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Sunrise Service Topics
Sunrise Service Topics
Without the resurrection, the Christian faith has no hope to rest upon. But if God raised Jesus from the
dead, nothing else really matters and no one can argue Christianity isn’t true.
All Christians doubt their faith from time to time. Plus, it’s Easter Sunday so you’ll be preaching to non-
believers as well. It’s an ideal time to help your community understand just how reliable the historical
accounts of the resurrection are.
1 Corinthians 15:3–8
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to
the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and
that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred
of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen
asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as
to one abnormally born.”
John 21:24
“This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony
is true.”
Most people believe a man named John Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark. He traveled with Paul and
Barnabas in the Book of Acts (Acts 12:25). We think he got much of his eye-witness details of Jesus’
ministry from Peter. It’s likely that Mark’s Gospel is actually Peter’s record of his travels with Jesus and
John Mark, and simply transcribed it.
The weight of scholarship suggests that Matthew, Luke, and John wrote the Gospels with their names
upon them. Some scholars debate the dates, but it seems they were likely written within the lifetimes of
the apostles. Many people would have been around to discredit these accounts if they were inaccurate
(or if someone could produce Jesus’ body).
And despite Jesus’ numerous hints that he would come back from the dead (John 2:19, Matthew 12:39-
40, Matthew 16:21), the disciples still didn’t understand that he had to die (Matthew 16:22-23).
But Jesus’ enemies were listening. And they sealed the tomb and placed armed guards in front of
it specifically because they’d heard Jesus say he would rise from the dead after three days, and they
were concerned the disciples would move his body (Matthew 27:62-66).
Even if the disciples were paying enough attention to think of this, and they were somehow able to
overpower the guards and break the seal on the tomb, that leaves us with another question: why would
so many people die for a lie?
KEY TAKEAWAY: PEOPLE WENT TO THEIR DEATH CLAIMING JESUS HAD BEEN RESURRECTED
Church tradition holds that all the apostles were martyred (well, except John) and the early church
fathers give more detailed accounts of how they each died. James (the brother of John) is the only
apostle besides Judas Iscariot whose death is recorded in the Bible. In Acts 12, King Herod has him put
to death by the sword.
Even when you set martyrdom aside, early Jesus-followers faced all kinds of persecution from both
Jewish leaders and the Roman government. Above all else, the authorities persecuted them because
they taught that Jesus was divine and had risen from the dead.
They could’ve recanted at any time to make it stop. But they didn’t. They continued spreading the gospel
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ even though it cost them their lives. Throughout the church’s history,
this has been one of the most powerful testaments to the truth of Christianity. The more people proved
they were willing to die for it, the more Christianity spread.
The disciples could have told the world they’d made up the resurrection and avoided death. Instead, they
made it clear they’d rather die than turn their backs on Jesus. Even as they faced death, they knew that
Jesus’ resurrection meant they could also overcome the grave as they trusted in him.
The point of this argument in his letter was to validate that there were others who could support—or
discredit—his claims about Jesus. Critics of Christianity may suggest that the early Christians
hallucinated the appearances of Jesus. But Paul claims that a crowd of more than 500 people saw him at
once. Even if you want to argue that they had a mass hallucination…are we really supposed to believe
that they all saw the same thing?
2. SERMON FOCUS: Why Jesus needed to die
One of the most common questions asked when people hear the gospel is why Jesus needed to die.
Why couldn’t God have reconciled humanity to himself another way? Tackling the cross and resurrection
from this angle lets you share the good news in a fresh new manner. The entire Bible hinges on this story
because our need for the cross goes back to Genesis 3 and sin’s entrance into the world and the
culminations in a new heaven and a new earth described in Revelation 21.
At the same time, this is one of the more common themes in Easter sermons. Pastors often focus on
atonement, which is important, but it’s not the only reason the Bible tells us Jesus had to die. We’ll cover
the basic argument for atonement, and then get into some of those additional reasons below.
Romans 3:22–26
“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference
between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by
faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins
committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so
as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
1 John 2:2
“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Romans 5:9–11
“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath
through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his
Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but
we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
reconciliation.”
Our sin pointed to a larger problem though. Sin isn’t just an act of rebellion. Our sinfulness had impacted
every aspect of who we were—from our minds to our hearts. As Jesus taught in the Sermon on the
Mount (specifically in Matthew 5:21-22) the Law’s didn’t go far enough to make us truly right with God. It
also didn’t provide a way to make us completely righteousness (Matthew 5:20, Romans 3:20).
None of us, by any merit of our own or by any amount of inherent “goodness” can make ourselves good
in God’s sight. The only way we could become righteous was if God gave it to us (Romans 3:22).
Paul writes in Romans 6:23 that the consequences (or the wages) of our sin is death. Our rebellion
against God earns death—someone’s death. That death doesn’t necessarily have to be ours. That’s why
Jesus, who was sinless, could die in our place.
In John’s account of the Last Supper, Jesus issued His disciples a new commandment:
“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another.” —John 13:34–35
People can know that we follow Jesus when they see us show others the kind of love he showed us. But
when Jesus said these words, he hadn’t yet showed the greatest love of all. In John 15, he told the
disciples again to love one another, but he adds this:
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” —John 15:13
With his sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus modeled the greatest possible form of love, showing his
disciples (and us) how much he expects his followers to love others.
“The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” —1 John 3:8
Ironically, Satan thought that by killing Jesus, he would be using sin to unravel God’s plan. The Messiah
was supposed to restore God’s kingdom on earth, so killing Jesus would prevent God’s kingdom from
being restored. But Jesus’ death was the very thing that set that restoration in motion (1 Corinthians 2:8).
3. SERMON FOCUS: Why does the resurrection even matter?
Our faith hinges on the resurrection. Paul provides us with a powerful explanation of this in 1 Corinthians
15. Without the first Easter Sunday, sin would have the last laugh and we would be stuck in it forever.
We could never restore our relationship with God on our own because the cost of our own sin is
simply too high for us to pay (Romans 3:20).
1 Corinthians 15:12–19
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no
resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are
then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from
the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised,
your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If
only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
“And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly
man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor
does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will
all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the
dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” —1 Corinthians 15:49–53