MCC Podcasts
Easter Sunday: Life, Again and Again
God, thank you for gathering us here today, around something like the resurrection and life, where in the heels of what everybody perceived to be death and failure, you show up and bring life. And we're grateful for that. Encourage us by that reminder today in the name of Christ, amen. Okay, you'll know right away what I'm talking about, but I love the little, the phrases that we create around today's theme. For instance, when we feel rejuvenated or focused, we say we've gotten a new lease on it. And when things are just too amazing for words, you can't really describe it. We say that they are larger than it. And we love it when we get to live rilies for him. We love that. Some say it doesn't really begin until the age of 40. Who agrees with that? Whose experience that is true? It doesn't really begin until age 40. So that means that handful of us are the only ones that are actually living it right now. One great film, one of the greatest films of all time, I think, reminds us that it's like a box of chocolates 'cause you never really know what you're gonna get. By the way, are there any people here who, because that's true, secretly turn the chocolate over to poke it to see what's inside there first? Yeah, and then you put it back and camouflage it. And it really works well if you still have young children in the house 'cause you can blame it on the kids when the missus sees it, you would never mind. Variety is a spice of it. And I'll tell you this too, if your upbringing was anything like mine, if your parents were anything like my parents, and if you were anything like me as a kid, you were threatened to within an inch of yours, about once a year, right? We also, we don't just learn phrases about today's topic. We've learned that there are certain things that we need in order to provide for it, for instance, we need, we've learned that it really runs better with protein. You need protein to sustain it, right, Tommy? And so you who got the upgrade today, we wanna remind you of the value of protein in sustaining this, got you some proteins, my new favorite source of protein, it's jerky. Wait a minute though, this isn't just any jerky. This is the, this is the Cadillac of all, this is the Porsche of all jerkeys, this is Crave Jerky. I got you some Crave Jerky, I bought this at Lucky's, you can get it at Safeway, this stuff is addictive. This is what Jeff, this is the Pineapple Orange, two of my favorite flavors. This one is actually used as natural pork, this is some of the smoked grilled teriyaki Crave Jerky. We know that we need proteins to sustain this, we've also learned, scientists have also learned that we need coffee to sustain this. And my daughter and son-in-law happened to work for Starbucks and Peats, they have a mixed marriage. (audience laughs) And so they made sure that we could give you some of the sustenance of life. So here's little Peats coffee beans, what do we have here? Dark Cafe Verona, sorry it's not decaf, but you'll have to, you'll have to just deal with it. And I've learned too that in order to sustain this thing, which of which the average variety is a spice, you also need, Tommy, come on up here with what you got there for me. You know what else everybody here knows, right? You need ice cream, you can't live. (audience applauds) You cannot live without ice cream. You guys, Ben and Jerry's are hogging to us family. Okay, well here's hogging to us strawberry, should be a little, the daughter is reaching into intercept it from the month. (audience laughs) Should be a little spoon, I think, in the lid. Now, myself, I'm a Ben and Jerry's guy, so I wanna share my joy with you. Here's chocolate fudge brownie, got a little chocolate fudge brownie action there. If he drops it, it's mine, who said that? (audience laughs) A little cherry garcia, and... Dolce de leche, I wish they put these things in English. Got a little... Who wants a little strawberry action? Darcy is for you. (audience applauds) You need protein, you need coffee. And Jeff, you need ice cream to survive in life. I personally consider ice cream a food group. I just love that stuff. We remember what we need. We remember all these sayings about life, but you know what we forget sometimes about life? We spend so much time making sure we're sustaining it and making sure that we're learning about it and sometimes so much time wishing we could live somebody else's, hey, right? That we forget who gave it to us in the first place. We forget that God gives life sometimes. I do, if you're like me, you do too. Learn a lot about it. One of the things we have a hard time remembering sometimes is who gave it to us in the first place? I was on the prayer team at an event called Check. Our students are gonna be going to check this year. It's like 6,000 students from churches in our denomination show up at the same place. And it's been in Tennessee and Knoxville for the last several years. And I was on the prayer team at Check and we would be walking around all this campus praying for kids and have these prayer team shirts on. And they begin to come to us. And one time an entire youth group, with their youth leader, came to the prayer team and said, can we just get a special session with the prayer team? We have real needs. These were kids from inner city Detroit. So, I mean, the worst part of Detroit. And I was reminded of what we often forget when it comes to life. By listening to their prayers, we gathered in our room and they said, can your prayer team pray over our leaders and pray over our students and pray for our ministry? We really have it rough. And I was reminded of something we often forget. By the way they started their prayers and it was almost as though it had been scripted, but I knew that it wasn't, it just felt too real. And kid