The Waymaker King

Hi all, this is Dave Scherrerrer of Wonderful Ministries and this is Kingdom Offerings. I have a question for you. Has anything not been written or spoken of about Easter? I mean it is the single greatest event in human history and in my nearly 50 years of ministry I suspect that I've either listened to or delivered over 150 sermons or messages about the resurrection of Jesus, maybe more than that. And of course the subject material demands our attention. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead changed the course of human history but actually it's a bigger story than that. It changed creation itself. The resurrection of Jesus Christ changed creation itself. You see the entire universe is different now that Jesus has raised from the dead. The defeat of death by Jesus, the King of creation, means that everything that Jesus taught and lived and prophesied about has been proven true. His resurrection cements Jesus' ultimate, absolute, and unquestioned authority over all things. And in my script I've got all things in all capital letters. All things. I'm guessing millions of pages I suppose have been written about the resurrection. But we're not going to read all of them right here in this moment. And I'm suspecting that you're glad about that. In this short podcast I want to reflect on one thing today having to do with the resurrection. And I want to build off our previous podcast in our short Holy Week series. For podcast series pulling up the events of Holy Week and looking at these events with kingdom eyes. These podcasts are part of our kingdom offerings content block and you can find that at 100foldministries.org. So if you want to go back and listen to some of the previous Holy Week podcasts you can do that at any time. They're all archived on our web page 100, that's 1-0-0 fold, F-O-L-D, 100foldministries.org. So the one thing I want to focus on is a statement made by King Jesus where he stated, I am the way. So that's a confusing statement to us in the 21st century. But I want to say that in the first century that statement really caught on. During the trial before the Roman governor Felix, that's found in Acts chapter 24, we read that Paul said, I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the way, which you call a sect. At the same time in this story, a little bit later in this chapter 24, the reader is also told that Felix knew about the way. The way these followers of Jesus were becoming famous and the attention was going into the highest places of Roman government. It seems that the Romans considered the way to be a sect of Judaism rather than a separate new religious expression. They knew about the way, but they didn't get it. There are other places the way is referenced regarding the early followers of Jesus. The gospel writer Luke says that Aquila and Priscilla explained to Apollos the way of God more fully. And Peter refers to Christianity as the way of truth in 2 Peter. The writer of Hebrews, who might be Apollos, says that Jesus' broken body is the new and living way for us to enter the most holy place. I want to go back to that verse in Hebrews chapter 10, that's in verses 19 and 20. That Jesus' broken body is the new and living way for us to enter the most high place. Turns out Jesus is indeed the way. I want to land here and talk about this idea of Jesus being the way. The gospel of the kingdom tells us that at its core, God is making good through Jesus' death on the cross for the eternal before time began plan to establish a forever kingdom of free will worshipers that will celebrate God before his throne. That's the big plan of God. But there's a problem. There is some sand in these gears, and it's a big problem. The king of the cosmos is absolutely holy. Now that's not a problem. That's actually a really great thing, that the God that we worship is perfectly holy. The trouble is, all of humanity is stained with sin. We cannot be in the presence of God in our fallen state and hope to live. Humanity is helpless to fix this condition that we're in. The debt for our own sin needs to be paid, but we need help from the outside, and not just from any kind of help. It has to be a sinless savior. His unearned death has purchased for us the way out of our sorrowful state and into the kingdom of glory. I want to say that again. This sinless savior, through his unearned death, has purchased for us the way out, the way, the way out of our sorrowful state and into the kingdom of glory. You know, when I was a young believer, I was maybe 15 or 16 years old and had only been a Christian for a little while. I heard one of my friends challenging me, and he said, doesn't it seem unfair that Jesus says there's only one way to heaven, and that way is through the Son, speaking of himself? You know what? I didn't really have an answer for that. In my head, it did seem a little unfair. My friend Kathy was standing next to me, and she was a very quiet gal. She calmly said, you know what? I find it amazing that Jesus was able to find any way for us to get to heaven, considering how sinful we are. And that seemed to make so much sense to me. His atoning death made a way for us. His resurrection proved to all the cosmos that he has the power to save us from death. And so this Waymaker King, he continues to save and to establish his kingdom. The Bible says that the gates of hell itself cannot prevail against this truth and his church. So this really is good news. This is gospel, the gospel of the kingdom, and it's King Jesus. So I have one more podcast concerning this Holy Week series, and we're going to turn our attention to Jesus' ascension, a really, really great and important event. A lot of Christians kind of look past that event, I think. And I know some of you are saying, well, wait a minute. That's not Holy Week. It isn't. It's sometime afterwards, some 40 days afterward. But it's a great event, and I want to talk about it. So check that out here at Kingdom Offerings here in a couple of weeks, and until then, you can check out our new blog at Backyard Conversations, and you'll find that also at 100FoldMinistries.org. So it's great. Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening into this little podcast on the resurrection and Jesus being the way. Trust that you'll catch up with us again soon. It's Dave Scherrer presenting 100 Fold Ministries. Take care.