The Resurrection of Christ

Grace Fellowship Church

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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.

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So we are in the second last section in the Gospel of Mark, in Mark chapter 15, beginning in verse 42.

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And I'm always trying to keep you on your toes. Sometimes you'll notice that I'll start with a quote or a story or some other thing to help engage you in the text.

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This is Preaching 101 when it comes to introductions, to show that every person that sits down in their chair on a

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Sunday would appreciate that this text is for you and it has tremendous value for you.

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And so I'm giving you a little look behind the curtain and so I want to engage you this afternoon with a question.

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It's an important question or maybe an important series of questions. And the question is this.

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What is the significance of the resurrection? Kids, maybe you can think about that for a moment.

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What is the significance of the resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus Christ? In all of the biblical, historical account of Christ's life and his work of redemption, what is the big deal about Christ's bodily resurrection from the grave?

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I would venture to say that if you were to go out and hit the streets and survey the average

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Christian today, that you would find a broad range of opinions on this resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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But almost without fail, if you were to spend time with each of those individual

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Christians, I'm not even talking about professing Christians, but real Christians, if you were to spend time with them and drill down deep and get to the root of what their view of the resurrection is, you'd probably find that they would end up in one of two particular camps.

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Two distinct groups of people would emerge in one camp. You would find those people who are all about the resurrection.

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They would have a radical or perhaps even a radically unbiblical view of the resurrection.

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To these people, Christ's resurrection, along with all of his other miracles, would be of paramount importance to the neglect of the great doctrines of Scripture, all of the doctrines of Christ.

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In this camp, there would be very little emphasis on Christ's teaching or even on his atoning death on the cross or even the apostles' letters concerning Christ, but far more emphasis on signs and wonders and Christ's resurrection as the chief or the greatest, the finale of his signs and wonders.

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You might encounter people from what I'll call the hyper -charismatic movement, who with their kenosis theory, the idea that because Christ emptied himself of all of his godhood, everything that Christ did, we can do now.

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You might encounter those people who said, just as Christ was able to raise people from the dead and raise himself from the dead, so we too have that same power that Christ had.

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Or you might encounter Christians, again true Christians, who come from the seeker -sensitive movement and its more subtle form of the perversion of the resurrection.

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Many of you are probably familiar with a man named Andy Stanley. This is now two weeks in a row

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I'm naming names. I'm not doing it to start a new ministry of being pejorative or speaking pejoratively about pastors and Christian leaders or so -called

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Christian leaders, but many of you know the story and I think it highlights something important. He's a leader of a mega -church in the

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United States, one of the biggest churches in the seeker -sensitive movement. He said this in one of his sermons.

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He said, I am absolutely convinced of the following, that in the marketplace, in the public square, in the classroom, we must shift the debate away from whether the entire

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Bible is true, shift the debate away from Scripture, and focus the debate on whether Jesus rose from the dead.

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That in and of itself isn't too much, except that part of Andy Stanley's remedy to all of this is to unhitch ourselves from the

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Old Testament, even to unhitch ourselves from the authority of Scripture. He says in one of his sermons that we shouldn't say that Jesus loves us because the

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Bible says it, but we should love it because it's demonstrated in the resurrection. He's gone so far as to say, the story of Jesus isn't even worth telling apart from the resurrection.

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So in one camp, you would find a group of people in your survey that is hyper -fixated on the resurrection of Christ to the neglect of the whole

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Christ of Scripture. And if you were to continue to conduct this survey, you'd find another group of people, another camp.

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And in this segment of the Christian population, you'd find those who put very little emphasis on the resurrection.

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In theory, of course, these Christians would affirm the importance of the event, the essential necessity of the resurrection as part of the gospel message, but they would have to admit that when it comes to their day -to -day lives, they give very little thought to Christ's resurrection, that there isn't much room in their gospel for the resurrection, and it bears very little or has very little bearing on their lives.

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You'd probably find one of these two camps in each of the person that you survey. And I would venture to say that probably for many of us, we would fall in the second camp, the camp where we believe that Christ rose from the dead.

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Indeed, we would say on Resurrection Sunday, He is risen, He is risen indeed.

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We would say it emphatically. And yet, there's very little room for the resurrection in our theology and in our day -to -day lives.

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I once heard a couple of men from the U .S. speaking about church membership interviews, interviewing people as they desire to be part of a church.

