The Resurrected Lamb Of God [Easter Sunday] // Matthew Anderson

Good morning. This is exciting. Hey, I was worshiping and just kind of thinking about

like if you're a guest today maybe one of the questions like what in the world

brings a whole bunch of young people into sing and worship with all they have.

I don't know if I were you I'd be asking that. And here's here's I just want to give a simple answer.

Malia gave it so beautifully but I want to say it again. One of the things that we say here is

is we really believe you can experience God. And a lot of us have experienced God, right?

He's changed our lives. He's he's wrecked us. And so we love to come and we love to express our love back to him.

And so if you're here wondering like what what in the world that's that's what in the world. It's Jesus.

He is alive. And we've all and yes I want to say this it takes faith to believe that. Right? It does.

But if you look at all of our lives there's a lot of proof that he's alive because we are different.

Like I'm different. I'm not like I used to be. And he's amazing. So here we are. It is it is literally we celebrate today

as honestly the greatest day in history. Right? And it's Easter Sunday. And it is here's here's the deal you understand.

You got to understand about today. It's the day that changed everything.

But I want to I want to be clear today with all of us what it changed. What changed?

We often think of this day as a day as a moment it became possible for our sins to be forgiven.

And here's here's the deal everybody. That is a glorious truth. All right?

But Easter is actually much bigger than a legal transaction.

Easter is the day God set into motion the great reversal of every single thing that sin has ever touched.

You know you got to get this. It's pretty amazing. For thousands of years our world's been on a downward spiral.

We felt it.

Sin set the gears of history to run in one direction.

Toward decay. Toward shame. Toward cold silence of the grave.

We've lived in a world where things naturally fall apart.

Relationships break where the death sentence feels like the final word word.

But here's the deal everybody. You got to get this on Easter morning.

The first Easter morning. God grabbed the gears of the universe and he slammed them into reverse.

You got to understand this. In physics there's this thing called entropy.

It's the idea that everything in the universe is slowly winding down and dying.

But the resurrection is the holy entropy.

It's the moment that God began reversing the decay.

He didn't just come to fix the world. He came to make the unmaking.

Oh yeah, you can go woo.

He began turning the desert back into a garden.

For those of us who live in Phoenix that's good news.

He began to turn the silence back into a song.

He began to turn the darkest day into an eternal morning.

Earlier you saw a video that called this the great reversal.

I want to propose that's a very bold phrase.

But I believe it means something very personal for us today.

It means that Easter isn't just about the hope of us one day getting into heaven.

It's about the power of heaven getting into us today.

Right? We've been taught it's all about getting to heaven.

But honestly as I read the Bible it's all about heaven getting to us.

It means that the bringer of life is here to reverse the dead ends in your story.

And that's good news.

So I just want to say a few things about Resurrection Sunday.

Can I do that?

So first thing it's a paradox.

We've got the line in the lamb.

This is amazing.

To understand the power of this reversal we have to look at the identity of the one who rose.

And so in the book of Revelation the Apostle John's weeping because the world is broken

and no one's worthy to fix it.

Right? This is in chapter 5 of Revelation.

Then one of the elders says this to the hymn.

And so if you want to open your Bibles you can.

It's Revelation chapter 5.

If not it will be on the screen.

We're going to read verses 5 and 6.

John's weeping, the world's broken, no one can fix it because no one's worthy.

The elder says this to John.

One of the elders said to me, do not weep.

The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed.

He is able to open the scroll and it's seven seals.

Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne

encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

The lamb had seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sit out into all the earth.

Did you catch that?

The elder promises a lion.

But when John turns around he sees a lamb.

This is the first reversal.

We expected a predator.

We got a sacrifice.

We expected a conqueror who would shed the blood of his enemies.

Instead, we got a king who shed his own blood for his friends.

This was the outrageous act of love, plan from the very start.

He is the lamb who was vanquished by design so that he could reign by right.

Secondly, we have the promised heal.

This was planned from the start, everybody.

If we go all the way back to the very first pages of our Bibles.

To the moment, sin first entered into the human story.

God made a promise to the serpent.

For those of you who are not familiar with the story, the serpent is the devil.

He is the one who brought the temptation to Adam and Eve.

God makes a promise to him.

Here it is in Genesis 3, verse 15.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heal.

Listen, for thousands of years humanity waited for the promised heal.

And on that darkest day for the forces of darkness, the serpent struck.

He thought the death sentence was final, but in the great reversal,

the very wood of the cross became the anvil upon which the serpent's head was crushed.

The grip of sin wasn't just loose and everybody was crushed.

Its boast weren't just ignored.

They were utterly spit upon.

Listen, when Jesus walked out of that grave, he didn't just survive.

He redefined what it means to win.

Pretty amazing.

Thirdly, death, the death of death, life through the grave.

Here's the most outrageous part of the plan.

It's pretty amazing.

It is to me at least.

God didn't just defeat the serpent.

He defeated our greatest, most universal fear.

Let's be honest, humanity has been afraid of the grave forever.

We spend billions of dollars trying to look younger,

live longer, ignore the inevitable.

Unless Jesus comes back tomorrow or in five years, 10 years, 50 years,

we're all destined to die once.

