Welcome to the Harvest Centre! We are glad you're here today!
Happy Easter everyone. It's nice to see you all here. You know this is the most important day of our
calendar, Christian calendar if you want to like to call it this way. The day when Jesus resurrected
it was the final word, the last chapter of the story that we started looking into last Friday.
By the way, all those who were here on Friday night we spoke about how costly was the sacrifice
of Jesus on the cross for each one of us, but today we are going to celebrate together because
He has risen. Amen? Shall we give a round of applause to our Jesus because He has risen.
He is among us today. He wants to bless our life. He wants to touch your life. If it is your first
time here at the Harvest Center please feel welcome. I hope you will feel welcome. You will enjoy the
service. I hope that God is going to speak to your life. He's going to touch your life because we
believe that He has risen for a reason. He's standing at the right hand of the Father,
interceding for us, and in the meantime He has sent His Holy Spirit, you know, to work in us,
through us, among us, and the Bible says that when two or three are gathered, when you gather in my
name and two or three are gathered in my name, I'm going to be there with you. So we believe that the
Holy Spirit is here among us. He wants to do good things in our life because He loves us and He wants
to touch your life and my life today. Amen? So as we now start and we're just gonna, you know,
spend some time in worship, I just want to invite you to open your heart today because Christ has
reason from the dead because of you, because of the love that He had for you. He has a good plan,
a good purpose for your life, and I want to invite you, I want to invite you today to receive what
Jesus wants to do for you in your lives. So just before I go forward, just a couple of prayer
points. Just keep in mind, you know, when you pray, mission trip to Uganda coming up on the
19th of June. So as we now, you know, March, April is already gone, you know, in my mind. You're
already May, June, so I really feel that this mission trip is coming up very quickly. So there's
a team from the church who's gonna go in Uganda and we just keep them, you know, let's keep them
in our prayers as they're gonna, you know, go and do the work of God there. If you want to know more,
if you're new here and you're wondering what Uganda has to do with England, we support various
projects abroad and Uganda is one of these projects. So if you want to know more information,
you know, you can come and approach us. We will be able to give you all the information on this.
As well, a massive thank you to all the people who came last Sunday to help out with the outreach.
And let me tell you that people loved it. You know, we posted something on Facebook and just
people, you know, they said thank you, you know, it was a great event and their kids enjoyed it.
So yeah, thank you so much for, you know, for being available. It's like all what we do, we do it for
the Lord. We do it for God. Never forget that. And the reward that is waiting for us, we cannot even
imagine and quantify what that reward is gonna be. Now, of course, today is Easter. And as I said at
the beginning, it's the most important day of the Christian calendar. If Christ would have not
resurrected from the dead, it would have been pointless for us to be here today. The Christian
faith would be pointless without Jesus resurrecting from the dead. And this is something that we
posted, something on Facebook. We've got so many hundreds of thousands of religions in the world,
but we have only one person who actually managed to defeat that, the death itself. And this person
is Jesus Christ. And this is why we are here, because Easter, the message of Easter, the
resurrection is something that has changed everything. The way how we think, imagine,
the way how, you know, our life was supposed to go. This, the resurrection of Christ has changed
completely everything. But before, you know, going into details why it changed everything,
I want to, you know, start by saying this. How many of you, you ever find yourself saying, life is
not fair? Is it only me? No, our life or the situation is not fair, or like, oh, come on.
You know, we go through these moments where, you know, we think that situation is getting a bit
tough, and we come out with these sentences. We usually got different flavor. We say, our life
is not fair. The situation is not fair. They've not been fair with me. My friends have not been
fair with me. The colleagues have not been fair with me. Oh, nothing is fair to me. And, you know,
different flavors. But if we're honest with ourselves, at some point, we all, you know,
in our life, we all came up with these words. You know, we were facing a situation, and we
thought that we didn't deserve that. We thought that, you know, after all what I've done.
