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Above & Beyond Sunday
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There's no word, no moment in time, no place in history that is more above and beyond than the day Jesus Christ beat hell, beat death, beat the grave, came out of the tomb. Resurrection life. He ascended to the Father, seated on a throne, ruling and reigning and inviting anybody else into his resurrection life.
Today, we're reminded that we live in a resurrection story. We're not just church people. We're not just spiritual people. We are resurrection people. That is our story. It is our DNA. It is who we are, and it is where we are going.
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 27, carries the header "the death of Jesus." There's a below before there is an above and beyond in this story.
From noon until 3:00 in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land. About 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some standing there heard this, they said he was calling Elijah. One of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, "No, leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him."
When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. He died.
At that moment comes the above and beyond. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook. The rocks split. And the tombs broke open.
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Now, here's what a lot of people miss: The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. The moment he died, tombs broke open and dead people came out alive. Resurrection. And this is our story. They came out of the tombs after Jesus' resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the Centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified. They exclaimed, "Surely he was the son of God."
As evening approached, a rich man from Arimathea—his name was Joseph—came forward. He had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.
The next day, the chief priests said to the Pharisees, "We remember that while he was still alive, that deceiver said, 'After 3 days, I will rise again.' So, give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."
"Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting a guard—not just a guard, but elite guards.
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake. An angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.
The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you were looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'That he has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There, you will see him.'"
The women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and they ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Hey!" he said. They came to him, clasped his feet, and worshipped him.
Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me."
But while the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say his disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep. If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble."
So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews and to some other skeptics around the world to this very day.
I can't think of anything that says above and beyond more than that. On the third day, just like he said, Jesus was raised from the dead. He went into the depths of the earth. But now, by the power of God, he is raised to the heights again, ascending to his Father and seated on the throne of thrones.
Spiritually before Christ, resurrection was our desperate need. We did not need a good church. We did not need seven principles for how to live a better life. We didn't need a program of self-improvement. We were dead and we needed life. We needed resurrection.
Paul says this so clearly in his letter to the Ephesians: "As for you, you were dead." Not lost, though we were lost. Not just unchurched, though we may have been unchurched. We didn't just need help or a new direction. "You were dead in your trespasses and transgressions and your sins. In which you used to live. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath." That's what we deserved. We were spiritually dead and the wrath of God was coming.
But here is our story. Here is our gospel. "Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ." We didn't have the currency of mercy to get ourselves alive from the dead. He had that currency, and he was rich in it. He was a trillionaire in mercy.
"God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Christ in the heavenly realms in Christ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved."
We were in desperate need of a resurrection. Let me illustrate. I had an older car in my garage that hadn't been driven for months. The registration was due, so I was going to take it to get the emission test done. I went to unlock the door, but nothing happened. The key fob was dead—it had been sitting in a drawer for months.
I went through the process of changing the battery in the fob. If you've done this, you know it's like doing minor surgery on a small animal. The thing hadn't been changed in a while; everything was stuck together. I had YouTube showing me how to get the battery out. I used pliers, worked it like heavy machinery. Finally, I got it out. I put the new battery in, put it back together, and opened the door. Nothing.
Turns out the battery in the fob wasn't dead. The battery in the car was dead.
I had no jumper cables in the garage. But I remembered that a pastor friend on the north side of Atlanta had given me something for my birthday last year. He said, "You're going to need this one day." I remembered it was in a box in the cupboard in the garage. I got it out, ripped the cellophane off, opened it up, and thought, "Well, no way it's going to be charged." But when I turned it on, it had three out of four lights. Hallelujah. This thing had been in the garage for a year, and it came ready.
All you have to do is open the hood, stick one end on the black and one on the red, and voila. Car started.
This is what we're talking about today. God has the ability in Christ to bring the dead to life. He has the ability in Christ through his mercy and his grace to bring the spiritually dead to spiritual life. We didn't need just help. We needed resurrection. And that's the offer on the table today. Maybe for you it's not what you have in the envelope. Maybe it's what God has in the envelope. And maybe today's your day.
When we're brought from death to life and then brought through the trials of life, God doesn't take our scars away. Our scars become our testimony that tells the story of his grace and his mercy.
Our testimony is: I was dead, but God brought me to life. I didn't think I was going to make it, but guess what? I made it. I didn't think I would make it through that season, but I'm standing here right now by the grace of God. I made it through that season, and I'm not going to hide that or downplay that. I'm actually going to preach that from the rooftop because my scars are lifeboats to the world.
We even saw that with Jesus. He walked through the wall to the disciples who were huddled in fright and fear. One disciple said, "I'm not going to believe unless I see the wounds in his side and his hands and his feet." Jesus came through the wall—a resurrection body—but you could still see the scars on his forehead. You could still see the scars in his hands and feet and the scar in his side. He said to that disciple, "Touch it. Touch it."
What looked like his demise three days ago was now his testimony of victory. When he showed the scars, Thomas believed. The evidence of his death caused Thomas to believe in his resurrection life. The thorns hadn't won. The nails hadn't won. The spear did not win. The cross did not win. The grave did not win.
I wonder if there's anybody in this place today that's got a testimony of resurrection. Anybody got a resurrection testimony?
