King's Commission (Resurrection Sunday)

The Shepherd's Church

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I love hearing the voices of children during worship because I tend to think that the

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American church has become so professional that we've forgotten that the first church met as a family and every family member was there and all the little children watched their moms and dads sing praises and they got to hear the word of God preached and they grew up knowing that this was an important thing that we're doing here today.

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And when we've shuttled our children off into high -energy kid services, we've taught them that the church is to entertain them instead of satisfy the deepest longings of their soul.

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So I'm so thankful that the kids are here today. Moms if you are struggling and wondering how am

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I going to make it through service, just know that your child is picking up so much more than you could ever imagine. My son

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Graham when he was younger would come home and tell me points of the sermon when I knew he wasn't listening. He was climbing under the pews and he was doing the low crawl like he was in battle.

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Sorry Graham, I'm outing you. But he would tell me specific things about the sermon when we got home and it always reminded me that the children are listening.

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So I'm so thankful that they're here. Now as we learned on Palm Sunday, Jesus Christ is

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King. He rode into the city as King and we learned on Holy Week that every single step along the way he was bringing his kingdom, every step.

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On Good Friday we learned how he toppled the Old Testament kingdom by bringing about a new kingdom when he was crucified and murdered by his own people.

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Why did that happen? So that he could win for himself a new bride and a new people who would bear fruit for his name.

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We gather together today to celebrate the fact that the kingdom of God has come and the kingdom of God is here and the kingdom of God is present every single time believers gather in his name.

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When we walk out into the world, we're not walking out into Satan's territory. We are the kingdom of God and everywhere we step we're bringing

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God's reign and God's power to the nations. We gather to celebrate the fact that there was an empty tomb in a city that wanted to find the body, that had every reason to find the body so that they could discredit the movement.

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But there was no dead body to be found on Resurrection Sunday. His body was raised and not only raised, now he reigns.

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He ascended to the right hand of God to sit on the throne. Why would anyone sit on the throne unless they were king? Kings don't sit down if they are at war.

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Kings sit down when they go to rule over the kingdom that they've already conquered. Jesus Christ is king and one by one from his throne, he is calling forth dead souls like you and I to be citizens in his kingdom.

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At one point, you and I were called into the kingdom and there is nothing about our life that was the same.

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And if you're still outside of the kingdom today, that's okay. I don't say this to put a weight on top of you because we can't save ourselves.

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I am sharing with you that when you intersect with the empty tomb, your life is different. It must be because the spirit of God comes in.

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Now, I say this like I do in preface because I think that in America, we have cheapened what

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Resurrection Sunday is. We've robbed Resurrection Sunday of its scandal, of its glory, and its power and we turned it into a cheap holiday with Easter eggs and bunnies and chocolate and dead religion.

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We get all dressed up in our best suits and our best purple shirts, plum shirts. We wear nice fluffy hats and we wear our pastel ties and we think that this is what it means to be religious.

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This is what it means to know God. But if that is the highlight, it's not wrong to dress up nice.

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It's a good thing. But if that's the highlight, if we're missing what Jesus did on the cross, we're missing the empty tomb and we're worried about what we're wearing.

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We've missed it. If we go to church that one special day out of the year and we wouldn't dare darken the doors any other day out of the year,

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I'm not saying that it's your fault. I'm saying it's the church's fault. The church has preached a

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Christ that has tried to attract people to the world, but it's not attractive because it's not the real

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Jesus. We leave people feeling empowered that they can come to church on that one special day and then go away for 364 days and come back next year.

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That's the culture that we've created. Jesus said, if you love me, you will follow me.

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He didn't say, if you love me, you'll abandon me. This is the day out of the year that churches spend thousands of dollars to decorate their space, send out countless flyers, pay for Facebook and Google ads and provide special worship services not intended to encourage

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Christians in the resurrection of their savior, but to thrill pagans with great entertainment. That is not what the church was destined to do.

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It's a day when we burn out volunteers. I know I've been in this culture where we cripple overworked staff members, where we play loud music that says

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Jesus is my boyfriend. If his name is even mentioned at all, we're bright strobe lights create epileptic seizures.

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I've been there. I've been in that culture, and I know where pastors are afraid to speak the word of God.

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They're afraid to say what sin is. They're afraid to say what Christ did. And because of that, they give pop psychology lectures.

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They barely mentioned the scandal of the cross, and they leave people walking out of the room dead.

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That's not loving. The most loving thing we can do is preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. This whole charade that we've created entirely misses the point of resurrection

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Sunday. And that's not what I want us to do today. Now, I want to say this.

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God ferociously loves his people. He does. If he didn't, he wouldn't have died on a cross.

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If he didn't, he wouldn't have drank the cup of the father's wrath for you and for I. He loves us.

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But when we dress this whole thing up like a show, we wonder why that all we produce is event attenders.

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We're not enhancing it. We're depreciating it. When we make it all about consumers, and we try to figure out through surveys and through mail outs on what people want, and we do it that way, when we do that, is it any wonder that we produce consumer -driven

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Christians or Christianity in that way? When we treat Easter or Resurrection Sunday like it's our

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Super Bowl, I've heard pastors say this. This is our Super Bowl. Well, guess what? People only go to the Super Bowl once a year.

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Is it any wonder that people only go to church once a year because we made it our Super Bowl? That's ridiculous. Every week is a

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Christian is Resurrection Sunday because every week he lives every nanosecond.