after, student after student after student, begin their prayer something like this. God, I thank you for waking me up this morning and giving me life today. And then the next student would begin his or her prayer. God, I thank you for waking me up this morning and putting life in breath in my lungs today. As though they lived with a constant reminder that life is not guaranteed, it comes from the one who gives it and I got to thinking, man, maybe when you live in a context where it is put at risk every day and you no longer take it for granted, you begin to pray prayers like that. Prayers that remember that God gave us life in the first place. Scripture reminds us that God is the one who gives us life. Let me just read a handful of verses that remind us of this thing that we so often forget. In Psalm 139, listen to this. Speaking to God, the psalmist says, you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. Two ways of saying the same thing, poetically. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. God as the creator of life, the giver of life. God gives life. In John chapter one, reference to Jesus, part of the Godhead. Jesus was fully God, being the creator. Says in the beginning was the word, there's a reference to Jesus there. The word was with God. In fact, the word was God. He was with God the Father in the beginning and then this in verse three. Through him, all things were made, and as in case we missed the point, goes on to say without him, in other words, nothing was made that has ever been made. In him was life. And that life was a light of all people. And then Peter in Acts chapter three, actually making another point, challenging some people for some of the ways they've been living in the decisions they made, actually makes this passing reference that reinforces this point as well, that God gives life. He says, calling some folks out, you killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. The author of life, the initiator, the source, the giver, God gives life. And one of those inner city kids prayed like that. They knew what we sometimes forget. God, who created life, has it as a gift that he offers to us and he loves to give. - Everybody, are you okay? It's like half time, everyone's feeling okay? - Good, well, happy Easter. I think, well, as a Christian, it's the greatest, most important holiday that we have, but I think tradition-wise and symbol-wise, it is really weird. Have you noticed that? This morning, we had the Easter Bunny come to our house, which doesn't make any sense, and we have hard-boiled eggs, which doesn't make any sense. Is anyone that even like hard-boiled eggs anymore? Couple of you guys. I had a couple horrifying experiences with them, and so I'm all done with them. But chocolate, I can really get behind, but that still doesn't make sense. Easter eggs, chocolate, the Easter Bunny. So that doesn't really make sense as far as the Christian celebration of Easter. Are there any Easter hat people? There we go, the fedora? Yeah, Easter hats, I love Easter hats. I keep trying to pull it off, but you can't wear a giant's hat on Easter and call it an Easter hat, which is kind of a bummer. And a butterfly is not, and that's all kind of nice, too. But this morning, I wanted to share with you my favorite Easter symbol, favorite symbol in general, and this is the donut. Any donut fans out there? Well, donuts, I think, are the perfect symbol that help us understand Jesus. And I'm gonna tell you all about that in a second, but I wanted to give this to you guys. Actually, is you guys hanging in it? You guys doing okay so far? Ice cream, donuts, full insulin shock later. Sorry about that. Well, donuts, I think, are all about life and napping, I guess. If you need a couple donuts, you wanna take a nap. But the deal is, when God made the heavens and the earth, he did not make donuts, which is kind of a bummer. But what he did is he created all sorts of grains and fruits and vegetables and all those sorts of things. Now, a donut doesn't just happen. As much as we would want a donut to happen, it starts out with this little tiny kernel of grain, a kernel of wheat. And this kernel of wheat, believe it or not, is actually dead. Now, it has this memory of being a part of this glorious wheat field. And these kind of old school like Budweiser commercials, but remember that gigantic wheat fields, we don't only have wheat fields in California, but they have these gigantic wheat fields. And this kernel of wheat once was a part of this enormous bounty with all this buddies. Man, we're part of this wheat field, this is great. But the problem is, the wheat kernel actually has to die. It's this dead seed and it's actually worthless of itself, just as the seed. But the great thing is that this kernel, even though it's dead, it has this memory of life inside it, it has this spark of life, for whatever reason, this miracle of seeds that even though they're dead, there's something inside them that longs to be planted and to express this full life that's inside of them hidden. And what is amazing to me is that God has given us this vision of life. And for many of us, we can resonate with the death part. We get that life is hard, we resonate that sin causes death and destruction and it just messes us up, we recognize that we've messed up other people, we get the smell of death. But what is so amazing is that God does not leave us in our death. Those of us who've been the most messed up by sin inside of us long for the way things could be. We long for this picture of life that is deep inside of us. And God offers us this way of new life on Easter. In Ephesians chapter two, it says this. But because of his great love, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we are dead in transgressions, for it is by grace that you've been saved. And