Easter 2001
Tom Shrader addresses the variety of reasons people attend Easter services, focusing especially on those who believe they are good enough on their own merits. Drawing from Romans 3, Romans 6, and Romans 10:9, he dismantles the assumption that moral self-comparison satisfies God's standard of righteousness, showing that all have sinned and fall short. He makes the case for the bodily resurrection of Christ as historically verifiable and theologically essential, arguing that belief in the risen Lord is the only path to salvation and eternal life.
“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.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Easter
Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 28 min
Themes: resurrection, salvation, good enough, sin, easter, eternal life, self-righteousness, grace, nominal christian, skeptic, spiritual seeker, feeling good enough, lapsed churchgoer, parent bringing kids to church, questioning faith, new believer
Scripture: Romans 3, Romans 3:23, Romans 6, Romans 10:9, Acts 2:24, John 14:6
Theological Themes: justification, righteousness of god, hamartiology, doctrine of sin, bodily resurrection, soteriology, Romans 3, faith alone
Full Transcript
Why Are You Here?
Good morning. It is really an honor to have you with us this morning. It has been a great day. We started at 5:45, we had a full house, and there was great enthusiasm — a special day. We frankly anticipated that. When we prepared for Easter, we thought we would do a couple of things: add another service because we would have more people than normal, and go to a ticket system to try to distribute people throughout the services.
It always provides an interesting thought process for me. I made a comment at a Christmas Eve service this year, and it generated some emails. The comment was simply this — my question was: why are you people here? I want to pick that theme up this morning. I want you to understand I am not being sarcastic, I am not being cynical — I am genuinely interested. How come at Christmas Eve and how come at Easter we have to add a service and we have more people? I have thought a great deal about this.
I think there are a couple of reasons. Number one, it is just a natural time when people are visiting — not just from around the country, but from across town. You come down to this side of town, grandpa is down here, and he will pop for brunch. So who is going to skip that? I will endure this to get brunch — I can do that deal.
Some of you are here because you have literally been pestered into this. Somebody started on you several weeks ago, and they have been on you and on you and on you, and you are here. You cannot wait to hear "amen" so you can go to the car and say, "I've been there, done that — don't bug me with this again. I'll talk to you at Christmas."
I want to explain something. I want you to understand why they persist. It is because they love you so much. The easy thing would be to say, "Don't worry about it," and just let you go your own way. But they love you, and they understand — it is not about church, it is about Christ. If you do not know Christ, you will never experience life as it was meant to be, and at the end of your life, you will go to a place called hell.
The Reasons People Come
Some of you are here because the family needs it. We are hearing this a lot. People come in and say, "Well, the kids have reached that age where they need it. The kids really need something like this just to get them solid." Now apparently you grow out of that, because you have not needed it for a while — but the kids need it, and it is a good thing.
Some of you are here doing penance. You got caught in something and this is part of your rehabilitation program, and if all goes well, you will be out of this before long. Some of you are here out of genuine hurt, frustration, and curiosity. The last couple of weeks, the last couple of months have been awful. Everywhere you look there is a problem — and it may come in two ways. It may be that things are as bad as they have ever been, or it may be that they are better than they have ever been, but they are so good and yet you are so empty. You have been working on a deal for six months and finally it is done, it is closed — and there is nothing there.
Some of you are here to see the tie. Let us acknowledge it — that is fine. Looking good it is; however, next week will be better. Now, we are not going to ask for a show of hands, but there may be some of you who fall into every one of those categories.
The False Premise of Being a Good Person
But there is one category I think captures the most. I think the number one reason people come at a time like this is that it is evidence they are a good person. You love being able to say, "You know what, I am a good person. I have been to church, I am not a bad person. I have some little hangups, I have some little quirks, some things I do — but I am basically a good person. I walked into that place, architecturally it did not change, God did not knock down the building — I am a good person."
It is to you — that subset of the whole — that I want to talk to for about ten minutes. I want you to understand something: you are operating under a false premise. You are not a good person. Here is what you are doing — you are looking at yourself and judging yourself as you compare to other people. And as you look around, you say, "Yeah, I am pretty good. Better than that guy."
I remember at one point in my life — it was probably the lowest point in my life. I was so immersed in so much junk that I was feeling pretty bad, and a man looked at me — absolute true story — and he said, "Tom, I know you feel bad, but you need to know you have value." I thought, "Oh, that is pretty good — I have value." And he said, "Yes. You can always be used as a bad example." It was not much, but I thought, well, that is something anyway.
Now I understand what he was doing. He was going home and saying, "Hey, you think I am bad? You ought to see Tom. Tom is really bad." And that is our problem — that is what we do. We look at each other and judge each other from a human perspective.
What God's View of Man Actually Is
What is God's view of man? In Romans chapter 3, Paul tells us how God sees man. Here is what he says: "There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, and there is none who seeks after God. All have turned aside; together they have become useless." The word literally means rotten, of no value.
