Easter Sunday Changes Everything

30 years ago, this year, I began theological study at Mauling Baptist College.

And one of the lecturers I had there was a man called Ross Clifford.

He had been a lawyer and became a Baptist pastor, and then a lecturer, and he taught me theology.

He then became the principal of the college in 97, and he's been a principal there for 25 years plus, and he's taught my son Ben Theology the last few years, and Ben's one of the pastors at our church.

Ross is a busy guy.

And when I reflected on some of the stuff he's been up to, he's an internationally published author, an expert in defending the faith as an apologist, explaining Christianity to people who have questions.

He's an expert in all of that.

But the one thing that I think he is most well known about is a passion for proclaiming the truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

There's no one on the planet, honestly, that I would rather preach at this church than Ross.

And very quickly, he will not talk about himself.

He'll be talking about Jesus.

So I'm making a bit of a fuss about Ross, but he will fade into the background.

But there's no one you want to hear speak about the power of the resurrection more than Ross Clifford.

So would you give him a warm welcome?

Thanks, Ross.

Good morning, everyone.

What do I do after that, John?

I mean, it's set up.

It's a delight to be with you on Easter Sunday.

Fantastic, isn't it?

And thank you for Ben leading the worship, and everyone who's shared in the service today.

This is my first time in the new church.

So, it's just a delight to see Hornsby Baptist NorthernLife and the development it's taking.

Let me just pray.

Father, we thank you for Jesus.

We thank you for the fact that he is risen.

We thank you for what that means to our everyday life and being.

And Father, if we don't know the risen Christ, I would pray that today, we would leave this place as followers of the risen Jesus.

And Lord, for those who know him, may we afresh walk in his steps and sing his praises.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

I'm a little bit not on top of my game this morning, because yesterday I went out to see the swans.

Now, I thought we had it, and I still don't know how we lost it.

And I thought I might even wear my scarf this morning, but I thought, no, I can't do that.

Now, I started following the swans when my Rugby League team, the Bears, were disenfranchised.

And they had the audacity to say, you're actually going to join with Manly.

Oh, well, that was the end.

And then with half the North Shore, I headed off to watch the swans.

I thought, well, that's it, I'm going to watch another code.

Now, I determined with my mates that we know about Rugby League and Rugby Union and all those things, but we know nothing about this game.

So it'll be our postmodern game.

We wouldn't try to analyse it, wouldn't try to figure it out, it'll just be kind of a game that's there for us.

And we'd cheer when everybody cheered, and we'd boo when everybody booed, and that's the way I've lived the game.

And, you know, I know to cheer when there's one point or six points, I've got no idea what they're doing with that ball in the middle and the ruck or whatever, but when they boo, I boo, when they cheer, I cheer.

Now, the funny thing is that I've come back to Rugby League.

The team I follow is the Sharks, because, like Jono, who was in the Sutherland Shire, ministering.

And I still go to Club Rugby.

I won't go to the Waratahs, sorry, but I still go to Club Rugby, because that's the game I played.

And my grandchildren play soccer, and my son-in-law was a professional soccer player, so soccer is very much part of our life as well.

So it's Aussie Rules, Rugby League, Rugby Union, soccer.

Aussie Rules, I have no idea of what the rules are.

Don't know what its doctrine, but I sing its song and cheer all the time.

Now, if the Lord of the Swannies comes back tonight, am I one of them?

I don't really get its doctrine.

I'm mucking around in all sorts of other worlds, but I love it.

If the Lord of the Swannies came back tonight, am I one of them?

Friends, that's how Australians do spirituality today.

A little bit of Christianity, a little bit of something else.

Might not quite understand that doctrine, a little bit of something there, perhaps here, a bit of Buddhism, self-help, a whole collection of beliefs.

See, it's not that Australians are becoming less and less spiritual.

They're simply becoming less and less Christian.

Now, we shouldn't give up hope, because in my world, if someone's asking questions and open to spirituality, that's a wonderful place to be.

