Finding True Life Beyond Dead Places

Summary

Taking a moment to reflect on the message shared today, we find ourselves in the midst of a series inspired by the local Two-Step In festival, where we explore themes of life, purpose, and resurrection. The festival, much like our lives, is filled with music and celebration, yet it also serves as a backdrop to delve into deeper spiritual truths. We began by discussing the dissonance we often feel when we seek life in places that are inherently dead, much like the absurdity of hosting a wedding at Auschwitz. This dissonance is a reflection of our attempts to find purpose and peace in material wealth, status, or relationships, which ultimately leave us unfulfilled.

The Easter story from Luke 24 serves as a powerful reminder of where true life is found. The women who first discovered the empty tomb were initially filled with hopelessness and despair, much like many of us who feel lost in our daily lives. Yet, their encounter with the angels and the realization of Jesus' resurrection transformed their understanding. The angels' question, "Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?" challenges us to reconsider where we seek fulfillment and life.

In our pursuit of purpose, we often chase after the wrong things, influenced by societal norms and pressures. The resurrection of Jesus invites us to shift our focus from these dead places to the living hope found in Him. This Easter, we are called to bury the dead things in our lives—whether they be addictions, toxic relationships, or misplaced priorities—and to embrace the life that Jesus offers. By doing so, we align ourselves with the true source of life and purpose, finding peace and joy in the journey with Christ.

Key Takeaways:

1. Dissonance in Life: We often experience a sense of dissonance when we seek life in dead places, such as material wealth or status. This feeling is a sign that we are looking for fulfillment in the wrong areas, much like the absurdity of a wedding at Auschwitz. True life is found in Christ, not in the temporary and fleeting things of this world. [06:21]

2. The Significance of the Empty Tomb: The women who discovered the empty tomb were initially filled with despair, but their encounter with the angels transformed their understanding. This story reminds us that even in our darkest moments, there is hope and life in Jesus. We are invited to shift our focus from dead places to the living hope found in Him. [14:43]

3. Chasing the Wrong Things: Society often sells us the idea that purpose and peace are found in money, fame, or relationships. However, these pursuits often leave us empty. The resurrection of Jesus challenges us to reconsider where we seek fulfillment and to embrace the life that He offers. [23:05]

4. Burying the Dead: To truly experience life, we must bury the dead things in our lives, such as addictions, toxic relationships, or misplaced priorities. By doing so, we align ourselves with the true source of life and purpose, finding peace and joy in the journey with Christ. [32:04]

5. The Goal of Life: Much like mountain climbers who understand that the goal is not just reaching the summit but returning safely, we must focus on the journey with Christ rather than temporary achievements. True life is found in walking with Jesus, not in the dead places we often chase. [37:35]

Youtube Chapters:

- [00:00] - Welcome
- [06:21] - Dissonance in Life
- [09:50] - Introduction to Luke 24
- [11:36] - Significance of Women at the Tomb
- [14:43] - Encounter with the Angels
- [16:07] - Hopelessness and Despair
- [23:05] - Chasing the Wrong Things
- [30:00] - Forrest Fenn's Treasure
- [30:42] - Seeking Proof of Jesus
- [32:04] - Burying the Dead
- [33:52] - Byproducts of Death
- [35:17] - Walking Towards Life
- [36:52] - The Goal of Life
- [37:35] - Focus on the Journey
- [38:41] - Invitation to Life

Study Guide

Bible Study Discussion Guide

Bible Reading:
- Luke 24:1-7

---

Observation Questions:

1. What was the initial reaction of the women when they found the empty tomb, and how did their understanding change after encountering the angels? [14:43]

2. How does the sermon illustrate the concept of dissonance in life using the example of a wedding at Auschwitz? [06:21]

3. What societal norms and pressures are mentioned in the sermon that often lead people to chase after the wrong things for fulfillment? [23:05]

4. According to the sermon, what is the significance of the women being the first to discover the empty tomb? [11:36]

---

Interpretation Questions:

1. How does the question posed by the angels, "Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?" challenge our modern pursuits of fulfillment? [16:07]

2. In what ways does the resurrection of Jesus invite believers to shift their focus from "dead places" to a "living hope"? [14:43]

3. How does the sermon suggest that societal expectations, like the American Dream, contribute to the dissonance we feel in our lives? [23:05]

4. What does the sermon imply about the role of accountability and community in helping believers "bury the dead" things in their lives? [35:17]

---

Application Questions:

1. Reflect on a time when you felt dissonance in your life. What were you pursuing, and how did it leave you feeling unfulfilled? How can you redirect your focus towards Christ? [06:21]

