Easter Breaks Our Heartbreak
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We experience letdowns all the time.
00:00:08.540 | In a fallen world of sin,
00:00:10.260 | we shouldn't be surprised by disappointment.
00:00:13.020 | But this long history of letdowns
00:00:15.060 | met its match on Easter morning.
00:00:17.900 | That's the hopeful reality we live in
00:00:19.780 | on this side of the death and resurrection
00:00:21.940 | of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:00:24.020 | As John Piper reminds us in his Easter sermon from 1988
00:00:28.220 | on 1 Corinthians 15 verses 20 to 28.
00:00:31.260 | Here's what he said.
00:00:32.260 | - One of the most heartbreaking words I think
00:00:36.060 | in human language is the word closed.
00:00:40.460 | You plan a day at the zoo and dad takes a day off
00:00:44.260 | and mom packs a special lunch and the kids are all excited.
00:00:48.100 | You pile in the car, you drive a half an hour
00:00:50.260 | and you get to the gate and it says closed.
00:00:53.140 | Hope deferred makes the heart sick like the Proverbs says.
00:00:58.020 | You're 11 years old and it's summertime
00:01:01.100 | and the ball teams are starting to practice
00:01:04.180 | and for the first time,
00:01:05.380 | mom, can I play baseball this summer?
00:01:07.880 | Maybe that would be a good thing this summer.
00:01:10.660 | And so you get a brand new glove
00:01:12.140 | and dad pitches with you in the backyard
00:01:14.780 | and you go out for the team
00:01:16.420 | and you practice for them for two weeks.
00:01:19.300 | It turns out there are too many kids for this team
00:01:22.020 | and they didn't plan for two teams
00:01:23.620 | and so there's gotta be a cut.
00:01:25.340 | And you go that afternoon and they read the roster
00:01:27.940 | and you're not on it.
00:01:29.780 | And you take the back roads home.
00:01:32.340 | The coach says we'll plan for two teams next year
00:01:34.780 | and it doesn't help, it's closed.
00:01:37.500 | Or maybe you're 13 years old
00:01:39.140 | and you start to dream about marriage.
00:01:42.620 | You dream about that perfect person
00:01:45.260 | and what it would be like to have somebody hold you
00:01:48.260 | and love you more than anybody else in all the world
00:01:51.460 | and what that day would be like
00:01:53.500 | and then one door closes and then another door closes
00:01:57.140 | and another door closes.
00:01:59.260 | Or maybe you're at mid-career, mid-40s let's say,
00:02:03.940 | and you step back and you look at your life
00:02:06.220 | and your career and you say,
00:02:08.540 | what do I want to accomplish here now
00:02:10.900 | in the next 20 years of my active professional life?
00:02:15.540 | You think it through and you say,
00:02:17.060 | I'm gonna stick with the firm and give it my best shot.
00:02:21.500 | And so you work nights
00:02:22.900 | and you work long hours on the weekend
00:02:25.060 | and you work on vacations and five years go by
00:02:28.260 | and you're 50 and they pass right over you
00:02:32.340 | when it comes to that advancement.
00:02:34.780 | And you don't make it and the door closes
00:02:38.220 | on that dream career.
00:02:40.180 | Or maybe for you, all the doors opened
00:02:44.980 | and the relationships clicked
00:02:47.740 | and you made the team
00:02:50.060 | and then somewhere along the way,
00:02:52.060 | the doctor said, it's a rare kind of cancer
00:02:56.020 | and all the doors seem to close at once.
00:02:59.060 | Or worst of all,
00:03:00.940 | you have made it to the top in your career.
00:03:04.340 | You have had the dream relationship.
00:03:08.260 | You've made every team and walked through every open door
00:03:12.700 | and every one of them without Jesus.
00:03:15.940 | And now you've died and you're standing
00:03:18.060 | before heaven's door and it's closed.
00:03:21.300 | And you say, "Lord, Lord, open to me."
00:03:24.940 | And the voice comes back,
00:03:26.740 | "Truly, truly I say to you, I never knew you."
00:03:31.380 | The word "closed" is a heartbreaking word
00:03:35.660 | in this life and in the life to come.
00:03:39.100 | And I want to declare loud and clear this morning
00:03:42.260 | that the meaning of Easter
00:03:44.940 | is that God is in the business
00:03:47.780 | of clearing this world of heartbreak.
00:03:50.700 | The meaning of an empty tomb
00:03:52.540 | or the opening of a closed tomb
00:03:56.380 | is that God has begun a campaign with Jesus Christ
00:04:00.540 | to open a million doors of hope
00:04:02.860 | to people who trust in Him.
00:04:05.140 | The verse that I'm going to focus on this morning
00:04:07.380 | from our text in 1 Corinthians 15 is verse 25.
00:04:12.340 | It is a verse that gripped me
00:04:14.380 | because it is so full of door-opening,
00:04:18.860 | sovereign hope.
00:04:20.980 | It says, "Jesus must reign
00:04:23.820 | until He has put all His enemies under His feet."
00:04:27.900 | Jesus must reign.
00:04:31.260 | And as I meditated on that verse,
00:04:32.980 | I saw four things about the reign of Jesus Christ.
00:04:36.940 | And I hardly had to twist and maneuver at all
00:04:40.500 | to get these four things to spell "open."
00:04:47.060 | O-P-E-N
00:04:49.740 | The opening of the reign
00:04:51.580 | at the resurrection of Jesus.
00:04:53.380 | The presence of the reign here and now in your life.
00:04:56.940 | The extent of the reign
00:04:59.740 | unto all His enemies.
00:05:01.460 | And the necessity of His reign
00:05:03.860 | in the deity of His Father.
00:05:06.100 | And so I want to talk about those four dimensions
00:05:09.220 | of the reign of God this morning.
00:05:10.900 | And I want you, with the pen of your heart,
00:05:13.900 | with your will, to write O-P-E-N
00:05:19.100 | over the door of disappointment in your life.
00:05:21.420 | I want you to take the one
00:05:22.980 | that has you down most now.
00:05:27.180 | You got it?
00:05:28.900 | One door.
00:05:30.540 | Not all of them.
00:05:32.020 | Just one closed door in your life.
00:05:34.820 | It might have closed yesterday
00:05:36.780 | or ten years ago
00:05:38.780 | or thirty years ago.
00:05:40.860 | And it's still closed.
00:05:42.340 | I want you to write beside the door.
00:05:45.300 | O-P-E-N
00:05:47.220 | Open right over the door
00:05:49.260 | of the disappointment in your life.
00:05:52.860 | Amen.
00:05:53.460 | The disappointments and heartbreaks
00:05:55.140 | and letdowns have been decisively defeated in Christ.
00:05:59.420 | This hope is our hope as we celebrate Easter.
00:06:02.140 | And this clip was taken from John Piper's sermon
00:06:04.100 | titled "He Must Reign,"
00:06:06.100 | preached back on Easter Sunday, April 3rd, 1988.
00:06:10.340 | You can find the full message in the archive
00:06:12.180 | at DesiringGod.org.
00:06:14.900 | So Easter breaks our heartbreak
00:06:16.900 | and it also breaks our sin.
00:06:18.940 | That's tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:06:20.940 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:06:22.180 | Thanks for listening.
00:06:23.180 | [Silence]
00:06:29.180 | [BLANK_AUDIO]