Resurrection Victory: Freedom from Sin, Satan, and Death

It becomes this quaint little thing that we do once a year, and we sing nice little songs and smile and clap. But, ultimately, I think it becomes almost meaningless. Yay. Jesus rose from the grave. Who cares? This is actually as a result of the cross and the resurrection that Jesus breaks the power of sin in the world. He undermines the work of the devil, upends the finality of death. Right? Easter is actually the moment when Jesus is declared the victor or the victorious one over the things that actually haunt human life in the worst moments. [00:24:42] (47 seconds)

That fundamentally, a life built upon the self in a culture of optimization is a very fragile existence. It's why the rates of anxiety are skyrocketing, why depression is so common. The self was never designed to bear the burden of its own worth. What Jesus does, actually, to break the power of sin is that when we trust in him, we are actually welcomed by a gracious father. It's not this manual of, like, did you do enough? The father, because of Jesus, welcomes us, and he says, you are beloved in my eyes. [00:36:49] (54 seconds)

the truth is Jesus' victory over death isn't just limited to the last moments of life on earth. The author, of Hebrews writes this, that Jesus' resurrection, death and resurrection, deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Wait. What? Jesus' victory over death isn't just about eternal life after you die. It is about life now. You see, death isn't just about, in the biblical narrative, in the biblical imagination, life after physical death. Death represents sort of ultimate loss of control and powerlessness. [00:49:12] (56 seconds)

It's not a long list of all the things you need to do to earn the father's love. No. No. No. You turn to Jesus. Jesus says, oh, I love you and welcome you. We are called beloved before we've done anything. And what this does is then gives us this deep sense of freedom to live in the world because we don't need to earn anything. We're beloved before we even begin. And then God, what he does, he gives us the spirit of grace so that God works inside us, and we become these new creations. [00:37:42] (53 seconds)

The biblical narrative says that the power behind all this that keeps us trapped in these cycles is sin. Right? Sin isn't just the behavior that bad people do sometimes. It's the power, the inward turn, this thing that keeps us stuck, keeps us unable to change the things that we really want to change. And this is actually where the resurrection comes in. It's actually because Jesus is raised from the dead that he is able to break the power of sin. [00:31:43] (40 seconds)

And death? Oh, I just think there's, like, general agreement in Western American culture that we just don't talk about it. Like, or outside the church, death is just one of those topics. It's kind of a downer. We don't really wanna face the fact that every human being in this room will die. We don't wanna talk about the loss or the powerlessness, the sadness, the pain. So, yeah, like, sin, Satan, and death don't really match with the pastel coloring of Easter morning. And yet, I think when we avoid topics like sin and Satan and death, I think we actually strip the resurrection of almost all of its power. [00:23:58] (44 seconds)

Because actually the devil's primary tactic these days is to get you to not believe in God. And the best way to get you to not believe in God is also to not signal, hey, I'm here. Actually, I think what the devil wants us to do is to doubt the goodness of God. I think if you actually if you go back to that whole snake in the garden thing, like, what does the snake actually do? It asks questions to sow doubt, to get Adam and Eve to trust in themselves, the inward turn, rather than the word of God spoken to them. And what we start to see then is that Jesus' victory over sin is intimately connected to Jesus' victory over Satan. [00:42:02] (56 seconds)

But again, this isn't like just some, you know, self help project. Like, Jesus rescues you, then he gives you a manual on, like, how to hack the good life. I I just feel like it's often the case when I encounter Christians that their assumption of what it means to be a good Christian is that, like, there's some sort of, like, good person. They maybe attend church and read the bible. But can I just say really clearly, if that's, like, in your Overton window of why you attend church, I just wanna say, that is actually not the gospel? That's actually just good advice on how to live. [00:32:42] (39 seconds)