2. The sermon mentions burying dead things such as addictions or toxic relationships. Identify one "dead thing" in your life that you need to let go of. What steps can you take this week to begin that process? [32:04]

3. Consider the societal pressures you face daily. How do they influence your pursuit of purpose and peace? What practical steps can you take to resist these pressures and focus on the life Jesus offers? [23:05]

4. The sermon highlights the importance of community and accountability. Do you have a group of people who support you in your spiritual journey? If not, what steps can you take to find or build such a community? [35:17]

5. Reflect on the Easter story and the transformation of the women at the tomb. How can their experience inspire you to find hope in seemingly hopeless situations? [14:43]

6. The sermon compares life to a treadmill, where we often feel like we're going nowhere. What is one area of your life where you feel stuck, and how can you invite Jesus into that situation to find true life? [23:05]

7. Think about the concept of focusing on the journey with Christ rather than temporary achievements. How can you shift your focus this week to prioritize your relationship with Jesus over worldly success? [37:35]

Devotional

Day 1: Seeking Life in Dead Places
In our lives, we often experience a sense of dissonance when we seek fulfillment in places that are inherently devoid of true life. This dissonance is akin to the absurdity of hosting a wedding at a place like Auschwitz, a location marked by death and despair. Many of us chase after material wealth, status, or relationships, believing they will bring us purpose and peace. However, these pursuits often leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled. True life and fulfillment are found in Christ, not in the temporary and fleeting things of this world. We are invited to reflect on where we are seeking life and to turn our focus towards the eternal hope found in Jesus. [06:21]

Jeremiah 2:13 (ESV): "For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

Reflection: What is one area in your life where you are seeking fulfillment in something temporary? How can you begin to shift your focus towards the eternal life found in Christ today?

Day 2: The Transformative Power of the Empty Tomb
The story of the women who discovered the empty tomb in Luke 24 is a powerful reminder of the hope and life found in Jesus. Initially filled with hopelessness and despair, their encounter with the angels transformed their understanding. The angels' question, "Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?" challenges us to reconsider where we seek fulfillment and life. Even in our darkest moments, there is hope and life in Jesus. We are invited to shift our focus from dead places to the living hope found in Him, allowing His resurrection to transform our understanding and bring us new life. [14:43]

Isaiah 26:19 (ESV): "Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead."

Reflection: In what ways have you experienced hopelessness and despair? How can the resurrection of Jesus transform your understanding and bring you hope today?

Day 3: Reconsidering Our Pursuits
Society often sells us the idea that purpose and peace are found in money, fame, or relationships. However, these pursuits often leave us empty and unfulfilled. The resurrection of Jesus challenges us to reconsider where we seek fulfillment and to embrace the life that He offers. We are called to examine our priorities and to align them with the true source of life and purpose found in Christ. By doing so, we can find peace and joy in the journey with Him, rather than chasing after the wrong things that ultimately leave us empty. [23:05]

Ecclesiastes 5:10 (ESV): "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity."

Reflection: What is one pursuit in your life that you have been chasing after, believing it will bring you fulfillment? How can you begin to realign your priorities with the life that Jesus offers?

Day 4: Burying the Dead Things
To truly experience life, we must bury the dead things in our lives, such as addictions, toxic relationships, or misplaced priorities. These things hold us back from experiencing the true life and purpose that Jesus offers. By letting go of these dead things, we align ourselves with the true source of life and purpose, finding peace and joy in the journey with Christ. This process requires intentionality and a willingness to let go of what is holding us back, trusting that God has something better in store for us. [32:04]

Colossians 3:5 (ESV): "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."

Reflection: What is one "dead thing" in your life that you need to let go of? How can you begin to take steps towards burying it and embracing the life that Jesus offers?

Day 5: Focusing on the Journey with Christ
Much like mountain climbers who understand that the goal is not just reaching the summit but returning safely, we must focus on the journey with Christ rather than temporary achievements. True life is found in walking with Jesus, not in the dead places we often chase. This journey requires us to keep our eyes fixed on Him, trusting that He will guide us and provide for us along the way. By focusing on the journey with Christ, we can find true fulfillment and purpose, knowing that He is with us every step of the way. [37:35]

Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV): "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

Reflection: What is one way you can focus more on your journey with Christ rather than temporary achievements? How can you keep your eyes fixed on Him in your daily life?