we together are this pile of dead seeds that God in his love comes and gathers. He seeks us out, he brings us together and he forgives us all of our sins, all of our transgressions, all of the brokenness and death that has marred our life. Because of Jesus' death and the cross, all of that sin is taken care of, he has rescued us. But what is so great is God doesn't just take this pile of seeds and rescue us and put us in the storehouse until the end of time and then go, look at all my seeds. God actually has something in store for us. And what he has in store for us is resurrection. Jesus was the first to rise from the dead. When he rose from the dead, we now realize that we worship a God who didn't just teach us how to do great things. A God who forgives us our sins. But a God who offers us life and life again, he takes what is dead and he actually infuses us with his life, his resurrected life. And now we have been offered life again. And so this kernel of wheat, which is dead, has his dream of life, gets planted in the ground. And sure enough, another head of wheat comes up with that bears 10, 20, 200 more grains of wheat. But what I think is so great, I think is wheat is incredibly boring. It doesn't taste good. I mean, there's some good options like tortillas. Those are pretty good. And donuts are of course my favorite. And some of you are whole wheat people and that's fine too. But the deal is God knows that we are made for variety. And he takes a seed that is dead. He infuses life into it. He resurrected, but then he redeems it. He makes it unique and special and for purpose. And so now we're left with donuts. Donuts are good news. And they celebrate the love and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so this morning I pray that as a church we would get that we are made for not just life, not just forgiven life, but life again through the risen Lord. Let's stand as we continue to worship God this morning. Hey, how's the Starbucks coming? Oh, here we go. Come on, bring it down, let's. Yeah, that is excellent. Yeah, seven pumps, seriously. Learn I'm a little surprised you went public with that, that you just pretend that you don't get a seven pump latte, chai latte, that's a little scary. Hey, we, yeah, well it's not normal under any conditions. I'm just telling you, hey, Ben didn't give this out 'cause he was probably embarrassed. But we have another gift for you. You know, Ben's got a book out called Holy Parenting. Have you guys seen this? And he wouldn't be so self-serving as to hawk the book $10, 995 on Amazon.com. But we're gonna give you a copy. And Ben, I'd like you to sign it on your way over. That would be great if you could just sign your name, put a little help there family. Just give him a little pastoral wisdom, write something in there like no donuts. And we also wanna give you a gift, which is this for your table, curtains at home. It's a pastoral picture with all the pastors. So I know everybody wants one of these. So we framed that for you. Good luck with that. We wanna see that when we get invited over. We wanna see that like right front and center about a wedding picture. All right. Art said he told us that he brings life. And that would say yes. So we're celebrating. We're celebrating the life and the death, but then the life of Jesus, the resurrection. We say he brings life and we go yes. And Ben says he brings life again. And we go yes, yes. That's the forgiveness that we crave. That's what we long for. That's what we all need is we need to be restored into a relationship with God. So he brings life and he brings life again. I mean, we say yes to that. Here's what I have an almost impossible time getting my head around. And here's the truth. And here's what we celebrate as well today. He brings life again and again and again and again. That's the God that we serve. That's the salvation that was accomplished for us on the cross. I'm gonna teach you a Greek word today. Okay, you ready? Here we go. It's a Greek word. Okay, paris suo. Okay, can you say that? - Paris suo. - Okay, some of you didn't say it 'cause you're guests and you're like, really? I don't know. Yeah, paris suo. Say it. Ready? - Paris suo. - Paris suo. Oh, isn't that a good word? It sounds almost Italian. It's so good. Paris suo. Here's what paris suo means. Paris suo means overflowing in excess. Abundant, abounding, swelling up, bubbling over. This is what the word paris suo means. And it's all through the scriptures. And before I get to the scriptures, let me give you the example of what I think paris suo is. This is one of the best examples of paris suo. I was on the freeway in the Twin Cities. And my wife, I was on a fundraising trip and I worked for Covenant Bible College and I was visiting some people and I got a call from my wife. And I remember exactly where I was in Minneapolis on the freeway. I could still picture it and she's crying. Honey, what are you doing? What's going on? I was watching TV and there's this new show called Extreme Home Makeovers. You with me? She's sobbing. It was when the show was new and she started to tell me the story because extreme home makeovers friends is paris suo because what happens is they find a family and subsequent to that, we have friends who were builders, Matt and Meagan Howlin and their company did an extreme home makeover and they said it was so powerful because they just didn't find somebody who said, "Dude, you're an embarrassment. "Look, your porch needs to be fixed "and you need a coat of paint." They don't do that, right? The one that Linda saw, they went into this inner city, Detroit and they found a family where a single mom was gathering every kid whose parents were incarcerated or whose, you know, it was her cousins' kids who couldn't take care of them and just was filling her house with all these