Why is Easter Such a Big Deal to Christians

Wonder of wonders.

A maddening miracle: God is on a Roman cross. The Creator of the Universe is being executed. And He is sacrificing Himself. His own countrymen clamor for His death. His own disciple planted the kiss of betrayal. His own friends ran for cover, abandoning Him. And now His Father turns his back on him as he bears the full weight of mankind’s sin.*

I hear people who suffer pain and loss and betrayal and disappointment and sometimes I hear them say things like, “Does God care?” Or say things like “where is He?” On the cross He proved He cared. He suffered much more than you or I for all the fury of God against evil was poured out on Jesus on the cross. He willingly put himself through the worst pain imaginable to bear the death we deserved. We still suffer the after effects of sin and death but Jesus suffered the pain of hell we deserved. He suffered more than anyone else could bear. His suffering absorbed all justice. The price of sin is death. So He paid it all. His death killed death. His death broke the power of sin and it no longer has mastery over us. My sin was nailed to the cross with Him and I bear it no more.

Does He care? 

It’s blasphemous to ask that question once you see the reality of Good Friday. How dare we ask that question when we see what our sin did to Him? He suffered what I deserved that day. He paid for my sin. My sin crushed Him that day. I wandered out into traffic drunk on my sin, helpless to avoid the impact of the truck that would kill me and he pushed me out of the way and took the hit.

Mankind has created all the suffering of this world. Not God.  And still He walked into the suffering we created and took the consequences of our actions.

And we blame Him?

Instead we should be doing nothing but thanking Him that on that darkest day in history He took on my suffering and paid hell for my sin. And, after having died for our sins, He went even further and rescued souls that had been held captive for centuries in hell, told them He was there to rescue them and he set those captives free forever.

Hallelujah! What a Saviour! The hero we’ve all been waiting for. Jesus Christ. The Hope of the World! Our only hope.

There is no other Name that we can call on to be saved. He is it. God in the flesh, dying for us on Good Friday. The Holy sacrificed for the human. He now says, “I am the way through death to life.” Yes we still die, but now our bodies, like His, may sleep in death but also like Him, we will rise.

This is the hope of Easter. Jesus died and Jesus rose. “Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him from rising again.”

So follow Him. For those who believe in Him and follow Him there awaits eternal life. Death now is just a tunnel and the light at the end of it is eternal life. Not life as a ghost or a disembodied spirit who becomes one with the ether, but life restored as a human being, with a resurrected body living on a resurrected earth with no more after effects of sin—hugging, laughing, eating, building, creating, playing, singing, rejoicing, living life to the full.  Mankind and God together again.

That is what the death and resurrection of Jesus has done! This is why Easter is such a big deal!

‘Nuff said.

And AMEN!

*Italics by Max Lucado from Six Hours One Friday

God is Calling Those who Hearts are True

So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands. Then they will not be like their ancestors— stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.  Psalm 78:7-8

He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens. He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants— God’s own people, Israel. He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands.   Psalm 78:70-72

Calling leaders from Sheep Pens isn’t the world’s way of calling a king.

Each Generation should set its hope anew on God—not forgetting His glorious miracles—making sure that they obey His commands...

You are a New Generation of People. Your Parents are the older generation of people and then there is an even older generation of people who are dying.

EACH NEW GENERATION needs to set its hope on God in a new way. You have to choose God to be Your God. Your parents have brought You to church. Or the church has come to You and someone invited You to this truth.

But if You are to be the kind of people who make the world a better place then You are going to have to choose God for Yourself.

You will have to remind Yourself Who He is. You are going to have to make a decision to get to Know God through JESUS.

The SPIRIT of JESUS is here in Sicamous, calling people to be His own. The World thinks Sicamous is unimportant. They like the Lake but the power-player-people in the world with money and power would not ask someone from Sicamous what they think about Life and leadership and policy and what would make the world better. People with money and power would go to Vancouver, or Toronto or New York—to big Universities and to what they call think tanks. They would ask Oprah what she thinks. Heck, many of them would want to ask Justin Trudeau what he thinks.