And we go and we say, I don't deserve that. And usually when you speak to people that are going
through this moment where they say, you know, life is not fair, for example, when you talk to them,
it's like usually the explanation that it gives you, it comes in these different words, you know,
different flavors. They say, well, you know, after all, I'm a good person. You know, I always try to
be good. I always try to help the poor, to help the needy. And I, you know, all what I want is a bit
of fairness towards me. But instead of receiving anything good, all what I receive is difficulties,
problems, you know. And this is maybe not exactly the wording that people use, but it is, you know,
different flavors with different structures. The sentence looks pretty much like that. But here,
I'm here today because I want to challenge this way of thinking. I want to challenge this way of
thinking. You know, we think that, you know, we are good. You know, I'm too good. You know,
life is not fair. I don't deserve that. I want to challenge this way, this way of thinking.
Because you see, if we look at the message of Easter, Easter actually, the resurrection of
Jesus, that's really something that is not fair. And that's why, you know, there's a graphic coming
up. That's what I call it today, a speech. It's like Easter is not fair. And, you know, I'm going
to explain a little bit better what I mean by that. Because you might read a sentence, you might
think, oh, that's a bit strange as a title for Easter Sunday. Easter is not fair. What do you mean?
Easter is beautiful, it's joyful. But, you know, believe it or not, the message of Easter,
the resurrection of Jesus is not fair. And I'm going to say something more, praise God,
because the resurrection of Jesus, the message of Easter is not fair to us. Praise God for that.
Because, you know, it's like, as I said, we think we deserve things, but when it comes from God's
perspective, it's like, what do we deserve? Yeah? What do we, so how do you assess in your life?
How do you come to the conclusion that you are good and you deserve good things?
You know, when we look into the Bible, the Bible speaks about man, the condition of man,
and it actually very clearly says that we don't deserve nothing. We don't deserve anything.
That really, you know, we are not good enough by any chance to deserve anything good from God
on our own. And I just want to read, just to make it a point, Isaiah 64, verse 6, is a very known
verse. It says, we are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds,
they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep
us away like the wind. Listen to this, when we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but
filthy rags. When we think, this is my righteous deeds, I'm good enough, I've done these, I've given,
I've helped, I smile to people, I never acted, you know, in a way that I think is not proper.
These are all my good deeds, the way why we think, but yet before God, before the perfection of God,
all these things are like filthy rags. How strong is the language in the Bible here? But really,
God wants to make sure, look, you need to understand.
Really, you don't deserve anything. There is no goodness in you that you couldn't deserve
anything from me. There is no righteousness in your life that you can deserve anything.
Romans 3, 23, for everyone who has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standards.
God has some standards, isn't that, you know, have you ever thought about that?
And somehow, we all fall short of God's glorious standards.
And somehow, we all fall short of God's glorious standards. Yet God, in His grace,
freely make us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus, when He freed us from the
penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin, and that's the message of
Easter, right? People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life,
shedding his blood. Again, everyone has sinned. Everyone means everyone, nobody's excluded.
We all fall short of God's glorious standards. Think about that word. God does not only have
standards, but His standards are glorious. Sometimes we think God is like, I don't know,
our imagination, but actually, God has some glorious standards, whatever that means,
the perfection, the level of perfection that we cannot even start to imagine, and we all
fall short of these. So what do we deserve, really? What do we deserve with our life if we all fall
short of God's glorious standards? What do we deserve if even our best righteous acts that we
can ever do in our life, you know, to the eyes of God are like filthy rags? And this is the message
of grace. Really, we receive something different than what we deserve, and this is why Easter is
not fair, because through Easter, through the resurrection of Christ, you're actually
receiving something that you don't deserve. Easter is not fair, because you know, if it was not for
Christ, what we would deserve, it was to be lost forever, far away from God, in a place that we
call, and the Bible calls hell and different names, but that would have been our destiny,
but as we read in Romans, Jesus, you know, His plan was to save us through the person of Jesus,
He came, He died, He was resurrected, so that through Him, we could actually experience the,
you know, the presence of God. So really, the resurrection of Jesus takes away from us
what we deserve, and He's giving us in exchange something that we don't deserve. He takes away
the penalty of sin, and He gives away grace, love, something that surely we don't deserve,
because of what we do in our life. He gives us salvation instead of wrath.
