A New Beginning

Greg Laurie: There is the fear of death, but as a Christian, we do not have to be afraid of death because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. The Christian no longer needs to fear death.

Guest (Male): As believers, we know what lies beyond the grave. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out when death lost its grip on us.

Greg Laurie: Death died when Christ rose. Easter was the death of death.

Guest (Male): Think of all the things we do to stay alive. We fasten our seatbelts, we buy fire extinguishers and smoke alarms, we lock our doors, we wear sunscreen, we take our vitamins, and look both ways before we cross the street. We don't want to die.

But today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out how death has already died. Because that's the central message of Easter. And today we'll find out that's our eternal hope.

Greg Laurie: Today we're in Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28 and the title of my message is A New Day Dawning. Now, when I was a little kid, I used to collect snakes. I loved snakes. I read books about snakes. I would go out and hunt and find snakes and bring them home and tame them. I was just literally obsessed with reptiles in general, but specifically with snakes.

There was one snake I bought at a pet store in Costa Mesa and I talked my mom into taking me down there to get it. We drove in the trusty old Ford Starliner and I put him in the little terrarium in the trunk. We're driving home and when we got there, I opened up the trunk and the terrarium's there and the snake is gone. Somehow that little snake got loose in the car and my mom said, "I'm never driving this car again."

Well, a week passed and she had to drive the car. So she's driving along but very conscious of the fact that there's a live snake in that car somewhere. She was afraid it was going to come and bite her. She comes to a stoplight, she's waiting, and she feels a cold coil drop on her ankle. She opens the door, jumps out, she's running into the street screaming.

A police officer happened to be nearby and he went in. She said, "There's a snake in the car." He looked and it was actually a loose hose that had dropped. But she never drove the car again and gave it to me. And that's what this message is all about, how to get a free car. Lose a snake. God bless and happy Easter. No.

But the thing I look back on now is I hated that car. I didn't think that car was cool. Now I look at it and I say, "I should have kept that car." That car's totally cool now, but then I thought it's not a cool car. So why do I tell that story? Really, I have no idea. I have to remember. Oh, fear, yes. There's a lot of things that can scare us in life.

The world is full of fear. There are things that are scary in our world today. Of course, we're living in an age of anxiety, an age of fear. You have geopolitical problems like the emergence of China as an economic and military superpower. Iran developing nuclear weapons and they've been very upfront in their intention to destroy Israel and even to destroy America.

Then you have the threat of terrorism. Then you have school shootings. Then you have all the things that happen. Then there are our personal fears. We have the fear of losing our health, losing our family, losing our livelihood. And then there's the fear of failure, the fear of rejection. And of course, there is the fear of death.

I think we should be concerned about death. We need to be aware of death. We need to be prepared for death. But as a Christian, we do not have to be afraid of death. And let me tell you why that is. Because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. The Christian no longer needs to fear death. At the cross, Christ defeated sin. At the empty tomb, he defeated death.

Death died when Christ rose. Easter was the death of death. I love this statement from Jesus in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, where he says, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead. I am alive forevermore, and I hold the keys of death and Hades." I love that. He said, "I'm in control of this."

I'm glad he has the keys because if I had them, they would be lost by now. I'm always losing my keys, I don't know about you. But we do worry about things like this and we really shouldn't. We worry about how long we will live. And the ridiculous thing about that is you can actually worry yourself to a shorter life. It can actually affect you physically.

Even Jesus said, "Can all of your worries add a single moment to your life?" And yet there are so many people who are obsessed with finding ways to live longer. I read recently that AI, artificial intelligence, can now even predict with some accuracy how long you should live. Look, I think we need to be practical. I think we need to think about what we eat.

I think we need to be practical about exercise. I hit the gym a couple of times a week and I'm up to 100 crunches a day, by the way. Nestle's Crunch, very good, you should try them. I eat 100 in one sitting, it's fantastic. I even read an article about some billionaires that are on a mission to cure aging. One known billionaire was going to get a computer chip implanted in his brain.

Another billionaire is undergoing blood transfusions from young healthy donors between the ages of 16 and 25 because he thinks it may reverse aging. But it's had a different effect on him. After he got the blood transfusion, he ended up in a movie theater for the new Minecraft movie screaming whenever Chicken Jockey appeared on the screen and throwing popcorn.

If you didn't get that, it's because you're old. Google it. But the Bible says we live our life like a story that's been told. We don't decide when life starts or stops, but we have everything to say about that dash in the middle. Jesus says to us, "Don't be afraid." Here's another point: the resurrection of Jesus replaces fear with faith.

Let's read Matthew 28 now, this beautiful account of the resurrection of our Lord on the first Easter Sunday. Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning—that's why I gave that title to this message, a new day is dawning—as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to visit the tomb. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it.

His face shone like lightning and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him and they fell into a dead faint. Then the angel spoke to the woman, "Don't be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn't here. He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come see where his body was lying."

"And now go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and he's ahead of you into Galilee. You'll see him there, and remember what I told you." Look what happens now. Drop down to verse 8. The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened and they were filled with great joy and they rushed to give the disciples the angel's message.