Quotes

1. "If you're just joining us for the first time last week We started a series called two-step in Because we in Georgetown have the two-step In festival I know we've got people that came In from out of town for Easter What does that mean well two-step in Is a festival about 35,000 People coming in to listen to country music From all different genres and so we decided To start this series called two-step in Where we're giving away some Two-step in festival tickets and all kinds Of other things and as we were making Our plans we started it and we thought Well Easter falls We're gonna do a little bit of a right in the middle of two-step and what do we do do we take a break and do we do we do just easter and then somebody said hey you know all of our sermons for this series are all titled after songs of people who are coming to two-step in and someone said well pat green has three days we're like well there's your easter sermon right there right like that makes sense and so so welcome if you go why do you have cacti and boots on the stage because we're uh getting ready for that coming so i was i think scott might have said earlier one of the values we have at city church one of our values is to be known we want people to have relationships we want people to have groups of people that they they get into the bible together with that they pray together that when the bottom of life falls out and you don't know what to do and it happens at two o'clock in the morning we call them 2 a.m friends that you can pick up a phone and you know people are going to show up because you've got a group of people who know you and are going to walk with you well we try to do that through small groups and this past sunday had a group of young adults meeting and i was helping get their small group launched and kind of the intro question is our first time meeting was they go around the circle tell everybody your name and tell everybody the most interesting place you've been we got about 10 young adults sitting in that small group and out of the 10 two different people's most interesting place was auschwitz in poland the famed concentration camp i thought that's crazy that in a group of eight to ten people two people have been there i just happened to be one of them and that was one of the most interesting places that i've been as well i got to go because of mission trips and taking some teenagers through and walk through auschwitz and i say if you've been realizing most people probably haven't it is a surreal experience you pull up in vehicles full of teenagers and they're laughing talking having a good time and and you get off the vehicles and you walk through the gates and all of a sudden the laughing and the joking and all of the fun kind of disappears like it goes away because you are you're on some hallowed ground is what it feels like if you don't know auschwitz over a million jews during world war ii" [00:01:39] (156 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

2. "were were killed murdered there at auschwitz and so as you walk through the gates and you walk through most of the barracks where people lived have been torn down or they were bombed there's a couple that are still standing and you can walk through those rooms and you can you can literally see and touch and feel the the bunk beds that eight nine people slept on at a time it's crazy you can walk through the gas chambers you can walk through not walk through but walk by the the incinerators where they burned bodies one of those times walking through that place we come through the gas chamber and it's it's it's kind of like ikea you start in and you got to go all the way there's no there's no ways around right you're once you're in you've got to follow the path whereas we're following the path there's about 10 or 12 jewish men and women and they are singing some old jewish songs and they are weeping and sobbing and this is 70 years after the fact and you walk in as american like having seen things this historical thing and here are these people having this moment and it just feels uncomfortable like it's it's hard and you kind of walk through and you go through surreal experience incredible experience powerful experience heavy experience you know one of the things that you don't see at auschwitz though and this is true first service kind of felt guilty about laughing and laughing about this but it's true like you know what you don't see at auschwitz you don't see people having weddings there right there's no one that's like you know hey we need a venue and someone goes well i know a place it's not booked very often uh you can probably get in for cheap you don't do that like it doesn't it doesn't even make sense because you're not putting something that is future focused and joy filled like a wedding in a in a venue or a place that is historical and about death and pain and suffering if you did like if you got invited to that you would have this feeling of dissonance like these things are going to go together you go that that's just weird and i feel it right if football season's around and you've got a group of friends and they're coming around and they're like hey" [00:04:14] (126 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

3. "When everybody come over, eight, nine guys, come over and watch the football game, and you show up with a six-pack of beer to the football game with all your friends, no one thinks different of that, right? That's normal, unless you grew up Baptist, then you've got to look around to see who else is there, right? You don't want to be caught there. But that's just normal, not dissonance there. But if you get invited to a six-year-old's, like, birthday party at the trampoline park, and you come sauntering through the door with your six-pack of beer, like, what's up, everybody? That feels uncomfortable, right? Like, that's really not, like, six-year-old birthday parties and alcohol, they don't really go together, right? You would feel that dissonance. You'd feel those two parties that don't go together kind of clashing. Now, unfortunately, those things, you think about a wedding in Auschwitz, like that, like, we feel it. Because you don't look for life among dead things, right? You don't look for life in dead things. If you go, hey, six-year-old, alcohol, like, yeah, it doesn't go together. You feel that. But for a lot of us, we have that dissonance. We have those two unlikely parties clashing in our lives every day, and we actually feel the dissonance. We just haven't been able to, like, put our finger on what that feeling is. Let me give you just one of about a thousand examples it could be." [00:06:21] (75 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