We were destined to wrath. The wrath of God was upon us, but God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on
the cross. He resurrected Him so that through Him, you know, He could give us in exchange
something that we don't deserve, but it was good for us. Jesus, He didn't get what He deserved.
If there was one person ever existed on earth that really deserved something good from God,
that was the person, Godfather, that was the person of Jesus. He was the Son of God, the King of Kings,
He relived the perfect life, never sinned, never messed up, always blessed people, always helped
people. Sin was not present in His life. He was a good King, the King of Kings, and yet He didn't get
what really, really what He deserved. You think about, you know, you think about a King, and a
King has a golden crown on His head, but we know what Jesus had is that. He had a crown of thorns.
A good King, you know, sits on the throne, in the throne room. Have you ever seen this movie? It's a
throne room, massive thrones, bigger the thrones, bigger the King, but yet Jesus didn't sit on the
throne. He was hanging on a cross. A good King surely should be surrounded by servants,
but yet, you know, Jesus, when He gave His life on the cross, He was surrounded by thieves. So
really, He was the good King, that He deserved something, and yet He decided to leave all these
things, because His mission was to save as Jesus deserved, a King deserved an honorable death.
A good King, you know, again, you know, is, if you go back in history and you see when Kings were
important and famous, you know, when there was a funeral, it was a massive thing happening
in different cultures, with different flavors, but it was always a massive event, but yet Jesus
didn't get a good, an honorable death, but He got a death that was very shameful. He died on the cross
for us, and you know, Friday night, we went through all these, the steps that Christ had to go through.
Surely all the things that He had to go through was not fair to Him, but yet, because He loved
us, He decided, you know what, I'm going to go through this, so that you can deserve today,
so that you can receive today what you don't deserve. The message of Easter isn't fair,
the message of Easter isn't fair. Jesus died on the cross, and I just, you know, wrote a few
pointers here, you know, we spoke very in depth on Friday night, so I'm not going to say much
about this, but I just want to, you know, say a few things about the cross. It was the worst,
you know, when you had to die, when they were telling you, you're going to go hang up on the
cross, it was the worst things that could have happened to you, when it were under the Roman,
a Roman, sorry, a ruling system, the death on the cross was something that was reserved to the most
dangerous, the most despicable criminals. It was terrible, you know, there was a process leading up
on the cross, and Christ went through this process, He was whipped, with His whip, it was like,
it was made with the metals bit and glasses, you know, this is actually, if you Google it,
Romans whip, how they were doing it, prisoners, you know, who were going to die, it was something
terrible, it was, you know, and they would hit you so strong that literally the flesh would come off
the back of the person because of these sharp metals and glass, so they would rip apart the
flesh, so you can even imagine, you can imagine, you can have an idea of how painful that was,
loss of blood, the state of shock that Christ had to go through, and then He was stripped naked,
and He was putting a cross, and maybe this is not something that is like, is that, you know, like
it's not so important for us, right, you know, we live in a world where people go around naked,
so it's not a big deal, but actually in that culture, it was something extremely shameful,
extremely shameful, and Jesus was stripped naked, it was just the other, like something to cover
His private, but still there was like a shameful, shameful death, there was no honor when He was
hanging on the cross, the Son of God, the King of Kings, the One who deserved only good things, and
yet after being, He was beaten, and after He was whipped in His back, and blood was going everywhere,
He was, you know, stripped naked, and was hanging in the cross, He was nailed on the cross,
seven inches, you know, the length of the nails, and usually on the cross, you know, the goal in
the cross was to cause a slow death, you would actually die by
asphyxiation most of the times, it was because, you know, sorry for the descriptions, but when you
were hanging on the cross, you know, all your weight was on your chest, and you couldn't breathe
properly, and the only way for you if you wanted to breathe was to push on your feet, so that you
could, you know, release your chest and start breathing properly, but the problem is of course
there were nails in the feet of the people, so it was very painful, they couldn't do this move,
so they were slowly and in pain, you know, either died because of the blood loss, or because they
couldn't breathe anymore, and in fact when the Romans were actually moved to compassion,
what they would do, they would go and break the legs of the people who were hanging on the cross,
because by doing that with the broken legs, they couldn't lift themselves up anymore, and death was
quickened a little bit, you know, that was not the case of Jesus, but this is, you know, what they
used to do, so cross, the cross of Jesus was something painful, the cross of Jesus was something
shameful, because He wanted to give something to you and me that we didn't deserve in the first place.