The worst thing is that they're asking nothing.

And of course, the recent survey that came out this week showed that 15% of Australians still go to church at least once a month.

And any other organisation would give their right arm for that.

Even though it's dropped from 21% a couple of years ago, 15% is still fantastic.

So, there's a lot to build on.

But what's the message?

What's the message in this world in which we live?

Well, the world of Jesus was very similar.

Smorgasbord of ideas.

People following all sorts of different gods.

All sorts of value systems.

And when we come and look at scripture, when we come and look at the early preaching of the church, when we go through the Book of Acts and see all the messages that were given as the people went out and shared the gospel, what do we discover?

We discover, thank you, that as we read, every sermon at least touches the resurrection.

Thanks, mate.

Every sermon deals with the resurrection.

It's extraordinary.

There is not one message the early church gave that didn't declare he is risen.

There's all sorts of other important messages that were involved, but there's only one message the church always shared and wouldn't open its mouth unless that message was declared, and that message is, he is risen.

In fact, the Apostle Paul goes on in chapter 15 and saying, we'll look in a few moments, if that is not true, then your faith is futile.

There is no Christian church.

There is no NorthernLife.

There is no Moreland College.

I was speaking at a grammar school, Year 11s, which I do around Easter time, and one young man put his hand up in the Q&A time, and very respectful, and he said to me, Well, you know, I'm not quite sure what this really means for me.

Why should I really get concerned about the resurrection?

And I made the mistake of asking the question you don't know an answer to, but I thought I'd get away with it.

I said, Do you like this school?

Do you like this Christian school?

And the headmaster and teachers around him, he said, Yeah, look, we love it.

Really love the school, all that it offers.

Well, if Jesus is not risen, the school wouldn't exist.

He said, Biggie, partner?

There wouldn't be this school if Jesus isn't risen.

Jesus would be lucky to be a line, a line in the page of history.

Now, most Australians operate when they consider faith and big questions.

They have two things they want to ask.

The first one is, is it true?

Then they want to ask, does it work?

Is it true?

Does it work?

Now, depending on who you are, if you're kind of a tough minded kind of person, you'll tend to come from, is it true?

If you tend to be a bit more tender hearted, you tend to come from, does it work?

Well, in one Corinthians chapter 15, which I think is one of the most significant chapters in the scriptures, the Apostle Paul addresses both.

The resurrection of Jesus, both is true, and it works.

And it works.

What other understanding of the world can you say that of?

So let's ask the question, is it true?

So what's the impact of the resurrection?

Well, when you look at is it true, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 17, if you have your Bibles open, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 17, you will see that Paul writes, if Christ has not been risen, hasn't rose from the dead, you are still in your sins.

Think about it.

If the message ended on Good Friday, that was it.

And if the story went out, oh, you know, he's still a great guy to follow and all this kind of thing, and there's a sense of forgiveness in this Jesus who died upon the cross, you and I would still be in our sins.

Paul says he was raised for our justification, our being declared right before God.

How does that work out?

Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, took all of our sin upon a cross, and because he rose from the dead, it's God's divine yes, that there is no sin, no sin amongst the billions of people that have ever lived, there is no sin too big for this Jesus.

Think about the cross, the agony, the desperation, the sense of being forsaken.

Why?

The sins of billions of people, darkness, all that you can imagine was upon him at that time.

But he arose to say every sin is defeated in me.

Glorious.

Scott Peck, who is the leader of the self-help movement, in fact, he basically started the self-help movement, and he wrote a book called The Road Less Travelled, and then he was kind of a Zen Buddhist.

But he wrote another book called Further Along the Road Less Travelled, where Scott Peck says, I've committed my life to Jesus.

What turned him around?

He's a psychoanalyst, self-help guru, writer.

What turned Scott Peck around?

Well, he said, I came to the conclusion, from my experience with people in my writing and whatever, that sin is a problem for every individual and every aspect of society.