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And one of the questions that they ask people and we ask people when people want to be a member in this church is, explain the gospel to us.

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And these two brothers from biblically sound churches in the United States said that they see from these membership interviews that the vast majority of biblically sound, conservative, evangelical, even reformed

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Christians neglect the resurrection. They will tell you about Christ's righteous life,

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His active obedience in life. They will tell you about Christ's death on the cross, His passive obedience as a substitute in our place.

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They will tell you about His teaching and His miracles and all of His person. They will speak about Peter and Paul and John in all of their writings concerning Christ's atoning work.

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But they neglect one thing. And it's always one thing in particular. The resurrection of Christ.

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That Christ died in accordance with the scriptures. And on the third day, rose in accordance with the scriptures.

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Many Christians today get the resurrection wrong. And I would venture to say that there are many Christians in this room who get the resurrection wrong.

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And so that's what we're going to spend our time on today. Rather than falling into the

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Andy Stanley camp and clinging to the resurrection of Christ while building our house on the sand.

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Or falling into the other camp of clinging to the death of Christ at the expense of the resurrection. We will look at a fulsome view of the whole gospel of Christ from His life to His death to His burial to His triumphant resurrection.

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So this week as we near the end of our study in this gospel we're going to explore the resurrection of Christ.

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And I hope to demonstrate as I do every single week that the resurrection or this doctrine that is before us today is of great value to you.

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In your theology, yes. And in your life, yes. And that all of us would leave out of this room rejoicing that we serve and worship and trust not a dead

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Christ but a risen Christ. So I had us turn to Mark chapter 15 verse 42.

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Let's read that together now. Verses 42 through 47. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is the day before the

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Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

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Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died and summoned the centurion.

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He asked him whether he was already dead and when he learned from the centurion that he was dead he granted the corpse to Joseph.

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And Joseph bought a linen shroud and taking him down wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock.

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And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

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I've broken up this particular sermon into three different headings. We're going to look at three different sections.

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And the first one you'll see in the handout in your bulletin is this. It's the honorable burial or an honorable burial.

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Last week we heard how Christ had gone to the cross to die as our penal substitute.

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And you'll remember that the scene ended in verse 41 at three o 'clock in the afternoon with our

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Lord's body hanging on that cross, pierced through.

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We saw that the climactic confession of the centurion who said, truly this is the

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Son of God. And then we looked at the grief of the women who watched from a distance. And while the week now has passed between our last study and our study today it's really only been an hour or so, maybe less, we don't know exactly.

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But a very short time between verses 41 and 42. And verse 42 sets the stage for our text.

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It tells us that on Friday afternoon as the night was fast approaching there was only a short time of preparation remaining before the

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Jews were to rest on the Sabbath day. Mark is writing to a Gentile audience. And so that's why he's explaining what the day of preparation was.

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The day of preparation was the daytime during Friday that allowed everyone to get ready for the

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Sabbath day. In some ways it's instructive for us as Christians even that we should make preparations ahead of the

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Lord's day so that we would be able to focus solely on Him in worship.

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But here they were on the day of preparation. And what this meant was that if Christ were to come down from the cross and to be buried, it would have to take place before sunset or about 6 p .m.

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on that day of preparation, on this Friday afternoon. Christ would have to come down in haste from the cross.

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It might seem disturbing to us, but this would be contrary to the common practice of the

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Romans. If you were in first century Israel and you were observing a crucifixion what you would find is that the

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Romans had absolutely no problem leaving a body on the cross for a day or two days or three days or more.

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As we heard last week, the cross of the Romans was a terror apparatus that was used not only to punish criminals but as a warning to those who would violate any of Rome's laws or at least any of their capital laws.

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And so what would often happen is the body would be placed on the cross, nailed to the cross, and days afterwards it would be left there to decay as a putrid and terrifying warning of what would come to those who violated the emperor's laws.

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Now we don't know what the plan for Christ's body was, but what we find in verse 43 is that there was a righteous man, a member of the council, that is the

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Jewish Sanhedrin, a man named Joseph of Arimathea, who refused to allow Christ's body to be subjected to this dishonor.

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And so what we find in fact is that Joseph was a man who knew the law of God and he sought to obey it.

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I won't have us turn there, but in Deuteronomy chapter 21 we read what Jews were supposed to do to those who had been put to death.