Easter is not fair, right, thank God for that, in a sense, you know, because we are saved through
a message that is not fair, and then we know the story, in a, in a, sorry actually before we carry
on, dying on the cross, it was also, we spoke about this on Friday, there was the spiritual
element, it was not just the physical, it was not just the shame, so the mental, you know, stress,
but there was a spiritual element, because God, Jesus was separated from His Father, plus as well
according to God's law in the Old Testament, the person who was hanging on the pole on a cross,
it was, it was like someone who was cursed. Galatians 3, chapter 3, verse 13, that was
quoting from Deuteronomy 21, 23, we read the following, Christ redeems us from the curse
of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.
So you see that when Christ died on the cross, it was the physical pain, it was the mental pain,
emotional pain, the shame, but as well there was the spiritual pain, separated from God,
taking the curse of sin upon Himself. So you think that life is not fair to you.
So you think, next time when you, when you say, oh life is not fair to me,
I haven't done anything wrong, I want to invite you to think about the person of Jesus,
because if life is not fair to you and me, how about Jesus? What would Jesus had to say? Yet He
endured everything because He loved us. And then we left here on Friday, but then we know that,
of course after three days something miraculous happened, the resurrection of Jesus. And I
really said a number of times that the resurrection of Jesus is the most important thing that
we have as Christians. If the resurrection of Jesus wasn't there, then our faith would be
pointless. And maybe you don't know the Bible very well, you think, well these are a bit of strong
words, but actually these words come from the Bible, and I just want to read them to you.
1 Corinthians 15, 14, chapter 15 verse 14, Paul writes, and if Christ has not been raised,
our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. So this is the Bible.
You know, if Christ was not risen, why am I speaking here today? What's the point of your faith?
It would be something just like anybody, anything else that you can come across in life. But what
makes Christianity unique, what makes the person of Jesus unique, that He actually, you know,
He came back, He was resurrected from the dead. He died so that we could leave. In Romans 3 verses
23 to 25, again it says, for everyone has seen, we all for short of God's glorious standard,
what we read before, and I'm going to read again. Yet God in His grace freely make us right in His
sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty of our sins. For God
presented Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus
sacrificed His life shedding His blood. Do you believe in Jesus today? Do you believe in what
He has done on the cross? Because you see that's for you, is that, you know, if you want to really
to make this resurrection, if you want really to make the Easter message something relevant in your
life, the way, the only way for you to do that is to believe in the person of Jesus, what He has done
on the cross, that He has died for you, for your sins, and therefore because of Him, you are
forgiven. Because of what Christ has done, the guilt and the wrath of God, it was a point of life has
been taken away and was put upon Himself. And you know, you keep on looking at the picture of Jesus,
you know, dying on the cross, and there are so many details that we can go through, and I don't
know if you ever paid attention to that, that there were three people actually on the Golgotha.
It was Jesus, and there were two, and then there was Jesus, and then there was Jesus, and then there
were three people actually on the Golgotha. It was Jesus, and there were two other men next to Him,
and two other crosses, the two thieves. And I want to just say a few words here,
because you see numbers are very significant in the Bible, and for example, you know, I've
wrote a few down, so you can have an idea where I'm going. There is number one in the Bible,
there's actually all, you know, a subject, you know, when you study theology, you can actually
study Bible numerology. Number one is the number of unity. God is represented in unity between,
you know, the God, the Father, the Son, you know, the person of God unique. It cannot, number one,
it cannot be divided, you know that mathematically. It can only be divided by itself.