And I discovered in Christianity two truths.

In Jesus, there was a remedy for sin, and in Jesus, sin was taken seriously.

You see, if Jesus has been raised from the dead, there's no need for a resacrifice.

Remember in the old days, you know, the priest would have to go in every year and keep on sacrificing.

Why?

Because the sins kept mounting up.

Then they'd do it again, another sacrifice, another...

It's done.

No more sacrifice.

One of the students I'm very pleased with at the moment is a guy called AJ.

AJ is in prison, and so it's not unusual to have a prisoner doing his studies, but, you know, it creates a bit of an interest.

AJ was tried for murder and it was a hung jury.

Why is John Raman waiting for the next trial?

AJ has no Christian background or commitment, is picked up a Gideon's Bible and read the words, the truth will set you free.

Had no idea what that meant.

No context of Jesus.

So the surprise of his barrister and everybody else, at the retrial, he actually said, I'm guilty.

Not because he actually did the act, but he knew those who were associated with doing the act.

He was the heavy for a number of gangs in Sydney.

He found a chaplain in jail.

They explained to him what the truth will set you free means, and AJ was converted through the words, the truth will set me free.

Not only is he converted, they are running services in the jail outside of Sydney.

I have met graduates, if you like, from the jail who AJ has ministered to, and have responded to the gospel, and these people are now doing double degrees at Macquarie University and whatever.

AJ, there is no sin too big for God to forgive.

We live in a world that's looking for forgiveness.

We live in a world that's really down by guilt.

The thing that stands apart from us and every other religious expression is grace.

Nothing is too big for this God.

Nothing.

But not only that, He cares for the whole person.

When you look at verse 20, you'll see that Jesus is the first fruits.

As it was for Jesus, so it will be for us, says Paul.

Think about it.

If you're a farmer and I'm not, you know the first fruits tell you what the crop is going to be like.

Well, in the biblical sense, Jesus is the first fruits.

How he was resurrected shows what it's going to be like for us.

As it was for him, so it will be for us.

Jesus is the first fruits of what it means to be people who follow Jesus and to live in eternity.

Now, when you go to a MindBuddy Spirit Festival, which I love going to, and you interact and you have stalls and interact with people from all different religious persuasions and traditions, and try to make everybody feel good and self-help, what you discover that basically every other non-Israel-based view of the world is that when I die, my soul or spirit is somehow released, and I go into another existence, whatever that might be, or I'm reincarnated.

In other words, my body doesn't count.

My body is just a vehicle for who I am to be in the eternity.

Well, no.

Jesus is the first fruits.

As it was for him, so it will be for me.

We are resurrection people.

We believe that we spend eternity as resurrection people.

As we read, transformed and changed, but all of Ross Clifford goes to be with God.

Not part of me, all of me, all of me.

And that means, if that's my vision for the future, that means that God's concerned for the all of me now.

He's concerned about my university exams.

He's concerned about my health.

He's concerned about all that takes place in my life, because all of me is what God is raising up.

You don't find that message anywhere else.

We're holistic.

That's why we've been the forefront of education, hospitals.

Tim Costello said to me the other day that he believes that up to 95% of charities in Australia, NGOs, were begun by Christians.

The RSPCA was begun by Christians, all of creation.

Wilberforce, slavery.

We are concerned for the whole person because of the resurrection.

And not only that, are we concerned for the whole person.

We oppose non-person status.

Think about it.

If I am important to God as a whole person, the resurrection declares that is uniform across all of humanity.

That's why, if you look at the resurrection accounts, who is it who sees Jesus die upon the cross?

Who is it that sees that Jesus is buried?

Who is it who are the first witnesses to the empty tomb?

Who?

The women.

The men are hiding.

The women.

And this Jewish historian, Lepid, says, I mean, women couldn't give testimony to the court of law in those days.

If you were going to invent this, you would have made sure it was Peter and his mates or somebody.

