Sunday Morning, April 21, 2019 AM

The Resurrection of Christ and the Meaning of History

God, we thank you for blessing us. So we have obediently gathered here anticipating of what you would do in our lives. Thank you for the songs that we have sung and the scriptures that have been read and the prayers that have been offered up to you.

Father, now we come to the scriptures that are to be preached. And Father, we look to you as those made in your image. We need to hear your words. We need your word. We come to glorify you and to honor you and to say with one voice that Christ is alive, that he is risen from the dead, that he is reigning even now from your right hand.

The word your servant Paul said that if Christ has not risen from the dead, we are of all men to be most pitied. But the very opposite is true. Christ is risen, we are of all men to be most envied. We have this hope that you have given to us, this life that you have given to us, the spirit you have poured out to fill us, objects of mercy, vessels of grace.

So this day, Father, as we come to your word, I pray that you would bring your truth all the way in, all the way through us, that you would run us through with your truth and not leave us the same, that you would kill sin and bring new life.

We pray this with all confidence, looking to our risen reigning king, Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well-pleased, amen. He is risen. Some people may wonder why that matters. Let me tell you a story.

It is a bit of Jewish poetry. When Jews want to do something significant and memorable, they use parallelism. You see this in the Psalms and in the Proverbs. You heard a lot of it when Brian read through Proverbs this morning.

The way in which all of history is given to us is in this fashion. That first, there was a commission. There was a commission given to Adam. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. Instructions were given to the one made in the image of God, to Adam and Eve.

Together, they were to accomplish this commission. The truth was spoken by the word of God. All things were made by the word of God. All things are to proceed. And so here's the truth. Here's the commission.

What humanity is to do, to fill the earth with the glory of God. Soon after the commission was given came the anti-commission, the lie. Lies always have to have truth to work off of, to take what is true and then to twist it in some significant way.

And so Satan tells the lie and essentially shifts this one part and says, no, it's not that you're to fill the earth with God's glory, it's you're to fill the earth with your glory. And they believe him and they sin.

Adam and Eve sin and then comes death. So there's the commission, there's the anti-commission, and then there's death. And death becomes the most significant thing about humans. For chapter five of Genesis, and they died and he died and he died and he died.

And then everything is about, what do we do about this death? And so there was a promise of a seed, one to come who would defeat the evil, defeat the serpent. But death, death, death, what do we do about death?

So the commission, the anti-commission, and then death. And then resurrection.

The first Adam brought death.

The second Adam, the last Adam brings life. The first Adam died, the second Adam died and was raised from the dead, raised again. There was the commission, the anti-commission, and then there was death.

And the opposite side of that is life, is the resurrection.

What happens right after the resurrection?

We're gonna find this in our text today, Matthew 27 and 28. Right after the resurrection comes the anti-commission. Lies immediately began to spread about the resurrection. And then the final parallel, just as there was a commission at the very beginning, so another commission is given and Christ gives us the commission, the truth.

This is what is true, this is what has happened. Therefore, this is how the rest of history is going to play out. So there was the commission, the anti-commission, then death, resurrection. And despite that anti-commission, still there comes the great commission, the resurrection commission.

That's the story. That's why it matters at the center of all history. At the center of meaning is the person and work of Jesus Christ, which may be summarized in this, his resurrection from the dead. And so that might be a nice story for some, but does it still matter?

Is it still meaningful? Is there still an anti-commission at work today? Is there still need for the articulation? No, the heralding, the insistence on truth. Is that still needed today? Is there still an anti-commission at work today to deny God, to deny truth, to deny the person and work of Jesus Christ?

Yes, there is. Mallory Millett was the sister of Kate Millett, who was a leading feminist in 1969. Mallory visited a gathering, a consciousness raising group, it was called. And Mallory's sister, Kate, led the group there on that day in 1969 in the following litany.

Why are we here today?

She asked.

To make revolution, they answered. What kind of revolution? She replied. The cultural revolution, they chanted. And how do we make cultural revolution? She demanded. By destroying the American family, they answered.