As they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him and they grasped his feet. And they worshipped him and Jesus said, "Don't be afraid. Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee and that they will see me there." Consider the backdrop to what we have just seen. In their estimation, Jesus had failed in his mission.

They thought Messiah would overthrow the powers that be and would establish his kingdom on the earth. In their case, they thought Christ would drive away the tyranny of Rome and he would rule. But they didn't read their Bibles carefully enough. If they had, they would have discovered that before he would reign as King of kings and Lord of lords, he would come as a suffering Savior and he would die on the cross for the sin of the world.

The promise of this goes clear back to the book of Genesis and the first messianic passage there in Genesis 3, where after Adam and Eve fell into sin, the Lord said there's coming one who would bruise Satan's head and Satan would bruise his heel. So it was like game on. Messiah is coming. And all the passages of scripture from Psalm 22 that prophetically says they pierce my hands and my feet to Isaiah 53 that gives a vivid description of the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Everything was pointing to this mission. Jesus is in the Old Testament concealed and he's in the New Testament revealed. It's all there and he spoke of it constantly. He would spell it out. He would say, "The Son of Man, I am going to be crucified. I'm going to rise again from the dead three days later." And somehow this just went over their heads.

They collectively missed the memo and so when Jesus was crucified, they thought he had somehow failed in his mission when in fact everything was going according to plan, that is God's plan.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We love to hear stories of how lives are impacted through Pastor Greg's studies.

Pastor Greg, listening to you every day on the way to work reminds me to focus myself on the Lord so that I may serve him in every way, even at work. One morning as I was listening, you mentioned reading the Bible in a year and that sparked my need to do the same. So far, I'm halfway through reading the Bible. Thank you, Pastor Greg, and praise God.

Has Pastor Greg heard from you? Why not drop him an email? Send it to greg@harvest.org. That's greg@harvest.org. We're taking a good look at the resurrection of Christ today by way of Pastor Greg's message called A New Day Dawning. Let's continue in Matthew 28.

Greg Laurie: So the women come to anoint the body of Jesus, not to see the risen Lord. They go to anoint his body. A shoutout to the ladies here: women were the last at the cross and the first at the tomb. You go, girl. And in particular, Mary Magdalene. He cast seven demons out of her. She owed her very life to him and she was rewarded for her faithfulness.

By the way, at the cross, the Bible specifically tells us she was close to the cross. While the others were at a distance, she was close enough where he could see her. She wasn't afraid of repercussions. She didn't care about what could happen to her potentially. She just wanted to be near to her Lord, and Jesus saw her there. So she was rewarded big time when he appeared to her before anybody else and he even said her name.

This is such a beautiful truth. Women, they seem to somehow have a perception that men don't have. For example, just watch women talking to each other. My wife has a small group in our house and all the ladies come and they start talking and it's like a rumbling sound downstairs. The pitch gets higher and I walk through the space and I can't understand what anybody is saying.

But somehow they're all talking at the same time, understanding one another, and I'm just mystified by it all. Often the ladies have a perception the men don't have. Now if they could just get ready in time, we would be onto something. Come on, I had to throw something in there for the guys. What do you want? It says they were very frightened and filled with great joy.

Have you ever experienced happiness and fear at the same time? Maybe on your wedding day or the birth of your first child or when you bought your first house or getting on that roller coaster. It's happiness and fear. For me now, it's just pure fear. There's no happiness or fun for me anymore in riding roller coasters. I've given it up. As I get older, ordering something new off the menu is taking a risk for me.

But he was alive. Now imagine if there was social media back in this day. Mary Magdalene's potential post: "The tomb is empty. Repeat, empty." And then look on the bottom: Peter. "What? Be right there." This would go viral. This would break the internet, right, if there was social media when Christ rose again from the dead.

But the message was going out. One of my favorite post-resurrection stories is the two disciples on the Emmaus road. They had heard Jesus was risen, but they dismissed it. So they're walking along and who joins them but Jesus himself. And he engages in their conversation. Their faces were downcast and he says, "Guys," loose paraphrase, "What's up? What's going on? Why do you look so sad?"

They said, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who has not heard about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed? We had hoped," past tense, "he would have been the one to redeem Israel, but it's been three days since he was killed." So now they're telling Jesus about Jesus and they're not doing a very good job. Over on Maui, there's a Sunglass Hut and I went in there looking at some sunglasses and I asked a couple of questions.

The young lady working there said, "Has anyone ever told you you sound like Greg Laurie?" I said, "I've heard that." And I said, "I met him once." "Really?" I said, "He is a total jerk. Really, he's rude. I didn't like him at all." Then she starts defending me to me. "No, he's good. I listen to him on the radio. I like him. No, no, he's a jerk."

This went on for a few moments and then I finally say, "Actually, I am Greg Laurie." And I think she thought, "No, you actually are a jerk, aren't you? You just confirmed it in front of me right here." So they're telling Jesus about Jesus. They're not doing a very good job. Then he says, "How foolish you are and slow to believe all that the prophets have predicted."