Resurrection is our ultimate destination, but that same power is in us now. Resurrection power is available to us right now.
Paul wrote to the Romans: "But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you."
Paul is thinking the long game here—the same way the spirit caused Jesus to come to life again, that same spirit is going to cause you to come to life again in the last day. But the same spirit who raised Christ from the dead is living in us if we're in Christ.
My daily expectation has got to elevate. It's got to go above and beyond the normal: I can't, it won't, he won't, I'm sure it won't, I know it won't.
We have the same spirit. The agent of the Trinity that raised Jesus out of the grave was the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is in us in Christ. So our prayers ought to have some above and beyond in them. Our faith should have some of that same power in it. Our thoughts about life and about where we're going, our ability to trust God with our lives should have some above and beyond.
Listen to Paul's mystery: "We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. Hallelujah. In a flash, just like that. In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory."
This is our destiny. This is our destination. This is what we have to look forward to. None of us are going to rot in a tomb. Our ashes are not going to stay scattered in the woods. But in the twinkling of an eye, in an instant, we are going to be raised up. And we're going to be clothed with immortality. Because resurrection is our story, and we are resurrection people. This is our hope.
Newton taught us about gravity and its power to pull everything down. Jesus taught us about resurrection and its power to propel us into the heavenly heights. This is our story. We are resurrection people.
Resurrection is our opportunity of kingdom investment. In other words, I can invest in someone else's resurrection moment.
The scripture says: "He or she who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord." You can loan God money. He has the heavenly currency. He's rich in grace and he's rich in mercy, but he doesn't have a lot of dollars on him. So he needs us to step into the story and say, "We just want to worship you. Use our dollars. Do you have a need? Is there someone that needs help? Use our dollars."
We also see that Hannah loaned her son to the Lord. Samuel. She lent him to the Lord, and for his entire life, he was lent to the Lord. Did you know you can loan your kids to God? You might say, "My kids don't want to be loaned to God." I know, but you have an override in your prayer and faith. You can say day after day, "God, they don't want to be loaned to you, but I loan them to you. I am lending them to the Lord. I am lending my very offspring to you to be a part of your kingdom purpose and kingdom plans. I'm not going to try to huddle them into the flock. I'm going to release them into your flock."
As evening approached, there was this rich man from Arimathea. What's his name? Joseph. Do you want to know that at the end of the day, heaven's going to know your name? Don't you want to live in such a way that when the story is finished and all the glory goes to God, somebody at least knew your name in the story?
How do we know Joseph's name? Well, the good thing about him is he had become a disciple of Jesus.
Going to Pilate, I wish we could preach a whole sermon here. A poor man probably couldn't go to Pilate and make this request. But Joseph of Arimathea had a reputation. He had standing in the community. He had prominence that allowed him the opportunity to knock on Pilate's door.
God has put you where you are in this moment in time for the very same reason. You may not be a rich man. Maybe God doesn't need a rich man in this moment. Maybe you don't have standing in the community. Maybe God doesn't need someone with standing in the community. He just needs somebody standing right where you're standing who is a disciple of Jesus, so that when the moment comes, you have the opportunity to do what only you can do.
I have a feeling that as dusk is coming and daylight is fading, Joseph of Arimathea was the one shot to get Jesus into this tomb. Thank God his hands were open.
"Pilate ordered that the body be given to him. And Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb. And he went away."
Did you know that you can loan God your tomb? He could have said, "Man, it's brand new. I'll stick a dead guy in there. We just got it finished. It's exactly the way we want it. It's pristine. It's amazing." No. He said, "Great. How long do you need it for?"
Then he overheard the authorities saying, "Hey, spread the word that they stole his body because he said in 3 days he was coming back to life again. So, put a guard out there at least till the third day."
Oh, you just need it for three days? I don't have to go carve out a new tomb because you only need it for three days. And then I'm getting it back again.
Come on. His story will forever be: Jesus was raised from the dead in my tomb. He was raised from the dead in my tomb.
The same tomb that, when the trumpet sounds, Joseph of Arimathea is going to be raised from the dead in the same tomb that Jesus was raised from the dead. Two people getting raised from the dead out of that tomb.
His bones are disintegrated by now. But God is going to—in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye—clothe him with immortality. And for all of eternity, we're going to know that guy right there. He's the one Jesus was raised from the dead in his tomb.
"I want to offer to God what I have so that he can bring resurrection in this world."
Because we are resurrection people, and we're in a resurrection story. Joseph even made it into a Hillsong worship song. "And they laid him down... in Joseph's tomb." All the glory goes to God. But Joseph made it into a worship song. All the praise goes to Jesus. But don't you just want to at least be mentioned, that you were a part of the process of proclaiming his glory to the nations?
I don't know what you need today. But I pray that as we consecrate our lives and celebrate his faithfulness, that you'll believe today that God makes dead things live.
He can bring your relationship back to life. He can bring your mental health and peace of mind back to life. He can bring your confidence and faith in him back to life. He can bring the intimacy that you once had with him back to life. He can bring your kids back home. He can work in your need of a miracle in your health.
God has power. God has all power to do exceedingly more than we could ask or think. If we watch him work, he's going to work all things together just like he said he would.
