The Gift of Easter

March 23, 2008
EasterSunday

ReConnecting Week 4:
Acts 10:34-43 and Revelation 5:1-14

“By this gospel are you saved, if you believe...” – 1 Corinthians 15:1

My sermon outline:

• Josh McDowell story. Josh could not explain away the resurrection, the defining event in history.
Could not naturally explain dead man alive. Examined the other possibilities for an empty tomb and found them all lacking. Could not refute the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses.
Hundreds of OT verses that point to one man Jesus Christ being God’s supernatural means of salvation for a broken world.

• Transformation of disciples is greatest evidence for resurrection. It was the resurrection which transformed Peter’s fear into courage, Thomas’ doubt into faith. Sabbath into Sunday. Saul the Pharisee into Paul the apostle. Persecuting into preaching.

• People are changed even today, 2K years later...
God who makes all things new, who put all his fullness into one man Jesus Christ and through him to reconcile unto himself all things, by making peace through his blood, shed on a cross.

• ... because Christ rose from the grave and we take his living spirit into our own in communion... our eyes opened in the breaking of the bread.

• Hymn: In the Breaking of the Bread


- Pastor Kerry
This Sunday: xx in worship