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Why should we be surprised when we're not when the culture is not getting how significant Christ is? We're not sharing it.

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Again, that's what I want us to do today. I want us to look at the point of Easter that Jesus Christ became king.

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He was condemned by the perverted religion of Jerusalem as king. He was, he cleansed the fruitless temple as king.

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He taught them in parables that he was king. He showed them from the Old Testament. He was king. He was scourged as king, mocked as king, crowned as king, thrown as king on the cross.

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He was crucified and a sign was even put above his head to mock him. Yes, but he was in fact king.

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Today, I want us to get the focus off of us and I want us to get the focus onto the only one that matters and that is

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Jesus Christ. I want us to in three parts today. That's what the sermon is going to be.

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We're going to zoom into the events of Easter and then we're going to look at what immediately happened right after Easter because that's really important and then we're going to look at how does that apply to us today as unbelievers and as believers.

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So if you will, let's pray and let's turn to Matthew 28. Father, thank you for the fact that we can be here together today to celebrate the empty tomb and Lord, I pray that the empty tomb and all of its beauty and splendor would be enough for us, that it would be sufficient for us, that we wouldn't need to hang streamers and lights on the empty tomb and we wouldn't need to put sound systems outside the empty tomb and we wouldn't have to decorate it up and dress it like the world for it to be attractive to the world.

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Lord, I pray that the empty tomb would be enough and Lord, I pray that we would revel in what

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Christ did today, that we would rejoice in what Christ did today and Lord, we would worship Christ for what he did today.

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Lord, also pray that the impact that that has upon our lives, the empty tomb says something. The empty tomb says something about us and who we are called to be.

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Lord, I pray that we would see the point of the empty tomb and it would change our lives like it changed the women who found the tomb empty and like it changed the disciples who found

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Christ resurrected. The world was turned upside down because of one bit of knowledge.

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The tomb was empty. Lord, I pray the world would once again be turned upside down because we understood what that phrase meant in Christ's name.

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Amen. We're starting in Matthew 28. I unintentionally,

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I didn't put a lot of thought into the Easter Holy Week series. I just kind of preached it and realized that it had all the same theme and I was like, oh, it looks like retroactively

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God had a plan. I didn't have a plan. We started in Matthew 21 and I've preached all the way to Matthew 28.

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So why not cap it off with finishing the book of Matthew today here for Easter? This is what the first verse says.

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Now, after the Sabbath, that means Jesus was raised the day after the

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Sabbath. And I want to show you three things just from that small phrase that Jesus is bringing a Sabbath resurrection.

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He's bringing a creation, a new creation resurrection, and he's bringing a new covenant resurrection. All in those three words after the

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Sabbath, which was the day that no one was supposed to work in Israel. Jesus Christ raised from the dead.

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That means that God himself was obeying the law of Moses. When he lie in the tomb on Saturday, he was not working.

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He was resting. It says on the seventh day, God rested from his labors.

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So Jesus comes as God in the flesh and rest from his ministry and his labors.

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Therefore, he's closing out the old order and he's bringing about a new

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Sabbath. No longer do you and I have to be bound by the fourth commandment that says you shall not work on that day.

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Jesus Christ says, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. And he meant it. He went to the tomb to fulfill the

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Sabbath. And now you and I don't rest at home on the Sabbath, which is a good thing to do.

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I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying we rest in Jesus Christ every single day of the week. One day no longer is set apart as holy.

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Every day is set apart as holy if you're a Christian because Jesus Christ is your Sabbath and he has brought you rest and he's brought you comfort and he's brought you hope and he's brought you everything that you could ever need.

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He's bringing a Sabbath for the people of God. The second thing I want us to see is that it's a new creation resurrection.

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Seventh day makes us think back to Genesis. God created the world in seven days. God established a week in the first creation.

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It was done in a garden also. And Jesus died in a garden tomb. Look how he's closing out the story of the old creation.

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Life began when God spoken into existence on the first day. So the first day of a new week, new life began when

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Jesus rose out of the grave. He is beginning a new creation.

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The Bible says that he's the first fruits of a new creation. What does that mean? Well, he rose on the first day, but he also rose on the third day.

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It's kind of odd how that happened, right? Jesus Christ, the day after the Sabbath, the first day of a new week rose from the dead, but he died on Friday.

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So Friday, Saturday, Sunday means he also rose on the third day. What happened on the third day of the first creation?

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The plants burst forth out of the earth. The trees with roots shoved their limbs out of the ground.

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What did Jesus do on the third day when the new roots of his kingdom took hold and he jumped out of the grave and he burst forth out of the grave?

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Like the plants did in the first creation, except he is the new life that will always live in the in the new creation.

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So he's starting a new creation. He rose like the old creation. He's bringing a new creation.

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What's that mean? That means if you're dead in your sins, you can be made new. That means if you're broken in your sin that you can be healed because he's bringing a new creation.

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That means you no longer need to live in slave to the tyranny of Satan or to the brokenness of your sin.

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You can be set free because he's bringing a new creation. He's the

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Sabbath king and he's the new creation king. And what I love about the

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Bible is how it's so symmetrical and it's so beautiful. In the first creation, human beings fell in two stages.

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They fell immediately spiritually. They became dead and dark in their hearts instantly.

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But they didn't die instantly. They died eventually. So the curse came in two stages.