There would have been a male-based testimony.

No, it's women.

A ring of truth, but more than that, it's a declaration that those who did not have capital in those days are seen as the prime witnesses to the fact that he is dead, buried, resurrected.

All people are covered by this wholeness.

All people, children, who are seen as shadows, suffer little children to come unto me.

This many feel, Christian and otherwise, is the first universal declaration of human rights.

The Greek world, the Jewish world, the Roman world didn't know this.

They were the elite, non-elite.

See what happens with the gifts.

Jesus says the gifts are poured out on all people.

All of them has gifts.

And in that world, you might have the master cleaning up the chairs or doing the cleaning after the service, while the so-called maid or servant was actually the preacher.

The world was never the same again.

This is totally revolutionary.

And so when you are baptized, it says as you go into the waters, knowing your death, you arise to the resurrection.

That's verse 27.

And what's the sign that you've risen?

For you, there is no Greek.

There is no Jew.

There is no male.

There is no female.

There is no rich.

There is no poor.

The three forms of discrimination of that day, that are still the three forms of discrimination, have gone in Jesus.

Of course, we need to repent of times we haven't done that, don't we?

NorthernLife Kids don't.

And also, we have empowerment for everyday living.

Verse 19, if he's only risen for eternity kind of thing, he's saying in verse 19, then yeah, you know, you've got troubles.

So he's not denying he's risen for now.

And verse 20 tells us that our Lord and Saviour is the one who has defeated death and come back to life as the model of what it is to be in eternity.

And all through 1 Corinthians 15, you get this extraordinary message that not only is Jesus risen, Jesus is with us.

You know, the Apostle Paul could write the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

He could do that interchangeably because when we talk about the Holy Spirit being in our midst, he is a distinct person, but the experience is the same.

When the Holy Spirit is in our midst, what we are declaring as Christians, the risen Christ is with us.

The risen Christ is here.

I still go back to the old poem footprints.

Remember that?

I saw it the other day as I was in the vestry of a church, and you know, that poem that is written, that how come, Jesus, is it that there's two sets of footprints in the sand?

There's mine and there's yours, but how come is it that when times got tough, I only see one set of footprints?

How could that be so?

And the answer is, you only see one set of footprints because it's then that I carry you.

Who else offers this stuff?

Extraordinary.

Forgiveness.

Whole person, non-person status, empowerment for everyday living.

Thank you.

We might go to the next slide.

And we can live out hope for the future.

This is not just for now.

We hear in verses 22 and 23, this Lord Jesus who rose from the dead is the one who's going to come back, and there'll be orders in how we're resurrected to be with him for eternity.

This is a real guy.

He was in Rwanda.

He was in Rwanda during that tribal cleansing.

He's there with George Gittos, Australia's most famous wartime photographer and artist is there as well.

George Gittos is there with the Australian United Nations Medical Club.

Word comes that another tribal group are coming into this village to wipe out, with guns and machetes, everyone that they can.

What does George Gittos and his team do?

There's nothing they can do.

Get in their cars and trucks and leave, and then come back and see if they can make a difference.

As George Gittos is leaving with the United Nations Medical Team, this guy stood up in the crowd, and with his New Testament open, he started to preach the hope that they had in Jesus.

They cannot touch us.

And paraphrasing Gittos says, now I know what religion is all about.

We could offer them nothing.

He gave them hope.

Gittos took his picture, came back and painted it.

It goes up to about that screen.

He called it the preacher.

It won the Blake Prize for religious art.

We could offer them nothing.

He offered them hope.

And not only that, it just keeps on going about how does this work.

And I know this church is very much aware of this, but all of the gospel accounts on that Easter Sunday have seven words in the first few verses on the first day of the week.

All of them.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John on the first day of the week.

The women are going to the tomb on the first day of the week.

Why the first day of the week?

You might ask.

Oh, time marker?

Yeah, absolutely.