But Jesus is here in Sicamous—through this church, asking YOU to follow HIM. He asked Justin Trudeau to follow Him. Justin Trudeau watched Alpha, a video series about Jesus, and that was it, Justin Trudeau ignored the call of God to get his heart right and come to Jesus for salvation. Oprah has put her life into a life of doing good but she doesn’t need Jesus to save her. She thinks that just doing good is the answer.

YOU are being called to follow Jesus. One day soon, You will have the chance to train as a disciple and follow Jesus and tell your friends about Jesus. It will be up to You to make that decision.

These are the days in the sheep pen, when You, like David, are being raised to be someone who knows what it is like to be a real person in a small town. But Jesus called that Shepherd boy to be King because David had a heart after God.

He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens. He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants— God’s own people, Israel. He cared for them with a true heart.  Psalm 78:70-72

Do you have a true heart? Do You really do want to follow God? You can make that decision now to Follow Jesus. To be his disciple. To learn to be like Him.

A disciple of Jesus is someone who wants Jesus to be their King. It is someone who wants Jesus to come back like He said He would and be the King of kings and the Lord or lords. The King who will make the earth good again, the King who will raise the dead and judge mankind rightly. Evil will be defeated. Death will die. Life will be everlasting. A disciple of Jesus is someone who wants to tell others of Christ’s goodness and lead them to eternal life in Him.

It is up to You to make that call.

Where is Your heart pointing?

Tim Keller said, “The things you daydream about in your spare time are ultimately the things you serve.” If you daydream about fame, or money, or power over people then that is what you will end up chasing after your whole life.

But if you choose now to follow Christ then He will take You, the person He made, and use You and those skills and personality He has given You and You will make a difference in this world.

Make Jesus Your obsession in life—Your goal to Love Him and Love people and lead people to Him—and you will choose a life of adventure and purpose where every day You wake up and are on a mission.

That is Your destiny in Christ and it is glorious.

The world changes one person at a time. Start each day with Christ in prayer and reading the Bible and ask Him—Who do you wan to me to pray for—guide me to the right people today. Help me encourage them and show them and tell them that You are real, Jesus. And He will use You to be that bridge for people to get across to Him. But that must be the intention of Your heart every day. You must start off that way to have a life like that.

‘Nuff Said

Praying With An Ache — Remembering He is Still God and He is Still There

Father, it seems I have found a prayer for those of us who fear and grieve and worry and stress and who have a hard time praying.

“I cry out to God—I scream His Name. Oh, that God would listen to me! When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted.

I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray!

I think of the good old days, long since ended, when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now.

Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me? Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion? And I said, “This is my fate; the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

But then...

I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works. O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? You are the God of great wonders! You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations. By your strong arm, you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

When the Red Sea saw you, O God, its waters looked and trembled! The sea quaked to its very depths. The clouds poured down rain; the thunder rumbled in the sky. Your arrows of lightning flashed. Your thunder roared from the whirlwind; the lightning lit up the world! The earth trembled and shook. Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters— a pathway no one knew was there! You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.” Psalm 77

This is a real prayer written by a real person living in the real world. Father, I know that You are big and powerful and Strong and true. And I know that if You can defeat an army of soldiers by caving in an ocean to take them out in one fell swoop then You can sustain me this day. This flawed, small human being is being held together by a great and loving King. The only God. There is no one else like You. Therefore, in whatever state I am in I can run to You, Father. Give strength to the weary and the ones who hurt and the ones who are tired and the ones who still feel the dull, pounding ache of loss or the sharp pain of loneliness. Spirit of God, remind those who feel lost that You are their God and that Jesus came to reverse this pain and one day He will fix it. Help them to hang on. Flash the lightning of memory and give them the images of You parting the sea and making a way where there seemed to be no way. A pathway through mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there! But You know the way when we can’t see it.  Help us to see Jesus, hanging on the cross, sharing in our pain and bearing the weight of the world on Himself and then getting up and walking out of that tomb.  Nothing can defeat Him.  And nothing, not even death can separate us from Your Love in Christ Jesus.

Lord give us faith.

Faith in You.

