By Rev.
Brian Wilkie
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA
broadcast - Sunday, May 12th, 2020:
Original Broadcast
Broadcast Notes:
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‘Is the Resurrection Good News?’
Welcome to Good News In the Morning, a program of words and music
bringing a Christian message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking
for an intelligent, meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.
Welcome to Good News Christian Ministries’ ‘Good News in the Morning’ Radio Program. Today’s program is sponsored an anonymous listener, and by Good News Christian Ministries. We are so thankful for the listener support that enables us to continue to broadcast this Good News! If you would like to contribute to the support of this ministry, please write to Good News Christian Ministries, 96 Pheasant Run Drive, Ottawa, ON K2J 2R5, Canada, (new address). Thank you to the listeners and supporters who came out last week to our ‘Meet the Pastors’ Event, where we as hosts of the show got to meet with you, our listeners, and answer some of your questions about the ministry. Thank you for your support.
Today’s scripture is taken from the book of Acts, chapter 2 v 29-40, and it is part of Peter’s sermon, Peter’s message to the people gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
“Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the
patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But
he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place
one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was ahead, he
spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the
grave, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to
life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. 33 Exalted to the right
hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has
poured out what you now see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend to
heaven, and yet he said,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
35 until
I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” ’
36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God
has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the
heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one
of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you
will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you
and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God
will call.”
40 With many other words he warned them; and he
pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those
who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to
their number that day. -Acts 2:29-40 NIV.
This is a familiar piece of Scripture for Christians. We consider the birth of the church to be the day of Pentecost, which is coming up on the calendar soon. With this day the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and Peter who preached a message that brought 3000 people to faith in Jesus Christ. We are going to speak about this Scripture and about the whole theme of whether the resurrection is good news for you are not, but let's first listen to this beautiful song about the presence of God. It's a hymn called Still, Still with Thee. It's sung by the King’s Heralds.
When speaking to a Christian audience it's probably pretty clear that the resurrection is good news: but did you ever think about the people for whom the resurrection would be bad news? Imagine yourself, if you were one of the temple guards who was assigned to watch the tomb that Jesus lay in. There you are, passing the night, not too concerned because you've been told to guard this tomb from a motley band of disciples. There's really nothing to worry about. Even if they should come to try to steal the body of Jesus you and your colleagues are plenty to handle that. They probably won't even show – they turned out to be a pretty fearful bunch.
But there you sit through the night and all of a sudden you are stunned by something happening at the tomb. The stone of the tomb is rolled open and a great light is within the cave and you know this is not the work of the disciples. You've been watching. You have a tingling in your in your spine, you have goose bumps all over your skin, you are coming to realize that something beyond this world is at work in that tomb. Wouldn’t you be suddenly struck by the realization that you’d crucified the wrong man? Would the resurrection seem like good news at that point?
When Jesus himself died upon the cross, some people were rejoicing in his death. But then the sun had gone dark and then there was a rumbling in the earth and then perhaps if you happened to be a priest in the temple you would have seen or heard that the veil in the holy of holiness was ripped from top to bottom. Something was going on, something very odd, something that you might consider terrible: that you'd been part of a plot to get rid of Jesus Christ and his death was marked with these amazing signs. What if you are the high priest and the rumor got to you from the guards and from other sources that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead. You’d probably be trying to convince yourself it was a trick, try to find some way to avoid the realization that you backed the wrong team – that you'd been the wrong team. The resurrection wouldn’t strike you as particularly good news.
