Weekly Sermon Summary
The Resurrection Makes Me Unstoppable – (04.12.26)
Dear St. Paul Family,
Dear St. Paul Family,
Christ is risen!
Sermon - The Resurrection Makes Me Unstoppable
Kids Sermon - Greatest Surprise Ever
Gospel is read from Jn. 20:1-18, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are some different crowds in sports. In Philadelphia, they are ruthless, merciless, and extremely passionate about their sports, especially football. In LA, it’s glitzy, and Lakers “Showtime” with their stars. In NY, Yankees are kings, but to the rest of the league, they are known as the “evil empire”. Finally, locally, the most loyal fans who went without a championship for 108 years – Chicago with their cubs.
Four different cities, with different reactions. We see also, four different crowds with four different reactions to the resurrection.
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Unwilling Crowd
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They themselves said, “away with Him” and Jesus commented that they were unwilling to come to Him
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They refused Christ’s authority, choose preference, choose comfort, choose sin
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They say, “not now” or “not this part of my life”
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Unchanged Crowd
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The gospel describes them as “watching” (Lk. 23:35)
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they observe, analyze, comment – but remained unchanged
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God doesn’t want observation but participation
Uncertain Crowd
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This crowd was disappointed, discouraged, disoriented, and doubting
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Their expectations were not met
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They experience unanswered prayers or losses or pain and think God is absent
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Unstoppable Crowd
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Nothings stops this group
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They experience and live the power of the resurrection daily
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Fear doesn’t stop them, joy is overflowing, they are purpose driven
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The resurrection totally transforms them
The Unwilling → refuses Christ
The Unchanging → ignores Christ
The Uncertain → struggles with Christ
The Unstoppable → is transformed by Christ
The resurrection makes all possible:
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Move from unwilling → surrender
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Move from unchanged → responding
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Move from uncertain → faith
The resurrection moves me to be Unstoppable
Fr. James