No Stone Too Large (6am Service) — Stewart Ruch

This is Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois. Today's sermon is by Bishop Stuart Ruck and is from our Easter Sunrise Service 2018.

The Resurrection Moves Every Burden

I would like to declare to you this morning that there is no stone too large that the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot move from your life. No boulder too great, no weight too overwhelming, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the earthquake that changed the world and changes our lives.

One of our favorite places as a family is the Morton Arboretum, and I see many of you there from time to time, so I know that's a favorite for many of you. And one of our favorite places at the Morton Arboretum is the Big Rock.

It's a massive stone. For the last 15 years, I've watched our children climb that stone, jump on that stone, whack that stone with the largest trees they can carry, and never once as I've watched them pound themselves into that stone have I thought, oh, be careful, I hope you don't go through the stone.

Oh, dear, we shouldn't move this stone. They put it here for a reason. It's never budged, that stone. It's too great to move, but there's never been a stone larger. I speak not of circumference or tonnage.

Christ's Victory Over the Stone of Death

There's never been a stone larger that sought to seal our Lord in a tomb. Never a stone more determined to keep our Lord in death, but that stone was not large enough, that tonnage not great enough. Do you ever have a day where you feel like there's a massive stone on your shoulders, where it just feels like so much pressure that you almost want to sort of buckle in?

Or do you ever have a day where maybe the weight is like right in your stomach and you keep telling yourself not to think about the financial situation that's just happened that's creating that weight, or not to think about the interpersonal conflict that's causing that weight, or not to think about the fact that yet again you gave in to that craving or addiction or lust that's creating that weight?

Or maybe it's just that weight and you don't know why that weight is there. It's a what's going to happen tomorrow weight, what's going to happen to our country weight, what's going to happen in the world weight?

I don't even know why I've got this weight, but it's like we carry it. It's a weight deep inside. Because of the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, I declare to you this morning based on the revelation of God in the Bible that there is no stone too great that the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot move from your life.

Oh, it may be an addiction stone, or it may be a duplicity of life stone. It may be a pornography stone. It may be a same-sex attraction stone. It may be an unbridled desire for the other-sex stone.

It may be a craving for the security of wealth stone. There is no stone too great that the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot move. Now I ask you that for a moment you do not think that I attempt to stir you with a sentence.

Because that would be malpractice. But instead I desire to proclaim to you what has been proclaimed before me by the church of Jesus Christ, that if we are united with him in his death, say it with me, we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection.

Christian Freedom and Ongoing Struggle

Do we still die? We do. Do we still lust even though we are not in bondage to sin? We do. We are no longer utterly enslaved. And even the stone of mortality, even the great rock of death, perhaps best figured, best captured by the utter and seemingly ubiquitous scourge of cancer that moves throughout our community, is there not a family that's been touched by cancer?

My own mother fought cancer throughout this last year. What does it look like to believe that there's no stone too large, which is to say that you are never without access to life because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

Lon Allison's Testimony About Terminal Cancer

What does it look like? Let me share with you a testimony of a very dear friend, Pastor Lon Allison, a senior leader at a beautiful church in the Wheaton community called Wheaton Bible Church, who in the name of Jesus we bless on this Easter morning.

Pastor Lon has been diagnosed with terminal cancer so many more years of prime ministry we'd all hoped for and hoped for for Pastor Lon, but he said this because he believes that there's no stone too large, that the resurrection cannot move, because he believes that while death still occurs, it is no longer peril for the Christian.

It is passage. Death is no longer panic for the Christian. It is pathway to the resurrected life and our resurrected Lord. So Lon said this, I realize before me there are three pathways as I face this terminal diagnosis.

I very likely may die in the next year, or I may die in the next two to five years, or I may die in 20 years, but if I am united with Him in His death, if I am united with Him in my death, if you are united with Jesus when your hour comes to die, certainly, Lon said, I will be united with Him in His resurrection.

Death as Passage to Resurrected Life

It takes a Christian, a resurrection Christian to not deny that death may come soon, or it may come in the near future, or it may come in the far future, but death is no longer peril and it is no longer panic.

Family of God, death is passage to the Lord Jesus and the resurrected life. Even that stone, even that stone of death, the largest stone to ever be rolled in front of any tomb, even that stone could not stay, for there is no stone too great that the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot move.

The Empty Tomb and the Risen Christ

He is not here, the angel said about the tomb. He is risen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

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