The oldness of God. Number four, for example, it represents the earth,
the creation week, and on the fourth day, all the earth was created, you know, and then,
you know, we start with life, and the universe was created. Number seven is the number of
perfection. Number six is the weakness, represents man, the weakness of man, the evilness of man.
Man was created in the sixth day. Number eight represents new beginning. Number 40, for example,
represents testing and trials. We've got 40 years in the wilderness, the people of Israel. We've
got 40 days in the desert when Jesus was tempted. And of course, in the Old Testament, the flood,
you know, Noah's, it was raining for 40 days. But then we go to number three, and I want to stop
here a little bit because there were three people in that Golgotha. Three is the number of wholeness,
is the number of completion. And so, when you look at Golgotha, there was the complete picture
of the relationship between God and man, what he had done for humanity, and what people do with
what he has done for humanity, the different choices they can make. It was the complete message.
But before, you know, going into that, I just want to, you know, very quickly again,
going through a list here. You know, Google is wonderful. You can just, you know, write number
three in the Bible, and bam, comes up with a list. You maybe never done it yourself. I'm going to
give you some details here. Number three in the Bible, remember, number of completion, wholeness,
and now we go with the number three in the Bible. God is the Trinity, three in one, God is the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Man, we are three in nature, we've got body, soul, and spirit.
God's nature is made of three main elements. He is omnipresent, you know, presence everywhere,
omniscient, you know, all-knowing God, and omnipotent, all-powerful God. Revelation 1,
8, God says of himself that he is the God who was, who is, and who is to come.
God's grace was manifest, is manifested through justification, sanctification,
and then one day will be glorified, you know, with God in heaven. Old Testament, the number three
in the Old Testament, there were three patriarchs, or fathers of the faith, Old Testament, Hebrew
people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The tabernacle, there were three sections, outer court, inner
court, and the holy of holies. The angels cried out to God three times, holy, holy, holy.
Daniel prayed three times a day. Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days.
New Testament, there's 27 books about, which is, by the way, three multiplied by three,
multiplied by three is 27. The Apostle Paul was blinded for three days when he had an encounter
with Jesus on his way to Damascus. Paul prayed three times for his thorn to be removed from his
flesh. And on his journey to Rome, Paul was stranded on Malta Island for three months after
being shipwrecked. About the person of Jesus, at his birth he was visited by the wise men who
brought three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. When he was 12 years old, he was separated from
his parents for three days. His public ministry lasted for three years, started when he was 30,
ended up when he was 33. Jesus was tempted three times by Satan in the desert. There were 12
disciples, but actually three of them were part of the inner circle of Jesus. And it was Peter,
James, and John, there were those who were present at the transfiguration, for example.
Jesus predicted Peter that he would have denied him three times. Three times Jesus told Peter,
you're going to betray me, you're going to betray me, you're going to betray me for three times.
And guess what? This is exactly what happened. Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus expressed
love and grace by asking Simon Peter if he loved him. Do you love me? Do you remember when he was
asking to Simon Peter? He asked him three times. God spoke audibly to Jesus three times, when Jesus
was baptized at the transfiguration and before his crucifixion in John 12. Jesus was raised,
sorry, Jesus raised three people from the dead that we know in the Bible. There is Lazarus,
the widow's son, and Jairus' daughter. And then we come to Jesus in the cross.
Jesus prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane before dying on the cross. And then
tradition, this is not the Bible, but tradition says that while he was carrying the cross to the
mountain of Golgotha, he actually fell three times while carrying his cross.
The sign that he had above his head was King of the Jews, was written in three languages.
It was Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Was one of the three men who actually hung on the cross.
We said, Jesus, you were only three people on the Golgotha. And then he was placed on the cross.
And at the third hour, actually, on the third hour of the day, and at the ninth hour, which would be
the 3 p.m. in the Western kind of system, declared the three words of victory, he is finished.
The earth trembled, darkness fell on the land for three hours. The world waited. Day one,
nothing happened. Day two, nothing happened. Day three, of course, something wonderful happened.