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Deuteronomy 21 -22 says, If a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day.

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For a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your

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God is giving you for an inheritance. So Joseph was a law -abiding man. But Mark tells us a bit more about Joseph.

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In fact, Mark tells us that Joseph was a man who was looking for the kingdom of God. Now kids, what do you think that means?

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That Joseph was a man looking for the kingdom of God? If you had to guess.

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Any answers? Any guesses? He thought that the kingdom of God was on earth?

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Yeah, absolutely. That's a great start. He was looking for the way that God had made. And Matthew tells us a bit more.

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Matthew 27 is more explicit. In his gospel, he says that Joseph was actually a disciple of Jesus Christ.

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In John chapter 19, he goes even a bit further still and says that he was a disciple, but secretly for fear of the

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Jews. And so here we have Joseph, a covert disciple of our Lord, seeking to give him an honorable burial.

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And what's more, we don't see it in the gospel of Mark, but if we were to survey, and sometimes it's difficult to preach through Mark because he is so concise in his language, but if we were to survey the other gospels, we find, for instance, in John chapter 19, that it was not only

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Joseph of Arimathea, but a man named Nicodemus who also joined to help.

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And so these two men, at great cost to themselves, sought to prepare Christ for burial. Of course, we find

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Nicodemus in chapter 3, learning from Christ about what it means to be born again. And so here,

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Joseph of Arimathea took courage and asked Pilate for the body of Christ.

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And it's interesting that that word should be used in our text in verse 43, that he took courage.

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Make no mistake about it, he would have taken courage to make this request. Not only was

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Joseph publicly undermining his peers in the Sanhedrin, the same peers who had just condemned

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Christ to death, and said all kinds of evil things against him on Golgotha, but he was approaching a cruel governor,

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Pilate. And we looked at how cruel Pilate was in recent weeks. A cruel governor,

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Pilate, who had just demonstrated that he would stop at nothing to pacify that same council of the

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Sanhedrin. And so for Joseph, this request would have come at a cost, at the cost of his reputation.

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It's probably not coincidental that he's described as a respected member of the council.

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And perhaps afterwards, he was no longer a respected member, or a member of the same level of respect.

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But it also would come at the cost, perhaps even of his own life, if he found that Pilate was in a foul mood about all that had happened that day.

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And so we see here that this was Joseph's first public act of faith. And it was a costly one.

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And the interactions that ensue, no doubt providentially documented by Mark, are very important, and they're important for a good reason.

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Some have suggested that if Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were to make haste to take

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Christ down from the cross, and to prepare him for burial before the Sabbath, it might have been missed that Christ had not actually died.

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There are still professing Christians today who believe in what's called the swoon hypothesis, which teaches that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, that he only fainted, that he became unconscious.

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And by mistake, he was taken down from the cross too soon, and placed in the tomb. And once in the tomb, he awoke and revived, and came back to life in a sense.

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There are many liberal Christians that believe that, like I was talking about last week. People who might even deny that Christ was a real person, that he came about by the virgin birth, that he was sinless, that he died for sin.

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But in verses 44 and 45, if you're into apologetics, this is important. We see here that what

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Mark has actually done for us, is he's assembled two or three witnesses who can speak to the fact that Christ was indeed dead.

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First, we have the centurion, who confirms that Christ had died. We have Pilate, who maybe didn't have interaction with the body, but who is satisfied with the centurion's report.

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And then we have Joseph of Arimathea, who in verse 45 takes possession, not of the body of Christ, but what does our text say, the corpse of the

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Lord Jesus. And so Christ was indeed dead, despite what the swoon theorists might say.

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And it was the custom in first century Israel, or as was the custom in first century

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Israel, Jesus' body was wrapped in linens that would have been covered in spices. According to the account in John chapter 19, he was taken to a garden tomb near the site of the crucifixion, the tomb that belonged to Joseph and his family, a wealthy and a respected man, and he was laid to rest there.

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And Jewish law was very specific about how burials were to take place.

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A burial had to take place outside of the walls of Jerusalem, in a hewn tomb that would be measured six feet by nine feet, dug into the limestone walls outside of the city.

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And inside there would have been multiple hewn shelves, where bodies would be put to rest there. And to keep the ritual impurity of the dead in, and the animals and the grave robbers out, a disc -shaped rock would be slid in front of the tomb door.

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Now how heavy do you think that disc -shaped rock was, that would slide in front of the tomb? Some that have been found outside of Jerusalem, and the thousands that surround the city, have weighed as much as two tons, or 4 ,000 pounds.

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So we're told that Christ was put in the tomb, that this several ton rock was put in its place.

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And for Joseph, I've said it already, I'll say it again, this was costly. For a wealthy member of the ruling class to do this, he was not only violating the trust of his council members in the

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Sanhedrin, but he was actually breaking the Mishnah, which is the written oral tradition of the

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Jews. Because the Mishnah, if we were to read it, forbids the use of family tombs for those who have died a dishonorable death.

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And so here, Joseph violates the Mishnah, and at the same time, fulfills

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Old Testament prophecy. And if we were to look at that, Isaiah 53 verse 9, it says this,

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And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death. That rich man we know on this side of Christ's death is

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Joseph of Arimathea. And verse 47 tells us that all of this was done in the witness, in the presence of witnesses, in the presence of Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Joseph.

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Matthew 27 even tells us that later the tomb was secured with an official seal from Rome, and that a guard, a well -resourced, well -armed guard, would have been placed around the tomb to keep anyone from tampering with the grave.

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Now what do we get from all of this? Firstly, we see that Christ was in fact dead.

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If anyone comes to you and says, well Christ didn't die, he just fell asleep, he just fainted, he just became unconscious for a short period of time.

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You can come back to Mark chapter 15 and say, Mark went to great lengths to demonstrate, in the presence of two and three witnesses, that Christ was in fact dead.

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The Old Testament foretold it, the New Testament confirms it, and even the extra -biblical writing of historians corroborates it.

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Secondly, we see that Christ received the honorable burial that was befitting a king.

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I've been reading through the Samuels and the Kings and the Chronicles, and I've noticed how all of these kings, almost all of them, there are a few exceptions, but many of these kings were vile and wicked men, and yet even when they died dishonorable deaths, what would happen but they would be carted back to Jerusalem, or carted back to their home in Israel, and they would be given a proper burial.

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Well, here we see Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus giving Christ an honorable burial, in violation of the tradition, but in accord with the word of God.

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When Christ said on the cross, it is finished, it was indeed finished. He didn't need to hang on the cross for days and days and days to demonstrate it.

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When he cried out, it is finished. Redemption was accomplished.

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And the third thing we see here, is that here we see two men who were prepared to courageously honor

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Christ the King, even at great cost to themselves, in violation of the tradition, but in accord with the word of God.

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And such is the call of every Christian. Dear brothers and sisters, like Nicodemus, and like Joseph of Arimathea, we have gone about our lives as secret

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Christians, secret Christians in our workplaces. How many of us say, well,

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I think my co -workers are Christian, or I think my co -workers know that I'm a Christian, or I think that my classmates know that I'm a

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Christian. This is the call of every Christian, not to remain a secret

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Christian, but to identify with the suffering, and with the dead, with the crucified

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Christ, and with the risen Christ. We cannot be like, if I can use him as an example, an

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Ann Lee Stanley, who shuns any idea that is not palatable to the unbelieving world.

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But we are called to identify with Christ in his humiliation, and in his death.

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We are called to pay the price for honoring and serving our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And when we do, we will not find the world's applause. I assure you.

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Our brother alluded to it just as he was giving announcements about evangelism this week. And for those of you who are in the

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Signal Chat, you heard about it. Difficulty awaits you if you're going to identify with Christ in the public square.

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It's coming, sooner or later. But dear brothers and sisters, so was the joy of faithful obedience to our

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Lord. How many of us have known that joy, when we were willing to stand out like a sore thumb, to be reviled by the world, but to know that we have honored and served and obeyed

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Christ in a moment when there was an opportune time to do it. A few years ago,

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I was reading to my children a biography of William Wilberforce. I don't know if you guys remember that biography.

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William Wilberforce, if you don't know, was an abolitionist of slavery and a member of British Parliament in the 1700s and the 1800s.

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He was a faithful Christian man and he often came under tremendous scrutiny because his fellow members of Parliament and business major,

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I suppose you could say important, businessmen in London had a lot to profit from the slave trade.

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And here he was, pressing on, trying to set the slaves free. And at the end of his life, he did see the abolition of slavery in England.

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He led the way in many respects to the abolition of slavery in other places. And at the end of his life, his sons took it upon themselves to write his biography.

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And as they were looking through one of his journals, they made this comment. They said, speaking about his obedience and his difficulties and his trials and his persecutions, they said, the pages of his later journal are full of bursts of joy and thankfulness and with his children and his chosen friends, his heart, his full heart, welled out in the same blessed strains.

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He seems too happy not to express his happiness. His song was ever the loving kindness of God.

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Richard Baxter, who wrote the book, The Reformed Pastor, a Puritan man, he endured persecution and war and imprisonment for 18 months to the deterioration of his health, even as he sought to make

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Christ great in England. And he said this, Oh, what a life men might live if they were but willing and diligent.

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God would have our joys to be far more than our sorrows. Yea, he would have us to have no sorrow, but only that which tendeth to joy, and only that by serving and seeking to honor

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Christ. Brethren, we are often caught in the middle of such trivial matters and as a result, we're miserable for it.

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But who among us will follow after Christ and see ourselves decrease that he might increase?

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We are those who will sacrifice the world's respect for Christ's honor. I think that Joseph and Nicodemus lead the way.

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Next I want to read verses one through seven, excuse me, one through six.

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When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.

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And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb, and they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?

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And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

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And he said to them, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who is crucified.

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He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. So we've looked at Christ's honorable burial.

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I want us next to look at his triumphant resurrection. Our text tells us that the

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Sabbath day had now passed. And some of the women had brought spices that they might further anoint

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Christ's body for burial. Probably in the haste of Joseph and Nicodemus's wrapping him in linens, there wasn't sufficient time before the

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Sabbath began to properly anoint him. And so here, these sisters, as a final act of love and affection to their

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Lord, come with these spices. And as was often the case in first century

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Israel, they would not embalm dead bodies, but use these spices and these different ointments as a mixture to offset the smell of decay.

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And verse two tells us an important detail. That when the sun had already risen on that Sunday morning, that was when they had gone to the tomb.

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Now this is an important detail, because again, in an apologetic situation, people might say, well, it was dark, and they might have walked to the wrong tomb, and they might have found an empty tomb that was being prepared for someone else, and so on and so forth, and so seek to deny the resurrection of Christ.

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But here, in the light of day, the same tomb that they had seen Christ buried in two days prior, they return.

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And when these women were on their way to the tomb, they discussed among themselves the inevitable obstacle that would be in the way of their final act of love.

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Who is going to move this hulking stone, this two -ton stone, from the doorway?

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And verse four tells us that this very large stone was already rolled back.

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Now this is where, as I read and as I preach through the Gospel of Mark, I think to myself, oh, it would have been great to have all of the extra details that we find in the other

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Gospels. I'm only going to highlight a little bit from Matthew's Gospel for the sake of time. But in Matthew's Gospel, he says this, that it was after the

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Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, that Mary, Magdalene, this is Matthew 28, verse 1,

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Mary, Magdalene, and the other Mary were on their way when behold, there was a great earthquake.

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For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

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Matthew says, his appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.

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But the angels said to the women, do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

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He is not here, but he is risen as he said, come see the place where he lay.

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Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold, he is going before you to Galilee.

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There you will see him. See, I have told you. And so, here we have the women coming to this tomb.

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This has just happened. And what we read in Mark's account is, as they enter in the tomb, there's this description of a young man

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Matthew's Gospel in Matthew 28 tells us that he was an angel. And again, interestingly enough,

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Mark who is always about economy in his gospel goes into a very strange number of details,

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I think to demonstrate the veracity of the claim of Christ's resurrection. He says, in verse 5, that the young man was sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe and they were alarmed.

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These details, I think, show the truthfulness and the very carefully observed details of their testimony.

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And it's noteworthy as well, sisters, you might appreciate this, that women were the first to witness and to testify to this event.

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Now, if I were going to craft up a story of a resurrected Christ in the first century of Israel, it would be to my great disadvantage to say that it was women who made the very first discovery.

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One commentator says, the mention of female witnesses attests to the veracity of the resurrection narrative for had early

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Christians fabricated the resurrection story, the testimony of women and that in all four gospels was no way to go about it.

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Even two centuries after Christ's resurrection, as one pagan man named Celsus would poke at origin, he would say that the claim of the

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Christians was based, quote -unquote, on the gossip of women about the empty tomb.

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But here we see that Christ are credited with being the first witnesses of that empty tomb.

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Now, you might ask the question, why in all the world would women be the first witnesses?

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Because that's the truth and because this claim of Christ's resurrection is true.

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And in verse 6, the angel relays this message that Christ has risen with the power to shake even the most hardened soldiers up from the grave he arose, as we were just singing, with a mighty triumph over his foes.

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This was not a faint resuscitation of a weakened Christ in the tomb, but this was a triumphant resurrection of our glorified

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Lord. Brothers and sisters, Christ was dead.

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He was on that cross and on that cross he died. And he died for sinners.

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And if we were to put ourselves in the position of the disciples, but for a moment, what a devastating thing it would be to see your

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Lord, the Lord that you had just followed. Peter, even as he said, and you are the

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Christ, the son of the living God. Christ was dead. But now, dear saints, he is alive.

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He is alive. And that changes everything. Alive, not for a decade or a decade or two, like Lazarus, but alive to live forevermore.

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Like the angel said in Matthew 28, 6, he is not here, he is risen. As he said, come and see the place where he lay.

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He was here and now he is gone. And there are people today, they might have many claims against Christianity, but we can all say, with one voice, take me to the tomb and show me that Christ was but a man.

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We know the historical Jesus existed. Take me to the tomb. Dear friends, the best tomb they can take you to is an empty one because Christ is alive.

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Paul writes of this event, as our brother read in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

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He was buried. He was raised on the third day in accordance to the scriptures. He appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then five hundred brothers at one time.

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These women, these disciples, they no longer followed a dead Christ, but a risen Christ.

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A Christ who had defeated sin, who had defeated death, who had defeated Satan, and who lives forever now with his saints to reign.

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And what are we to do, dear brother and sister? For most of us, we read this passage and we stare, and we say, okay, so he is risen.

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But what does his crucifixion mean? I wish I had more time to go into the depths of it.

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I'm just going to survey it from 37 ,000 feet. But the meaning of Christ's resurrection is almost unbelievable.

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For one, and I'm just going to list a couple sub -points. Christ's resurrection proclaims his victory and his ultimate authority.

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What was one of the first things that Christ did after he rose from the dead? In Matthew 28, 18, he said, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.

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What this means, brothers and sisters, is that we don't simply worship and remember a dead

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Christ, a dying Christ, a Christ who died on the cross for our sins. But brothers and sisters, when we worship together today, and when we go home this evening, and when we go to work tomorrow, and when we come to the

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Lord's table, we are worshiping, and remembering, and bringing to our minds not a dead

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Christ, but a living Christ. And a living Christ who is sovereign and supreme over all things, every detail.

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There's no maverick molecule in all the universe, as our brother R .C. Sproul would say. Christ is in control of every circumstance, every trial you endure.

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Christ is sovereign over that. Every joy that you experience,

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Christ is sovereign indeed over that. Every sorrow, every circumstance, in all things,

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Jesus Christ reigns supreme. I love what

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Abraham Kuyper once said. He said, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which

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Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, It is all

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Christ's. You've heard me tell stories before about my conversion and how the

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Lord saved me in a very liberal church. I'm not here to talk about liberal and conservative.

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I'm just saying, they did not believe the Bible. The pastor did not even believe that Christ was a historical person.

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And yet, in spite of that, the Lord saved me there. And I remember one brother that would come, and I believe some of you have probably heard this story before.

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I don't know how this man existed in that church. But when we would come to church on Sundays, Nicole and I would be sitting there with our

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Bibles. My wife and I would be sitting there with our Bibles. And oftentimes, if you looked, he had his Bible.

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And those were the three Bibles in that church. And he would get up.

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They would invite him to read Scripture from time to time. And I want to say that he knew exactly what he was doing.

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But he would get up behind the pulpit with his Bible, and he would give a little sermonette before he would read the text.

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Almost as if to bring the people in that liberal church under the ministry of the

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Word of God for even just a moment. And one of the things that he would regularly do is he would get up behind that pulpit.

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I can't recall his name. I really pressed hard because I'd like to give him credit for this.

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But he would open his Bible, and he would often turn. There was an illuminated cross at the back of the platform.

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And he would point to that cross, and he would say, We worship a Christ who is not on that cross.

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That cross is empty because Christ is alive. And he would say,

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We are not like the Catholics who keep Christ on the cross. But Christ has risen.

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He isn't there. He is alive. I'm hesitant to say it, but I don't expect to see many of the people from that church in glory.

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I just don't. But, brothers and sisters, I expect to see that brother there. And when I do,

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I want to shake his hand and say, Thank you. I've used your story as a sermon illustration at least two or three times at this point to remember that Christ is alive.

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Dear saints, take it from that man who is likely in glory now. Christ is not on that cross.

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Jesus of Nazareth, as Peter said, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.

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As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

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You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

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Christ has all authority. His resurrection also confirms our justification.

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Romans 4 .25, who is delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

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The resurrection confirms that Christ's atoning work on the cross, his sacrifice was effectual and received of the

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Father. It is one thing for Christ to say that he is going to die for sins.

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It is another thing for Christ to come alive from the grave and said, it is done and your sins are forgiven.

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If you struggle with assurance, this ought to be a great reality to you, a great fact that you can look at.

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The resurrection demonstrates that you can take the promises of Christ and the promises of Scripture to the bank.

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You can give up trying to establish your own righteousness by works. You can fling yourself upon Christ with all of your might, with all of your trust, with all of the weight of all of your sin.

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He can take it because he went to the cross to die for you and that wasn't enough. He was raised again for your justification.

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So that if there ever was one sin that he could hold against you, I assure you, it is gone. And how we are to cling to this gospel, not just of Christ's death, but of his life and his death, of his burial and his resurrection.

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The centerpiece of our lives. The whole gospel. Not simply the gospel of a dead

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Christ, but of a risen Christ. Charles Spurgeon tells a story of one

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American ship that was attacked by, of all things, a wounded whale in the open ocean.

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The sailors watched in the distance as it was on the surface and it came barreling towards their ship and when it hit the ship, it hit it with such force that at least according to the sailors' accounts, water was coming in from every seam in the lumber that was beneath the surface of the water.

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And knowing that the ship was doomed to sink, they got onto the life rafts and pushed themselves away from the sinking ship.

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But then two men remembered that they had forgotten something of absolute necessity upon that ship.

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And so they dove back into the water much to the dismay of their fellow sailors, got on the boat, went into the ship, retrieved whatever they needed and as the ship went down, they fell into the water.

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They were so close to being in the ship as it sunk that as the ship went down, it created a vortex and they circled in the vortex as the ship sunk.

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And when they came upon, back into the life rafts, their fellow sailors said, what was it that was so important that was worth risking your lives?

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And they said it was the compass. If they had left that behind, they would have been left all alone in that lonely ocean with no direction to travel in.

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It was that compass that would eventually lead them back to land so they could tell the whole account to the people around them.

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And Spurgeon, in the great way that he always does this, comments on this story and he says, that compass was life to them and the gospel of the living

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God is the same to us. You and I must venture all for the gospel.

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This infallible word must be guarded to the death. Men may tell us what they please and say what they will, but we will risk everything sooner than give up those eternal principles by which we have been saved.

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Because Christ not only died for sin, but because he rose from the dead, we can trust that gospel with our lives.

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We can trust it so much that I can say, trust in that gospel so much that if the gospel is not true, your soul will be damned because it was only in ever your only hope.

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But we can trust Christ. Why? Because he rose and he is alive and therefore we can have assurance.

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I need to move faster. Christ's resurrection makes possible our regeneration.

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So we have his authority, his justification, our regeneration through union with the risen

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Christ. Not only do we die to sin, but now we are raised with Christ to newness of life.

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It's that passage that we love to read at baptisms. In Romans 6 and verse 1, Paul says,

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What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means.

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How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

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We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that, listen to this, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

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Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

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You're a new man and a new woman in Christ because he rose from the dead. Christ's resurrection makes possible his living intercession.

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Hebrews 7 .25 says, Consequently he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.

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Oh, how many of us feel so unworthy to come to God in prayer. Oh, we know the miserable wretches that we often are.

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Sometimes I have this experience where the kids are doing something and I am just, I am not the patient man that I need to be in that moment.

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And family worship is in like 10 minutes. What do I do? Brothers and sisters, because Christ is alive, we can come to God.