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Look at how Jesus' redemption also comes in two stages. If you're a Christian, instantly your soul is made well and you are now a child of God.

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But we still have backaches. We still have knee pains. Eventually, Jesus is going to return and he's going to make all things new.

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It's a two stage fall and it's a two stage healing. Do you see what I'm saying? So you have got the down payment of the gospel deposited in your heart.

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If you're a Christian, you've been raised to new life and your body eventually will be made brand new.

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If I don't hear an amen on that, he's also bringing a new covenant resurrection.

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Think about it this way. The Sabbath was the holiest day of the week.

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The Passover was the holiest festival of the year. Now, it was very, very rare that a

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Passover and a Sabbath would happen at the exact same time. This was called a high holy Sabbath.

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This is what happened when Jesus died. Very rare indeed. It's like, for instance,

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I was born on Labor Day. My mom gave birth on Labor Day, which was not a joy for her, but I'm thankful for it.

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She labored on Labor Day and I'm here. But that doesn't happen every year.

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It happens only once every seven years. It's kind of an infrequent thing. It's an infrequent thing that Jesus died on a high holy

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Sabbath. Now, think about it. The holiest day of the year is the Sabbath. The holiest sacrifice is the

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Passover sacrifice. The holiest festival is the Passover. Now, take it to the nth degree that it's happening both at the same time.

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Jesus is closing out the entire old covenant. He died as the Passover lamb because the

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Old Testament is nullified now in the fact that we don't have to obey in order to be accepted by God.

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The Passover lamb's blood was painted on the cross so that now you and I are accepted by God. We are never going to be forsaken by God because Jesus was forsaken for us.

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The entire Old Testament story came to a close in Christ. He's bringing a new covenant.

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He's the new Sabbath king. He's the new creation king. He's the new covenant king. All of those things in the first four words of Matthew 28.

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We're going to do the whole chapter, so we'll be here a while. I'm just kidding. Matthew continues.

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As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb, which is a completely normal thing to do.

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Now, this would have normally occurred the previous day, but again, it was a Sabbath. You're not supposed to do work on the

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Sabbath. So what happened was Jesus died around three o 'clock p .m. He hung on the cross for a couple of hours until the

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Romans came and put a spear in his side and the blood and the water flowed out, which signaled to everyone there that he was really dead.

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They didn't have to break his legs in fulfillment of prophecy from Psalm 22 that not a bone of his was broken. So they had him on the cross to about five o 'clock p .m.

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Now, Friday turns to Saturday at eight o 'clock p .m. in the Jewish way of doing time.

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So they had three hours to get Jesus's body off the cross, down the hill to the garden tomb, put it in there, close the tomb so that no animals or so no robbers or anyone else would come into the tomb and steal the body.

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They had very little time. In fact, the women don't even know where Jesus's body is.

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They're looking for it because Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, two of Jesus's secret disciples, take the body and sprint to the tomb to get him in there before Sabbath begins, because they could be kicked out of the temple by breaking the

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Sabbath. So they had very little time. So Mary and the other Mary would have done this normally on the previous day.

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They would have went back and finished, but they couldn't. It was the Sabbath. So they had to let Jesus's body sit in the tomb unprepared for his burial.

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They would not have even went to the tomb on Sunday morning had it not been for the fact that they had to prepare his body for burial.

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They could have mourned where they were. It was dangerous to go out. If you were a follower of Jesus at this point, you were public enemy number one.

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What I find interesting, in fact, is that the women were the ones who had the courage to go to the tomb and the men stayed home.

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The only people who would have been at the tomb that morning was the Roman guards. Isn't that interesting that the

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Pharisees, who were so concerned with obeying the law, were willing to pay someone else to break it? Again, this is why they're coming to the tomb.

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So they're not prepared for what's getting ready to happen. They have their spices, they have their oils, they have their fragrances, they have all the stuff that they need to prepare

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Jesus's body so that eventually they could put his body in a Jewish ossuary, which was the process.

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They were following a set of steps here, but they weren't prepared for what happened. Let's look at verse two. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the

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Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning and his clothing was as white as snow.

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And the guards shook from fear and became like dead men. I love that.

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I love that because just a few days earlier, a centurion cried out, my Lord, my

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God, he saw it. Now another group of Romans are falling over dead because of another earthquake.

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The earthquake at the crucifixion was the earth in rebellion against what the

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Romans were doing. The earth was shaking and frustrated and violently moving because they killed

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God's one and only Son. And again, the man looks up and he says, surely this was the

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Son of God because even the earth was at war against them. Now on the resurrection, another earthquake happens.

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The earth again clapped violently and it shocked the Romans until they passed out. Again, the men fell out and the women are standing there watching.

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It's an interesting thing. And they literally fell over because a lightning faced angel moved a 2000 pound stone from in front of the tomb and opened up the grave that it would take multiple, multiple men to be able to move.

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The women had to have been completely confused at this point, which is probably why the angel says, do not be afraid.

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Which seems like an understatement, right? He just made war with a Roman troop. It looks like a bloodbath right in front of them.

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And he's like, don't worry, it's all good. I love, I love that. Look what the angel tells him.

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For I know that you're looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He's not here for he's risen. Just as he said, come see the place where he was lying.

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In this particular day, to be a woman was to be someone who would could not even be considered as a credible witness in court.

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So isn't it funny that the Lord himself welcomed two women to be the first people to be his eyewitness testimony?