Turn Your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

AMEN

Stranger Truths Chapter Two - The Rescue of Will Byers

Last week we talked about the fact that there is indeed an Upside Down, a place where there is darkness personified—someone who wants to destroy us.  The Bible says that God made us in his image, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).  We were literally made to be like Him.  To love, laugh, build and create.  So when Satan, God’s sworn enemy saw us He went for God’s heart—His children.  His lying, killing stealing and destroying was aimed at us, God’s children.  He managed to get our eyes off of God and on ourselves.  He lied to our ancestors and told them that if we did life his way instead of God’s way that we would be like God.  The enemy got us to think like him -  to choose pride and independence.  And as soon as we did that we were now slaves of that sin — stuck in the Upside Down.

Once a human being is stuck in the Upside Down of sin there is only one way to get out.  We can’t get out ourselves.  We are well on our way to eternally “dead” once we are in there.  We are born into. This slavery to sin.  We are physically alive but spiritually dead and unable to get ourselves unstuck.  Some try.  Many use religion to get out of the upside down way of living.  But it doesn’t work because religion cannot change our heart or give us the power to be able to break free.  What we need is help from the outside.  Someone stronger than ourselves who can free us who enters the fray and saves the day.

In Stranger Things the powerful girl Eleven is the only one who had the ability to defeat the demogorgon who was about to kill Mike and Dustin and Lucas.  If Will Byers was going to get rescued from his prison of darkness he needed Hopper and Joyce to come and rescue him.  That’s what LOVE does.  Mike and Dustin and Lucas were powerless to defeat the demogorgon.  All they had was a wrist rocket.  Will was helpless to save himself.  The good news is that Hopper and Joyce entered the Upside Down to find Will and Eleven destroyed the demogorgon. Romans 5:6 says that, “at just the right time, when we were utterly helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.”  In the final episode of Season 1 (spoiler alert) Eleven says goodbye to Mike just before she destroys the demogorgon because she knows that she is going to have to give up her life with her friends to destroy the monster.  In the same way, Jesus knew that He would die to free us from the power of death.  Death is the consequence of sin.  So Jesus took the consequence of hell on himself so we would not have to pay that price.  He took all the pain on himself to save us.  Eleven did what she did out of love.  The Bible tells us that God so loved the world that He gave Jesus, His one and only Son that whoever would believe in Him—that He gave his life to save us—would not perish in hell but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

The death of Jesus killed the monster of death.  The Bible says that, “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—Jesus also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14).  Now everyone who believes in Jesus will live forever, freed from the powers of death and hell.  Now, because of Jesus, death is just sleep for the one who believes in Christ.

In Stranger Things 2 we saw Eleven break free of the Upside Down after she had entered it to save her friends.  In the same way Jesus entered death to free us from the power of death and He came back to life.  That’s what Easter is about.  On Good Friday Jesus died for us and on Easter Sunday He rose from the dead.

On of my favorite songs speaks of Jesus, the Hero:

Death could not hold You

The veil tore before You

You silenced the boast of sin and grave

The heavens are roaring the praise of Your glory

For You are raised to life again

This is the Good News, or another word for it is the Gospel!  Jesus came to save us.  The Bible says, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10,13).

Is it that simple?  The Bible says it is.  Jesus did it all.  He came after us, in Love, to save us from sin and death.  This is the mercy and grace of God shown to us in Christ.

You can pray this prayer:  Dear God, I believe that Jesus is my Saviour, that He died to pay for my sin and that He rose from the grave.  Thank you for saving me.  Amen.

‘Nuff Said 

Stranger Truths Chapter One - The Vanishing of Will Byers

There are many reasons why Stranger Things is such a hit on Netflix.  From the nostalgia of the endearing cast of characters to the suspense and its totally tubular synth score--this show has it all.  Kinda like the Goonies, ET and 80s horror films all rolled into one.  Season 1 and 2 were fun to watch.  It was tough to just watch one or two at a time and spread the viewing out a bit so i could enjoy it over a couple of weeks.  My brain gets full quick.

The Bible talks a lot about some Stranger Truths that the show Stranger Things alludes to.  If you ever read the book This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti, about a little town named Ashton, which is a pivotal center for a war between unseen angels and demons, then you might be picking up what I’m laying down.

The fictional towns of Hawkins in Stranger Things and Ashton in This Present Darkness have a lot in common.  In Stranger Things, Hawkins is the place where the Upside Down, an ethereal realm full of badness, is trying to break through into our world and take over the place.