The stone was rolled away, and Jesus came back to life. So you see three times, three, three,
three. In the Bible, and there is more, by the way, you know, I'm just taking a few. Number of
completion, of wholeness. And on the Golgotha, there were three people there. And it was like
it was Jesus. You remember how the story was going? There was Jesus there dying for them,
and there were two thieves next to him. We don't know why, the reason why they were there.
You know, for sure, they were guilty of something terrible, otherwise they wouldn't be there.
And one of them, it was actually mocking Jesus, saying, you know, come on, if you are the Son of
God, you know, do something here. You know, you can do like that. And he could, if he wanted to.
Just, you know, bring us down from this cross. But then there was the other man who actually said,
you know, he had a different approach. So in Luke 23 verse 39, we said, we need that one of these
two criminals who hung there, hurled the salt at him, all into the Messiah, save yourself and us.
And this is a representative, if you want, you know, the pride of man, the aspect of man where
it's like, you know, I'm not sure if to say that it could be a bit controversial, but it was like,
you know, I came across, because Easter, then the people who don't like Christians, they make a lot
of comments, you know. And let's say they were just so full of pride, if Christ had raised from the
dead, you know, they were speaking, you know, I'm not going to say that, it could be controversial.
But anyway, it's like, you know, people are like, you know, that prideful attitude, that's not Christ,
you know, if Christ was raised from the dead, you know, come on, you know, come out from the cross,
do something here. And this is exactly the attitude of people, you know, Jesus, if you are there, why
don't you solve this? Jesus, if you are there, why, you know, the world is in this place? Jesus,
if you are there, it's Jesus fault for everything, you know, there is that pride coming out. If I was
God, I would do better. If I was you, if I could do anything, I would do this and this and change
that and that. The pride, you know, prideful attitude, that what it does, it just pulls away
people from God. Yeah. But then there was the other man who was hanging on the cross in kind of,
it looks 23, 40, 42, and this is what he said. But the other criminal rebuked him to the other guy,
and he said, don't you fear God, he said, since you're under the same sentence, we are punished
justly for we are getting what our deeds deserve. Then he said, Jesus, remember him when you come
to your kingdom. So the other man was actually the understanding, look, we are here because we
deserve that. Come on, let's not pretend that we are good, that we are good, that we've been unjustly
accused, you know, you know the reason why you're hanging on the cross. How do you even dare
speaking like this to the, you know, to the son of God? And this is, you know, the humble heart,
as well as actually people that, you know, and I hope that you will come to an understanding that
you understand that, you know, you don't deserve anything as such. The Christ has done everything
for us, anything, everything comes from, you know, from God, and it's for God because of his, you
know, of the love that he asks for you. But you need to have that understanding first that, you
know, I'm not good enough, I don't deserve anything. Lord, I need you in my life. So do not have a
pride, a prideful heart, but have a humble heart. If you want to seek God with all your heart,
have a humble heart. And then of course it was Jesus to complete the picture in verse
23, or always the same chapter, Luke 23. And Jesus answered to him, to the humble man,
remember when he said, will you please just remember me when you get into your, into the
kingdom, into heaven. And Jesus answered him, truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
And you see the grace of God, the answers to a humble heart. So when we look at the gold Gotham,
when we look at the three people dying on the cross, it was the son of God who was dying for
the scene of the world. And it was the pride of the prideful thief that, you know, according to
him that everything was, you know, was due to him. Everything was granted, had to be granted for him
for whatever reason. And he was challenging Jesus, just do something about the situation.
And then you had the other one who actually had a humble heart. And he said, come on, shut up.
We are here because you know, we deserve that. And he was like humbling himself, I deserve that.
When is the last time that instead of saying, you know, I don't deserve this from life,
maybe you said, you know what, God, I just need you in my life. Maybe after all, I deserve this.
Because even if you're honest with ourselves, you know, a lot of things in life that we go through is,
we face certain things because of habits that we have.