In the Scripture that we read today we have people of Israel, people of Jerusalem gathered around on the day of Pentecost just 50 days after the crucifixion of Jesus. For 40 days Jesus has been visiting his disciples. As a risen Lord he's been empowering them and giving them courage to speak about the good news. They been praying in the temple, sorry, praying in the upper room for 10 days now since he's left. There is still a strong sense throughout the country that something amazing is happen, something unprecedented. Then you hear the sound of what sounds like a violent wind, or if it was us today we might think it sound like some kind of explosion. Something was happening down the street and you rush down with crowds of other people to see what was going on. You start to hear the message that Peter and the other apostles were preaching. Perhaps you'd been one of those people who would been in the crowd in front of Pilate yelling, “Release Barabbas! Crucify Jesus.” Maybe you’d been one of those people who'd kind of muttered about it afterwards and said, “Well, you know, he didn’t turn out to be the guy we hoped he’d be, so good riddance to him!”
Maybe you’d been a person who had been part of the conspiracy against Jesus. That you had tried very hard to get this guy crucified, because your superiors were telling you he was a bad that influence, and you just followed orders.
Whatever your state, the word that Jesus Christ had been right, had been raised from the dead, and the fact that his resurrection was God's exaltation of the one who had been crucified - you might very well be cut to the heart when Peter concludes his message by saying, Therefore that all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.”
Wow. Is it good news that Jesus Christ is Lord and Christ, if you had crucified him, if you called for his death, if you celebrated that he was gone, is that good news?
For the apostles the resurrection of Jesus Christ was nothing but good
news. I mean, they were running scared. They were locking themselves into rooms
so that the authorities couldn't track them down and do to them what had been done
to their Lord. They were hiding out,
they were despairing, they were feeling horrible. Even when the good news
arrived - Mary Magdalene came bearing the good news – and they didn't believe
her. It was too good to be true. You see, Thomas wasn't the only doubting
apostle; each of the apostles had their doubts. They had to see and hear repeated times in
order to be convinced that this was fact. It seemed too much like wishful
thinking to them, because it was such good news.
The death of Jesus Christ was terrible, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ not only erased the terror of his death but something more - that God himself had raised Jesus, and Jesus had overcome death and sin on the cross so that not only was Jesus death turned back but death was turned back for all who believed in him.
Those who were crucified with Christ in faith were raised with Christ in all eternity! That's good news!
Now the wonderful thing about the good news of Jesus Christ is that it is good news for sinners. Not just some sinners, but all sinners. When you came to put your trust in Christ you came to understand that they were things wrong in your life. There were things that you weren't doing right, things you’d done wrong, things that had hurt others and offended God. You had lived a life in your own direction and hadn't paid any attention to the calling that God had on your life you had to repent. You had to turn from your sin, and had to decide you'd rather follow Jesus than follow sin. You believed in him and repented and followed. Jesus Christ’s Death and resurrection was for sinners like you. Was it also for sinners like those who stood in the crowd and cried out, “Crucify him!”? Absolutely! Was it also for soldiers who stood watch over the tomb hoping that nothing would happen? Absolutely! Was it also for the centurions and Roman soldiers that crucified him and stuck be a spear in his side? Yes! In fact one of the centurions, seeing how Jesus died said, “This surely was the son of God.” Jesus Christ - his death and his resurrection were for all these people, All these people who might have been struck at the point of resurrection with fear and trembling that they had done wrong. Jesus Christ was willing to accept that centurion who was there at the crucifixion. Jesus Christ was willing to accept that thief on the cross who was dying justly for his sins. And Jesus Christ was able to turn hearts of many people in Jerusalem back to himself even though they were in implicated in his death.
Now, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is it good news for you? Let's take a look at that after we listen to this next song, which is song of consecration. ‘Take My Life and Let It Be,’ this is from the band This Hope from their album “Edges.”
I spoke earlier about the great difference the resurrection made the lives of the disciples. That is the response of people who receive the resurrection as good news, who grasp what has happened and what's been done. This is the response of people who repent of their fear and insecurity, not only their outward sins of anger, fighting and immorality but the inward sin of having a life that is hardly lived, a life that is afraid to step out, afraid to do what God wants. The disciples were transformed by joy. I want to ask you the question: Have you considered the power of the resurrection sufficiently that you are being transformed by joy? Are you a person who just kind of takes the resurrection as ‘sort of a nice thing,’ that gives you a little bit of a boost on a bad day? Or has the resurrection transformed your life so that you are living entirely for God, so that his purposes and his will are unstoppable within you.