But it's more than that.

Think about Genesis.

On the first day of the week, God created.

On the first day of the week, light came into darkness.

That's why in every gospel, as the women go to the tomb, light and darkness has been played out.

It's the first day of the week.

It's the first day of God's new creation.

It's the first day of God's new order.

It's the first day of God setting things right.

It's the first day of God returning to Genesis 1 and 2 and restoring what was lost in the fall.

It is the first day of the week.

Why is the resurrection the most powerful understanding of the world and its values?

It's because the world would never be the same again.

Peter Hitchens, who's the brother of Christopher Hitchens, who's one of the, was one of the world's best known atheists.

Peter himself was an atheist, but then came a Christian.

He was on Q&A, that ABC television program, and he was asked, as one of the panel, they went around and asked everyone, what is the world's most dangerous idea?

Dangerous idea is some posing that's taking place at Sydney at the time.

When they got to Peter Hitchens, what is the world's most dangerous idea?

And I paraphrase, 2000 years ago, this guy who died came back to life again, because if it occurred, it transforms everything.

Everything.

Oh yeah, the world's most dangerous idea.

Okay, but quickly.

Does it work?

Does it work?

It may be true, Ross, but does it work?

And then Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 5, some of the most delightful passages in scripture.

But first, let's go to the platypus.

Can't get past the platypus.

That's my favourite creature.

You know what happened with the platypus?

So we need to have this in our heads, particularly if you're rightfully sceptical.

You might be saying, Ross, brilliant, understand the resurrection model, but does it work?

You're rightfully sceptic, but just remember the platypus.

When they first discovered a platypus, they sent the skin over to Europe, talking about in the 1900s.

All the zoologists in London and France believed this was the first Aussie hoax.

This animal couldn't, really, this animal couldn't exist.

Mammal, reptile, all those functions, impossible, and they were used, apparently, to people putting skins together and pretending they had something.

Didn't exist.

So rightfully sceptical.

This is not in our framework.

Then, of course, a couple of years later, they received a platypus with an egg in the platypus and outside the platypus, and so the whole sceptical science world became believers.

You've got to go with the evidence.

Did it happen?

Well, in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 5, and I'd encourage you to go home and learn this, Paul says, What I received, I passed on to you, that Christ died, buried, rose again, according to the scriptures, for forgiveness of sins.

And then he appeared to James and Paul, and then he appeared to the rest of the disciples, down to verse 6, and then you're going to read on, he appeared to 500 people.

Now, we know, even the most sceptical scholar will tell you, those verses, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 6, which I have just shared with you, those verses are absolutely authentic.

There's no doubt that they come from Paul.

There's no doubt that it's early.

It's no doubt that it's in within two or three years of the church at Corinth.

Everyone can settle on this.

This is Paul, this is early, and this is from the church at Corinth.

This is their creedal statement.

As you came into church on Sunday, no doubt, that's what they would say to themselves within the first two or three years of the events of Jesus' death and resurrection.

That's just extraordinary.

Critics don't know what to do with it.

They all believe this.

Eyewitnesses about.

They're sharing this.

We can't doubt its authorship.

We can't doubt its integrity.

We can't doubt its providence.

And we can't doubt how we've received it.

Wow.

And also, Paul reminds us, by the way, I didn't make this up.

This is God's gospel.

It's according to the scriptures.

It's an early reliable account.

No one really doubts that Jesus is dead at point A.

There are a few, but no one really doubts it.

I mean, who survives a Roman crucifixion where you suffocate upon the cross?

You know, the swoon theory that Jesus woke himself up in the tomb.

You know, you hear some people saying that.

But, you know, as the old skeptic of yesterday, Strauss said, to imagine you're in a tomb for three days, a point of death, whipped to the point of death, spear in the side, and out you come and say, Oh, I'm risen, it's all well.

It's a great miracle in the resurrection itself.

Think about it.

He's dead, all right.