How do we destroy the family? She came back. By destroying the American patriarch, they cried exuberantly. And how do we destroy the American patriarch? She replied. By taking away his power. How do we do that?

By destroying monogamy, they shouted. By destroying marriage. How can we destroy monogamy? By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, and homosexuality, they resounded. I believe there's an anti-commission at work today.

I was just mentioning to Ms. Helen, seems like they're kind of organized. Hey, we gotta get organized. What Jesus does here in our text, organizes us. They're anti-patriarch because they're anti-God the Father.

They're anti-marriage because they're anti-Christ. And he who sits in the heavens laughs. You think God is bothered by that?

He laughs.

The nations rage. They say, let us cast off their feathers. Let's cast off the restraints that God would put upon us. And he just laughs at them. Never gonna work. There is an anti-commission. And there is a true commission.

There is a revisionist commission. And there is a resurrection commission. On whose commission are you working? On whose commission are you working? That's the question that's left us at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.

On whose commission are you working? Let's notice first of all, the revisionist commission. We have a longer text today, but I'm gonna go ahead and read the entirety of it for us. Would you please stand with me?

I'm going to read Matthew 27, beginning in verse 62, and read all the way through the end of Matthew 28. If you were here for our Good Friday service, we left the story at verse 61 with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting opposite of the grave.

But as I said then, that's not the end of the story. We keep reading. Verse 62, this is the words of the Lord. Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate and said, Sir, we remember that when he was still alive, that deceiver said, after three days I am to rise again.

Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal him away and say to the people, he has risen from the dead and the last deception will be worse than the first.

Pilate said to them, you have a guard, go make it as secure as you know how. And they went and they made the grave secure. Along with the guard, they set a seal on the stone. Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.

And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning and his clothing as white as snow.

The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the woman, do not be afraid for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here for he has risen.

Just as he said, come and see the place where he was lying. Go quickly, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.

Behold, I have told you.

And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid, go and take word to my brethren to leave for Galilee and there they will see me. Now, while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priest all that had happened.

And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers and said, you are to say his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.

And if this should come to the governor's ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. And they took the money and did as they had been instructed. And this story was widely spread among the Jews and is to this day.

But the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. There's two commissions here. One is the revisionist commission and one is the resurrection commission. Verse 61 would be the end to a normal story, but this is not an ordinary story.

The story continues and Christ's enemies know that this is not going to go smoothly. They're concerned about problems arising.

They know his words.

His enemies know what he said. They know his gospel words. They know that he preached that he was the Christ. They know that he preached that he was the Lamb of God. They know that he preached that he would be risen from the dead.

They knew the gospel and they hated every part of it. And so they began to work against the resurrection before it even begins. And after it happens, they still work against the resurrection. They fire up the whitewashing machine and set it on high spin.

Let us know how is this going about? How are they accomplishing this revisionist history, this revisionist commission? How are they doing this? Well, first of all, we see reprobate lying that attempts to silence the gospel.

Reprobate lying attempts to silence the gospel. I'm saying this is a reprobate lying because they knew exactly what he said. They knew he was innocent and they murdered him anyway. They set up court when they never should have had court.

They went through the system like they never should have done it. They broke all the rules in order to execute Christ by the hand of the Romans. And now they come to Pilate and they call Christ a deceiver.

They spent so much of their time in opposition to Christ, trying to trick him, trying to put him in a bad light with other people. They were always scheming and conspiring.

They were always lying.

And now that he's dead and out of the way, they call him a deceiver. How often those who have given themselves over to lies walk around calling everybody else liars. Even when they were faced with the facts.

Of the resurrection.

And they have these soldiers who went through the earthquake and saw that the stone moved out of the way and they felt like dead men before this angel from heaven. And that when they woke up, the tomb was empty.

Even when faced with these soldiers, they just tell them to lie. Well, here's what you're gonna say. Here's what you're gonna say. Those who lie accuse God of lying. The absurd call the gospel absurd.

