Sermon Tone Analysis

RECORD

Well this morning we wrap up what is the greatest weekend in all of the Christian calendar…My Birthday

What you thought that it was because it is Easter?

Well of course it’s because it is Easter

Today hundreds of millions of Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ only 3 days after His atoning death on the cross of Calvary

On Good Friday Jesus willingly gave up His own life as a substitutionary sacrifice so that through Him we can be forgiven and reconciled to God

Ephesians

Those were some of Paul’s opening words in his letter to the church in Ephesus, “Through His blood, shed on the cross, we have redemption and forgiveness!”

But if all of that was accomplished on Good Friday, then what is all the hype about Easter Sunday?

Well I think that I can answer that with one word...”Freedom”

Okay now that that’s done let’s close and go home

And if you believe that I have some really nice property in Florida that I’d like to sell to you

Let’s take a look at what I mean when I say that resurrection Sunday is all about freedom

To do that we have to first understand what took place after the crucifixion and death of Jesus

Matthew records the following events,

Matthew 27:57-66

Now I think that it’s important for you to know that I am not one of those preachers that believe that Satan was celebrating over the death of Jesus

In fact I believe that the enemy was doing everything within his power to prevent Calvary from ever happening

While I don’t have time this morning to get into all the reasons I believe that suffice it to say that Satan knows the scriptures better than we do and he knew exactly what would happen if Jesus were to become the Lamb of God

However, “everything in his power” still doesn’t come close to being able to stop the declared purpose of God from being done and so Jesus was crucified and now it was time to mitigate the damage as it were

So Jesus was wrapped up, Jesus was placed below the earth in a tomb and for good measure the tomb was covered with a “big stone” which was then sealed and guarded

Yes the lamb had been sacrificed and redemption for mankind had been purchased but none of that would matter if Satan could just keep Christ wrapped up, and in the tomb

After all death was still his domain, at least for now, let’s read what happened next

This morning I want to give you three ways in which this story of the resurrection of Christ represents freedom for you and for me

The first form of freedom that I want to look at is freedom from your past which is represented in this account by the grave clothes that Jesus had been wrapped in

After Jesus had died, in accordance with Jewish customs his body was wrapped with spices and tightly bound with strips of cloth

Do you remember the story of Lazarus whom Jesus raised after he had been dead for 4 days?

John records,

John

Like these “grave clothes” the enemy wants to use our past to immobilize us to bind us up so that we can’t move

He does this using things like guilt and shame which keep our hands and our feet tied

things that we’ve said, things that we’ve done, things that we should have said or done but didn’t, sure they were all covered under the forgiveness of the cross but the memories of those things haunt us and hold us and so we never truly find the ability to serve God with all of our heart and soul and mind because we are all bound up by the past

Well let me read for you the account of what happened after the women left the tomb afraid but excited,

Luke

I’ll tell you what happened, Jesus had resurrected and had cast off the grave clothes demonstrating for all the world that the resurrection can set us free from our past and the bondage that comes with it

Not some condemnation, not a little condemnation, there is NOW NO condemnation and the reason is that Jesus rose

If He never rose our past was forgiven but not necessarily dealt with for who would be able to stand against our accuser and defend us

But BECAUSE He rose He is the one who pleads our case both to the Father and in the face of our accuser

Don’t believe me?

Take the time to read and reread and reread and reread

Because of the resurrection you have been set free from your past, you’ve also been set free from your present which is represented by way of the tomb which they laid Him in

You see all of us were in the same predicament the day that we came to Jesus

We were dead, dead because we were in sin and the wages of sin IS death

Yes it’s true that Jesus purchased our forgiveness on the cross but here’s a question for you, ‘What good is forgiveness to a dead man?’

You have to understand that each of us was in bondage to sin, leaving Easter out of the equation just for a moment, that is our present condition

Sin owns us, in every way shape and form and while it sure is nice to be forgiven, the empty tomb shows us that the resurrection also provided us freedom from our predicament as it sets us free from the bondage of sin

Another fantastic passage of scripture that you should commit yourself to reading and rereading is Romans chapter 6, the entire chapter

Let me just read for you how it begins

Romans 6:1-4

Good Friday gave us forgiveness of sins but Resurrection Sunday gives us freedom from sin, the power to walk away and not serve it anymore and instead to live in righteousness the way that God desires us to

The tomb is empty, we don’t reside there anymore, that’s not who we are, the old has passed away and all things have been made brand new (2nd Corinthians 5:17)

Oh there is just so much more I want to say about this but I promised you 3 points and so just as you may have guessed, the resurrection provides freedom from our past, freedom in our present, and of course freedom for the future which is represented by the stone, the seal and the guards

Because they have been unable to deny that Easter happened, different people have developed different theories as to what happened that spring weekend 2000+ years ago

One of my favourites is the swoon theory which suggests that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, that He just passed out from the heat, dehydration and beatings and that after a couple of days in the cool damp tomb He revived and made His escape

Now forgetting the fact that the Romans were extremely efficient at killing people by crucifixion and that Luke says that Pilot himself verified that Jesus was dead, what I want to know is how a guy who had gone through what Jesus went through, who had no nourishment for several days and was emancipated in almost every way was able to get up and under His own strength move the stone out of the way breaking the heavy seal and then overpower a couple of heavily trained and heavily armed Roman soldiers

You see all of those things represent an impossible scenario, there was no way that anyone was getting in or out of that tomb, it was impossible!

tells us that it is our destiny to die, that this mortality that we live in will one day cease

That is our stone, it has been sealed by royal decree by God Himself back in and it is guarded by the enemy of our soul, or at least it WAS all of those things

You see the resurrection sets us free from that impossible scenario and makes possible for us a new scenario

I just read for you but I want to read it again along with the verses that follow

And let me add to that Paul’s words of encouragement in his second letter to Timothy,

2 Timothy

Let’s go back to the story of Lazarus once again only this time let’s go back to when Jesus first arrives on the scene and Martha, Lazarus’ sister gives it to Jesus for not being there before the death took place but waiting instead until death had taken it’s “final” toll

John 11:

The final enemy has been destroyed

As I bring this message to a close let me ask you this question, “Why was the stone rolled away from the tomb?”

If you continue reading the story of what takes place after the resurrection happens it becomes obvious that Jesus didn’t need it moved in order to get out

The stone was rolled out of the way because the world needed it to be so that we could see and know that the resurrection is all about our freedom

The freedom from our past with all the baggage it holds represented by the grave clothes left behind

Freedom in our present because by virtue of the tomb being empty we know that we have crossed from death over to life in Christ

Freedom for our future because the sting of death has been destroyed by the resurrection of Christ and in Him we have eternal life

John 9:36

John

Let’s pray

Let’s pray

I Am Free