The big one is, is he alive at point B?

See, I know what it is to doubt.

So God did this for me.

Maybe did it for you as well.

Look at the witnesses he gives you.

Look at the witnesses he gives you.

We've already heard about the women who wouldn't be in a court of law.

This lot, he begins with two people who didn't believe.

Paul comes into the list, but so does skeptic Peter, the denier.

So does James, the half brother.

Remember James?

You read John chapter 7.

He wanted more miracles because he wasn't convinced.

So in this list of people who saw the resurrected Christ, are those who weren't necessarily looking for a resurrected Christ, for those who had persecuted those who were Christian.

You've got people who didn't know Jesus beforehand, and you've got people who knew Jesus as they walked with him.

So they couldn't be mistaken about eyewitness identity.

You've got 500 people.

It's like, oh, here's an app.

Look up this person, send them a message, give them a ring, and see if we're telling the truth.

They even go as far in the gospels as to tell you that the person who buried Jesus, one of them, is Joseph of Arimathea.

Now, Joseph is a member of the Sanhedrin.

Arimathea is the Jewish Ruining Council.

Arimathea is a little dusty town.

It's like saying, Ross Clifford who now lives in Pimble.

It's easily investigated.

You don't give that kind of detail.

Let me tell you as a lawyer, if you think anyone's going to check it out.

You don't do it.

He's alive.

The tomb is empty.

Circumstantial evidence.

The tomb is empty.

How do you explain it?

Disciples wouldn't seal the body and die for a lie.

The Romans and the Jewish people didn't want this story to keep on going.

The fact that we even worship on Sunday rather than Saturday.

The fact that everything that has happened in the Christian life actually sprints from this day.

It's just extraordinary.

But also, for me, there's this in-person, there's this internal testimony.

Now I'm going to shock you with a couple with this.

Who am I?

Now, by the way, stay with me, don't turn off.

Who am I?

My birth was predicted.

I had to escape after my birth because of threats to my life and family.

I got together a modly crew of disciples.

I ended up fighting the great evil one with his massive serpent and killing him, and it said of me, he is risen.

Who am I?

Well, we know you're Jesus, but you're also Harry Potter.

And Harry Potter, Rawlings, of course, said she immersed herself in CS.

Lewis, Narnia Tales, Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, who are both Christian authors.

And of course, what they both said is that every fairy tale has its climax in that event of Jesus.

Aslan the Lion dies for the sin of the boy.

There is a universal story within us all that looks from redemption and forgiveness and overcoming of evil and a hero who takes that and takes us into the new world and the new land, whether it's Aslan the Lion, whether it's Harry Potter, whether it's Gandalf, all resurrection figures.

Why does that book sell 600 million copies more than any other book then?

One's legend, one's fact.

Within all of us is this longing, this wish that forgiveness and hope and eternity and life would be found in one.

And it's found in Jesus.

Friends, this is his day.

His rhythm, his conquered death.

One of the things that fascinated me when I first started to drive past New Life, Baptist Church, is that massive cross.

Wow, I mean, mate, you could see it anywhere.

It's huge.

Now, most of us think that the cross is a symbol for crucifixion.

Now, the cross wasn't actually the sign that early Christians tended to use.

But in the second and third century, when the cross started to become a symbol, whilst it obviously noted the death of Christ, there was more going on here, because the cross was empty.

The cross was also a clear statement that the one who's died is not on that cross.

The cross is empty.

And the early church, they used to take that cross, and if they were building a church here, or felt the gospel was going out in here in Hornsby, they would take that cross, they would build one, and they would pump it in the ground and smash it in the ground as a testimony that Christ is victorious.

This land, this church, these people belong to the risen Christ.

The cross was a statement around people's necks and symbols and church life that not only is this Jesus died, this is his country, his territory, his kingdom, and we are his followers.

We wouldn't be here today without the truth of Easter Sunday.

Can we say it together?

He is risen!

God bless you all.

‍