It's like, it's like the man who spent his life with a woman smoking cigarettes and then gets cancer
in his lungs. He said, oh, life is not fair. Why I cannot be that person? Really?
God, will you do something? Will you, will you heal me? Heal my lungs?
Really? You know, sometimes we find ourselves in a situation because we, we fabricate the situation
around us. So we need to have the humbleness of say, look, after all, maybe I deserve this, but God,
have mercy on me. The humble heart. And then there is the answer of God. You know, the,
as I said, completes the picture. Yes, I will remember you. You will be with me in paradise today.
You see this, this all what Jesus displayed there was just grace. History is not fair. I mean,
that was, that man spent his life as a criminal. He was about to die. He didn't have time to prove
anything to Jesus. He didn't have time to go to church. He didn't have time to serve God.
He didn't have time to change his life and to, and to kind of show like, you know, I'm following you.
He was there about to die, but just because he was there, he was there, he was there. He was there,
he was there, he was there. He was there, he was there. He was there, he was there. He was there,
but just because his heart was humble and he was calling on God in the last hour of his life,
then Jesus said, you know what, you are going to come with me because you know what,
Easter is not fair. Yes, it's true. You deserve to be there. And you know that because he said,
we deserve to be here. You deserve to be there because you've done that in your life.
But because I love you and because of what I'm doing here right now for you down the cross,
you will be with me in paradise today. And you see, like, if you come back, come back in the
graphic, that, you know, I've done a small cross in yellow because that I hope is going to be you
there today. Or, you know, some of us here to say, you know, the small cross in yellow saying like,
I want to be the humble one. I want to be the one who accept the unfairness of the Easter message.
They recognize, you know, that we humble ourselves before God and we say, you know, we need you.
Yes, you know, perhaps I haven't lived the best life. I've done my mistakes and I'm paying the
consequence of certain things. And I understand, you know, I deserve some of these things. But Lord,
would you have mercy of me? And I can tell you that if you're going to cry out to the Lord,
even at the last hour, you know, God is going to say, yes, I'm going to help you. I'm going to do
something for you. I'm going to intervene in your life. I'm going to walk with you and through you
and for you. And usually the test of faith comes because, you know, sometimes when people think
that, okay, I believe in Jesus, and suddenly everything is sorted. No, sometimes we have to
deal with consequences of action that we've done in the past in our life. But God is going to be
with us. He's going to carry through us. But that's the test of faith because, you know, people,
when you approach God by saying, if I'm a Christian, everything has to be happy, clappy.
It doesn't work this way. There are things in life because we live in a sinful world. Our flesh is
sinful. You know, we still deal with certain things in life. But God in Christ is going to be with you.
He's going to work in you and through you in your life. And you may think, well, what is the justice?
What is the justice? This man who was hanging on the cross, on the yellow cross, he deserved that.
He was a thief. He should have died. But if you use the measure, then so you. If you use that,
because, you know, we're not speaking about your standard here. We're speaking about God's standard.
And as we said until now, according to God's standard, even your best righteous act,
you've done in your life is like a filter act. You cannot keep up, not by chance, to God's glorious
standard. So don't be the person who said, you know, oh, this is not fair. You know, we always say,
it's not fair when we see something getting something good. Why did he get that? He should
get something terrible. Don't remember the grace that we receive in Christ as well as taking away
something from us that was terrible and replace it with something good. Ephesians 2 verses 1 to 5 and
8 to 10. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to
to live when you follow the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air,
who is Satan, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived
among them at one time, gratifying the craving of our flesh and following its desire and thoughts.
Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his grace, of his great love
for us, God, who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions.
It is by grace you have been saved. And then to verse 8, for it is by grace you have been saved
through faith. And it is not from yourself. It is the gift of God, not by work so that no one can
boast. For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared
in advance for us to do. You know, maybe you feel guilty a bit. You feel like you're struggling
because you got to that place where you're saying, yeah, I deserve that. And you feel a bit
down. You feel a bit sad. But what I want to invite you to do today is like,
wherever you are, be like the humble man on that cross. Say, yeah, I recognize my situation.
