Easter Sunday Morning 2025

When prize fighters go into a ring, you know, boxes, before they get in there, there's a lot of smack talk, isn't there?

A lot of bravado, a lot of overconfidence about who's going to win, but after the fight, one of them is vindicated.

Vindication, to be proven correct.

Jesus rose from the grave, and it was his vindication.

Amen.

He said that he would be handed over to sinful men, and they would crucify him.

He said that he would be buried, and three days later, he would rise from the grave.

He said he came to destroy the works of the devil, and the primary work of the devil is death.

Jesus did exactly what he claimed he would do.

He rose from the grave after three days, defeating sin, death, and the devil.

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

But do you believe that today?

I guess there's a good chance you do.

You're here on Easter Sunday.

But do you believe it as powerfully, as strongly, as life-alteringly as you once did?

Even though history tells us that he rose from the dead, even though the Bible tells us that he rose from the dead, even though at times in your life, or even today, you've had a strong hunch that it's all true, that he rose from the grave, and that changes everything.

Is it reflected in your life today, in my life?

Do you, do I believe?

I guess that's the question we're asking today.

Do I truly believe?

And what would that mean?

Jesus had returned to Jerusalem for the last time, and he went to what is referred to as an upper room.

I guess that's on a second story.

And he did the most amazing thing.

He got down on his knees and he washed his disciples' feet.

And he shared, for the first time, communion, which we shared on Friday, Good Friday.

But for the first time, he broke the bread and he poured out the cup, and he described what this meant to his disciples.

And in that momentous time of conversation, he said these words, extraordinary words.

He said to them, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

At this most poignant of moments, after three years, pretty much 24-7 with these men, his disciples, 12 men in that room, he chose as some of his last words to say, I am the way, guys, I am the truth.

I am the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

There may not be too many more powerful words than those ever spoken.

Jesus said, I am the way, and some of us know this.

He didn't say, there is a way, or this is the way.

He said, I am the way.

And what did he mean by the way?

I think he's meaning the way through to God, the way through death, which we will all come to face, the way through death to what we hope there might be beyond death, life after death, with the one who created us, God himself.

I am the way through.

And even more than that, I'm the way to life now, because that eternal life that you could have beyond the grave can start now.

That's what he's offering.

In John 10, verse 7, he said, I am the gate.

When he says I am the way, he's meaning I am the door.

It's an odd sort of way of describing how to get to God, the Father.

It's through a door, through Jesus.

I am the way, I am the door, I am the gate.

Have you ever had that experience?

I've had it a number of times.

And the worst times are when it's, say, 5.30 in the morning, it's pitch black and you come down and you're coming outside of the house and you're closing the door.

And if you live with people, there are people inside, but they're fast asleep.

It might be your family, it might be your spouse, it might be friends, or you live by yourself.

But you're coming down and you're just about to shut the door, it's pitch black, first thing in the morning, and you have this weird subliminal awareness that the weight you expect, your brain is very clever, it's doing this, there's something missing.

But you're not quite sure what it is, so you're just going through, your brain is going, warning, warning, warning.

And it may be that you're thinking in your bag, you're carrying, there's something just not right in the habits that you do as you leave, something wasn't right.

You didn't have this.

Anyone ever done that?

And your brain says, aha, the keys!

But when it says that, the door is just six inches from closing.

And most of us can't control the double, the brain says, I must close.

No, don't do it!

And everything goes in a slow motion.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

This slow motion, no, don't do conk.

I don't have my keys, that means I can't drive the car, I don't have my phone, and everyone's asleep.

Oh no.

Oh, there must be a window open.

It's my house.

Surely I've hidden the key somewhere.

No, there's no key.

We decided it was too dangerous to leave the key under the pot plant.

So we put it back in.

I can't get in, and there's this weird sensation.

It's my house, it's our house, but I can't get in, because I don't have this.

I don't have the key.

It's so close.

It's my home.

But I'm locked out.

Heaven is our home.

Being near to God is the most like home that you could possibly ever experience, because He made us.

He's meant to be our heavenly father, but you know, we talked about on Friday, sin makes us far from God.