Have you ever been back around your citrus tree and found an orange you missed that has been there through the summer, and you pick it up and it just oozes through your hand? That is the word. That is you. Useless. "And there is none who does good, not even one."
Now I know what you are thinking.
The Condition of the Human Heart
"I don't buy that for a second, because I know I may not be righteous, but I know there are other guys out there who are. I understand some things. I'm seeking God. I've been around, I've prayed once in a while, I've been to a couple of different churches, I've been to Borders, I was in the speculation section, bought a book, I'm open, I'm seeking God." No, here is what God says. God says what you are seeking is a God made in your image, the God you want. What you are doing is running from the one true God.
In fact, here is what He said: you have turned aside. It is a fascinating phrase. It means literally to lean in the wrong direction. It was used to describe a soldier who was running away or who was deserting. Get the picture? When God sees you — not those of you who are Christians, but those of you who say, "I'm a good person" — God sees a soldier running the wrong way. You are deserting. There is no one good.
How can that be? I know what you are saying. You are saying, "Wait a minute, my neighbor is a pretty good guy. He went on vacation last year and mowed my grass. I saw him at Christmas take a turkey downtown to some hungry people. He is pretty faithful to his wife. Pretty good guy in the office, good to the kids." Here is the problem: we are limited to looking at the action. God looks deeper than that. He looks at the heart.
We look at the action and say, "Hey, that is a good thing." God looks at the heart and says, "No, it is rotten, because the intent is wrong." The person is absorbed in themselves. Here is the condition of man, Romans chapter 3, verse 23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Sin means to miss the mark. Everyone has sinned. If you are here today and you are looking for a title to attach to your name, here is one that fits: sinner. If you have sinned once, you are a sinner. How many sins does it take to make you a sinner? If you break a law, you have broken the law in God's economy, and you fall short of His glory, you fall short of His standard, you miss the mark of perfection.
Doing It Your Way
I want to stay focused on that subset of people who say they are good. Here is what they are saying to God: "I'm going to do it my way. I'm just going to be good. I'm going to pull myself up on my own spiritual bootstraps. God, I want You to give me what I've earned. That's all I'm asking for." God says, "Fine, no problem." Romans chapter 6 tells us what He says: the wages of your sin is death. When you say, "God, all I want is what I deserve," He says, "There you go. You're dead."
Obviously this is not referring to physical death, though you will die physically. He is talking about spiritual death. The word death means separation. Spiritually, you are separated from God. There is a chasm between you and God. When you are all alone and you feel so isolated, so lonely, so abandoned, the reason is not just that people have left you — you are separated from God. When you say, "I want what I deserve," He says, "No problem. Here is death."
But there is a great word: but. "But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord." It is a gift. You can have what you have earned — that is death. Or you can receive what He extends to you — that is life, eternal life.
Heaven, Hell, and a Green Light
When we think of eternal life, we typically think of heaven. And indeed, that is part of it. There is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be shunned. It sounds so archaic in this year 2001, but it is true.
I teach a Bible study on Thursday noon at North Phoenix Baptist Church. I was pulling in there last Thursday and I noticed at the corner of Bethany and Central they were rerouting traffic. I asked what was going on, because the police were there. Here is what happened. A young man was heading south on Central, minding his own business, moving along with a green light. A truck came through on Bethany Home Road and hit him. At impact, it threw him into the dashboard and into the windshield and shattered his head. He was dead before they could get to him.
I am not trying to scare you with that, because I know I cannot scare you. You are going to say, "That's not going to happen to me," and probably it is not. But here is my point. I wish I could have that young man here this morning, because I am telling you, here is what he would say: there is a heaven, and there is a hell. While you may not be going through the corner of Central and Bethany Home, at some point in your life — I do not know when — you are going to cease to exist on Earth. And then you will either spend eternity in heaven or in hell.
Which one? If you say, "I want the wages of my sin," then He says, "That is fine. Hell." And if you are sitting here saying, "Hell's not so bad — Billy Joel said he'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, because the sinners are lots more fun" — hell is not a place of fun. It is a place of total isolation and abandonment, with no hope and no way out for all eternity. Or the free gift of God is eternal life — heaven.
Why the Resurrection Matters
So we are talking today about the resurrection. How important is that? As Peter is delivering a sermon in Acts chapter 2, verse 24, he says this: "God raised Jesus up again and put an end to the agony of death." What does he mean there? We know he does not mean physical agony. I have been by bedsides, and so have you, of men and women who love Jesus. They have given their —
Deliverance from Death and Hell
He is not talking about the physical pain that can come even at the end of a life given to Christ. He is talking about the agony that comes from the uncertainty of facing death and from the inevitability of hell if you do not know Him. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I came to this conclusion quickly: if there is a heaven, I want to know what I have to do to go there. There are all sorts of answers out there, but what does God say? Forget what some man says. Forget what some human deduces. What does God say?