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And isn't it brave that the men who were hiding accurately recorded it?

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Now, if you and I were making up a story, and maybe I'll speak to the men for a second. If we were making up a story about how our favorite hero was going to save the world, we would be kind of the demi heroes.

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We would be the ones who found him. We would be the ones who got all the credit. We would give him all the credit, but we'd get some.

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We would have written the events in our favor. I love that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are so honest that they're even willing to publicly humiliate themselves to be truthful.

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We have a truthful word that can be trusted. It reports details even when it's embarrassing in their time.

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And this is not to say that women are not credible witnesses. That culture got that wrong. But all

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I'm trying to show you is that even in that culture, they were honest about the details, which means we can trust the account that we're reading right in front of us.

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There's no reason that they would have put that in there unless it was true. They came and they found the tomb totally empty.

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They found the linens probably neatly wrapped up. I would think that the son of God probably folded his sheets before he got up.

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I would say that because I know that I fall short in so many areas and making the bed is probably one of them.

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And I say probably, it is. But they found the tomb thoroughly vacated, thoroughly empty.

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And to their shock and their bewilderment, they're looking right into the eyes of an angel whose face is lighting up like lightning.

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And the first thing that he says to them is not, now that you've seen the empty tomb,

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I want you to admire him. That's not what he says. He doesn't say, I want you to go and I want you to live your life like this doesn't matter, but make sure you show up on Easter.

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He doesn't say that. He says, go. Look at what he says in verse seven.

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Go quickly and tell the disciples that he has risen from the dead. He doesn't tell them not one second to rest.

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He doesn't say stop and let's kumbaya about this. Let's talk about this. Let's enjoy this. Let's light a candle.

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Let's sing a song. He doesn't do any of that. He says, go. I've got a mission. I brought my, Jesus brought his kingdom.

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There's no time to wait. It's urgent. We've got to tell the world. He doesn't even give them a second to catch their breath.

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He says, go and quickly tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.

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Behold, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. And there you will see him.

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Behold, I've told you. And it doesn't say that they left the tomb slowly or calmly, or they went and did something else.

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It says that they left the tomb quickly with fear and with great joy. And they ran to report these things to his disciples.

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When the reality of the empty tomb confronted these two women, it changed everything about their life.

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They would never be the same again. Everything about them was on pause at that moment.

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And now a new life had opened up for them and they were not the same. They could never be the same again.

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They did not feel comfortable to go on with their same old life. Their old life was dead and a new life had been raised for them.

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And it would require everything of them. These women ran faster than they ever did before.

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You think Mary's mom probably had some arthritis, but in that moment, I imagine that it didn't matter. That she ran like a cheetah to tell those disciples.

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Because the greatest thing that have ever happened in human history happened right in front of her. And it changed her life.

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Now, I think that's the hallmark of what true faith is. We weren't there when Resurrection Sunday happened, but Jesus even says that blessed are those who don't see and believe.

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And this is not a tomb that just has to be located 2 ,000 years ago that because we can't see it, it's not important. No, this is a tomb that still has importance and significance today.

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And you and I, if we know the empty tomb, it should change our life. Like Jesus going into the temple flipping tables, this ought to flip our lives upside down and forever change who we are.

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The course and the trajectory of our life can never be the same when we intersect with an empty tomb.

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If nothing at all is different about your life. I don't ask these questions to hurt you or to shame you.

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We can't save ourselves. We're not good enough. We're not spiritual enough. We're not righteous enough. But if nothing has changed about your life, at the very least, it ought to inspire you to ask some questions.

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You may ask yourself, why do I not leap for joy like these women when they saw the empty tomb?

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Why is my heart not wrapped with passion because of this empty tomb? Why am

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I not ready to do everything and lay my life down because of this empty tomb? We really need to wrestle with these questions.

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And more than that, we need to ask ourselves the most important question that can ever be asked is not whether we know Jesus. Lots of people know

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Jesus. Probably a billion, two billion, four billion people on earth who've actually heard his name and they're like, oh yeah, I know he's that Jewish guy who rose from the dead.

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A lot of people know Jesus. But the question is, does Jesus know you? It says, many will come to me on that day and say,

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Lord, Lord, didn't we do many miracles in your name? And didn't we do this? And didn't we do that? And we go to church once a year. And didn't we do all these things?

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And he will look at them and he'll say, depart from me. Not because you didn't know me, because I never knew you.

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The question is not whether we know Jesus. The question is, Jesus knows us. And if Jesus knows us, it will make us leap for joy.

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It will make our lives different. It will change the course and the direction of everything if Jesus knows us. It will transform our lives like Paul.

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When he was Saul, he was a murderer. But then he was the greatest apostle and preacher and writer of the New Testament after he met with this

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Jesus. He didn't go looking for Jesus. Jesus intersected with him and knocked him on his feet and humbled him and said,

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I am the one that you are persecuting, Saul. But now I am the one that you're going to preach about,

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Paul. Like the meek Mary, she became a gospel herald when she met

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Jesus, like Peter, who was impulsive and weak. He became the lion -hearted preacher in Jerusalem.

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Like the doubting Thomas, who wouldn't even believe unless he stuck his hands in Jesus' side, was the one who cried out, my

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Lord and my God. Thomas is the one who went to India and died for his faith, being a missionary of the gospel we know from church history.

