At Easter, Jesus keeps the greatest of promises (Matthew 16,17)

At Easter, Jesus keeps the greatest of promises (Matthew 16,17)

At Easter, Jesus keeps the greatest of promises

Reliable ?

Are you reliable people?

Do you keep your promises?

Sensitive subject

Delicate subject, we make small and big promises but do we keep them?

Examples

How many Ukrainian or Russian soldiers have promised their loved ones to return and…

All divorcees have promised each other forever and…

How many politicians have promised during their election campaigns and once elected…

We promise: “I will do it…”

And time passes, until oblivion…

Report

We don’t always keep our promises.

It annoys me…

For what ?

Because we are not as good as people say and we are hyper-indulgent with our weaknesses (small or large), on purpose sometimes, we do not keep our promises. But also, because we change positively or negatively, because our promises were unrealistic, because circumstances made it impossible, because conditions changed, because with all the goodwill, honesty, sincerity, we can’t do it.

Reliable ?

I ask my questions:

Are you reliable people?
Do you keep your promises?

Promise to let you know

However, I have a promise to share with you, not from me, but from the person who changed the calendar forever, Jesus.

A repeated promise

A repeated promise:

Matthew 16:21 / NBS21 21. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer much from the elders, chief priests, and scholars of the law, be put to dead and rise again on the third day.

A little bit after,

Matthew 17:9 / NJV21 9. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus gave them this command: “Tell no one what you have seen until the Son of man is risen.”

And even,

Matthew 17:22-23 / CBS21

22. As they were going through Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of men;
23. They will kill him and on the third day he will rise again.” They were deeply saddened.
    Singular promises

A unique promise in the history of humanity: who has already launched such a promise?

What to think?

Two options:

either it’s crazy, and let’s wait a bit, it will burn itself out;
on the other hand, if He does, if He keeps his promise, I’m the fool if I don’t take it into account, because He would be the only one to keep promises that go beyond the limitations of men.

History has settled

Jesus kept his promise, He is risen.

That’s partly why we have a big Easter weekend.

Evidenced historical fact

Hundreds of witnesses have

seen,
market,
touch,
listen,
eat
with the risen Jesus.

Ladies first: big risk not reliable!
But God had said that the solution to the problem of mankind, even if it entered through a lady, would find the solution through a lady too.

Genesis 3:15 / NJV21 15. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring: she will crush your head and you will bruise her heel.”

And the victory is noted first by a lady!

Close and less close men.
Many witnesses, 500, who nearly 25 years later testified:
1 Corinthians 15:6 / NJEB21 7. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

A promise truly kept.

But don’t we tell it to each other?

But don’t we tell it to each other? Still a resurrection!!!

Index 1

Not believing in the resurrection is for sure revealing that we are not green, we don’t like nature, we have concrete in our eyes.

In nature, flora only works by resurrection…

The acorn dies to “resurrect” in oak…

There is a connection between the two:

the acorn will never give an apple tree,
but he can only give an oak tree…
There is a difference in condition:

enough « down to earth » for the glans,
much more glorious and majestic for oak…
Does not believing in the resurrection mean that we are acorns?

Enough with the jokes !

But I think it is not insignificant that the creator, Jesus, left us this natural testimony in the blink of an eye of what He will do and has done…

Index 2

Biblical extra: Flavius ​​Josephus, Jewish historian who wrote at the Court of Rome, at the end of the first century, « Jewish Antiquities », concerning Jesus called it the Testimonium Flavanium.

Index 3

Number of different writers: in the year 563, Tauredunum catastrophe,

two writings from two different people relate this event, so it’s sure…

Biblical texts (4 gospels + Acts) + a biblical extra.

Index 4

Internal: Bribery of the soldiers – linked to the temples or of King Herod – who were guarding the tomb to say that the body of Jesus had been removed; why bribe them?

If these soldiers had been Romans, they would have been executed for having failed in their mission…

Matthew 28. 11-15

Index 5

After the death of Jesus his disciples are cut off and barricaded, for fear of suffering the same fate as Jesus.

John 20. 19

And the rest of the Bible shows us going through the world, often at the cost of their lives, to witness to the resurrection of Christ.

John will be the only one of Jesus’ disciples not to die as a martyr.

If the resurrection was a “canbery”, we would not risk our life there.

A true resurrection

A real resurrection, not a hologram, Jesus eats repeatedly.

SO

Who can keep such a promise? A man ? More than a man!

Call God « Father »

Besides, He calls God His Father.

divine sovereignty

He shows by His sovereignty, His divine sovereignty that He can call God His Father.

What man could have conquered, dominated

disease,
nature,
tornadoes,
disabilities,
the occult world,
the death ?
What man could have conquered? That he’s not just human…

He knows what we think

Besides, He knows what we are thinking of Him now…

god and man

Jesus is God and man.

The facts prove it.

The crossed look of the 4 gospels attests it; more than a demo, Jesus did not come to make a demo, He came with an intention.

Matthew 20:28 / NJEB21 28. Thus the Son of Man came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

A ransom against death, against what causes death,

the sin !

But death and sin did not have the victory!

jesus is risen

Jesus wins victory over death,
Jesus wins the victory over sin.
Origin of all malfunctions

personal,
of humanity,
of creation.
Fulfills the promises of the OT

Jesus fulfills the promises made by God in the past; for example, the promise made 700 years before Jesus by God’s prophet, Hosea, that death would lose its power (over Hades):

Hosea 13. 14

14 I will free them from the power of Hades,

I will redeem them from death. (Ransom idea)

Death, where is your plague?

Hades, where is your power to destroy?

God, through Jesus, kept his promise.

Has kept The promise death sin.

Make a promise to God

What if we made a promise to Jesus, to trust in Him…

Because He is reliable, because He is victorious over what limits me and disappoints me.

It is Jesus who keeps the promise

When we make a promise to God, it’s not us who keep it, it’s Him!

Romans 8. 38-39

In effect,

I have the assurance that

nor death
neither life,
nor the angels
nor the dominations,
nor the present
nor the future,
nor the powers,
39 nor the height,
nor the depth,
nor any other creature
cannot separate us from the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ our Lord.

What if our funeral was an opportunity to deliver a message?

What if our funerals were an opportunity to continue to worship God?