The Bible talks about the Upside Down in its own way.  The Apostle Paul wrote about the real Upside Down in the biblical book of Ephesians in chapter 6.  He put it this way: “For we are not fighting against mere flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities off the unseen world (The Upside Down), against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the hidden heavenly places.”

Paul said we have an enemy.  He was God's enemy first--and then he declared war on God's creation--mankind.

Or People-kind if you're Justin Trudeau.

But I digress.

The Bible teaches that Satan used to be a good angel, Lucifer, the son of the morning, a beautiful and powerful angel.  Then he got uppity and decided that he wanted to be God.  Problem is there is only one God--stop applying for his job.  So when Lucifer rebelled and tried to take over heaven there was a great war in the heavenly realms and God defeated Lucifer and he was thrown out of heaven (Revelation 12:7-9).  Lucifer became Satan, which means adversary or enemy.  Jesus tells us that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44) and that he is on a mission to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:9).

Paul tells us that there is indeed a real ethereal realm that we can’t see that is ruled by dark princes who want to take out the human world.  Like the fictional Upside Down, this real Vale of Shadows is where the dark forces who hate all that is good plot against us.  If you watch Stranger Things you will remember that the Upside Down is almost in the room you are in but it is dark and cold.  This is how the Bible often talked of the heavenly or unseen realms.  The Bible says things like, “An angel stepped out of heaven” and into our world.  Not “down from” heaven but “out of” heaven.  Another dimension right next door. 

In Stranger Things the Demogorgon reaches out from the Upside Down and kidnaps young Will Byers who is played by the amazing Noah Schnapp.   In the Bible we are told that mankind is captive to the darkness of sin just like Will Byers is trapped in the darkness of the ethereal dimension.

The Upside Down has mankind in its grip.  This truth explains why the world has gone so very dark and continues to get darker.  Just watch the news and you will see what I mean.  What else could inspire such hatred and racism and something so dark as the murder of innocent children in schools by men gone mad, wielding weapons that governments are incompetent to regulate.  Mankind has gone dark.  Romans 1:21 says that sin has made our minds dark and confused.

There are forces led by Satan, the enemy of God and man, and these forces inspire this evil in mankind.  This army of sin holds people captive to their anger and bitterness and violence and addiction and abuse and war.  These forces from the Upside Down exist to steal joy, wipe out human life and destroy everything that is good.  The Upside Down tricks us into stepping into its trap of sin.  Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin (John 8:34).  The book of Proverbs says “An evil man is held captive by his own sins; they are ropes that catch and hold him”(Proverbs 5:22).

The Upside Down’s biggest strength is the fact that it is unseen.  No one quite believes Will’s mom, Joyce Byers, when she tells them that Will has been kidnapped, and that he is just outside her reach in the dark realm around them. She knows he is there.  She can hear her lost boy crying out to her from the darkness.   Joyce knows her son is captive and wants to see him freed from the evil one who has him.  She sees the darkness breaking through and trying to get her as well.  In Stranger Things the Hawkins National Laboratory, which opened up the stupid portal to let The Upside Down in, is covering up the threat.  Likewise most institutions in our world give no credence to the biblical truth that there is indeed a spiritual threat to mankind and say its just supersition from an ancient religion.

Slowly, people like Hopper, and her son Jonathan begin to believe her. But whether someone believes her or not Joyce is gonna move heaven and earth and bust down walls with axes in order to free her son from his captivity.   Mike, Dustin and Lucas are not going to rest either until they find their lost friend even if it means sneaking out and firing up those cool walkie talkies and riding like a squad of adventurers on those banana seats.

For ten years now I have been working as a pastor in a little town to show them and tell them that Jesus loves them and wants to free them from their slavery to sin.  But like, Joyce Byers, very few people believe me when I tell them that there is something sinister and insidious going on and that people are actually trapped by evil and lost in darkness.  Paul wrote these words about this: Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants (2 Timothy 2:25-26). 

I believe what the Bible tells us that God loved the world so much that He gave his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to free us from this present darkness, and like in Stranger Things, someone stronger than Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Hopper and Joyce are going to have to help free Will from the Upside Down.

It's the same for us.   We are gonna need some serious help.

That's where the uber cool Eleven comes in.

More next Friday.