Present Benefits of Christ’s Resurrection

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

The Need for Fuel on a Weary Christian Flame

So we are in 1 Corinthians 15. And you'll notice that we have pieced up 1 Corinthians 15 significantly more than we have other texts. And I think it's for good reason because there's just so many good and important truths for us to reflect on, to meditate on, for us to understand as we work our way through 1 Corinthians.

And as I was preparing for this particular sermon, as I was preparing to preach and teach through this, I was reflecting on how it's just been, I think, a really, really trying week for most of us. And I don't say that, you know, there's a lot of people that start sermons that way to hook you in, but I mean just really and actually, whether it's because of unrest in Ottawa and just the general state of affairs in our country, with wars in Ukraine.

We think of illness and grief and now death in the families of members of this church. Or maybe it's just been, as I've spoken to some of you, a trying time at work. But regardless of the reason, it would seem that a number of us are coming to church today.

I know even I am feeling weary, feeling heavy-laden. It's been a bad news. It's been actually a bad news kind of week. And some of us might be starting to feel like we're running low on spiritual zeal.

Maybe we're running low on enthusiasm as we come to worship. And as I was thinking about all of this, all the experiences that I have had this week, and talking to many of you, all the experiences that you've had this week, I was reminded of a story in John Bunyan's book, The Pilgrim's Progress.

We have a small group, so I'll ask you guys some questions. Who here has read The Pilgrim's Progress? I've got a few kids have read The Pilgrim's Progress too. The Pilgrim's Progress was written by John Bunyan in the 1600s.

It's the second best-selling book in all of history behind the Bible. And in this book, The Pilgrim's Progress, it tells the story of a man named Christian who escapes from this place known as the City of Destruction.

And it recounts his experience on his Christian pilgrimage as he makes his way from the City of Destruction on this long, arduous journey to eventually the Celestial City, this heavenly home that he is walking and working towards.

And all of this, this whole book, it's a beautiful allegory of the Christian life, of the Christian walk from pre-conversion to conversion, to difficulty on the narrow way, all the way to entrance into God's presence in heaven.

And in this book, early in the journey, early in Christian's journey to the Celestial City, this main character, Christian, comes to a place that is called the House of the Interpreter. I'm not sure if anyone remembers that from reading it.

But there, this interpreter shows Christian a number of pictures that are meant to help him on his journey to the Celestial City. You could say that he interprets unseen spiritual realities, and he shows these things to Christian in order to strengthen him and to give him an understanding to spur him on on his pilgrimage.

And one of the pictures, as Christian comes to the House of the Interpreter, one of the pictures that Christian is shown is that of a fire burning, a solitary fire burning next to a wall inside of a house.

And in his account, I'll just quote right from John Bunyan. He writes this, he says, The interpreter took Christian by the hand and led him into a place where there was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, if you can picture this, one standing by it, always casting much water upon the fire to quench it and to put it out.

Yet the fire did burn higher and hotter. When Christian saw this, he asked the interpreter, What does this mean? The interpreter answered, This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart of the Christian.

He that casts water upon it to extinguish it and to put it out is the devil. But in that you see that the fire, notwithstanding, burns higher and hotter, and you will see the reason for that. So Christian has this vision.

He comes into this house. There's this fire burning. It's representative of the Christian's spiritual life, of the Christian's zeal, of their spiritual fervor, of their vitality. But standing at the foot of this fire is the devil.

And with buckets of water, he casts the water on the fire, in John Bunyan's words, to quench it, to put it out. But with every bucket, the fire grows, and the Christian's faith, the Christian's love, the Christian's fervor increases in measure and intensity.

And Christian asks the question, How can this be? Children, have you guys ever poured water on a fire? What happens? Does it grow bigger and hotter?

No.

What happens to it?

It goes out.

And yet here the devil is, pouring water on the Christian's spiritual flame, and it burns higher and hotter. So this is what John Bunyan writes. This is the answer. The interpreter took Christian to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand.

So picture you've got the man with the bucket of water, and then on the other side of the wall, a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, which he also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire. Then Christian said, What does this mean?

And the interpreter answered, This is Christ. This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart, by means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of Christ's people prove gracious still.

And so you've got this picture of the Christian life, this fire that's burning, and not hidden away. And isn't this the way it is in life, in the world? If we look at current events, not hidden away, but in plain view, the devil is working to snuff out the flame, to quench the fire.

But it burns higher and hotter still. Why is that? Because behind the wall, out of sight, therefore easy to miss, Christ is pouring fuel on that same fire. And isn't that what life can sometimes feel like?

Like the fire is being quenched, and yet John Bunyan is writing to the reader, There's Christ behind the wall. You can't see it, but he's maintaining, he's provoking, he's stirring up the flames. And so in this picture, instead of smoldering and growing cold, this fire burns higher and hotter.

Despite all of the frenzied efforts of the devil, the Christian lives on and proves gracious still. And as I was thinking about this picture of our Christian flame, and how many of us have been affected by different events this week, many of us might feel like the devil has been pouring water on that flame.

Or someone, something has been pouring water on that flame so that our faith, so that our fervor, maybe specifically our joy, seems depleted. And some of us might feel that the enemy is getting the upper hand, that flame is beginning to weaken.

But as we come to God's Word today, as we come to this glorious Word of God, in 1 Corinthians 15, I can't help but think, as I was reading this text, encouraged by it, that Christ means to use this text today to pour a little bit of fuel onto that flame.

That Christ means to take that vessel, that allegorical vessel, filled with an endless supply of His grace, and cast it on the spiritual flames in our souls. So that instead of growing weary, instead of growing disheartened, we would be, you would be, in this room, strengthened in the inner man to have more grace still.

That's my prayer today, at least, is that the Lord would use this text for each of us to pour fuel on that flame. So as we open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15, we find ourselves in verse 12, and it would seem that Christ in His providence, in His wise providence, in His perfect timing, has just the right remedy for our weary souls.

And what is that? What is at the bottom of that bottomless vessel? It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what we're going to look at as we study 1 Corinthians 15, 12 to 19. This is our greatest need in every hour.

When everything goes well, it is our greatest need. It is our greatest need in this hour. It is the good news, the good news of Jesus Christ's substitutionary. I'm going to rattle off a list so that we can understand how good this good news is.

Substitutionary, atoning, propitiatory, redemptive, devil-defeating work on our behalf on the cross, in the grave, and now, as the hymn goes, risen now to reign. That is what we need when all is going well, and when all is going awry, that is what we need.

We need the gospel. And that's what Paul gives us. Praise God today in our passage. Now, last week we had heard Paul make a case for Christ's resurrection. If you remember Steve's sermon, and Paul insisted that the resurrection, this idea really that we minimize today, this resurrection was central to the gospel that he preached.

It was settled historical fact, and he lists witnesses to prove it. You can picture being on White Avenue, having a conversation with someone, and trying to explain to them, no, the resurrection is real.

The resurrection proves who Christ was. And that's what Paul did last week. He said, Peter saw it. James, the brother of Christ, saw it. 500 saw it. Even I, as one untimely born, I saw the resurrection.

It is real. And so you could say last week, Paul gives us an apologetic for Christ's resurrection. And today, he continues to contend for this truth, this reality that Christ really did rise from the grave.

And he shows the Corinthians. Our passage, in many ways, is a very negative passage. Because what Paul does is he shows the Corinthians the logical fallout if the resurrection is not true. He shows the Corinthians what reality looks like if the resurrection is not a reality.

And so in doing so, the main idea that Paul is conveying, I guess what we can see Paul conveying here, maybe is a better way to say this, that when Paul points out all that the Corinthians stand to lose, all that they stand to lose by denying the resurrection, we see all that we actually gain by the reality of Christ's resurrection.

To put it another way, using Paul's logic in reverse, we see here the benefits of Christ's resurrection. It's a short passage. It's hardly exhaustive. But here, we're going to look at three of these benefits, three that we find naturally in the text.

In my prayer, as I said earlier, is that Christ would use the awareness of these benefits. It's the gospel by implication, but that he would use the awareness of these benefits to pour fuel on that fire, brothers and sisters, so that we can persevere, so we would not grow weary in doing good, so we would love one another, that we would love Christ, that we would walk faithfully in this fallen world.

Gospel Ministry Is Meaningful Because Christ Has Risen

So, we'll look now at 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 12. Paul begins verse 12 with these words. He says, now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

But if there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.

It's a tongue twister, isn't it? But here we see this, that Paul says that if Christ was not raised, in summary, all of our ministry efforts, all of my ministry efforts were in vain. But if we walk this logically backwards, because Paul is going to affirm, he has affirmed, and he's going to affirm that the resurrection is real, this is what we find, that because of the reality of Christ's resurrection, see this with me, I'm playing negatives on the passage, because of the reality of Christ's resurrection, our gospel ministry is profoundly meaningful.

It's the opposite of ministry being done in vain. Our gospel ministry, Paul's gospel ministry, and our gospel ministry is profoundly meaningful. And this is what we see. So in verse 12, Paul confronts the Corinthians head-on, and earlier in the chapter, if we remember from Steve last week, in chapter 15, in verses 3 and 4, Paul reminded this church of the gospel that he preached to them.

It was the gospel, he says, that he received from Christ himself. And you could almost say that this gospel is the standard. This is the benchmark by which we measure every other gospel presentation. And so if you go to another church, or if you hear someone that they send you a link of some prophet on the internet who's preaching the gospel, you can say, does it line up to this gospel?

And in verses 3 and 4, Paul's gospel consisted of three key ingredients. It consisted, one, of Christ's substitutionary death on the cross. We know it's substitutionary because he says he died for our sins.

It consists of Christ's burial. Really, he truly died. He was in the grave for three days. He was in the ground. He was dead. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. And then third, Christ's resurrection on the third day.

And Paul says all of this is in accord with the Old Testament scriptures. This was the message that Paul preached to the Corinthians. You can picture Paul going into Corinth. This is the gospel that he preached.

This is the gospel that the Corinthians believed. This is the gospel that the Corinthians hold to. They will be saved, regardless of what anyone else tells you. But it appears, as it always does, with the Corinthians.

We know the Corinthians really, really well by now. It appears that with the Corinthians, they were now applying some type of Greco-Roman philosophy to their doctrine of the resurrection. So some said that it was maybe Platonic dualism, pitting the soul against the body.

Maybe it's a prototypical Gnosticism, where the physical is good and the spiritual is bad. But for whatever reason, they're saying, No, the resurrection doesn't necessarily happen. No, we don't necessarily believe that there is a physical resurrection of the body.

But here Paul shows them that there is an inseparable link. Most Christians don't see this. We'll talk about it in a bit. But there is an inseparable link between Christ's bodily resurrection on one side and the reality of resurrection in general.

The two are attached. As we've heard one popular speaker use, they can't be unhitched. The two are attached inseparably. You cannot have the resurrection apart from Christ defeating death. Resurrection is impossible without Christ.

And yet you cannot have a truly victorious Christ apart from the resurrection. We're going to get into why that is. But these two ideas, Christ and the resurrection, are indivisible. One cannot exist without the other.

And then Paul here, he brings us to at least the crux of this first point. In verse 14 he says, If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching has been in vain. That word that he uses for vain, he uses in verse 14, it's the Greek word kenos.

And it means empty. It's futile. It's foolish.

So he says,.

If Christ did not rise from the dead on the third day, not only is my ministry meaningless, my gospel ministry, my apostolic ministry is pointless. Not only is it meaningless, but he says in the most forceful of terms with this word kenos, my gospel ministry has been an absurd and foolish waste of my life.

If there is no resurrection,.

I should go home.

It's worthless. That's not all. In verse 15, Paul doubles down. We hear politicians doubling down all the time. Here, Paul doubles down. 1 Corinthians 15, 15, he says, We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ.

Now here's the tongue twister, if you can picture this, because he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. And so he's saying, Not only is our ministry futile and foolish if Christ was not raised, but if Christ was not raised,.

Paul says,.

I am the most dangerous kind of person there is. I am a false teacher. I am a false prophet. I am speaking where God is silent. And worst of all, I'm guilty of misrepresenting God himself.

Paul says,.

If there's no resurrection, then what was written about the false prophets, it's interesting the parallels here, what was written about the false prophets in Jeremiah 14, 14 is actually true of me. In Jeremiah 14, 14, it says, Then the Lord said to me, Jeremiah, the prophets are prophesying lies in my name.

I did not send them, nor did I command them to speak to me. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Worthless. This is Paul's ministry. If the resurrection is not true, if it is not real, because if there's no resurrection, there is no gospel.

If there's no resurrection, there is no gospel. But if we look now on the horizon of our text, we are going to get there. I wish that we actually, I wish that we divided this a little bit differently so that we could, but in verse 20, Paul's going to say, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

The firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. And so what this means for Paul's ministry, if you guys can stay with me, was that Paul's ministry was not false. It was not futile. To the contrary, in light of Christ's resurrection, Paul was using his life in the most meaningful way imaginable.

He was using his time. He was using his energy, his effort to proclaim, not a lie about Christ, but the truth. The truth about Christ. Paul's gospel ministry was the opposite of futility. It was entirely beneficial.

It was entirely necessary. And I think that's the point that Paul is trying to make here, is that if the gospel is not true, it renders one of the most important activities in all of the world. The apostolic ministry, the gospel ministry, it renders that useless.

Where am I going? But the gospel, Paul says, is true. The proclamation of the gospel is one of the most profound. It's one of the most meaningful activities that a Christian can engage in. And to reinforce maybe what Steve said, what Steve preached on last week, I'll ask you, if the gospel, if the proclamation of the gospel, at least as Paul uses it here, if it's one of the most meaningful activities that we can be engaged in, are you engaged in this type of activity?

Does this describe you? Perhaps you're not a gifted evangelist. We're not all gifted evangelists. But maybe we're like Timothy. When Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, where he said, do the work of an evangelist.

We've all been called to preach the gospel, to fulfill the great commission. And maybe I'll ask you, are you fulfilling the great commission? This gloriously true gospel? Or do you have an unbiblical view?

I find myself asking these questions more. Do you have an unbiblical view of evangelism? And maybe this is, maybe we can take a test. This is how you determine if you have an unbiblical view of evangelism.

Have you ever been discouraged from sharing the gospel because you thought that it would be foolish? Or because you thought that it would appear foolish? Or because you thought that your efforts were going to be futile?

That this gospel ministry is futility? Have you ever been dissuaded from preaching the gospel because you did not think that people would respond because it somehow depended on you? Have you ever been reluctant to share the gospel because you felt that the social cost would be too great?

I can't share it with that family member. I can't share it with that co-worker. I can't share it with that boss. Here Paul says that all of these would be valid arguments. That preaching the gospel would be foolish.

That preaching the gospel would be futile. That preaching the gospel would be too great a cost. He says all of these would be valid arguments if the gospel was not true and Christ did not rise from the grave.

But because Christ did rise from the grave, what we see then is because of all this, because Christ did die on the cross to atone for sin, because he was buried, because he powerfully rose from the grave, and because Christ is who he said he is and the gospel is in fact true, when it comes to preaching the gospel there is no sacrifice too great.

There is no cost too high. There is no futility to be named. The only thing, if you remember nothing else that I say on this point, the only thing that is foolish about evangelism is the failure to do evangelism.

Proverbs 11 .30 says, Beloved, our preaching of the gospel is not in vain. It's not foolish. It's not futile. Our testimony about Christ, to use Paul's words, is true and therefore it is intensely important.

I may have spoken on this before, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but I was thinking about the cults that we live around, the cults that we see in the world. And I know that it's all based on a works-based righteousness system, but I think about how committed they are, how zealous they are to proclaim their message.

And all of it, to use Paul's words, is a misrepresentation of God. All of it is a misrepresentation of the gospel. It's no gospel at all. But why is it that these groups are often so much more enthusiastic about preaching what is false than most Christians are about proclaiming what is true?

And that's what Paul is saying. This is true and therefore it's not in vain. It's not foolish. It's necessary. And the only conclusion I can think of when I think about cults and the evangelistic zeal of cults and the lack of evangelistic zeal amongst Christians is that there's a large segment of professing Christians that do not actually believe the gospel to be true.

Or they don't believe enough that it's true. It's not at least enough for any kind of sacrifice. I remember hearing a story. Don't you love the zeal of new believers? To be around a new believer really just enlivens your soul because of the newness of that faith, the newness of that love, the simplicity of just reading the Word of God and trusting that it's true and that God is going to act on it.

And I came across a number of years ago an example of that kind of zeal, that kind of faith. And it's a story... Have I told the story before of Joseph, the Messiah warrior? Does that ring a bell? I didn't think I had, but sometimes you lose track.

But Joseph, the Messiah warrior, knew that to proclaim the gospel was not futility. And in his book, John Piper's book, Let the Nations Be Glad, Piper tells the story of a Messiah warrior named Joseph.

And Joseph was walking along a gravel road somewhere in Africa. If you can picture this Messiah warrior in his warrior attire. And a stranger came to Joseph on this African road and shared the gospel with him.

And he told Joseph about his own sinfulness, that he needed a savior, that if he was not saved, he would abide under the just wrath of God. But he also told Joseph about Christ's substitutionary death on the cross, of Christ's resurrection on the third day.

And the stranger told Joseph about the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life. And Joseph was gripped, as new believers often are, gripped by the power of this gospel. And in that moment, he was powerfully converted.

And in his excitement, picture Joseph, the Messiah warrior, running back to his village after hearing about Christ and after being saved. And he came overjoyed to his fellow villagers, to his friends and his neighbors.

And this is what happened to him. I'll quote right from John Piper's book. He said, The men of the village, when they received him, held him down, while the women took barbed wire and whipped him with it.

They drug him out by a bush and left him to die. Upon waking up, what did Joseph do? As a new believer, compelled by the truthfulness of the gospel. Upon waking up, Joseph wondered if he had said something wrong or maybe missed something in telling the story of Jesus.

He regained his strength and returned to the village to share Christ again. Upon re-entering the village and proclaiming Christ crucified, he was attacked once again, ripping open the wounds that had just began to heal.

A second time, he was left by the bush to die. By some miracle, Joseph regained his strength and returned to the village to share Christ a third time. Immediately upon being seen by the villagers, before he could even say a word, Joseph was attacked a third time.

As Joseph blacked out and possibly breathed his last breath, the last thing he saw there were tears strolling, streaming down the faces of the women who were beating him with the barbed wire. And later Joseph, Piper writes, later Joseph woke up in a hut where the same people who had viciously beat him were now nursing him and attempting to save his life.

As a result of his suffering, the entire village came to know Christ. Like Paul and like this brother, our gospel ministry is profoundly meaningful. It's profoundly important because it's true. And what Paul is saying is the resurrection proves that it's true.

And therefore we have a message to take to the world. This means even, as I was talking about in the introduction, as we live in a deteriorating world, a fallen world, a sin-stained world where lies abound, where falsehood is plentiful, as long as the gospel is true, it must always be on our lips.

That is the remedy. How many of us have been watching political situations? Sorry, I'm off the cuff here a bit, but we watch these political situations and we say, if just they would get rid of that guy and replace him with this guy, everything would be fine.

Or if they just let them protest, or if they just stopped them from protesting, or if they just moved into this region. No, that's not the answer. The answer is this. If the people that God has made in his own image would just come to faith in Christ through the gospel proclaimed, that life that we all long for, that life that we won't know until we are glorified, that life will be closer than any political leader that can come to us.

So the remedy, the encouragement is, brothers and sisters, let us preach the gospel. Paul carries on in verse 16. He writes this. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, just like his ministry, he says, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.

Here Paul says that those who deny the resurrection must accept that not only is Paul's ministry futile, but their faith is futile. And if their faith is futile, they are dead. They are dead men walking.

They are dead in their sins. They remain accountable to God for every sin that they have ever committed. But again, if we walk this back logically, because Christ's resurrection is true, unlike what the Corinthians were claiming, because Christ's resurrection is true, our faith is effectual.

This is my second point. Our faith is effectual, and our sins are forgiven. Our faith is effectual, and our sins are forgiven. If only we understood the magnitude of that. To have our sins forgiven. That just goes over our head 90 of the time.

But think about that for a second. To have our sins, our offenses against a good and holy God, completely put away. To have remission of sin. When we think about, and I referenced this earlier, when we think about Christ's redemptive work, if we think about the doctrine of soteriology here for a second, the doctrine of salvation, when we think about Christ's redemptive work, most of us are inclined to place almost no emphasis on the resurrection.

We think about Christ's work on the cross, we might even think about Christ's life, we might think about Christ in Gethsemane, but I would venture to guess that if we went out and surveyed 100 just average ordinary Christians and asked them, or just to ask them, articulate the gospel for me, I would venture to say at least 50 of those people would not even so much as mention the resurrection.

We often hear that Christ died for our sins, but how often do we hear Christ died for our sins, he was buried, and then he rose, up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes, and yet Paul tells us that this was the gospel that he preached to the Corinthians, and he placed tremendous emphasis on the resurrection, and why was that?

Why is the resurrection important? Why can't we leave it out of a gospel presentation? I couldn't say it any better than Charles Hodge, so I'm just going to quote him from his systematic theology, he says, All Christ claims, and the success of his work, rest on the fact that he rose again from the dead.

If he rose, Hodge writes, the gospel is true. If he did not rise, it is false. If he rose, he is the son of God, equal with the Father, God manifest in the flesh, the Salvatore hominem, that means the savior of men, the Messiah predicted by the prophets, the prophet, priest, and king of his people.

His sacrifice has been accepted as a satisfaction to divine justice, and his blood is a ransom for many. If you can stay with me, he writes, If Christ did not rise, the whole scheme of redemption is a failure.

All of redemption is a failure. He says,. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. Therefore, the Bible is true. From Genesis to Revelation, the kingdom of darkness has been overthrown.

Satan has fallen like lightning from heaven, and the triumph of truth over error, of good over evil, of happiness over misery, is forever secured. The gospel needs the resurrection. The Christian needs the resurrection.

As I said, they are indivisible from Christ. So because Christ rose from the grave, we are assured that our faith has not been misplaced. In every claim, if you can think about this, in every claim that Christ has ever made, because of the resurrection, this has proved true.

More than that,.

If Christ rose from the grave, and he ascended, if you think about the Great Commission, and all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to him, and he sovereignly presides over every sub-atomic particle, then every letter in his book is perfect and without error.

If Christ can preside over the smallest virus, he can preside over the transmission of the Bible from 2 ,000 years to today. And that means that every word of the Bible is true. The Old Testament is true, and it truly testifies about Christ.

The Gospels are true, and they're an accurate account of Christ's works and words. The Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, even the book of Revelation is true. And so what Christ's resurrection means is that above all else, this means that the best news in all of the world is true.

The Gospel is true. To quote from Hodge one more time, the success of his work rests on the fact that he rose again from the dead. If he rose, he is the Son of God. Now sometimes I feel like my main task on Sundays as I preach the Word is certainly to read the text and to unpack it, to expound it.

But oftentimes I think that the work of someone preaching the Scriptures on a Sunday is just to say, this is what the Bible says. You need to believe it. You need to believe it. It's true. You need to accept it at face value.

And this is what we need to do in this case. We need to believe God's Word. We need to take him as Word. We need to believe his promises. And we need to believe that Christ's resurrection testifies to the fact that the Gospel is true.

And this means that every believer, if you're a believer in this room, I'll return us to the title of this whole point. If you're a believer in this room, if you've repented of your sins and placed your faith effectively in Christ, trusting for his forgiveness, then your sins are forgiven.

Are your sins forgiven? Do you believe that your sins are forgiven? Or is that just Christian language that you use? If you are in Christ, not because I say it, but because God says it, your sins are forgiven.

And this means that we can read passages like Romans 4, verse 25, where it says, Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Because Christ was raised. If you're a Christian, you're justified before God.

That's one of my favorite words in the whole English language is justify. It's a legal, it's a forensic declaration. Even though we feel guilty and we know our own internal guilt, our own sinfulness, in the sight of God, before God, as God looks at his son or daughter in Christ, he doesn't see the filthy, wretched person that we feel inside.

He sees the righteousness of Christ accounted to us. We are declared righteous. You've heard me say before, Martin Luther's idea of alien righteousness. It's a righteousness that is outside of us. It's this substitutionary, this penal substitutionary atonement where Christ became sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

It means that Psalm 103, verse 12 is true. As far as the East is from the West, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. Romans 5, 1, therefore since we have been justified, there it is again, by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Paul says in Romans 8, 1, there is now no condemnation. We deserve condemnation. Children, we deserve condemnation for our sins that we have rebelled against God very personally, very wickedly. We deserve condemnation.

And yet Paul says, there is therefore now no condemnation. Kids, if you hear that part, hear this part. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh, Paul writes, could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.