Introduction

Learning how to walk away from a pointless confrontation when you know you’re right may be the hardest lessons in life—in fact, it’s a lesson some people never learn! I said to Ben this week, “Son, you don’t always have to get the last word!”

We always want to get the last word, don’t we? Most of the time, it’s not important, but on the rare occassion, it’s extremely important. And never has it been more important than on the day Jesus rose from the dead.

Friday night, we talked about how Jesus was the Second Adam, come to do what Adam, Eve, or any of their children could not do.

Good Friday is all about what Martin Luther called “The Great Exchange”

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

We’re going to continue that theme this morning, but with a glorious twist: if Good Friday means The Great Exchange, then Easter is all about…

The Great Reversal

The resurrection wasn’t a suspension of the natural order of the world, but the beginning of the restoration of the natural order of the world, the world as God intended it to be.

Tim Keller

New Creation

Firstfruits

Spring, beautiful, first pear trees, then redbuds, dogwood, promise of new life.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith
is worthless; you are still in your sins.

1 Corinthians 15:17

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.

So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.

1 Corinthians 15:20–23

1. Sin doesn’t get the last word.

The Curse

• Adam: No more thorns.
• Eve: No more pain in childbirth (or after, raising those children!)
• Both: No more death!
• Serpent: His head crushed…

He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found

Isaac Watts, Joy to the World

In Your Life

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven… and just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:47, 49

Being transformed more and more into the image of the second image. It’s gonna happen. How do I know? Because Jesus rose from the dead.

1. Sin doesn’t get the last word.

2. Satan doesn’t get the last word.

On Friday, it looked like he did. But in reality, he was made to look like a fool.

Disarming the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:15, NET

SATAN: “Ohhh, nooooo! No, no, no, no, no!”

1. Sin doesn’t get the last word.
2. Satan doesn’t get the last word.

3. Pain doesn’t get the last word.

• physical pain
• mental pain
• relational pain
• cultural pain
• spiritual pain

The point of Easter is that God is in the
process of clearing this world of all heartbreak.

John Piper

Not fake, pastel colors, bright eggs, and chocolate

Easter is not an occasion to repress whatever ails you and put on a happy face. Rather, the joy of Easter speaks tenderly to the pains that plague you. Whatever loss you lament, whatever burden weighs you down, Easter says, “It will not always be this way for you. The new age has begun. Jesus has risen, and the kingdom of the Messiah is here. He has conquered death and sin and hell. He is alive and on his throne. And he is putting your enemies, all your enemies, under his feet.”

David Mathis, The Triumph of Joy

It does not mean all the tears have been dried, but it does mean the tears have been defeated. Just as surely as Christ has wiped away every one of our sins, so will he one day wipe away every one of our tears.

Tony Reinke, Our Tears Are Being Undone

1. Sin doesn’t get the last word.
2. Satan doesn’t get the last word.
3. Pain doesn’t get the last word.

4. Death doesn’t get the last word.

We talked about this Friday night, how God warned Adam that if he chose to not trust God’s goodness, if he failed to obey in faith, he would surely die. It’s not so much a threat of punishment as a explanation of reality:

• God is the essence and originator of everything that is good;
  so when you walk away from Him, all that’s left is evil.

• Only in His presence will we find lasting peace and joy;
  so w/o it, there’s nothing to find but fear & pain.

• God is the giver of life itself;
  w/o Him, of course we shall surely die.

So what’s God’s solution?

To write Himself into the story, to send His Son into the world…

not to condemn the world, but
to save the world through Him.

John 3:17

How?

1. The cross, restoring God’s presence once more.
2. The resurrection, defeating death itself.

Easter is The Great Reversal.

So what does this actually mean for our lives? I think most Christians would have an easier time describing what the cross accomplished for them than what the resurrection did.

1. I’ve already been resurrected.

Born in Adam, born spiritual dead.

In baptism, buried with Christ, raised to walk in newness of life.

The Great Reversal of you, from death to live.

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

Colossians 2:12-13, NLT

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus

Ephesians 2:4–6

Past tense—it’s already happened!

“Christ is risen! ・ He is risen indeed!”
“You have died! ・ I have been raised with Christ!”

When we claim that we are even now God’s children, that God is growing us up into obedience, and that we are already justified, what we are saying in part is that the future laid up for us in the resurrected Christ is intruding on the present.

In the mystery of God’s economy, the fact that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees our future resurrection means that our present lives already bear signs of the future.

J.R. Daniel Kirk

Christ is designated as the Inaugurator of the new humanity. ::[Herman Ridderbos]

2. Sin has no power over me.

Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin… So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.

Romans 6:4-7, 11-13

The Great Reversal of the power of sin.

In the mystery of God’s economy, the fact that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees our future resurrection means that our present lives already bear signs of the future.

3. Things are going to get better.

Easter means hope.

The glass is half-full, and getting fuller.

Tom Wright

The resurrection means not merely that Christians have a hope for the future, but that we have hope that comes from the future.

Tim Keller

Jesus went to the cross for joy: to buy joy, create joy, and offer joy.

Tony Reinke

This life is not all there is (talk more about this next week). Live in light of eternity.

Tomorrow’s hope determines today’s decisions.

4. I should live like this is really true.

The resurrection of Christ creates a bridge between two worlds—the everyday world in which we exist and a better and brighter world of the Christian hope.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:58

The resurrection means that we have the task of proclaiming, embodying, and demonstrating before the world exactly what this new creation is and what it looks like. In other words, resurrection means mission.

His resurrection should fill His people with a confidence that is not based upon things getting better, or men fixing everything. Our confidence should rest in the power of the gospel.

In Christ, we are truly the people of the New World Order; the people of a New Age, a New Heaven and New Earth, a New Israel, a New Kingdom, a New Jerusalem, a New Sanctuary, and of a New Inheritance!

Wade Trimmer

Our presence in the world is like the first rays of light after a long night of darkness. We are like the first spots of grass peeking out above the snowfall and signaling the end of a long winter. We are to live now in light of the future God has promised.

Trevin Wax, Christians: The Foretaste of God’s New Creation