It's a barrier.

It causes us to feel like we're outside of the family home.

We're outside of a relationship with God.

Jesus says, I am the way in.

It's through me, my life, my death, my resurrection.

It's through belief in me.

And this is what we're told at the beginning of John's Gospel, John chapter one, verse 12, to all who did receive him, that's Jesus, to those who believed in his name, and he gave the right to become children of God.

He gave the key to enter the family home, to have a relationship with the father.

Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or of a husband's will, but born of God.

It is through belief in the name of Jesus, which means his life, death, and resurrection, that we are given the keys to come home, to enter through the gate, the door, the way, which is Christ.

The Bible says, there is no other way into a relationship with God.

The Bible is such a significant book, it's foolish to cast that aside and think those words mean nothing for me as a human being living in the 21st century.

You must do something with that.

You must think about it.

It's an enormous claim.

Jesus says in the Bible teachers, there is no other way to have our sins forgiven so that we could be close to a holy God, the type of God we all want him to be.

There's no other entrance.

There's no other religion, no other form of spirituality.

He says that he is the way himself.

It is through a relationship with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, through belief in his death and resurrection, his death in my place and his resurrection, to secure my resurrection, that I can be saved by walking through the door, through the way by faith.

He is the way.

And when he rose from the dead, his claim was vindicated.

I am the way.

And he said that he was the truth also.

He said, I am the way and I am the truth.

On his way to the cross, he was brought before a man who, history tells us, was a very barbaric human being.

He had committed genocide before.

His name was Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.

And though he seemed to be, I guess, a bit of a butcher and a harsh man, Jesus interacts with him in a very intriguing way.

He seems like a little bit of a philosopher.

Let me read from John 18.

Pilate asked Jesus, are you the king of the Jews?

Is that your own idea?

Jesus asked.

Or did others talk to you about me?

Well, am I a Jew?

Pilate replied, your own people and chief priests handed you over to me.

What is it that you have done?

Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.

But now my kingdom is from another place.

You are a king then, said Pilate.

Jesus said, you say that I am a king.

In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.

Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

What is truth, retorted Pilate?

It's an interesting conversation, isn't it?

Jesus is not overawed by the power of this figure, this Roman authority, the governor, Pontius Pilate.

But rather, he steers the conversation towards what Pilate has been musing about in his own mind.

What is truth?

Is there even such a thing as he thinks about the terrible, immoral things he has done?

Is there a consequence, Pilate's thinking?

Well, of course, it's a haunting question that wafts throughout history, isn't it?

What is truth?

Is it correct that we all have our truth?

You do you.

Is that correct?

That is the zeitgeist of the day.

That is the world view of a very connected, globalized world.

You do you.

But I would suggest that you don't even have to be spiritually inclined, or certainly religious, or a Christian, to know objectively that view is flawed.

It just is flawed, amen?

As much as we'd love it to be true, it is flawed.

Hitler could not be allowed to do what he did, and we could just add all the names that back the argument.

Humanity, for human rights to even exist, we need a transcendent moral code above the height of the biggest human with the most power, amen?

We need God.

There is truth.

Dallas Willard used to say this great line that's worth taking away today.

Truth is what you bump into when you're wrong.

Isn't that good?

Isn't it profound?

You say whatever you want about truth, your truth, my truth, the truth, the immobile, stationary, eternal truth is what you bump into when you realize you are wrong and that truth is vindicated in that moment.

Jesus said the truth is a person.

He said, I am the truth.

What is truth?

In July, we will have been here seven years and it's been a wonderful seven years.

Over that time, you would have heard me use this sermon illustration a few times.

So if you know the answer, don't yell it out.

There's my favorite illustration about truth.

It's a brain teaser that some of you will know.

If you don't know it, don't spend the whole rest of the sermon trying to solve it.

That would be unhelpful.

I will give you the answer.

So the test is there are two doors, and you must go through one door.

Two doors.

One door leads to life, but you don't know which door leads to life.

And one door leads to death.

You must go through a door.

One door to life, one to death.

Which do you go through?

Well, you might as well toss a coin.