The useless call the gospel useless. They project all of their own sin upon God and his people. There is no true neutrality. Here are those who were, you could call them cynics opposed to Christ, just not convinced yet that obviously they were dedicated to the information that had been handed to them by the previous generation.

And yet when they were approached, when they were confronted with hard facts of Jesus Christ's divinity, the things that he knew that he should never have known, the things that he did that no one should ever be able to do and the fact that he died upon the cross exactly as the scriptures foretold and rose from the dead exactly as the scriptures had been foretold, no other generation had ever been given so much evidence that Jesus was the Christ, the son of God, and they lied about him and called him a deceiver and then went into a coverup.

That's not neutrality. The people who could have been most convinced by empirical evidence didn't care about any of the evidence. They wanted to cover it up at all costs. I'm glad for the empirical evidence.

Makes me happy to hear the archeologist found something else that proved the Bible true. I just laugh, that's hilarious. That's great. But if someone is dedicated to be against God and against Christ, no mountain of empirical evidence will ever convince them otherwise.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit. And these men were reprobate sons of the devil, Jesus called them, and they didn't care. There are some people who don't care. There are some people who are reprobate and they're the ones spinning all the lies.

Second point is this, unholy alliances attempt to thwart the gospel, the unholy alliances. What are these chief priests and Pharisees doing? You know, they usually don't get along, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, but they're getting along here and they're getting along with a Gentile by the name of Pilate.

And they don't, they break all of their customs and all of the rules to do the deal with the devil, Pilate. They have this unholy alliance going to try to thwart the gospel. They come to, you know, they come to tell Pilate, you know, hey, look, this deceiver said this stuff and it may end up worse than it was before.

Here are religious charlatans who have broken all of their own laws. They have gone against their own moral code, have completely thrown that out the window to kill Jesus. And they're conspiring with Pilate, who is the pro-council of Judea, whose one job as the Roman pro-council is to do justice.

That's his job.

That is his job description in a nutshell. And what did he do? But hand an innocent man over to be killed. So here are religious charlatans conspiring with a compromised government official. And they've got these guards who know what happened, but they hire them.

They buy them off. They turn them into mercenary missionaries. They'll say whatever you want them to say as long as you pay them appropriately. Unholy alliances attempt to thwart the gospel. And then here we hear the devil's commission.

Here's the religion's commission. Before we hear about go therefore to all the nations, we hear go and make the tomb secure. We hear go and say that we fell asleep and the disciples came when we were asleep and stole the body away.

Spread that around. Spread that news around. You hear the anti-commission? Why did they do this? Why did they conspire together? It was for self-preservation. Self-preservation. The religious charlatans, the chief priests and the Pharisees wanted to preserve their influence in their land.

Pilate wanted to preserve his job. He didn't want a riot breaking out in his area that he was supposed to keep the peace and to do justice. And the guards, they wanted to save their lives. Guards in this day, if they lost what they were guarding, a prisoner say, it was a death penalty.

Any Roman guard, any other kind of guard, any guard who loses their prisoner.

Will be put to death.

And in this case, they lost a dead man. So they're willing to tell the lie and to conspire with these religious charlatans. And they all are conspiring together because they all have skin in the game.

It's the way it is today. I was talking with one of our, Stephen Black is in charge of the First Stone Ministries. We support him financially here. We pray for him and his ministry. And he was talking about a hearing and a conference he had gone to.

And he was lamenting about how much money there was behind the gay Christian movement and how it's just being pushed forward by all the money people. And I said, you know what, it's always that way. There's always money behind the anti-commission.

There's always money funding.

The ideas that are antithetical to the gospel against Christ, against God. That's the way it always is, right? Geologists don't get paid unless they confess a pagan cosmology. Oh, we've been around for billions of years and it's all been disaster.

And unless you confess a pagan cosmology, Neo-Darwinian materialism, you don't get to be a geologist. Ecologists don't get paid unless they confess a pagan eschatology. Oh, well, we're gonna all burn up because of everything we're doing to the planet.

