Waking Up to Life – 3/31/24

I want you to imagine for a few minutes with me what it’s like those couple seconds between when you are sound asleep and then partially awake. Do you know what that’s like? Where you’re a little bit disoriented. Maybe more than a little bit. Bewildered. Who am I? Where am I? What is happening? Depending on the nature of your dream, you’re wondering— if you had a really sad dream: is my day a sad day? Am I about to wake up to a dreaded project that’s due today, or that diagnosis that’s weighing on my chest like a slab of cement, or a loved one I’m deeply concerned about. Is it a sad story I’m waking up to? Or is it a happy story I’m waking up into that breeze that you feel blowing coming from the beach and you’re on vacation, that kind of day? Or a job you love to go to work to?

Christopher Watkins likens that awakening to an awareness of the resurrection. Listen to what he says,

“To take account of the resurrection of Christ is to wake up in a new reality, strikingly different to the world inhabited by those for whom Christ rising from the dead is a myth or a hoax. It transforms our sense of who we are in the world, what we are to do, and why we are to do it.”

Wow! That’s big.

Paul invites us into something very similar in Ephesians 5:14 when he says,

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

“Awake, O sleeper,” implying you’re living in a dream world of darkness, and you are being invited to wake up to a new reality that smashes the mechanistic predictability of doubt, despair, and death. This Changes everything. Paul is saying, come out of your slumber, out of your hypnotic state of bondage and death and all these—what one philosopher calls—determinations of life that will inevitably happen, culminating in death. Snap out of it. This is not inevitable. There is a new way of being in the world. Begin inhabiting a completely different story. That’s what Easter is all about.

Any resurrection is amazing, but Jesus’ resurrection is unlike any other. Remember when Lazarus was raised from the dead? He eventually got old and died. It was a sneak peek resurrection, giving us a glimpse of what is coming. But the real resurrection is the resurrection of Jesus because when Jesus rose, he ascended, never to die. He entered into a new way of being in the world.

The gospel is the invitation of Jesus for all y’all to join him in that new way of being. If that’s new to you, not the “all y’all,” but the word “gospel,” it’s simply a biblical word for “good news.” It could be summarized—this isn’t original with me, I’ve just modified it—but it could be summarized with three statements, three truths, that (1) Jesus came as our servant, (2) he died as our substitute, and (3) he rose as our Savior. We’re going to do something a little different. We’re coming out of our Matthew study today, and we’re just going to think about the gospel for a few minutes.

First, Jesus came as our servant. Philippians 2:6-7,

“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”

In other words, the thing to be taken advantage of.

“but he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

The highest one became the lowest. Born as a baby, living in obscurity, serving the poorest, washing his disciples’ dirty feet, being abused, rejected, crucified as a criminal. The highest became the lowest. That changes everything. That means Jesus brought a kingdom that goes down before up. In inaugurating a kingdom like that, he was wiping out hierarchy.

Hierarchy. What is that? When we believe in the risen Lord, we are awakened to what is often called the “upside down” kingdom. It’s really upside right, but to us it seems upside down because the pyramid is flipped, the social ladder is inverted, the caste system crumbles. Jesus described it this way in Mark 10:44-45, “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Do you see how that changes everything? When the highest. Became the lowest for the lowest. Number one. He became our servant. Came as our servant.

Number two, he died as our substitute. He died. Jesus died as our substitute. 2 Corinthians 5:21,

“For our sake he [God the Father] made him [God the Son] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

In Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. What does that mean? That means that Jesus not only inaugurated a “down before up,” but an “in before out.” Jesus wipes out religiosity, and by religiosity, I mean the attempt—which all the world’s religions are about—to become spiritual enough, moral enough, good enough. If you can just do enough to placate God, impress other people, or satisfy yourself. If you can somehow do enough. But the gospel is the bad news that you can never do enough (especially in the presence of a holy God) that becomes good news when you realize you have a substitute who gave himself for you. His kingdom is an “in before out” in that he does in us what we could never do for ourselves.

Think about all the world religions: four noble truths of Buddhism, the five pillars of Islam, the 16 Sanskaras of Hinduism, the five major principles of Humanism. All the lists that we come up with to try to show that we can be good enough or spiritual enough, sincere enough, or religious enough. No. Jesus came because you can’t be enough. He is your enough. He gave himself as your substitute. When we believe on him, his sacrifice by faith, his righteousness becomes our righteousness. His account (which is full) and our account (which is empty)— it becomes our account. He gives us a new heart, and that newness of life begins to work its way out. Yes, it will result in a changed life, but it’s “in before out.”

Jesus came as our servant. He died as our substitute. He rose as our Savior, number three. Peter, who was an eyewitness of the empty tomb, said it this way: 1 Peter 1:3-6,

” Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.”

Jesus is risen, and his resurrection is the first fruits of ours, guaranteeing we will rise as well. So, his kingdom is a “down before up,” “in before out,” and an “end before beginning.” What does that mean? The resurrection is, we know, the end. He is risen! And therefore, we begin with the end, empowered, fueled, and motivated by his resurrection, his kingdom is “end before beginning.” What does this do? Kids, brace yourself. We’re going to use a big word here, but I think you can get it. His kingdom, Jesus wipes out bipolarity. Bipolarity. Not using that in a technical way. If you look at the middle of that word, “pole,” think of the North Pole and the South Pole. Those are two extremes of the Earth. Bipolarity are the two extremes.

