1. Easter is About New Life

2. Ted Koppel What is largely missing in American life today is a sense of context, of saying or doing anything that is intended or even expected to live beyond the moment. There is no culture in the world that is so obsessed as ours with immediacy.

3. Ted Koppel In our journalism, the trivial displaces the momentous because we tend to measure the importance of events by how recently they happened. We have become so obsessed with facts that we have lost all touch with truth. in a speech to the International Radio and Television Society, quoted in Harper's (Jan. 1986)

4. 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

5. 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

6. Christ’s love compels us His love is the basis of all that we are and all that we do. Easter, the crucifixion and resurrection, are the deepest demonstration of his love for us.

7. Christ’s love: an invitation Easter is not about a command. It is about a loving invitation. “be reconciled to God!” is a love filled opportunity!

8. Here's the Good News (gospel): you're more sinful than you ever dared to believe; you're more loved than you ever dared to hope. Tim Keller

9. Jesus reaches to us in love Reaching out to reestablish a broken relationship: “come to me all you who are weary and heavily burdened” Reaching down to pull us out of the pit Reaching up: “Father, forgive them”

10. How do I respond? Reach out to God: honesty…who, what, where Reach in: Believe the truth of Easter and trust Jesus with your life.

11. How do I respond? “They should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” Same power in us.

12. The New is Here! Life Purpose Attitudes toward our circumstances Response to trials

13. IN Christ, everything changes Change starts with our character Change affects all of our life: not mere cosmetics or surface Deepest, darkest parts of us

14. Don’t be afraid to be loved! I’m too bad: He paid the price. I’m not ready: He came at just the right time. I’m not sure: He gives faith as a gift. Be reconciled to God!