Climate change is gonna end us all. Unless you say exactly what they want you to say,.

You don't get paid.

That's where we are. It's always been that way. It's nothing new. Is there any hush money in your life? Honestly, there can be hush money in your life. Is there any hush money in your life? Okay, if I stand up and say what the Bible says, if I stand up and say what Christ says, if I confess the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that gonna lose me a job?

Is that gonna lose me an income? Is that going to lose me a financial supporter? Is that going to lose me relationships? What's that gonna lose? What's the hush money in our lives keeping us from saying what the scriptures say?

Whatever it is, it isn't worth it. He who seeks to save his life will in the end lose it. He who loses his life for my sake and the gospel, he will find it. So reprobate lying attempts to silence the gospel.

Holy alliances attempt to thwart the gospel. Filthy lucre, which is the good King James name for this, attempts to dilute the gospel. And 1 Timothy 3, three and eight, Titus 1, verse seven, 1 Peter 5, two, all these instructions to elders, all these instructions to preachers, all of them say, don't take dirty money.

Our first example, I think of this is Abraham who was unwilling to take a sandal, a sandal strap, I think, from the King of Sodom. I'm not gonna take a single thing from you, King of Sodom, lest you say, I have made Abraham rich.

He isn't gonna take any kind of dirty money to hush him up from proclaiming the glory of God. Fourthly, useful idiots attempt to deny the gospel. I'm using that in the political sense. A phrase long coined about those who are propagandists for a cause that they are not fully aware of.

Propagandists for a cause they're not fully aware of. This was used to describe those who were marshaling communism in the West by those who were in the East. This happens today. People are just sincere and sincerely wrong.

People are passionate and passionately wrong. Why is that? Well, 2 Corinthians 4 says that the devil has pulled a veil over people's eyes so they cannot see the glory, the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

That's one reason why. Turn over to Philippians 3. Paul says, for many walk of whom I often told you and now even tell you weeping. They are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

This happens today. Do you ascribe to the revisionist commission at all? Do you make peace with this scheme at all? We should not give quarter at all to any aspect of the revisionist commission. Anything that is anti-God as our father, anti-Christ in any of his person and work, anything that is anti-Scripture.

This is all part of the revisionist commission. It is set forth by reprobate lying, unholy alliances, dirty money, and useful idiots. Give it no respect. Give it no respect. Christ is king.

He's one. Come along quietly.

Psalm 2 says, kiss the son, do homage to the son, lest he be angry with you. But how blessed are all those who find refuge in him? And this is the resurrection commission. Chapter 28 verses one through 10 and verses 16 through 20.

The resurrection of Christ is what should set us in motion every week, right? Every Sunday, every Sunday, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, go. That's what happens in the text. Everything about our lives as Christians, as those who are in the new Adam, is informed and motivated and directed by Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Notice the word of our going in verses six and seven first. He is not here, the angel says, for he has risen just as he said. Comes to the place where he was lying. Now that you've seen that, go. Look, see, before you get down to verse 19.

You already have the go up in verse seven. We remember the one in verse 19, go therefore, okay? We remember that go, but before then, there's another go in verse seven. The angel says, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.

And in verse 10, Jesus encounters these same women. What does he say to them? He says, go, do not be afraid, go and take my word. My brethren, what word was that?

I have risen.

So at the outset of the Great Commission, what the Great Commission is about, is the word of our going is this, Jesus has risen from the dead. That's what is verse seven and verse 10 and verse 19. Jesus has risen from the dead.

Now, with this being true, here's everything that follows. This is the word of our going, that we go and we say he is risen. This is why we do what we do every Sunday, the first day of the week. We come together, say he is risen, and then we go.

He is risen, then we go. This is the pattern of the church, the pattern of those who are born again in Christ. And the origin of our going is the empty tomb. Verses one and two. Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.

And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat on it. And he wanted them to come and look at the emptiness of the tomb so that they would know that Christ was risen, and then they go.