6. "Those are great places to start reading if you haven't read your Bible. Great places to start. They tell the story of Jesus. And then the last part of the New Testament is letters to churches of how you and I can live out the teachings of Jesus. So when you go to Luke chapter 24, we are in what we call the Gospels, the stories of Jesus. And let me give you the context of what's happened. It's the very end. Jesus has had his ministry, three plus years of walking, teaching, healing people, doing miracles. His disciples follow him, gathering a crowd of people who are interested in seeing more about who he is. Unfortunately, all that interest has drawn ire from the religious leaders. They arrest him. on Thursday night of this week that we celebrate. And on early mornings of Friday morning, he's beaten. He's got a crown of thorns pressed onto his head. He's hit with rods. He's spit upon. He's flogged, a cat of nine tails, whipping across his back 39 times, most likely. He carries a cross, and on Friday morning, he's crucified. You've seen the pictures and paintings and things. A nail, not driven through his hands, but driven through his wrists, driven through his legs, and he's left on the cross, and he dies a death of suffocation. That's how he died on the cross. They take his body off Friday before sunset." [00:09:50] (77 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

7. "They put him inside a borrowed tomb of someone else, a man named, I forgot his name now, put him in a borrowed tomb. Saturday, nobody can do anything because it's the Sabbath, and the Jews can't work on Sabbath. And so Sunday morning, early in the mornings, first they can do something. Some ladies come to the tomb, and here's where we pick up the story. Luke 24, verse 1 through 7. We're just going to read a couple. We're just going to read a couple verses at a time. Verses 1 says this. But very early on Sunday morning, the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. We're going to stop there. We're going to keep going. We're going to stop there because this is very significant. It's significant that Luke tells us as he's telling the story about Jesus being resurrected that women are the first people to show up at the scene. It's significant for a couple reasons. One, if you are Luke, and you are telling a story that you believe is the most life-changing story of all times, if you think that this story has the power to change the world and you want everybody to know it and you want everybody to believe it, in first-century Roman life, in first-century Jewish context, you don't have women as the star of the show. I mean, Jesus is the star of the show, obviously, but you don't have them as the first ones there because in their culture, women were considered second-class citizens." [00:11:07] (84 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

8. "Women's testimony wasn't even valid in conversation, course of law, things like that. And so to... When Luke says, hey, there were women that showed up on the scene, what we know is Luke isn't trying to spin a narrative. Luke isn't going, hey, this is really cool. Let me get everybody to know this, and I want it to be powerful. He's just simply giving the facts. He's just telling us what happened, that women were the first one to show up on the scene. Here's why else it's significant. Because we see throughout Scripture the way that God works. At his birth, the people that heard first were the shepherds who had no social clout. They weren't people of importance. And then at the resurrection, women who, again, were considered second classes are the first people that the message is given to. Because God, through the beginning of time, loves people. He sees people who other people don't see, and he meets them there. You'll hear people say, they'll talk about the Bible as like, oh, the Bible is this anti-women book. And I tell you, if you start reading the New Testament, you understand the culture and the context of what's happening. The New Testament is anything but above. A book or a collection of stories that holds women down. They actually lift women up. Because Jesus loved men and women equally. And I love this part of the story. That we see women who didn't have a voice are the first person to give a voice about the resurrected Jesus. Verse 3 says, So they went, but they didn't find the body of the Lord Jesus." [00:12:38] (91 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

9. "As they stood their puzzle, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. So I want you to just kind of put yourself in their shoes for a second. Because we know the story. We know how the story ends. We know in a few seconds, the tomb's empty, Jesus is alive, this isn't your first Easter. If it is, I'm sorry I just spoiled it for you. But I'm just assuming most of us have the spoiler alert already, right? So we knew that. But when they come, they don't know that. They come with the terror of Friday right behind them, the crucifixion, and seeing their Lord, seeing the great teacher, seeing the one who they thought was going to be a political king that would change their life, crucified. And Saturday they sat in silence because they couldn't do anything. They just sat there and let the depression sink in. Let the fear of what comes next sink in. And on Sunday morning they get up and as they are headed to the tomb, even though we're going to find out in a second Jesus told them he would be resurrected, they're coming with burial tools. They're coming to embalm the body. They're coming expecting that the story has ended. The chapter's closed. We thought this was it. We put all of our hopes in Jesus. We put all of our hopes in this. And we thought that this was going to be the game changer for everything. But we watched him die and we watched him buried. And we've just been waiting to kind of close the door. So they walk in. These ladies come with a sense of hopelessness." [00:14:02] (88 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

Chatbot

Transcript

What was the most surprising thing in this sermon?

Were there any personal stories shared?