#73 Easter Really Works! (20/04/03)

The Message

By Robert H. Schuller

John chapter 20, verse 29 the words of Jesus. Listen: "Blessed (means happy) blessed (means joyful) blessed (means emotionally healthy) blessed are those who have not seen and still believe." Johnny Cash was making a movie here a few years ago, in the California desert and had a rocky point and not far from one of the Universities and the news got out that he was making a film so a bunch of kids piled in a van to watch him do the thing. And it was a whole day just to film the crucifixion. And when it was over, the kids piled in the van and drove closer to the set hoping they'd get a glimpse of this famous Johnny Cash. And they did and somebody rolled down the window and they yelled at him and said, "Hey Johnny, good luck with the resurrection."
And that's my Easter sermon to you today. Hey, good luck with the resurrection. You know it depends on what you do with it, how you embrace its truth and it's faith. I once interviewed a parachutist. He was a guest on my television program here in this church. And I said to him you know, you're parachutist. When you jumped out and pulled the ripcord and watched the thing open, what were the first two words you said? He bellowed it out. The first few words.. it works! It works. It works.

And I'm sharing with you this morning that Easter works. It really works. It's more than a parachute. It's our eternal destiny. It works. It works because it puts faith in the very heart of your personality. And personalities are quite different. At the core of some people's personalities there's skepticism there's cynicism. The heart of other peoples personality, there's hope, there's faith, there's the positive attitude and what a difference it makes. It's the difference between having an E.Q. that's high, or an E.Q. that's low. And you know, I came into the ministry out of psychology in my college days they had the best Prof.'s. And I lived most of my life believing that the most important thing about a person is their I.Q. After all, university professors have a tendency to emphasize that. Highest point about you is your I.Q. It wasn't until what, was it 10 years ago that that was upstaged by the newest scientific research that reported that the E.Q. is higher than the I.Q. The E.Q., you're shaking your head, you don't believe me? You better believe me because I'm right. I'm very humble and I don't often say that I'm right. Almost never say it.

But the E.Q. is your emotional quotient. Your emotional quotient, more than your intellectual quotient will determine your achievement, your success in relationships, in your career. And that's because you may have an I.Q. but if you have a low E.Q. you're still going to suffer the failures. Where the failures hurt the most and that's in your family and in your marriage, and in rising up the career ladder. But what is the emotional quotient? It's the most powerful thing in your personality that will determine who you are, where you go and how you handle the hell when it breaks loose.

Now I have never claimed that I have a high I.Q. I don't even know what it is. But at the risk of coming across with immodesty, let me tell the truth and that is that I do have a high E.Q. It exposes itself through 32 books and over 4,000 sermons in 50 years. And what is the heart? I'm always preaching about self-esteem or optimism or hope or faith or love. Now where do I get it? I think I can say today what I've never said before in my life, in print or pulpit. I get it from living through 75 Easter's! Oh, that's where I come from. The years go by fast and Easter's here and what is Easter? The stone's rolled away! Wow. The tomb is empty. Wow. That's a set up for a subconscious development of faith, for what is faith. Faith sees the invisible. It believes the incredible. And achieves the impossible.

Easter: good luck with the resurrection. Easter: it works, it works, it works. There's no philosophy, no psychology, no other institutional system of thinking that does more to develop emotional maturity in people than this. And look at the kind of people. Emotionally healthy people bubble. They're enthusiastic, they're open, they're transparent. They sing. You know Robert Ingersoll the famous atheist died, and the printed funeral program had this stark instruction at the top. Quote: There will be no singing. There will be no singing at the funeral of an atheist. And look what our faith does. It makes music. That's emotional health and wholeness.
Easter, good luck with it! It works, it works, yes it works. You will evolve as a person with healthy emotions and you'll be into self-esteem, building people up not putting them down. Affirming them as persons, even if they don't agree with you. You'll develop almost an instinctive positive mental attitude and oh all kinds of pain may happen to you. We've had a little of that in our life, not that much but our daughter lost a leg, but, wife had cancer, osteoporosis, and 6 by passes but those are just minor things. Well, you live with the attitude that this is just Good Friday. Easter's coming.

What kind of a person do you become if you're raised in this kind of an atmosphere all your life? And then dreams begin to emerge into healthy, subconscious minds. Creativity happens to the people who are not tied up with stress and tension, but are relaxed with hope and optimism. You become addicted to optimism. Incurably hooked on hope. That's who I am, that's what I am. You can see it, check me out. Where did I get it? Good luck with the resurrection. I get it from Easter. Wow.

I want you to embrace it into your heart and your life. And some of you haven't had the privilege of being born and raised in that kind of a life, but it's getting serious about Jesus Christ and really following Him.

You know one of my closest, dearest friends probably one of the ten ministers in the world I admired and respected the most and he's preached for us here, died a couple years ago and his name was Frank Harrington of the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta Georgia. He told the story: there was a great political campaign for governor in Georgia, Carl Sanders was being challenged by the republican Marvin Griffin. And Georgia's a democratic state so Marvin Griffin came up with an idea he thought there's one way to beat Carl Sanders. I'm going to have bar-b-que parties all over the state of Georgia and everybody in the state of Georgia who votes is invited to have a bar-b-que on me. And there's anything the democrats may like more than their own party, it's a bar-b-que. So he had these bar-b-que parties all over and one of Frank Harrington's elders in his church worked for Griffin, organized them and said, "Frank you've got to one of these bar-b-que parties. You've never seen anything like it." So Frank went and he said it was phenomenal. Thousands of people. And Frank said, "Marvin you got it. You're hero.. there's no way Carl can come up against this." And the vote was taken and guess what, early returns Griffin was coming in a little slow. Later returns he was a little slower. And the upset of the year happened the next morning. Carl Sanders wins. Marvin Griffin loses. And he had a press conference and Harrington was there and he said, all he said was, "well they ate my bar-b-que but they didn't vote for me."

There are people like that. And some people will call themselves Christians are kind of like that. They eat Jesus' bar-b-que but they don't vote for Him. I want you to get serious about this Jesus Christ. Get a Bible, read it. Take Him into your heart. Wow. Let it change you. We all need changes somehow, someway.

In a drama, the born to be king, the life of Jesus is portrayed and the climactic moment the scene of the crucifixion. And a couple of Mary's are there: Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and they want to touch Him on the cross but the soldiers won't let them come. They push them brutally away. Mary says, "but He's my son. I just want to touch Him. His toes." "Get out of here," they said. Then Mary Magdalene steps forward and says to one of the soldiers, "Marcellus, it's you." Mary Magdalene's had a reputation for once having been a prostitute and now she says, "Marcellus," and she drops her hair and lets it flow long. "Marcellus, for old time's sake, let me in." Hair cascades down her back and then she lifts up her foot, toes, foot, ankle; "Marcellus, have you ever seen feet like these that have danced for you alone?" A look of amazement comes over his face, and says, "Mary Magdalene, how you have changed." Then in the drama, she turns her back to Marcellus, faces the audience and says, "yes Marcellus, I have changed." Pointing to the cross she says, "He changed me."
Let Christ change you. Every single person at the weakest point in your life. He's alive. Good

luck with the resurrection. Happy Easter. It works. If you take the Christ alive into your life. Yes, blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Let us pray.

Jesus, You lived, You died, something happened three days later, wow. You rose again. The world could never have made up such a story. Hallelujah. I pray that You will enter into the heart and change the person who needs to be changed right now. I don't know who he or she is. But they're listening, the words have touched them. Now they've got to move and let Easter happen in their life. Amen.