Easter Not Divinely Instituted The Passover meal not

Easter: Not Divinely Instituted • The Passover meal: not Christ’s resurrection. • Jesus said: “Do THIS in remembrance of Me. ” Lk. 22: 19 So, why preach on Christ’s resurrection on “Easter Sunday” when there is no biblical directive to do so?

Purpose of Any Sermon • Preaching the resurrected Christ is not limited to 51 weeks out of the year. (truth is valid everyday) • Many only worship God on this day: reach them where they are at. cp. 1 Cor. 9: 19 -23 • Preach out of love for souls… not in fear of judgment by others. cp. Matt. 11: 17 -19

Ancestral Faith in a BODILY RESURRECTION!

By The Time of Christ • The Sadducees rejected the idea of the dead being raised. Matt. 22: 23 • In doing so they denied the divine scriptures and the prophets who spoke by faith. Isaiah 26: 19; Daniel 12: 2; Job 19: 25 -26; Hebrews 11: 35 (1 Ki. 17: 22; 2 Ki. 4: 32 -35)

The Power of God’s Promise CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

Jesus Promised/Executed • Jesus believed and taught about the resurrection of the dead. Lk. 14: 12 -14; Lk. 20: 27 -36; Jn. 5: 28 -29 • He taught His own resurrection. Jn. 2: 19 -22 • He was in fact raised from the dead. Jn. 2: 22

He Showed Himself Raised! • Jesus appeared to His disciples. Jn. 20: 19, 26; 21: 14 • So many witnessed His resurrection! 1 Cor. 15: 1 -8

The Hope of our Faith CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

God Promised – Disciples Expect It • Ours is not a wish but an expectation we anxiously await. cp. Heb. 6: 13 -20 (11: 8 -10); Heb. 11: 35 Rev. 20: 6 - Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Believers Sacrificing Their Lives Because of CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

Genuine Conviction of the Resurrection. Of Paul – “Then he decided to change his name to Paul, join his enemies, throw away his reputation, authority, wealth, social standing, and every other thing he had worked for his entire life in favor of traveling thousands of brutal miles and willingly subjecting himself to lashings, beatings, to the brink of death, stonings, shipwrecks, starvation, dehydration, and years of imprisonment, all so he could tell poepple that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world. ”* 2 Cor. 11: 22 -33

Evidence in your life through CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

Genuine Conviction Through Y 0 UR LIFE. Is this said of you? – “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. ” Romans 6: 3 -4

Conclusion • He didn’t write a single book or song: yet more books and songs have been written about JESUS than any person in world history. • He was born with humbled circumstances yet declared by millions as the “king of kings”. • He was just a single person yet has influenced untold masses from every corner of the planet.

What Made All This Possible? CHRIST’S RESURRECTION