You can't prolong it.

You can't put it off.

You will die.

We treat death like the final period at the end of a sentence.

But in the great reversal, God turned the period into a comma.

He used death to kill death.

There's no resurrection without the cross.

There's no new life without the darkest today.

Jesus didn't go around the grave to save us.

He went through it, everybody.

You'll listen to how the author of Hebrews describes this.

Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.

He says, since the children have flesh and blood,

he too shared in their humanity so that by his death,

he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.

That is the devil.

And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Do you see the irony?

The enemy thought death was his strongest weapon.

He thought that if he could just kill the bringer of life, he would win.

But death was actually the trap.

And he fell right in.

And so by entering death, Jesus dismantled it from the inside out.

He went into the dark so you could have the light.

He took the death sentence so that your sentence could be erased.

If you've been living in slavery to the fear of death, look at the empty tomb.

It is the guarantee that for those in Christ,

those who've given their lives to Jesus,

death is no longer a destination, it's just a doorway.

I'm astounded when I read the history of the saints.

They did not fear death.

Why?

Because they knew where they were going.

They knew that it was only the doorway to eternity.

They knew it. They understood it.

Forcibly, the marks of glory redeemed scars.

This is why the video says he is wearing the marks proudly and seated majestically.

When Jesus appeared after the resurrection, he still had the holes in his hands.

Did you know that?

Why?

This is amazing.

Because in the kingdom of God, scars aren't signs of what we've lost.

They're signs of what we've overcome.

Can I say that again?

In the kingdom of God, scars aren't of what we've lost.

They're what we've overcome.

So when I think about this generation,

a generation that has honestly gone through COVID,

we've seen a world, we've seen our nation tear apart, you've seen it.

When I think of that, I think of those scars.

But if we've pressed into Jesus, we've overcome, and he will use it in the future for his glory.

He's raising up a generation not to just be silent,

but to see a world changed, everybody.

And so the very things that the enemy plans on defeating you with

is the very things God plans his victory around.

You've got to get this.

When Jesus died, they all fought, he lost.

But it was the very thing that God planned the whole victory around.

The great reversal means that God doesn't just erase our pain, he redeems it.

He takes the marks of our shame and turns them into marks of his glory.

If you're here today feeling restrained by your past, look at the Lamb.

If his scars can be majestic, so can yours.

I'm almost 55, don't judge me.

I've seen a lot of life.

I've buried friends, best friends, that died tragically.

I've been in hospital rooms when parents, kids before a year, die.

I've walked 30 plus year olds, wives, and husbands into the kingdom as they died of cancer in the very room with them.

I was in the room when my mom passed.

I've had letters to myself telling me that I was lukewarm because of the way I handled the COVID.

I've had best friends who I discipled for 20 years, believe the church.

I've watched family members go through some of the most hellacious things you can imagine.

I've seen a lot.

I've been overseas and watched people die on the street.

There's a lot of pain in this world.

I think I actually walk with a limp to be honest with you because of it all.

But I still walk.

Why?

And I'm not bitter.

Why?

Because of what Jesus has done.

Right?

Sure life is hard, everybody.

But Jesus has come to set us free.

Of course, forgive us of our sins to begin to heal us, but then also to begin to offer life through us to others if we will just turn to Him.

Right?

He set me free so I don't have to live for myself anymore.

That was the biggest thing.

The greatest enemy to the kingdom of God is not the devil.

You did know that didn't you?

You did know yourself.

And He wants to set us free to not live for self anymore, but to live for Him.

That's why He died.

That's why He rose to life again.

And your scars, the pain that you hate, the pain that you want to run away from,

are the very scars that He will use to bring healing to others.

And I say that because it's what Jesus did.

How can we, His people, think that we would walk any differently?

Pretty amazing.

And I know sometimes like, oh, I didn't sign up for this.

Yeah, you did.

We're going to suffer whether we have Jesus or not in this life.

I'd rather suffer with Him.

And then allow Him to use that in other people's lives.

Let Him use the marks that you've been marked by.

And then finally, the joy set before Him.

You know, why did He do it all?

Hebrews 122 says, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross,

squaring it, shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Listen, you got to get this.

The joy wasn't the nails.

It was you.

You're His joy.

You were the joy set before Him.

And because of that, He could endure the cross.

You know, the great reversal is that the God of the universe would trade His life for yours.

He wouldn't stay in the grave because He had a mission to finish.

And His mission to finish was bringing you home.

So today, we've spoken about the great reversal.

We've seen how death became the pathway to life.

But the gospel isn't just a story to be told.

It's a reality to be entered into.

So in just a few moments, we're going to witness people being baptized.

And here's a deal.

Baptism is just the physical living reenactment of the great reversal.

So when these people go under the water,

let me read Romans 6, 3 and 4 to you.

We were there for buried with Him through baptism into death and order that

just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,

we too may live a new life.

So when these people go under the water, they're identifying with the death of the Lamb.

The death of Jesus.

That's being buried.

My old life, my fear of death, everything is being buried.

And then when they come up out of the water, they're identifying with the King who reigns.

They're stepping into that outrageous act of love.

They're declaring that the bringer of life has brought life to them.