Verse eight, they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to his disciples. The working out of the Great Commission begins in the empty tomb with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Some passages for us to consider. Revelation chapter one, and look at verses 17 and 18. Revelation chapter one, verses 17 and 18. John the Apostle says, when I saw him, when I saw Christ, I fell at his feet like a dead man, and he placed his right hand on me and said, do not be afraid.

Sound familiar? Do not be afraid. Notice what Christ says about himself. I am the first and the last, and the living one, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

He was dead, and now he's alive. Why does that matter for us? Because those who are in Christ were once dead, but now we are alive, that we have died with Christ upon the cross. We are alive with him in his resurrection, that everything about our lives is different now.

It is new now. Romans chapter six gives us a very clear parallel of this. Romans chapter six in verses eight through 13. This is the language of Christianity. It has everything to do with the resurrection of Christ.

He has died, and he is raised again. So verse eight of chapter six of Romans, now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again.

Death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey in its lust, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

This is why the Great Commission, the Resurrection Commission, originates in the empty tomb. Everything about living the new life, everything about preaching Christ, everything about spreading who Christ is to the nations begins with us rising from the dead in Christ.

We are truly spiritually alive. We are no longer defined by the death of sin. We are defined by the life of Christ. And we notice the warrant of our going, the authority of our going. Heaven sends the angels to preach, to proclaim authoritatively.

Christ himself tells the women what to go say. Women worship him, falling down at his feet. The disciples worship him, even from afar, but verse 18, notice, and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

This is the resurrected Jesus Christ. All authority, all authority has been given to Jesus Christ, the risen Savior, in heaven and on earth. And what Jesus says here is repeated again and again and again throughout the New Testament as the warrant for everything that we do.

Ephesians 1, verses 20 through 23, that God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

We hear this.

God has raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And he has put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. He is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named.

That means I don't care how bad Antichrist is, the risen Christ is stronger. Don't talk about Antichrist, talk to me about the risen Christ.

He's the one who's in charge. He's the one who's in power.

Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. We have a risen Christ who is reigning at the right hand of God. A risen savior means a reigning master. Go therefore.

The therefore.

Because he's the reigning master, therefore, we go and do what he has called us to do, despite whatever opposition that we face. The object of our going is there in verses 19 and 20. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and though I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

These are the words of the risen Christ. There is a one-to-one correlation between Christ rising from the dead and the Great Commission. We can't think about Great Commission anything without thinking about the risen Christ.

And we must proclaim Christ from all the scripture until his spirit renews all God's people into his image. We are making learners, make disciples, make followers. They are to observe all that God, Christ, that doesn't mean, you know, look at it on the page.

This word observe means to keep, means to keep. It says keep all that I commanded you. In other words, we are to keep Christ's commandments. You've heard keep the commandments. He says, what we're gonna do, teach everybody everywhere to keep Christ's commandments.

That's what the Great Commission is about. We're making followers, vibrant, obedient keepers of Christ's commandments. Do this to all the nations. All nations are the prospect of the meaning of what Christ rose from the dead.

He rose from the dead because he has all authority over all of the earth. So all nations are to follow him because he's the king. That's the commission by which we live. That's the commission by which we live.

Why are we here today? To glorify God. How do we glorify God? By living in his image. How do we live in his image? By repentance and faith in the risen Christ. From where comes repentance and faith? The Holy Spirit sent by the Father and by the Son.

And why has the Holy Spirit come? To empower us. To what end? To make disciples of all the nations. How do we make disciples? By baptizing them in the name of the triune God into the local church and by teaching them to keep the commandments of the risen and reigning Jesus Christ.

The Empty Tomb and the Resurrection Commission

Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for this great hope, this history-defining hope, this identity-defining hope that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.

What good news!

What good news! Father, I pray that this good news would be a bright light in our minds, a bright light in our lives that would not allow the darkness and the shadows of deceit to remain. Help us to see everything in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We thank you. We thank you for the victory that we have in Christ. I pray that you would help us to live obediently and confidently in him. I pray these things for his sake.