Paul writes these words in Romans chapter 10, verse 9: "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." Here is what Paul says needs to be in place in your life, and when it is, you will be saved. Let us deal with "saved" first. The word could also be translated "delivered" — delivered from the agony of death, delivered from hell.
This is the third or fourth time I have made this point, and I am sorry to be redundant, but I want you to see it. There is a real place called hell, and in it are real people just like you, who somewhere along the way thought they were okay, thought they were good enough, thought they had what it took to pass God's standards. On death, they realized they did not. They were not saved. They were not spared. They were lost.
What It Means to Confess and Believe
So what must a person do? Confess — acknowledge and agree — that Jesus is Lord. You do not make Him Lord. He is Lord. You acknowledge that He is Lord. And you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.
That is why the teaching that has become very prominent, even among some who would call themselves Christians, that says the resurrection is just a picture and never really happened, is so damning. If this verse is true — and we know it is, because God wrote it in His Word — then if you do not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, you will not be saved.
The Evidence for the Empty Tomb
That is why God took such precautions to make sure you could understand that the tomb was empty. Even historically, people will agree the tomb is empty. I watched a fascinating program on the resurrection of Christ, and in one portion they had a Jewish woman on who was explaining how every theory about the empty tomb could not be true. You have heard all the theories — the swoon theory, that He went into a coma, and all the rest. Every theory they brought to her, she simply batted away. Then they said, "Well, you must believe in the resurrection, then." And she said no. How sad is that? She knew every theory was wrong. She knew you could not deny that the tomb was empty. But she would not believe.
The precautions were all in place. The crucifixion was chosen as the form of death for Christ because it was public — the general population could see it. Four professional executioners had to sign the death certificate confirming that He was indeed dead. They stabbed Him in the side, and out came blood and water separated. There was no question that this man was dead. They wrapped Him in Jewish burial cloths with spices and oil, and placed Him in a solid rock tomb — one way in, one way out, one door, no trap door.
In front of that door, they placed what Scripture calls a very large stone. Two engineers from Georgia Tech have done the math and estimate that stone weighed between one and a half and two tons. In front of that, they stationed sixteen of the most elite Roman guards — the best of the best. Sixteen of them could hold off a battalion of men and defend any six square feet against anything. Twelve would sleep while the other four stood duty. If they needed motivation, they had it: if the body went missing or the tomb was disturbed, they would be killed. On top of all that was the seal of Rome, which declared to the whole world that to touch it meant death.
One Reasonable Conclusion
And yet the tomb was empty. There is only one possible, reasonable, logical conclusion: He rose. We know the Jews did not take the body, because they were afraid of the resurrection. We know the Romans did not want it gone. When we see the disciples, as Russ was saying, they are petrified, scared — even when they see Jesus, they are struggling to believe it. They did not have the body. There is one explanation. He rose.
Do you believe that? If you do, you will be saved.
The Only Way to the Father
If you are here saying, "I am a good person, and I am going to reach God on my own terms. This Christianity thing may be fine for you, but I will do it my own way — after all, there must be a lot of ways to God," then consider what He said. John chapter 14, verse 6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." Do you see the definite article? The way — there is no other way. The truth — there is no other truth. The life — there is no other life. You either come through Christ, or you will never get to the Father at all. Those are the facts. That is the truth.
A Direct Challenge
Now, what are you going to do with it? Let me challenge you to come face to face with this and work it through. Talk to the person who brought you here today and ask them: What does it mean? What does it mean to believe? What does it mean to be a Christian? How can I really know? What is he talking about? How can I know more?
Maybe you are here and no one invited you — you simply sensed you needed to be here. Let me correct you: you were invited by the Holy Spirit, who brought you here for a reason, to hear this message.
The Only Question That Matters
We want to talk with you, and we will be here first thing in the morning. All you have to do is call. This is the most important issue you will ever have to deal with in your entire life. It makes no difference whether you are the CEO of the largest company on this planet or at the bottom rung of the organizational chart. It makes no difference whether you are a young kid in school, or in college, or someone who thinks they have it all together. There is only one issue that matters: Do you know Christ?
For many in this room, we know Him, and we praise Him, and we worship Him. When we sing these songs, they are not just a bunch of idle words — we really mean them. He is our Redeemer and He is our Savior. Because that is true, the only logical, reasonable response is thanksgiving and praise. There is one word that captures all of that: Hallelujah. Hallelujah to Him.
Closing Prayer
Father, that is the word we raise to You — Hallelujah. Father, thank You for Your Son, Jesus. Thank You for the salvation that we find in Him, in Him alone. God, we thank You for His life and for His death.
God, I pray for those who are here today who came in thinking they had it all figured out — that they were going to be good, that that was enough. I pray that You have opened their eyes so they can see that they are not good, that they are a piece of rotten fruit. For those of us who are here who know Jesus as Lord and Savior, our hearts are filled on this day in particular with joy, and our minds are focused on You. At the core of all that we sense on this day is thanksgiving and praise. Father, to You we say, Hallelujah. In Jesus' name, amen.