You see? The disciples really grasped the resurrection. They were able
to turn their lives in a different direction. They were the people who ran away
when danger came but once they had seen the risen Christ and received his Holy
Spirit they were willing to lay down those very lives that they had sought so
hard to save earlier. Most of the disciples were killed for their faith. They
would rather die than let go of the hope of the resurrection. They would rather
die than fail to proclaim the truth to all the world that there's good news for
sinners.
We should try to break free of some of the nonchalance with which we
understand the resurrection. We have celebrated Easter all our lives. Perhaps
you grew up in the church and from the very earliest days you celebrated that
Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. Yet it's possible for that message to
become old news instead of good news.
If it's become old news in your life I'd encourage you to read the Acts of the Apostles. Take that section of Scripture and read through and find what a difference this gospel made when it touched each person's life, from the apostles to the Jews of Jerusalem, to the Samaritans and on, even to the Gentiles, as the gospel spread through the earth. People were just overjoyed to find this new life at work in them.
I kind of want to stir up a little bit of dissatisfaction in you, our listeners today, so you might pursue God with a little bit more vigour. Now some are already feeling a great deal of guilt in their lives, and I do believe that pursuing God will relieve you of that guilt, but I am not trying to make you feel guilty by talking about this transformation.
I'm trying to make you understand the opportunity that lies before you to pursue the knowledge of the resurrection, the faith that you can place in Jesus Christ raised from the dead, and the difference that it can make in your life. If you, yourself, have never accepted Jesus Christ, never received this good news into your life, there still is that opportunity to turn away from a self-directed life, from a selfish life, even from a life that in your mind is already a pretty good life, and turn to the life that is in God – the life that is holy and perfect in love, the life in which you will continue to be transformed until God has set everything right, until the work that he's begun in you is completed. You will join a group of people, none of whom are perfect, but who are on the same journey as you, as you receive Jesus Christ and become part of his body here on earth.
Well I'd like to bring all of our hearts together in prayer as we consider the good news of the resurrection. Let's pray to God:
Lord, If we've
neglected you, if we've worked against you, if we have followed our own way and
neglected the needs of people around us – people who it turns out you greatly
love – we've neglected the call of Jesus Christ so that his death and resurrection
can seem like bad news at first. Thank you Almighty God that you call us to
turn away from that life. You give us the opportunity to start a whole new life
in Christ. Make this resurrection good news for each one who is listening, so that
this message be received with faith, so that all might come to know you, Jesus
Christ, and come to know the joy that is in your resurrection. We ask this in
Jesus’ name, amen.
Thank you for listening today and thank you for your encouragement and support. You do keep us on the air week by week. I encourage you to support our ministry financially. Your gift can help us to meet the expense of broadcasting and help us to reach you and over 7000 listeners in the Ottawa River Valley. We have also been encouraged recently by how much our website is reaching out through the world as people download the message thousands of times across the world. So if you can make a check payable to Good News Christian ministries and send it to 96 Pheasant Run Drive, Ottawa, ON K2J 2R5, Canada, (new address), we will be happy to send you a receipt at income tax time. We especially want to thank the anonymous donor who’s made today's broadcast possible through their sponsorship.
Now be sure to worship in a church where the gospel is soundly proclaimed and lived out with compassion integrity and resolve. To conclude our program I'd like to have you listen to another song of praise of our glorious God. This song is titled ‘Immortal, Invisible, God only Wise’ and sung by the a cappella group, Glad.
I do pray that the Lord will hold your heart and you would know Jesus personally and profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart, may the heavenly Father surround you with his constant and abiding and accompanying love.
Good News In The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio
580 CFRA.
- Rev. Brian Wilkie
St. Andrew's Christian Community, Rockland, Ontario
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