2024.03.31 - People Of The Resurrection

2024..03.31 - Easter Message 

Thursday, March 28, 2024

2:16 PM

From the moment mankind was created and placed in the Garden of Eden to watch and keep it, the enemy of God and Man has attempted to steal, kill and destroy that which God holds most dear. Though most are not imprisoned by iron bars and rock walls, many remain in bondage, fearful, broken  and imprisoned in spiritual strongholds sometimes for decades . . .we need to be delivered  . . .

 

We find ourselves lost and undone and each of us comes to a place in time where we realize our weak and broken condition, and that the life we are living, if we can even call it that, is not what we dreamed it would be and certainly not what we know it could and should be - we .  We need our chains to be broken, our walls whether real or perceived that have been crafted by enemy  hands to come crashing down. We live desperate lives in hollowed out places that we may as well call open graves . . .We need to be set free . . .

 

Just like a caged bird that has forgotten his song we have succumbed to life as we know it and inside the the defeat and mediocrity we embrace  His praise, worship and testimony no longer springs from our lips. Hearts of flesh have turned to stone, broken lives begat broken lives, hurting inside from a wound we cannot find healing for we hurt others until an entire generation has forgotten what it feels like to walk in the flames of  His holy power . . .we need to be set on fire . . . 

 

God time and again has heard the cries of broken man - and answered.  Time and time again God has raised up and sent one after another, and though each had different names and seasons - they were sent for "such a time as this" as God's Chosen Deliverer. 

 

Israel had been in bondage for 400 years.  The were subject to cruel task masters with little time to worship The God of Their Fathers.  They cried out to God and He heard - His answer was the man called Moses . . . Drawn out, rescued . . . Have you been drawn out? Have you been rescued?

• o Exodus 9:1  Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. KJV
• • Moses came in a power like no other had known - he came to deliver The Words of God spoken by the mouth of God.  He was the messenger of the Great I AM!
• • These were not people who belong to Pharaoh as he supposed, the very word to Pharaoh held power because it announced ownership and authority - let MY people go 
• ♣ we do not need to go to God to get permission to do what God has already told us we can do!

 

Hundreds of years later another story unfolds . . . Lazarus has died.  He has been buried.  Hope was dead and buried with him.  There was nothing left to do but to cry and to mourn - until I AM showed up in flesh, God the Son, the Messiah, The First and the Last, THE RESURRECTION came to the tomb where the dead man lay. Then The Christ showed forth The Glory of God in His faith in His Father - John 11:43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth . 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. KJV

• o It has been said that had The Christ not called Lazarus by name that every dead person and thing that had died from the beginning of time would have come up out of the grave - 
• o Death could not hold Lazarus because Lazarus did not belong to death!  
• • we do not need to go to God to get permission to do what God has already told us we can do!

 

 

Luke 19:30-34

30 Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither.

31 And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him.

32 And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them.

33 And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt?

34 And they said, The Lord hath need of him. KJV

• o You have been bought with a price . . . 

 

Mark 16:15-18

15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world , and preach the gospel to every creature.

16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

18.They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. KJV

 

People who believe in the resurrection should be people of the resurrection. 

But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." Millions of Christians will celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus this weekend on

 

Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection

KJV