us until God had intervened in our lives.  We were destined to be recipients of the wrath of God; But God.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

Though we were dead we are made alive through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Our being alive has everything to do with what Christ did for us.

Notice it is He who makes us alive, not anything that we do for ourselves.  This is done as a kindness to us because of God’s great love towards us.  God makes us alive through Christ.

He does this at a time when we least deserve it.  When we were dead in our trespasses.  That is the conditionin which He finds us to bring us back to life.  So many people say “I have to clean myself up before I come to God.”  That’s a very wrong way of thinking.  You can never be good enough to come to God.  Come to God firstand allow Him to clean you up. 

If You could clean yourself up, then Christ Jesus would not have needed to come and die.  But this work is God’s gift to us.  It is His grace towards us.   If we could earn it, then it would not be grace.

Paul continues:

—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

If you are a believer, then God has raised you to new life and you have been raised with Him.  We believe that Jesus was crucified, He died, and He was buried.  But also, Christ Jesus did not stay in that grave.  Jesus had revealed himself to over 500 of His followers after He had risen from the grave.  Furthermore, His twelve disciples were martyred for their faith in the resurrected Lord. 

You would not give your life for someone who was dead, but for someone who is alive.  Jesus has resurrectedfrom the dead.  In a similar way we have been raised with him as we pass from being spiritually dead to being alive in Christ Jesus our Lord.  This scripture speaks of the coming age:

         1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

¹⁶ For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

So, there will be another resurrection, this time having to deal with our new bodies and that we will be raised from the dead to spend eternity with God.

We were dead, we have been raised to newness of life in Christ Jesus, and we will be raised.  This is all done as a measure of God’s graces towards us.

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Three things are vital to be raised from the death of our trespasses. 

                        God produces this newness of life as a means of His Grace

                        We must receive this gift through faith In Jesus.

                        It’s God’s work so that we cannot boast in and of ourselves.

John 5:24:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life." 

Through this verse and many others, we learn that we obtain this newness of life through faith.  We can pass from death to life; We can experience eternal life by hearing the gospel and believing that it is true. 

We are saved by grace and faith alone.