And so they completed their journey. They sit down at a table and they break bread. And now Jesus reveals himself. They didn't know it was Jesus. Now they know. And then they said, "We should have known. Did not our hearts burn within us while we walked on the way and he opened to us the word of God?" See, they started their journey in depression, in fear, and they ended it with joy.

On this Easter, maybe you come here sad today. Maybe you've lost a loved one. They were with you last Easter, but they're gone. And that's again the whole point of Easter. Death does not have the last word. Easter does. Again, death died when Christ rose. The hope that we have as Christians is simply this: we will see our loved ones who have died in faith again.

The non-believer does not have this hope. Oh, I know they like to think they have it, but only the Christian has this guaranteed hope. Another story I love is when Jesus went to Mary and Martha. Their brother was sick and they asked Jesus to come and do something. He arrived late and by the time he got into town there in Bethany, Lazarus had actually died and Jesus had even missed the funeral.

Martha approaches him and says, "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died." Loose paraphrase: "You messed up, Jesus. We were depending on you. You could have done something. You could have healed him." And Jesus says, "Your brother will live again." "Oh, I know, Lord, in the resurrection and all that." "Martha, listen to me. I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die."

Then he asks her, "Do you believe this?" See, a lot of times they'll say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I know, I've read that, I believe that." Do you really believe it? Because if you really believe it, you don't have to fear death. And if you really believe it, you know you'll see your loved ones again. This is the great hope. You go, "But Greg, you're delusional. Everybody dies."

I know that. We die physically, but our soul lives on. And where does it live on? It lives on in the presence of God. And if you want to have that hope, you have to be born again. Jesus said, "You must be born again." You could sum it up like this: if you're born once, you'll die twice, but if you're born twice, you'll die once. Does that make sense?

If you're born once, that is physically, you'll die twice. You'll die physically and spiritually. But if you're born twice, that is born physically and born again, you'll die once. Yes, your body will die, but your soul will live on. You say, "I don't know what this means, as born again." A spiritual rebirth is when you ask Christ to come and live inside of you and he forgives you of all of your sin and he makes you a new person on the inside.

Not a perfect person. Not a flawless person. You're still you, but you're a forgiven person. A new person in Christ. Old things passed away, everything becoming fresh and new. But I think people have this faulty concept of God. "Well, I don't know, you know, if I want to become a Christian, I'm going to lose my freedom and I'm going to have to live according to God's way and it's so restrictive and miserable."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Being a Christian is when you're truly set free. I no longer have to be addicted to any substance to bring happiness or fulfillment because it never really did. But I now have the freedom to walk with God and to know God. So Jesus says, "Don't be afraid."

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie with today's Easter message here on A New Beginning, a study called A New Day Dawning. And there's more to come. But Pastor Greg was just talking about being set free when we're believers in Jesus. Have you experienced that freedom? You can. In fact, it can happen today. Pastor Greg, they can make that change right now, can't they?

Greg Laurie: That's right. The Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So think of it this way: maybe you're out in a rip tide in the ocean and you can't get your footing and you're in trouble and you see a lifeguard. Call out for help and the lifeguard will rescue you. The same is true spiritually. You're drowning in your sin. You need help. Jesus will save you. He will rescue you, but you must call out to him. And you know how you do that? You do it in prayer.

So let me just lead you in a simple prayer and you can pray this prayer after me. You can pray it out loud if you'd like, and this is where you are calling out to Jesus to save you. Just pray this: Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and I know you are the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. Now, Lord, I turn from my sin and I put my faith in you.

Be my Savior, my Lord, be my God and my friend. I choose to follow you from this moment forward. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Hey, if you just prayed that prayer, I want you to know that Christ himself has come to live inside of you. And I have a resource I want to send you. It's called the New Believer's Bible.

So the New Believer's Bible is the New Testament in the New Living Translation with hundreds of notes that I wrote that will encourage you in this commitment you are making to follow Christ. There's some other materials included as well in what we call the New Believer's Growth Pack, but let me get this New Believer's Bible into your hands as quickly as possible. Here's Dave to tell you more.

Guest (Male): And we'll be glad to send it all your way free of any charge. If you prayed along with Pastor Greg today, just ask for the New Believer's Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. You can reach us anytime, 24/7, at 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click Know God.

Pastor Greg, we hear from people all the time who tell us how these daily studies have impacted their lives. So many have found the Lord and been encouraged through this teaching.

Greg Laurie: It's really true, Dave. Even a little bit helps. People need to hear the gospel so badly. They need to hear the teaching of the Word of God. It changes everything because it changes us. And I'm so passionate about it and I'm called to do it and I'm thankful for it. But I can't do it alone.

So I'm going to ask folks that are listening, if you think more people need to hear the gospel, if you believe more people need to hear the teaching of the Word of God, then prayerfully consider investing in Harvest Ministries and maybe even become a Harvest Partner, which means you're someone who stands with us every month in your faithful giving and that opens up a lot of new opportunities for us. So thanks for that.

Guest (Male): That's right, and we really are thankful for your partnership. You can reach us anytime, day or night, at 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or just go online to harvest.org.

Well, next time, Pastor Greg has more insight to help us prepare our hearts for Easter weekend. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.