The Great Exchange: Jesus' Resurrection and Our New Life

"Certainly his resurrection is worth celebrating. If you have never had the opportunity to really take some time and dig back into the historical documentation of the resurrection of Jesus, may I deeply encourage you to do that at some point in your life. I have had the honor and privilege of navigating those waters a multitude of times over the decades, and every time I go back and look at the historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, it literally blows my mind." [00:00:56]

"The question we're asking today is not whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. If you dig into that, you will walk away kind of mind-blown. What we are asking today is why is it such a big deal that he did? Why do we celebrate Jesus in this place in the way that we do together? Because if it is simply his resurrection that we celebrate, that would certainly instill a great deal of awe, would it not?" [00:01:38]

"Our awe for Jesus, our celebration of Jesus, is not simply about his resurrection. It is about what that resurrection represents and what it means for us that he has done. We sang today, 'Praise the Lord for he paid my debt and rose my life back from the dead.' It's odd, isn't it? We're here to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, but we're here to sit in gratitude of our own resurrection, that we were once dead and he has made us alive." [00:02:39]

"The Bible does not actually talk about sin in those terms primarily. The behaviors are a part of the reality of sin, but what sin actually is, is a thing, a terrible thing that enters into our story. Listen to how it's written about in the book of Romans chapter 5. Paul, again the same one that wrote Ephesians, writes this: 'Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all mankind because all sinned.'" [00:05:30]

"Death is interesting because when we think about death, same thing, we don't equate death to all of the suffering and difficulty and struggle that we experience. We equate death to an event, but actually the progression toward death, the growing death in us, is this journey toward the suffering that we experience in our everyday life. We taste of the journey toward death, of the consequence of this thing entering into us throughout our life." [00:06:43]

"Sin produces suffering and death, and sin produces the need for justice against it. Do you understand what I'm saying? If something is evil, what do we all hope happens against evil? Justice. That somebody good would come in and take care of the evil. God is going to do that. He says that he is justice, and he will come and he will destroy what is evil, this virus sin." [00:11:42]

"Jesus enters in as the one who is justice, the creator and sustainer of the universe, the one who made this all. God enters into our story, and he does an extraordinary thing. We discover through scripture that he lives his life on this planet, and then he enters in what we say to pay for our sin. What does that mean? To take our sin. You see, we think often of sin as an issue of forgiveness because it's behaviors that are bad." [00:13:07]

"What Jesus does is comes to take onto himself the virus of sin and all of its consequences for you and me so that we can be free of the virus sin and all of its consequences. What does that mean? Well, the Bible actually uses this language again. The language is extraordinary. Listen to this: it says he, Jesus himself, bore or absorbed or took on our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness or life." [00:14:42]

"Jesus paid for our sin is that he took those two terrible consequences of sin: our suffering at the hand of sin, that is, what we suffer at the hands of others, what we suffer at the hands of just brokenness, disease, and terrible things, and what we suffer internally—anxiety, confusion, fear, depression—all the things that haunt us every day. All that suffering, if you cumulatively collect that into your entire lifetime and then you add to that the entire lifetime of every other human and all their suffering." [00:15:22]

"Jesus took into himself the full experience and weight of that suffering, except that he did it not just for me, but he did it for every single person that engages in his story. So listen to this, this is crazy. If you could theoretically, if I could theoretically imagine what it might be like to endure not just the full extent of my lifetime of suffering, the full extent of my lifetime of the suffering I affect on others." [00:17:40]

"Jesus didn't just hand us something; he took something from us, and he bore it for us. What did he take? Death, the virus of sin and death, and he had the capacity to experience the fullness of the full capacity of sin and suffering and the full capacity of God's wrath, and he was able to take that and withstand the onslaught of something unendurable so that you and I wouldn't have to." [00:22:47]

"When the perishable, that's you and me, puts on the imperishable, that's Christ, and when the mortal puts on the immortal, that's us in Christ, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is death, but thanks be to God who gave us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." [00:23:25]

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Do you notice that? What do you and I have to do? We have to say, 'Uh-oh, I'm in trouble. I can't do this. I need you to exchange death for life for me,' and he says, 'Done, done, it'll happen.' And then he says this: 'For with the heart one believes and is justified.'" [00:26:03]

"Do not be like our ancestors were to say, 'I got this. I can figure this out. I can manage my own internal realities of anxiety and confusion and difficulty and struggle. I can handle anything that comes my way. I can do what needs to be done, and if I die and there is something after this, then I will be good enough. I will present, I will argue, I'm a great debater. I'll tell God how it's done.' You cannot." [00:27:20]

"If you are here today and you are, uh, you've been a part of this church or you're visiting and you have never actually said, 'Jesus, I believe you are who you said you were. I want the great exchange. I want your life for my death, please. I want the transfusion. I cannot do this. I am afraid of my eternal future, afraid of the journey forward. I want life, please give it to me.' If you have never done that, we want you to do that today." [00:28:39]