It's a 50-50 chance.

There's no way of knowing.

They don't look different.

Life or death?

Well, the brain teaser adds another little part to the puzzle.

There are two guards, one guard in front of each door.

One guard always lies, and one guard always tells the truth.

But you don't know which guard's which.

And the liar is not in front of death or life.

You don't know.

So, you have a door to life, a door to death, and a guard that always lies, and a guard that always tells the truth, and you don't know which door they're in front of.

But you get to ask one question.

What's the one question that you would ask to work out which door should I go through?

So, that's something to think about.

Working out the truth is hard in life.

Have you discovered that?

It's hard to work out the truth.

You don't know who's lying.

I was reflecting on this, and I thought, you know, Jesus said the devil is a liar.

He was a liar from the beginning.

Of course he was, we know in our Bibles.

He came up to Adam and even lied.

First thing that came out of his mouth was a dirty lie.

You can't trust God, he doesn't want you to be like him.

That wasn't the truth.

He said, you can't eat that particular tree, but it's not what God had said.

He's a liar.

Now the thing that Jesus says, the New Testament teaches is, the prince of the air, the prince of this world is the devil.

So add it up, you've got a leader over the world who is a liar, a spiritual being who controls the world for a set period of time until God fixes it all finally and wraps it up into new creation, and the devil is judged.

But the world we live in has a powerful spiritual being who is a liar, and he feeds lies into the global system.

Now, I'm not trying to get into fake news and crazy conspiracy theories at all, not at all.

But you've got to admit if you've got a spiritual being who's a liar, and he's controlling a lot of the world that's unfiltered with spiritual truth, if it's unfiltered and unguided, what we are fed from Hollywood and from the world view coming at us is likely to not all be good, amen?

It just sort of makes sense.

How do we know what to believe?

Lying is the root of all sin.

Clearly, the devil is a liar.

But it's actually a lot to do with our sin when we're not honest.

Many of us have discovered that honesty is a relief, amen?

You don't have to keep on thinking, what was my last story?

Jesus actually said profoundly, the truth will set you free.

Truth sets us free.

And if the sun sets you free, who is the truth?

You will be free indeed.

So what if Jesus was right?

Let me read out some things that are just on the board here, on the screen.

What if Jesus was right?

What did he say?

What was part of his manifesto about what truth is all about?

He said that the best way to live was to believe that there is more to this life than what you can see.

You just think if you would give a tick to these.

He said that life is found in giving your life away in service of God and others.

He said that we should love God with everything and love each other like we would want to be loved ourselves.

I'm ticking everyone.

He said that justice matters in this life and there is a consequence for how we live.

Sounds true.

He said that he was the truth because he's not just human but he's also God.

And it all makes sense.

The truth is what you bump into when you're wrong.

The Bible says when we die, we all bump into the truth.

The Bible says that it is appointed to humanity to die once and then face the judgment and the judgment will be Jesus Christ, the judge of the living and the dead.

And he will ask, who paid for your sin?

Because sin will lead to death, eternal death.

So either we say, I'm paying for my sin, or we say, I believed long ago before I died, that you had already paid for my sin.

We will all bump into the truth.

Do you know what the question you would ask to the guards would be?

Well, this is a spoiler alert, but I'll tell you anyway.

You go up to any one of the guards, you can't know who it is, and you just say, if I was to ask the other guard, which door would they tell me to go through?

And then you go through the opposite door.

Because if I went up to the liar, the liar knows that this guard is going to say the true door, but I'm a liar, so I'm going to tell you the opposite to that.

So if you go up, you don't do what the liar would tell you to do, you do the opposite.

But if I go to the truthful guard and say, truthful guard, I don't know you're truthful, but I'm going to think, I don't know, but if you were truthful, what would the other guard tell me?

Which door?

And the truthful guy can only tell you the truth, which is a lie.

That make sense?

No, let it all go.

Do you know the great difference between that illustration, which is about how hard it is to find the truth and Easter?

Easter, you can go and open the doors and have a look, which way is to life and which way is to death, because Christ was vindicated when he rose from the dead.

Amen?

