Keion Henderson - The Thirst Trap (Easter Sunday)

Let 's talk about the thirst trap. So, my friends, here we are yet again at another Resurrection Sunday. I am 38 years old, and I don’t believe I have ever not been in church on Easter Sunday morning. This year, while we’re here live to you, the stream continues, but this time there is no one in the room. I say that because if you are a person who watches the internet and scrolls through it, you’ve seen this meme going around, talking about how the tomb is empty and how the church is empty. Here 's the greatest thing about it: the churches are empty, and so is the tomb. It looks like it turned out good for Jesus; I assume that the same will happen to the church. I don’t believe that this hiatus, this time alone, will do anything to deaden the testimony of the church. In fact, I think it will make it stronger. The Bible specifically says that God said to Peter, «Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail.» Peter, one of the most prolific personalities in all of Scripture, is an example I use to discuss a myriad of different ones. There are so many people in the Bible who played a part in the salvific story and did not even know they were in the script. We can go all the way back to Abraham. Abraham had no idea that when he was born into a pagan household, raised by a father who was an idol worshiper, God was going to use him to be the father of the faith. I tell you, Moses had no idea that when he was born to his mother and father and left in the Nile River to die, God would send Pharaoh’s daughter to take a bath near where his mother dropped him. He had no idea he would be taken into Egypt, taught the ways, and then be called the emancipator of Israel. David had no idea that while he was in the field killing lions and bears, or facing Goliath, or when he was the king of Judah, or when he became the king of Israel, that one day Jesus Christ would be called the son of David. I can go throughout history in Scripture and show you how many people were part of this drama and did not even know it. But that is not the testimony of Jesus. Jesus was not unaware of what he was doing, nor was he unaware of what he had been called to do. The Bible specifically says that Jesus declared, " I came to seek and to save that which is lost.» There was no cloudiness or confusion about the purpose of Jesus Christ. When he received the sanction from his Father, he was wrapped in flesh, sent through 42 generations, and stopped off as the old preacher used to say, «in the virgin 's womb.» After nine months of gestation inside of a 14-year-old mother, he would come out claiming a man to be his father, who knew not his mother. He knew about the plan when he was 2 years old. He knew that Herod the Great was trying to assassinate him. He knew about the circumcision on the eighth day; he knew the wise men would come looking for him. As a young teenager, he knew what he was doing when he was lost at the custom of the feasts, and the Bible says that he said to his mother and father, «Did you not know I must be about my father’s business?» Can 't you tell he knows? Even in his pre -teen years, he already knows his plan. When he disappears off the scene and comes back at 30, showing up at a wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, he goes there to perform a miracle. He did not accidentally arrive; he knew exactly why he was there. He knew his job. He knew what God called him to do. Now, if you look at Jesus on the cross-this is the season when we talk about and share the resurrection of Jesus Christ -to not assume that you know the story: Jesus has just been betrayed by one of his best friends, and the Bible says he has marched up a hill called Calvary. When he marched up that hill, you must understand it is already difficult to climb a hill; perhaps you’ve tried it yourself. But climbing a hill after being beaten, climbing a hill after being tortured, climbing a hill when you have literally lost blood, climbing a hill when you’re hungry and thirsty, climbing a hill when you are embarrassed, climbing a hill when you’re fatigued, and to add injury to insult, he does it. As the old preacher would say, he never said a mumbling word. He gets up to the cross on Calvary, which starts off on the ground. They nailed Jesus to the cross and lifted it up, putting him in a hole, not knowing that placing him in the hole was prophetic. Here he is, lying on the ground, nailed to a cross.