Matthew 28:1-20

Praise lead by Minister Diana
Sermon by Minister Shaun(50435 KB)
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April 11^th 2010 Sunday Message Summary

Scriptures: Matthew 28:1-20

‘Resurrection’ means ‘to come to life again.’ It means that someone dies and comes back to life. I, the preacher of today’s message, died from an illness when I was an infant and came back to life. I know this because my mother told me. Satan made me ill and tried to take me away. Because the Lord saved me, I live my life as His lover. Even now, I live everyday following only the Lord’s will, thanking Him and realizing anew how He saved my life.

The Bible also has records of people who died and came back to life. Lazarus, Mary’s older brother from the town of Bethany, whom Jesus referred to as a friend, died and came back to life. The story about Lazarus is recorded in detail in John 11:1-44. When the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue ruler, had died, Jesus had mercy on her and revived the child. Hallelujah! This is recorded in Mark 5:35-43. In 1 Kings 17:17-24, the son of the widow of the Zarephath had died and when Prophet Elijah saw the widow mourning, he revived the boy telling him to come to life.

Besides these, there are many others stories about people who died and came back to life around the world. A renown Buddhist monk in Myanmar came back to life after three days when his flesh had already decayed and started giving off stench as his parents were about to cremate him. I’m sure you also know this story. He experienced hell for three days and came back to life. He told people that hell is the place where those who don’t believe in God and Jesus go to.

Now, let me tell you the message of how Jesus died and resurrected as described in the Bible. Jesus came to this earth in order to redeem and save all mankind from sin and have all human spirits go to the eternal kingdom of heaven and live there. There is no one on earth who doesn’t need the Messiah.

In order to save human beings through Jesus, God had Jesus go through the exact same process that humans go through since their birth, and God worked through him. According to His will, God had Jesus born by the Holy Spirit in His omniscience. God had Jesus grow for thirty years and had Him preach the gospel of God to the world as He had planned.

For three years, working together with those who believed and followed Him, Jesus preached the gospel despite extreme persecution, oppression, opposition and rejection in various forms. Jesus taught people to believe in God, enlightened them about their sins, helped them repent and forgave them of their sins if they repented.

Jesus’ view was that although people’s bodies were alive, their minds, actions, and spirits were buried in the domain of death because they didn’t believe in Jesus who was the Son of God and the Messiah, and because they didn’t believe in God who sent Him. He said that only if they believed in Jesus Himself who, as the Messiah, was wholesome and dwelled in the domain of life, and only if they believed His words, would they resurrect into the domain of life. As John chapter 5 records, Jesus spoke of the resurrection of faith, the resurrection of the mind, the resurrection of daily life, and the resurrection of the spirit.

‘The resurrection of those who are alive in the body’ means this: when people believe in God and Jesus, the Messiah whom God sent, and abide by his words, they cross over from the domain of death to the domain of life, based on their absolute faith in Jesus and their love for Him, even though they were originally supposed to go to hell.

The physical resurrection of corpses pertains only to those whose bodies died no more than a few days ago. But the resurrection of the heart, of the mind, of thoughts, of the soul, and of the actions of the body is the resurrection that pertains to everyone who lives in the flesh.

Correctly believing and loving Jesus the Messiah was the resurrection of those who are alive. The bodies of those who lived without believing in Jesus were in the domain of death and their spirits also dwelled in the domain of death. They were supposed to go to hell when their bodies died after living their lives in the domain of death. This was ‘the resurrection of those who were alive in the body.’

As the Son of God, Jesus preached this gospel of life. Therefore, people followed Him, forming a large crowd. The crowd saw Jesus as the Messiah and followed Him because they saw Him bring back to life those whose bodies died. They also followed Him because those who did not believe in Him before resurrected in a way that their mentality and actions changed for the better. Besides, His teaching was so tremendous that even if the Jewish leaders tried to stop the crowd, they could not.

Jesus was not a sinner in God’s sight. He was the most righteous person among the righteous in the world, and the Messiah. But because of the believers of the established religion and those who opposed Him, Jesus was dealt with as a sinner. In the end, the believers of God in Judea made Pilate convict Jesus as a sinner and sentence Him to death. How dumbfounding it was!

Jesus was the One whom they waited for through 4,000 years as God had promised to send the Messiah. Jesus was the One the prophets foretold about—the One whom God sent. However, because of the generation’s wickedness and the evil deeds of the ignorant and disbelieving people, Jesus who came to save all of mankind was put to death. It was a truly frustrating turn of history. The hearts of the believers of the Lord became deeply grieved and indignant because of that injustice.

God had no choice but to let Jesus be crucified by the evil ones, not because the original will was predestined that way, but because human beings committed the sin of failing to complete their responsibilities. Thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice and redemption, the path of salvation opened to all mankind. In short, Jesus died for me, one person, and for all.

The body of the Lord came back to life together with His spirit. But since we are alive in the body, we don’t go through the physical resurrection in which our dead bodies come to life out of graves. We were in the domain of death, which is like a grave, because we didn’t believe in Jesus. But as we believe in Him and love Him, we have become the resurrected bodies that crossed over to the domain of life. As a result, we have overcome and triumphed over the domain of death and Satan. Also, our spirits have gained eternal life.

We are so happy that Jesus died but came back to life and resurrected. Since the Lord came back to life, we too should come back to life. Since the body of the Lord came back to life, our dead minds, actions and spirits must come back to life. “The Lord resurrected and I also resurrected” This should be done. When we also resurrect, the Lord will be happy and we will be happy too.

For those who are physically alive today, resurrection means this: during their lives, a person believes Jesus as the Messiah, loves Him and lives by His words, while renewing their minds. Then according to the action of their bodies and according to their love for the Lord, their bodies, souls, and spirits resurrect to a higher level into a better world.