That's the whole thing about the most historically verifiable truth in history, is Jesus rising from the dead.

That's why we're still going on about it.

It could, if it could have been proved wrong, it would have been.

Do you think there has been a push against Christianity for 2,000 years?

There has been.

It hasn't been debunked.

That's the difference.

This is not some whimsical faith in fairies.

Jesus rose from the grave, and you can check it out in history.

This is what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15.

If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless.

It is, and so is your faith.

More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.

A little bit later on, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.

We get to check the guard's response.

Jesus was vindicated.

He said, I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am the life.

When Jesus first said, I am the resurrection and the life, the setting was pretty important, pretty significant.

He just raised Lazarus, a man dead for four days, from the dead.

He stood out the front, prayed to God, and said, Lazarus, come forth, and a man came out, bound up out of the grave, smelling four days old.

Well, they thought that he was going to be smelly.

Then he took the clothes off, and then he said, okay, I've done a good illustration.

I'm the life.

You just saw him come.

The reason I can say, come back from the dead, is because I am life.

He claimed that he was fully human and fully God.

Most of us would agree, if there is a higher being, who was the first cause of all the causes, of cause and effect, he's the source of life, God.

So yeah, if you have a human being, miraculously, wonderfully walking around, who is both human and God, it's completely obvious and expected that he would say, I am life, because I'm God.

Amen.

Like, he says, I am life, I am life, I am God, I am life.

I just have to be, happen to be God in human flesh.

You can see me, touch me.

I'm what God is like.

The New Testament takes this, and takes it to a place that might be a bit shocking for some of us here today.

Out of this truth that Jesus is life, John 5 says, and these are the words of Jesus, very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me, has eternal life and will not be judged, when you bump into the truth.

Not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life.

If you believe Jesus, that he died and rose again to pay for our sin, and he is the Lord of the Cosmos, King of Kings, something has happened to you.

You've crossed over from death to life.

Wonderful.

From death to life.

From death to life.

What is that meaning?

From death to life.

If you don't have the son, you don't have life.

He is the life.

Now, we can all go, Oh, isn't that nice?

It's cute.

That's sort of cute.

Spiritual, religious.

No, no, the consequences of that, if it's true, if he is the truth, is, I don't, what is it?

I don't have you.

I don't believe in you.

Or you have death.

That's what the Bible teaches.

He or she who has the son has life.

A little bit later on, the same author, John, writes in 1 John 5 12, whoever has the son has life.

Whoever does not have the son does not have life.

If by faith in Jesus, you have walked through the door, the way, the keys have been given you, you've come home, you've had your sins forgiven because of belief in Christ, you have the son, you have life now, and it will be eternity.

It will be an eternal life.

So Easter, if you put in an equation, Easter equals life.

And Easter means life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is Easter.

It's not a holiday.

It's just the events around the cross and resurrection.

I believe it equals life.

And I think the Bible teaches a simple maths equation.

If you do the next slide, you take Easter across the other side, and you say life minus Easter, my life now that is mortal and temporary, minus a belief in Jesus Christ, his life and death and resurrection, that equals biblically zero.

That means death.

That means the Bible is teaching that I will die at some point, and then I will face eternal death.

Because life is found in the sun, it's just the way it is.

If I don't have the sun, I don't have life.

Whoever has the sun has life.

Whoever does not have the sun of God does not have life.

We bump into the truth and we face the judgment.

That's pretty sobering, isn't it?

Well, there's nothing more sobering than that, to bump into that.

Is this stuff real?

I thought I just had to come along today because I was invited and, you know, every once a year, I could do this thing.

No one told me this was true.

Well, I'm telling you it is.

I'm telling you it's true.

Because the Bible says it, he's the way, the truth and the life.

You'll bump into him.

By grace and God's mercy, I compel you in Jesus' name, fall at his feet and ask for mercy.

Come to the one who can offer life, because it's really life.

It's good to know God.

How do I walk through the door, know the truth, receive the life?

Because that's the question, isn't it?

How do I walk through the door that is Jesus, know the truth who is Jesus, and receive the life who is Jesus?

And the simplest answer is believe.