Perhaps I've got something to do with it. But Lord, would you give me a second chance?
Will you remember of me? Because remember, Easter is not fair. You know, God is not going to give
you. When you believe in him, he's not going to give you what you deserve. But he's going to
make you alive. He will make you alive in him. Why don't we all stand and we just, you know,
close the service. You see, we are not here because we are good. We are here because he is good.
And thank God because God, you know, God has, thank God, thank God because he's not fair with us.
Thank God for that. He's not fair with us. He's not giving us what we deserve, but he's giving us
something much, much better. And through the resurrection of Jesus that we are remembering
today, we know that we have the victory in him. We know that we can actually take something that,
yes, we don't deserve, but all his love for us. He was full of delight in giving this gift to us.
We just read in Ephesians, a gift that comes from God.
It's not by works. Nobody can boast about this. It's a gift straight from the hand of God.
His son who came, he died on the cross. He was resurrected for us. Hallelujah. We thank you, Jesus.
The last scripture I want to read, Psalm 103, verse 10 to 12.
I just want to close your eyes while you stand and while I read these words.
While I read these words, and these words are for you today, for you and me. He does not treat us as
our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above
the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west,
so far as he removed our transgressions from us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Jesus. Thank you, Lord.
Hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah. Jesus, we praise your name. Jesus, we worship you, God. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. I want to invite you, if you are resisting the work of God, as you're listening
to this, allow God, allow God to enter your life, just like the man on the cross.
Recognize where you are and cry out to him. The response that he will have is love,
just like Christ responded with love to this humble man who humbled himself,
you know, even in the last hour of his life.
Notice that Jesus didn't even say a word to the proud man. He didn't say,
come on, what you're saying. He didn't say a word, but he answered to the humble heart.
So if you want to hear from God, if you want to experience God in your life,
you need to humble yourself. You need to humble your life. You need to cry out to the Lord.
You need to accept what he has done for you. This is the only way, if you want to have an
answer from God, this is the only way that you need to take. And God will answer. God will love
you. God will come in your life. He will start changing your life. He will start changing the
situations around you. He's going to start, you know, helping you as you go through the situations.
But he needs to see a humble heart. Hallelujah. We thank you, Lord God.
I want to humble myself before you, Lord, today.
Hallelujah. We thank you, Lord God. We thank you because when you came to die on the cross for me,
it costed you so much. I thank you because you are not giving me what I deserve,
but you are giving me something wonderful in exchange. And I thank you because what you are
giving me is not because of anything good that I have made, but it's a gift that comes from you.
I thank you, Lord God. I praise you. I thank you because, you know, when you died on the cross
for us, you had each one of us in your mind. We thank you, Lord, because when you came back to
life after three days, you know, we can stand today and we can say, yes, we won the world. You see,
there is no any other battle that needs to be fought. Everything is over. Everything is finished.
Christ has won everything. And now it's just up to you. You know, He died for us. All what He could
do for us has been already done. Everything has been done. Everything has been prepared.
There is nothing else if you are expecting Christ to do something else to save your life. He is not
going to do anything else. He has already died on the cross for you. But then you have a choice
today, you know, which one of the two you want to be. You want to be the prideful thief who said,
you know, you know, I want to see something more, do something about this. If you are the Son of
God, or you want to be the other one who say, you know what, doesn't matter. Even if I'm dying,
even if I'm going through the most painful moment in my life, you know, He humbled Himself and said,
would you remember me? He said, this is the Son of God. He recognized that He was the Son of God,
a sign that He believed in God. So which one of the two you want to be? Which one of the two you
want to be? Hallelujah. You know, I want to be the humble one. Because even as Christians, as we go
in our everyday life, it is important that we humble ourselves always before Him. That somehow
we manage to pack away our pride and just humbly follow Him. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Hallelujah. We thank you, God. We thank you, Jesus. You are the risen King. Hallelujah. You were
treated as a criminal so that we could be treated as kings by you. Oh, what a love for us. We thank
you, Jesus. Hallelujah. We thank you, God.