kids, with all these needs, right? And she was taking care of everybody and she couldn't afford this house that was falling apart and she couldn't afford all the things that they needed. So these guys came in, they didn't throw a coat of paint over it, they didn't throw a little bit of a solution to it, they redid everything in a paris suo kind of way, right? You with me on that? I mean, they build individual rooms, they got to know the children that were in there and what those children needed and they created a giant dining room table because all of those kids needed to be part of a family and the laundry room was to die for because there were like 11 children living there, right? And there was a backyard with hoops and astroturf and the mom got a master bedroom suite retreat, they called it, so she could retreat from the 11 kids that she was raising, right? So when they go move that bus, right? It wasn't like, oh, the porch is straight, it was paris suo, right? And remember what they all cry out all the way, they go, go see your house and remember what everybody screams as they're walking through the house? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, there's something in the heart of each of us who says that's where paris suo comes from. It's way over the top, it's overflowing, it's abounding and Jesus' most famous proclamation about himself was he said, I came that you might have life and have it paris suo. You with me on that? That's what he said. I kid you might have life and have it to the fullest, to have it overflowing, to have it abundantly, to have it overwhelmingly. This is then all over the scriptures, the seed motif that Ben was talking about in the parable of the soils. When that seed, the gospel, the good news of Jesus takes root in good soil. It says it comes up and produces a crop 30, 60, a hundred times more than was some. That's paris suo in essence. Jesus went out and the guys were catching fish and he said, hey, put your net out there and they go, now we've been catching, we've been trying to fish all night long and there's nothing in the water. He goes, put it over on this side and they put their nets over and there were so many fish when they pulled them up that the nets were tearing and fish were all, is paris suo in its essence. That's what was going on there. The woman who poured perfume out on Jesus, she didn't be, to anoint him as the savior and as the sacrifice for the world. She didn't just dabble a little perfume on Jesus. It says that she broke the neck of the alabaster jar and she poured it out on him and the people who were frustrated with it were saying, that is a year's worth of wages, friends. She said to Jesus, paris suo, that is, I am pouring out on you. I mean, it's all through the scriptures, this idea of paris suo. Jesus, how many times should we forgive? The way you forgive should we forgive? How many times, seven times? He goes, no, 70 times, seven times. That's how you forgive. He broke loaves and fishes, a couple of bread, pieces of bread and a couple of fish and he fed 5,000 people. Jesus did. 5,000 people, that's parisous. In fact, when Jesus was done feeding 5,000 men, there were probably women and children there as well. When he got done with that, he said to the disciples, now you go pick up what is left over and for them it filled enough baskets so they could have all that they wanted to eat. When he said go pick up the leftovers, the Greek word in there, you go pick up the paris suo. There is more than we ever knew what to do with. Friends, Jesus came that we would have life and have it overflowing. He comes to give life again and again and again. That's the God that we worship this morning. And some of us came to him for a coat of paint. We had no idea that when the bus moved, we had a dream home. Some of us came for a solution that he gave us life, paris suo. We celebrate the life that he gives us this Easter. Are you remembering what he has done for you? And it isn't always like, yeah, everything's perfect, right? I mean, we know that. This morning, the life and our first gathering, even though we had no power and we were acoustic there was life there and things weren't going perfect. It's not what it's about. But it's the life that he gives the paris suo life where he said God's grace will paris suo to us. It will have bound to us, second Corinthians 9, sow that in all things at all times. We have everything we need. That's the life that he gives. We celebrate that. What has he done in your life? We started Holy Week, but we could go today. Proclaiming, Hosanna, he saved me. And we wanted to bracket. We wanted to put brackets around our Holy Week and finish this morning. One more great song. But we're gonna, I'm gonna put the microphone out here again. And we do this sometimes on Thanksgiving. But if there is something, put that on there for me, Jack. If there's something that you know you need to give thanks to the Lord for, for what he has done by saying to him. I thank God. I thank God. And what has he done in your life? What has he given you in your life? Is it for the people in your life? Is it for the provision, for the sustenance? Is it for the healing in your heart? We're gonna bracket Holy Week by just a few more voices. What has God done that you can say this sentence? I thank my God for and then finish it. Love for you to come up. It's crowded. You're gonna have to get by somebody. And maybe you thought last week I wanted to share and I lost my nerve or we ran out of time or I didn't want to get by anybody. I want you to feel free this morning. We're gonna take a couple of minutes, come up. And if there's more than one person, we'll just line them up right here. I thank my God for, this is the life he's given us. Come on up and share. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING]