What is Easter about…REALLY? When you think of Easter, what do you think about? What do you love about Easter?
· Eggs?
· Candy?
· Bunny?
· Food?
· Family?
· Games?
· Pictures?
· Fun?

Those are all wonderful and great, and we are going to do several of those today ourselves, but are they…the point…of Easter…REALLY?

People that make THOSE things the POINT of Easter have ReFramed or filtered Easter. People in the world often do that with religious holidays. They reframe Christmas on Santa and presents instead of the Son of God coming to earth as a baby. And with Easter, too many focus on an egg-laying rabbit that German immigrants introduced to America in the 1700’s. Those things can be fun but they aren’t the MOST important.

Have you ever used the filters on Instagram or FaceApp? The entire tone of the picture can be changed when the filter is changed. You can be made to APPEAR to have dog ears or a tiara or big eyes or a huge mouth. They can make you look like a baby OR they can age you…Here is a picture of me and my oldest son, Carson, on a missions trip to Haiti a few years back. Filters can make you look better than you do or make you look like this.

But those are filters, not facts.

They add to the ‘facts’ to make the image look like THEY want it to look.
Now, there are some facts to Easter that are REALLY important!
· Jesus Christ was a REAL historical person.
· He REALLY lived, according to ancient historical documents, both Biblical and non-biblical.
· He REALLY died. No one could survive what He went through on Good Friday! Flogged, crucified, speared.
· He REALLY ROSE from the dead! What motivation would the disciples have for faking His resurrection? TO get power? They didn’t. They got persecuted, hunted, ridiculed, arrested, tortured and all but one, eventually martyred.
· Those are all some Easter FACTS, but how you filter them, how you frame them, determines what those facts mean to you.

These are FACTS, not FILTERS

How you frame or filter things really matters doesn’t it? There are positive and negative ways to do that.

For example:
Two different people can walk into a church for the first time on Easter. Two people together, and one can walk in, convinced that, "All Christians are hypocrites. "I hate the music, this place is stupid. “All they want is my money”, "I never wanna come back." And right next to that person can be someone else who experiences the very same circumstances…but they say, "These people are amazing. "They're so loving. "I love the music. "Maybe I'm here because God wants me here." “I think I’ll come back next week.”

It's not the facts that are different. What is it? The filter is different. The frame is different. The focus is different.

When you are taking a picture, it matters where your focus is, what you zoom in on? Doesn’t it?

So, how you frame it matters! The filter matters!

It’s amazing! A Bears fan and a Packers fan can sit by each other, watching the same game and see a play completely differently. Why? Because one is wearing a Navy and Orange filter and the other is seeing correctly!

I want you to consider a couple of Easter filtering jobs in Scripture. Some people who knew a LOT of the facts, but they filtered them differently than the disciples or His followers.

When you Re-Frame in the wrong way, you miss out in a big way

· The Pharisees KNEW Jesus had been killed, THEY wanted it and THEY were there to witness it.
· The Pharisees KNEW His tomb was empty. THEY paid the guards to keep it quiet.
· The Pharisees HEARD eye-witness testimony from guards that were there, that had NO reason to lie or make it up.

The priests and Pharisees went to a lot of work to PREVENT any possibility of, even a claim of resurrection. How about the Roman soldiers who crucified Him?

· The soldiers KNEW Jesus was tortured. THEY tortured Him!
· The soldiers KNEW Jesus had died. THEY verified it!
· The soldiers KNEW Jesus was placed in a particular tomb. THEY guarded it.
· The soldiers KNEW there was an earthquake. THEY felt it.
· The soldiers KNEW there was an ANGEL. THEY fainted.
· The soldiers KNEW the tomb was then EMPTY! THEY reported it!

When you Re-Frame in the wrong way, you miss out in a big way

And the Pharisees and the soldiers missed out in a big way! They explained away the unexplainable or they ignored the most important event in human history. See, it wasn't the facts that were different. What was it? It was the filter. It was the way that they framed it. You can be in the very same situation and how you frame something, determines how you see it.

What does it mean to ReFrame a situation? YOU decide what you are ZOOMING in on. What YOU are focusing on!

ReFraming can be good or bad. Here is an example of how you can frame or reframe a day. Let's say you wake up and you think about your day.

· This is going to be such a hard day
· I have SO much to do today
· I HAVE to go to work where I will be with people that drive me crazy.
· I don’t know HOW I will get it all done.
· I’m SO overwhelmed
· I’m SO tired
· Life is hard, life is bad
· My husband is driving me crazy
· WHY did we have all these kids?
· I’m sick of my stupid car
· I hate my job

How many of you know that on that day, you are likely headed towards a bad day if you frame it like this. What if instead, you take the exact same situation and you ReFrame it. You may wake up and say,

· This is going to be such a blessed day
· I have SO much to do today, but I’m thankful that God is with me.
· I’m thankful that GOD IS FOR ME
· I’m thankful that He has given me this job
· I’m thankful for my old clunker that gets me to this job.
· Even though some people at work kind of drive me crazy, I’m actually thankful for them because God loves them.
· I’m SO thankful for my husband
· Though it’s work, I sure LOVE my kids
· I believe today is going to be a great day.

How many of you know, THAT person is likely to have a better day than the first? Reframing like this is a tool from behavioral psychology that will help your mental health. Reframing is also a great tool for your SPIRITUAL HEALTH! Attitude matters, how you frame it matters. We could say it this way:

What you MAGNIFY, you get more of!

It's not the facts that change, but it's how you frame it. It’s what you ZOOM in on. I'm afraid that there are many people that start to ReFrame God by saying,

· “I don’t like what’s going on, God.”
· “I didn’t deserve that…or I DESERVED THAT!
· “Why don’t you fix them?” Whoever ‘them’ is in your life!
Rather than looking for the goodness of God in the day, or in the trial. It's not just the facts that are different, it's often the filter or the frame. What they ZOOM in on or focus on. And what do we know about what goes on in life?

What you MAGNIFY, you get more of!

The type of framing that chooses to see the positive is wonderful. The type of framing that spins the facts in a situation to fit the person’s own opinion is bad. It’s pretty likely that most of us have done both before.

Let me give you some other facts that people frame in different ways.
· We have ALL sinned.
· God is SINLESS.
· God cannot allow sin into heaven.
· We are without hope on our own.
· Jesus was both 100% God and 100% man.
· He came to BRIDGE the gap, if we repent of our sins and put our trust IN HIM.
· Here’s the GOOD NEWS!!!

GOD REFRAMES when we REPENT

When you say yes to Jesus, it’s as if God puts a filter over your sin. He RE-FRAMES what He sees. He doesn’t see your sin anymore, He ZOOMS in on the cross, He sees the blood of Jesus.

1 John 1:7c – NLT – “…the BLOOD of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.”

Don’t just see Jesus shedding His blood on Good Friday as an altruist act of sacrifice. It WAS that, but it was WAY MORE than that.

GOD REFRAMES when we REPENT

Jesus accomplished A LOT by shedding His blood for us. Among those benefits listed in Scripture for us are:

· My debt is paid, once and for all
· I am justified
· I am forgiven
· I am spared from God’s wrath
· I am being spiritually healed;
· I am spiritually alive
· My judgment has been satisfied and I am at peace with God
· I am cleansed
· I have the power to overcome the enemy
· I am no longer under the curse of the law
· I have gained the unmerited favor of God
· I have been declared righteous
· I am free
· I am no longer condemned
· I am able to come close to God

When I am IN CHRIST, God SEES me differently! He doesn’t FOCUS any longer on MY SIN, but He ZOOMS in on the CROSS, on the BLOOD of Christ, shed for me. This is something that was even pictured centuries before, in the OT, with the original Passover during the exodus from Egypt. The Jews slaughtered a lamb and they placed its blood on the door FRAMES of their houses. When the death angel went throughout Egypt killing the first born, and when it came to a house with the blood on the door, the angel would pass over that house.

JESUS IS THAT LAMB!

Ephesians 1:7b – NLT – “He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins.”

The blood of Jesus REFRAMES how God sees you!

His focus changes when you surrender to Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:19a – NLT – “For God was IN CHRIST, reconciling the world to Himself, NO LONGER counting people’s sins against them ."(REFRAMED! God was ZOOMING in on CHRIST, instead of YOUR SIN).

But all of this isn’t available to us JUST because Jesus made a great sacrifice for us, but because His great sacrifice wasn’t the END!!! He ROSE from the dead! THIS is the POINT OF EASTER! At the tomb, the angel told them…

Matthew 28:5-6 – NLT – “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as He said would happen.”

Romans 8:34a – NLT – “Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us AND WAS RAISED TO LIFE FOR US”

So, here are the Easter facts:
· Jesus died and was buried
· Jesus rose from the dead
· The disciples were willing to give their very lives for THAT truth.
· Their faithfulness to that truth, got them all persecuted and killed for NO benefit to themselves.
· So, here’s the question for YOU this Easter

What will YOU ZOOM in on and FRAME this EASTER? If you ZOOM in on the CROSS, God applies a filter to your sin and it is as though you have NEVER SINNED. Remember:

1 John 1:7c – NLT – “the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 – NLT – “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering (THE LAMB) for our sin, so that we could be made right with God THROUGH Christ.”

The last part of that verse is SO IMPORTANT!

“we COULD be made right with God THROUGH Christ”.

It is NOT automatic. Think back to the Passover. It wasn’t automatic for the Jews that the death angel would pass over them. They had to put the Lamb’s blood on the doorposts of their house. I don’t think it’s an accident that Jesus said:

John 10:7 – “I AM the DOOR…”

The price was paid for EVERYONE, but NOT everyone has been made right with God. Because how we respond, how we FRAME it, matters.

GOD REFRAMES when we REPENT

Where is your heart this Easter? Have you ever ZOOMED in on the cross and the empty tomb and what they REALLY MEAN for you? If you do THAT today, it will make an eternal difference. The result is that YOU WILL BE made RIGHT with GOD through Jesus! Do you want THAT today?