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All of these men were radically flipped upside down. So why do we have a culture of such mediocre

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Christianity? All of them were flipped upside down because the

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Spirit of God came in them and you can't manipulate that and you can't fake that. And if you don't have that, it's okay to admit that.

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It's okay not to pretend and not to go and participate in religious culture. That's dead.

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That's a whitewashed tomb, Jesus says. But if you don't love

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Him, if you don't leap like these women, if your heart doesn't sing, if you're not drawn to His Word, if you're not compelled to prayer, if you're not eager to go share the message, if you're not overcome with tears because of the beauty and the reality of the cross, if you're not fueled to prayer, if your character's not being changed on a daily or monthly or yearly basis, if you can look back at your life from the day that you said that you accepted

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Jesus and nothing at all has changed, then maybe you're not a Christian. Maybe you don't know

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Him. It takes more than nice services and Sunday hats and pastel ties to get you into the kingdom of heaven.

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These women leapt for joy. They didn't bumble down the broad road that leads to hell.

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Look at what Matthew says in verse 9. And behold, Jesus met them and He said to them,

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Rejoice! And they came up and they took hold of His feet and they worshiped Him. In the other gospel, we realize that Mary was a little disoriented from all of the things that were happening.

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She's already on the ground. She looks up and mistakes Jesus for the gardener. She realizes when He says,

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Mary, that's all He said, Mary, and she said, That is my Lord. And she reaches out from her posture.

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She doesn't even stand up. She reaches out and grabs His feet and worships Him. It was instant.

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These are important things for us to consider. The reason I ask is whether you know

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Christ or if Christ knows you is because it's the most important question you'll ever have to answer in your life. Because if you know

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Christ and Christ doesn't know you, then you will participate in religion. And you will try to manipulate

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God with your righteousness. And when bad things happen to you, you'll complain to God and you'll say, Well, I'm a good person.

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Why is all this stuff happening to me? But if you know Christ and Christ knows you, then

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He becomes the pearl of great price. He becomes your greatest treasure. Whether you go through hell on earth or not,

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Jesus Christ is all satisfying for those who love Christ and are called according to His purpose. The world can't break you.

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The world can't shake you. These disciples, they were killed for their faith.

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Almost all of them. One of them was boiled alive. Peter was crucified upside down.

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And the reason for that is because he said, How dare I die in the same manner as my Lord crucify me upside down?

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Apostle Paul was beheaded. His head was chopped off by Nero. These people were brutally murdered with smiles on their faces because they knew something better than this world.

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They knew Jesus Christ. Verse 10 says,

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Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and bring my word to my brothers to leave for Galilee.

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And there they will see me. In Matthew's gospel, the disciples don't see

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Jesus until Galilee. They don't see him in Jerusalem in Matthew's gospel. Now, we know from John's gospel that they didn't believe the women when they came to the room where they were hiding.

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And we know from John's gospel that two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus were walking away in abject defeat when

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Jesus had to intersect with them and say, Are you guys so dull that you don't even remember what the

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Old Testament says that he must be raised? And they're like, I never thought about it. And then he's going to go on past them and they say,

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No, stay for dinner. And then at dinner, just like Mary, when he says, Mary, and she realizes he's her

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Lord and Savior. These two at dinner, when he breaks the bread, they realize the same Jesus who broke the bread in the upper room.

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It's the same Jesus who did the Lord's Supper. And then immediately he disappeared and they ran back to Jerusalem at night, which was dangerous because there were robbers that hid on the sides of the road.

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You never traveled at night, but something greater than their comfort was here. They knew that Jesus Christ had been raised.

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And they go back to the room and they try to convince the disciples. And the disciples are still like,

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I don't know, guys. John and Peter run to the tomb and find it empty. They come back and they tell the group and they're still like,

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I don't know. John and Peter are like, No, the women are right. Cleophas and the other guy are like,

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They're right. And the rest of them are just like, I don't know. So Jesus appears to them in that room.

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He appears to them right there and he tells them, What are you doing? Get to Galilee. Because what

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Jesus had to tell them in Galilee was that significant. What I want us to understand is that Matthew 28 is a single chapter for a reason.

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Jesus wasn't willing to tell them everything he wanted to tell them in Jerusalem because Jerusalem was dangerous at that time.

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He said, Go to Galilee and I will tell you. Which means that what Jesus tells his disciples in Galilee is probably the most important words that you and I could ever hear about who we are as Christians.

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He told them to go there to report for duty because he was sending them out into the world and he wanted to tell them what salvation was going to require of them.

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So I think it would behoove us to continue on and to look at what Jesus said to his disciples when they got to Galilee.

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Now, Galilee was where Jesus did most of his ministry. It was 60 to 70 miles away from Jerusalem, so it would have taken a couple hours to walk it.

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They would have certainly gotten their steps in on that day. I just got one.

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I never get my steps. I think I got like 200 yesterday, which is actually incredibly pathetic.

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I was working on a sermon. I was doing the Lord's work. Galilee was the mountainous epicenter of Jesus's ministry.

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It was a mountainous region and lots of Jesus's greatest works happened in Galilee at a mountain, actually.

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He was tempted. The first great work of his ministry was tempted at a very high place in Galilee.

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He preached his sermon on the mount in Galilee. He fed the 5 ,000 on top of a mountain at Galilee.

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He healed people. He did ministry. Or he cast out demons from people at the foot of a mountain in Galilee.

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So it's important that Jesus is telling them to go to Galilee, and it's really important that he's telling them to go to a mountain because of where Jesus's disciples find him.

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They find him at a mountain. It says, but the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which

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Jesus had designated to them. Now, the gospel writers don't waste words.

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They are not like modern novels where it takes 400 pages to say something that could be said in a couple pages.

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They just really spread it out. The disciples only include the important details.

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Why did he include the fact that they met him at a mountain? The first time the disciples are going to see Jesus is at a mountain.

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Why is that so important? And which mountain was he talking about? Was he talking about the mountain where Jesus was tempted?

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Is that where Jesus was going to meet his disciples? I don't think so. Was he talking about the mountain where Jesus fed the 5 ,000 people?

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Again, I don't think so. Was he talking about the mountain where he preached the Sermon on the Mount? No, I don't think so.

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I think he was talking about another mountain, the most important mountain in his ministry, the mountain of transfiguration.

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I think that's where Jesus met his disciples. Jesus took

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Peter, James, and John alone up on top of the mountain of transfiguration two weeks before he died.

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Two weeks before Jesus went to the cross, he peeled back reality and he showed his disciples a picture of his glory.

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Two weeks before he died, he showed them who he was. Two weeks later on a mountain called Calvary, he showed them who he was.

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Now he's summoning them back to the mountain to show them who he is. In Matthew 16, right before the mountain of transfiguration,

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Jesus predicts his death. Then you turn to Matthew 17, and this is what it says. After six days,

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Jesus took with him Peter, James, John, the brother of James, and he led them up to a high mountain by himself.

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It's interesting, after six days of telling them he was going to die, then he shows them his risen body.

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It's almost like he's preparing them for the events of Holy Week, where six days, and then the seventh day he raises.

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It says, there he was transfigured before the Lord. And his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

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Now what I want us to see about this right here, is that Jesus looks like the angel that sat down on top of the tombstone.

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His face shone with white. His clothes were white.

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So he is wearing heaven's dress, right here in front of the people who are viewing him,

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James, Peter, and John. But what I want you to also notice, and this is a side point, is that the angel's face in Matthew 28 only flickered like lightning, but Jesus Christ's face shone like the sun.

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If you've ever seen lightning at a distance, it's beautiful. It's amazing, and it draws your face toward it, but it doesn't blind you.

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Try looking at the sun. Try staring straight at the sun, and it will burn your eyes.

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It will burn your retina because it's so much brighter. This Jesus, who is brighter than lightning, was showing them who he really was.

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This Jesus, who was brighter than a flaming ball of gas in the Milky Way galaxy, was showing them who he was.

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They were not just looking at the sun, they were looking at the sun. And they had to avert their eyes because of it.

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It says, Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus, and Peter does what he always does.

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He speaks before he thinks, and he says, Lord, it's good for us to be here. If you wish, I'll build three shelters, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah, and then

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God interrupts him. I thought that was so fascinating when I saw that this week. We always tell our kids, don't interrupt when

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I'm speaking, but if you're speaking like Peter, then God will interrupt you. While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them.

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You see what is happening here? At Mount Sinai in the Old Testament, a bright cloud with lightning and with great light and thunder descended upon the mountain, and now

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Jesus is on top of the mountain with Moses, and the glory of God is descending down on top of the mountain, showcasing that this is my beloved

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Son in whom I am well pleased. The glory of Almighty God drops down.

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Almost as if it's saying, Peter, stop talking. You're missing the point. When the disciples heard this, they fell face down on the ground, which was the proper response.

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But Jesus came and he touched them and he said, get up. And he said, don't be afraid. And when they looked at them, when he looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

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Almost like Mary, when she looked up and she didn't see the gardener, but she saw no one except Christ and Christ alone.

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Jesus instructed them, don't tell anyone what you've seen until the

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Son of Man has been raised. Peter, James, and John for two weeks were keeping the biggest secret that they had ever kept in their life.

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They didn't tell Philip or Andrew or Bartholomew or Judas. Maybe you wouldn't have told him anyway.

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But they didn't tell any of the disciples until after the fact that he was raised.

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So if we wonder why the disciples found him at a particular mountain, it's because they were already there and they already saw him in his risen, glorious form.

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And they said, you know what, guys, I think I know where he's at. Peter, James, and John joyfully led the disciples to the mountain of transfiguration because he knew that's where Jesus was going to be.

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Because they knew that the same God who pulled back the veil of reality and showed them heaven, it's the same

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Jesus who's going to be there and give them the greatest words that they had ever heard spoken in their life. They knew it.

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They went there in faith and they met Jesus. It says in Matthew 28, they found Jesus at the mountain which he designated.

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I think it's clear. It says in verse 17 of chapter 28, when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were still doubtful.

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Now we have to give them credit here. You and I would have been the same. And one day we were following probably the most popular teacher in Jerusalem.

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He was killed. He was buried. We're not public enemy number one. Women came and reported the details in a culture where that wasn't proper.

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We're walking and following Peter. We all know Peter. He walked down in the water and sunk.

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Where's he taking us? Some of them doubted. Let's give him some grace. We would have probably doubted too.

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These are pretty amazing things. It only happened once in history. Let's give him grace. Jesus got there and he told them some of the most important words that they would ever hear.

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And what I love about this is that Jesus doesn't waste his words and say something silly like, guess who's back?

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He didn't do that. Or do you miss me yet? That's very

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Southern. Do you miss me yet? The things that he said in that moment were the most life altering words that he had uttered to them yet.

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Think about it. The women heard he is risen and it changed their life.

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The words that Jesus is getting ready to say to them will change the course of human history. And it will change our lives too if we understand what he said.

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So let's look at them. Verse 18. This is the first words that in the gospel of Matthew, his disciples hear

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Jesus say. The very first words. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Jesus is saying that I am King. All authority on earth is now mine.

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Because of the cross, because of the resurrection. He's not saying that he's like every other

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King who has limited authority, limited geography and limited duration. He's a universal

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King with unrivaled authority and an eternal King that never dies and never, his kingdom never ends.

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He's saying Satan no longer rules here. I'm now King of the world. He's saying your finances don't rule over you.

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He is King of the world. He's saying your job is not in control of your schedule anymore. I am.

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He's saying in every aspect of your life, I am on the throne and I am

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King. Which means that if he has unlimited authority, then we have how much? None.

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Absolutely none. The whole story of Jesus's life is about this. He was born in the city of Kings.

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He was praised as King by the wise men who came and brought him gifts. He was rejoiced over by the shepherds who called him

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King. He was threatened by the puppet King Herod who tried to kill him. He was declared King on the first day of his ministry by Nathanael.

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He rode in as King on the last day of his ministry week in Jerusalem. He wore the crown of thorns as King.

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He was scourged as King. He was killed as King. He was mocked as King. He was brutally tortured as King. And then he rose as King.

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Think about this on Saturday. Jesus didn't just lay in the tomb. His body was there, but where was his soul?

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The creeds say that he went down into hell. No, he didn't. He went down to where the Old Testament saints were being held, a place called

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Sheol. He preached the gospel to them. He broke the gates open. He freed them. An earthquake happened in downtown

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Jerusalem. And it says that some of the saints were walking around the city in Matthew 28, verses that we didn't get to get to tonight.

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Jesus was King even on the day that he died. And he went and preached the gospel like King eternal.

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He rose as King. He lived as King. He reigns currently as King. If his authority covers the entire earth, there's not a square inch of this planet you and I own.

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Our house is not ours. Our boats are not ours. If you have a boat. I'm dreaming of it because I like to fish.

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And I've done that in a decade. Our cars are not ours. Our meals are not ours.

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Our clothes are not ours. Our bodies are not ours. Because if he has all authority in heaven and on earth, he owns it all.

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And if he has all authority, that means he can purchase us to be his people. Think about it.

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Satan was prince in power of the world until Jesus Christ came. We were in the shackles that you and I could not overthrow called sin.

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And let's not minimize sin. Sin is not mistakes. When you mistake, you fall into traffic.

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When you sin, you cheat on your wife. It's not the same thing. You don't fall into situations.

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Your heart loves them and craves them. When you lie, it's because your heart craves wickedness and darkness.

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That is the sort of magnetism that held you in inescapable bonds until Jesus Christ came and set you free.

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The same angel who said to these women, Go. Look at what Jesus says to these men when they realize he really is king.

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Verse 19. Go. First words. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

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Do you see what Jesus is saying? I've risen from the dead. And that means it applies to your life.

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There's something different about you because of what I did. And there's now something that I'm going to require of you because of what

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I did. He didn't say, go admire me. He didn't say, go, go attend a worship service.

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And then you're good. He didn't say, raise your hand at a campfire service. He didn't say, fill out a card and then you'll be saved.

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He said, in light of what I've done, go. The world is dying and going to hell because they've never heard the gospel.

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And the first thing Jesus commands his disciples is go and make disciples of all the nations.

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That means coming alongside of younger believers who don't yet know the truth and helping them walk in the truth and helping them grow in the truth.

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It means teaching them the truth. It means listening to preaching of the truth. It means helping them read the word, pray the word.

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It means helping them live the word and see the word and do the word. Discipleship is our responsibility. If we're in Christ, discipleship is not ministry responsibility.

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The church is supposed to equip the saints for the work of ministry so that the saints can go into the world and disciple the nations.

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Jesus did not redeem us to let us sit on the sidelines of the Christian life.

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Jesus did not die on the cross and resurrect us to make half -hearted, lukewarm followers who begrudgingly go to church.

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He died to utterly transform our existence, to make us soldiers in his kingdom, to go out to the ends of the earth and proclaim the glorious gospel until everyone had heard.

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I am ready for the church of Jesus Christ to wake from her slumber and to start doing what

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Jesus said. These are the first words he told his disciples after he was resurrected. So they're kind of a big deal.

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They're kind of central to our life as Christians. I want to end today by talking about what this means for all of us.

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If you're not a Christian here today, Jesus died on a cross that does not yet apply to you.

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It has not yet applied to you and has not yet been paid for you.

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Now, in God's eternal knowledge, I know that he knows who are going to be saved, but there are people here who have not intersected with the tomb yet because your life doesn't yet look like the leaping women and your life doesn't look like the celebrating men who turn the world upside down and your life doesn't yet even register on a heart rate monitor for the spiritual kingdom.

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This message is not about saying that you have to go be like Paul and write another gospel or a

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New Testament. No, this message is not saying that you need to spend every single day of your life jumping for joy.

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Okay, that would be kind of cool, but this message is about has your life been intersected with the tomb?

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Is your life different? And if your life's not different, even a little bit, then maybe you don't know

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Christ. And if that's the case, I don't want that for you.