In this case, what Jesus is wiping out might be called the extreme of unrealistic ecstasy. Thinking, “Hey, if I become a Christian, I will have a cushy life. I won’t have any more problems. It’ll be super easy.” Is that true? No. We learned last week when Ryan was preaching in Matthew 5 that Jesus actually promised tribulation. You will suffer. You will have trouble if you follow me. So, his resurrection communicates that ours is guaranteed, but is not yet. We haven’t been raised physically yet, so therefore it shaves the top off of unrealistic ecstasy as well as unrelenting on the other side of the bipolarity: unrelenting misery. Though we grieve, we grieve with hope. Though we shed tears, we shed tears with joy because Jesus is risen. C.S. Lewis, former atheist, knows what it’s like to be awakened from the dream of death. He writes,

“We know that we were not made for [death]; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know who has defeated it.”

Lately, and I don’t know if this is actually true, but it seems true to me: there have been a flood of really good books describing the stories of atheists and agnostics and deconstructionists (people who have deconstructed their faith) who have come to Christ. Their stories are shared, describing their journey. There are at least three that I’m reading right now that are just so encouraging.

Let me give you one example: just came out, called Questioning Faith: Indirect Journeys of Belief Through Terrains of Doubt by Randy Newman. In this he tells the story of a close friend of his named Greg Boros. Greg lived a very difficult life: childhood sexual abuse, heart disease that resulted in several near-death and death experiences in his 20s. At 25, he had a heart transplant. He questioned God through this, dabbled in a lot of different religions and chucked all religion, but it just led him into more and more hopelessness, utter despair, and suicidal imaginations. But no matter how far down he went, he realized Jesus is there. Jesus is pursuing him, and he became a Christian.

He told a group of university students this,

“I’ve found out the tough way that there simply isn’t anywhere you can go where Jesus isn’t already there waiting for you. Down in the deepest, darkest basement, he was there waiting for me. I couldn’t get depressed enough, I couldn’t sin deeply enough, I couldn’t hate and despair and pray for death intensely enough to drive him away.”

What a savior!

Greg spent a lot of time examining the historicity of the resurrection and came to this conclusion: he said,

“I came to believe in Christianity because it’s true. I realized if the resurrection is real, everything is different from what I thought.”

Capture that moment. That’s that awakening when you realize Jesus, the highest, came as the lowest as a servant. He took the place I deserved because I could never do enough. He defeated sin and death rose from the grave. That changes everything. When we wake up from our dream of depravity, doubt, despair, and death, we awaken to this reality. That forms the lens, you could say, through which we view all of life.

Leslie Newbigin famously described it this way,

“The Christian story provides us with such a set of lenses, not something for us to look at, but for us to look through.”

This new set of lenses: Jesus came as a servant. His kingdom is down and up. Jesus died as our substitute. His kingdom is in before out. Jesus rose as our Savior. His kingdom is end before beginning.

Let’s go back to where we started in Ephesians 5:14, where Paul says he’s inviting us to wake up. He says,

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

This quotation, if you look at the context, Paul is talking about the new life of a Christian, but this seems to come out of nowhere. He’s obviously quoting someone. He refers to a person, and nobody really knows where it came from.

It seems most likely he is cobbling together two passages, Isaiah 26:19 and Isaiah 60:1-2, and mixing them together. That seems to form the foundation for the quotation, but here’s where it gets interesting: it’s a metrical triplet. The rhythm of this has convinced most scholars that what Paul is actually quoting, even though it was originally from Isaiah, it had been put together as a fragment of a baptismal hymn that early Christians would sing as their brothers and sisters were going under the water and coming out. It’s clearly a poem or a hymn to be spoken or sung. Look at the three parts. “Awake, O sleeper—” You were asleep, now you’re awake. “…arise from the dead—” You were dead, now you’re alive. “…Christ will shine on you.” You were darkness, now you are in light.

All morning, we have the privilege of rejoicing with a lot of our brothers and sisters. I think around 34 of our brothers and sisters who are getting baptized. When they go under the water, it’s not that the water is magical, it’s that the water is picturing this awakening that the Spirit has done as their hearts have been made alive as they go into the water. It’s a picture of dying. As they come up out of the water, it’s a picture of rising, a picture of awakening, and a picture that I am no longer who I was. I am now a new creation.

In this service, what we’re going to do, I’m going to pray in a moment and then we’ll have group one come up, share just a bit of their story, and they’ll get baptized while we sing. I would encourage you to stay seated while they get baptized so people around you can see. Then we’ll be able to stand and sing, and then I’ll come back up and we’ll have group two come, and they’ll share a bit of their story, get baptized, and we’ll keep singing. Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for this morning to celebrate your good news that you came as a servant and you died as our substitute, that you rose as our savior. That changes everything. I pray if there’s someone here who does not know you, that your Spirit would call their name. Speak to them now. Invite them to yourself, please. May they respond. I pray that you would give strength to our brothers and sisters as they testify and take this important step of baptism. Thank you, Jesus, that you are still transforming lives. We praise you in Jesus’ name, amen.