Believe like you believe that, Chair.

Anyone not believe the Chair you're sitting on?

We're believers here today.

We are believing in the Chairs.

You walked in and you didn't even think about it.

I believe that Chair is going to hold my weight.

I can't see anyone not believing.

And that's what belief in Christ is.

Everything.

If it's not true, something's going to happen.

My life is, I fall over.

I'm in.

And that's what repentance means.

It's turning from this way of living and turning to follow God because I believe.

I'm sitting with all my weight.

And that includes faith in who Jesus is.

To finish off, let's reflect on one of the characters that was traveling with Jesus.

His name was Thomas.

And we've been spending all our time bouncing around in John's Gospel.

In John 20, Jesus has already died, and he's risen from the grave.

But Thomas hasn't seen it yet.

So he says, Thomas, one of the 12, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, we've seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were, put my hands in his side, I will not believe.

Have you ever done that in your life?

Made an internal agreement, an internal vow.

I don't believe.

God, how could you have let that happen to me or the people I love?

I don't believe in you.

And some of us are here and you made a vow that may not have been the smartest vow.

What if he is real?

Well, Thomas, but Thomas had every right, and so do you, when you've been hurt and you're sceptical and it's one of the strengths of your life, I am not naïve.

I'm not gullible.

Well, good for you.

Thomas was like this.

He's like, you know, I'm not gullible.

The rest of you, I won't believe until I have good, firm proof.

And then we're told that a week later, his disciples are in the house again.

Interesting little touch there, a week later, it's like God says, I don't mind waiting.

I don't mind keeping you in that suspense place of, is this right or what?

I don't know what to do.

Yeah, hang there.

Thomas was with them, though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.

And there is peace that comes upon you when you see.

And then he said to Thomas, put your finger here.

See my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side.

Stop doubting, Thomas, and believe.

Stop doubting and believe.

Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God, it's such an interesting encounter.

He doesn't get to go, okay, now that you're here, look, I've got another 20 questions.

Can we just work all these out?

Because I've got to know everything.

Now, in that moment of revelation, he's just like, I'm in, I'm in, I believe.

And the response of belief was, my Lord and my God, that's a full on thing for a Jew to do to any human.

My God, they believe in one God, monotheistic.

My Lord and my God, Jesus Christ.

Who is hearing that again today?

Stop doubting and believe.

Yeah, life's a long, complex, windy journey, isn't it?

And we look back and go, oh, so much easier to believe.

You know, it was vital back then, but yeah, I've drifted.

Is that you?

I don't believe as much.

We got to believe.

We have to believe.

Stop doubting and believe again.

I think sometimes we need the again on there.

Amen?

Stop doubting and believe again.

And for many of us online or here today, maybe it's the first part, stop doubting and believe.

There is a way to follow that won't let you down, a truth to believe and a life to live.

There's a way to follow and a truth to believe and a life to live.

And it's all wrapped up in one person, Jesus.

There is a champion of humanity.

We've sung about it before.

He's the hero of heaven.

He made some audacious claims.

Who says you're the son of God?

Who claims you're God?

Unless you are God.

His resurrection is his victory and his vindication.

His name is Jesus.

And I want to ask you, is it time to follow him wholeheartedly?

All by grace.

Not because of your effort.

Not because you're going to work harder and harder.

It's just, Lord, I'm in.

I'm going to keep trusting in your grace.

I know you're real.

You're the way, the truth, and the life.

Because Easter equals life.

Lord Jesus, we tried to make much of you today.

We hope you've been lifted high.

And you said, if we lift you high, you will draw people unto yourself.

And so I'm asking you, Lord, in your name, that you draw people out of the darkness into your wonderful light, out of death and into life, out of confusion and into the clarity of your way, out of doubt and falsehood into your truth and light and peace, out of a destiny that goes to death, into a destiny that is life and life forevermore.

Lord Jesus, I know you're the one who seeks and saves the lost.

None of us can do it.

So, I thank you that your spirit is now speaking through your word, the truth of your word, the truth of the gospel, and I pray you would seek and save.

Set captives free today for your glory.

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