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If you don't know Jesus and if nothing is different about your life, I want you to know Jesus. But you can't know

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Jesus from trying to fix your life and you can't know Jesus from trying to make your life better. And you can't know Jesus from trying harder, working harder and all of that.

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That's religion. Do what Mary did, face down in the dirt and cry out, save me.

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Do what the disciples did when they hit the deck, when he revealed himself in humility, come to Jesus Christ and say,

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I cannot save myself. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not righteous enough. I need you and repent of your sins.

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If you don't hate your sins, then God's not working in you. If you don't love Jesus Christ with the greatest passion of anything that you have, then

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Jesus is not working in you. I want that for you. I'm telling you, I'm begging you. I'm pleading with you because heaven and hell lie in the balance of this decision.

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And listen, I don't want you to feel beat up by this. God loves you. He loves you enough to die for you. Think about this.

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The first two people welcomed into the kingdom was a corrupt government worker and a criminal on death row.

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You're not too far gone to be saved. But you can't try to clean yourself up to get there.

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You got to repent and you got to turn to Jesus and you got to cry out to him. Save me. I want that for you.

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And if you're not a Christian, I pray that you would turn to Jesus before it's too late. If you're a

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Christian, I want these words to speak to us. Discipleship is not an option.

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The reason Christianity is sick in America is because the church has thrown parties instead of made disciples.

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We've created an entertainment culture that is filled with worldly things and worldly people.

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And we are not transforming lives and teaching people how to obey everything Jesus commanded. He says in Matthew 28 20.

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Go and make disciples of all the nations by baptizing new believers, by teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you.

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And lo, I will be with you always. In a general way, Jesus is still with the disobedient believer.

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He'll never leave you nor forsake you. But there is a special dispensation of Jesus's grace upon the believer who takes seriously the first commandment that he ever gave and said,

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I will take this mantle upon myself and I will make disciples. The first time that I recognized how important this was and how central it was to every

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Christian, if you're a Christian in this room, you are a disciple maker. You're either ill effective and you're either disobeying the king or you're obeying the king and you're trying.

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There's only two categories. It applies to everyone if you're a Christian. That's all

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I'm saying. And when I noticed that, when I recognized that, I said, I don't know how to disciple anyone.

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So I'm going to read a book about it. I'm going to read the Bible about it. And then the next question that popped in my mind when

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I started learning about what discipleship is, which is simple, teaching someone else to love and obey

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Jesus, teaching them to learn how to obey him in everything that he said. So learn what he said and teach them how to obey that.

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That's discipleship. After I figured out that's what it was, I said, who am I supposed to do this to?

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Am I just supposed to go up and say, hey, you want to be a disciple? I mean, it feels awkward.

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So I just, I did what a person who knows almost nothing does. I prayed. And I said,

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Lord, I don't know how to make disciples, but I know that you told me in your word that I'm supposed to make disciples. Would you please help me understand how to do that and who

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I'm supposed to spend time with? Because I don't know. The same week. And I'm not saying that this is a thing that you can do and it's going to happen the exact same way for you.

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I'm just saying pray and God will help you. That's all I'm saying. But that week, someone came up to me who was a brand new believer and he said, you know,

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I read in the Bible that I'm supposed to be a disciple, but I don't know what that means. You seem like you've been doing this longer than me.

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Would you help me? And I said, okay, well,

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I guess God answered that prayer. So I started meeting with him at a coffee shop and we read through the whole

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Bible together over a year. We read three chapters a day on our own. We came together and we talked about 21 chapters and we just, we just talked about it.

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And at the end of it, I kind of brought him back to Matthew 28 and I said, okay, I've tried to help you obey everything

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Jesus has commanded you to do. But there's one thing that you are not obeying that Jesus has commanded you to do.

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It's the last thing Jesus commanded. Go and make disciples. I want you to go do this with someone else. And he said, well, who am

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I supposed to ask? And I said, well, I didn't know that question either. Maybe you should pray. And then he started spending time with someone else.

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That's how it happens. Every moment of our life, we are being discipled by someone who's further along than us and who's helping us and pulling us forward.

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And we're also helping someone who is not quite to where we're at helping them and pulling them forward.

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We don't reach a pinnacle of salvation or of knowledge where we're the great disciple maker.

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Only Jesus is that. But in every moment of our life, we can have someone we're pouring into and someone who is pouring into us and that will change the world.

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It already has. It already did. And I believe it will again. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for your gospel.

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And Lord, thank you that your gospel is not a sit and stay gospel. Lord, thank you that your gospel does not allow us just to come here and clap and celebrate and then go and live our lives like we lived it the day before.

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Thank you, God, that it transforms our brokenness. Thank you, God, that it transforms our weakness.

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Thank you, God, that it transforms our hearts from people who used to love sin and hate righteousness to people who now love righteousness and hate our sin.

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Lord, I pray that if if we're falling short in this area, and I believe the American Church is falling short in the area of discipleship, that we would repent.

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Lord, I pray that we would grow. Lord, I pray that each and every single Christian would take it as their mantle. Jesus gave everything to us.

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This is something we can give back to him. Lord, I pray that we would fill that conviction. And Lord, I pray that the nations would be discipled in our lifetime because we caught a vision of this.

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Verse resurrection Sunday is not just for us.

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It's for the world and it's for the world who will hear the gospel through us. Jesus name.