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He ever lives to make intercession for his saints. So even when you feel like the most wretched and vile and pitiful creature on the earth.

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And you can say with one author of scripture, I am a worm and not a man. Christ is alive, not dead, but alive.

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And he is praying for you on your behalf. And so what do we do, brothers and sisters? We run to our

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God because Christ only died for us. But even now he is saying accept him in my name.

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Accept her on my behalf. Christ's resurrection brings the promise of our future resurrection.

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Because Christ rose from the grave, so shall you.

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If you have placed your faith in Christ, it doesn't matter how weak your faith is.

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It doesn't matter how pitiful an existence you feel you live at times. If your hope is in Christ, Jesus' blood and his righteousness, then just as Christ rose from the grave, so shall you.

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1 Corinthians 15 .20 says, But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

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For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

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Even before Christ went to the cross, in John 11 .25 he said, I am the resurrection and the life.

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Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

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And then Christ says, probably fittingly, Do you believe this? Well brothers and sisters, do we believe it?

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So many of us treat death like the world treats death. We run in fear.

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And death is a torment to us. But Christ would not have that for us if we would but see his resurrection.

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And that resurrection is but a first fruit of your resurrection also. That even for the one among us who deals with the most suffering and the most torment in their death, that even when you die, you shall never die, but you shall live because Christ is alive.

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Do you believe it? Dwight L. Moody said, he was once preaching a funeral sermon for a man and he said that he went through the

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Bible looking for a place where Christ preached a funeral sermon. And what he found to his amazement is that Christ never preached a funeral sermon.

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He said, now it will be a good chance for me to preach the gospel to them.

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Oh sorry, I'm behind myself. He says this, I hunted through all the four gospels trying to find one of Christ's funeral sermons, but couldn't find any.

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I found that he broke up every funeral he ever attended. He never preached a funeral sermon in the world.

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Death could not exist where he was. When the dead heard his voice, they sprang to life.

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He will smash up the undertaking business when he comes to reign. I'm not sure what businesses will exist in eternity, but one thing's for sure, funeral parlors will be gone because we shall never die.

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Boy, have I taken a long time on those first two points. The third point is a lot shorter. I want us to see not only the burial of Christ, not only the resurrection of Christ, but I want us to see here a proclamation mandate.

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A proclamation mandate. Verses 7 and 8 says this. The angel says, But go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.

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There you will see him just as he told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them.

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Not uncommon when people in scripture encounter an angel. And they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.

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I find it amazing here that Christ gives instructions concerning the disciples meeting him in Galilee.

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But not only the disciples. Who does he single out? But he singles out Peter. The very man who had denied him just a few days earlier.

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Well, Peter had denied Christ. Christ does not deny Peter because of his death.

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And even more, because of his resurrection there is forgiveness for sins. Even for Peter.

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There is forgiveness in Christ's name. Brothers and sisters, because Christ is raised, there is forgiveness for any sin that you bring to him.

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And they're given a proclamation mandate in verse 7. Go tell his disciples.

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Verse 8 tells us that they were afraid. That the Greek word means they were terrified. They were awestruck.

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And yet, as we read Mark's gospel and as we read the gospels from the other evangelists what we find is after a moment of fear, they did in fact go and tell the disciples.

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And these women became then witnesses. The very first witnesses of the complete gospel of Jesus Christ.

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His life, his death, his burial, and now his resurrection. And those disciples who received this message in their hearts told it to their disciples who then told it to a generation that was not yet alive when

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Christ lived and died. And through all of the successive generations now, brothers and sisters, even to us.

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This message of the life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ have come to us through this proclamation mandate.

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The reason why we have a Bible in our hands and a gospel message to believe on is because people took this message to the world.

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And what are we to do with it now? If we read the account of this resurrection, if we dwell on the multi -faceted beauty of the resurrection and what it means theologically and practically in our lives, what are we to do with it?

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Friends, we're to rejoice in it and then we are to proclaim it. We have a cause for proclamation that we serve not a

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Christ who has only died for sin but who has died and is risen and is alive.

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That's why we go to White Avenue. Some people might ask, why do you go to what sometimes feels like the armpit of Edmonton?

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It's because people are there and because we have a message to proclaim that we serve a living

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Christ who died for our sins, but not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.

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That's what 1 John says. There are many more out there who belong to Christ.

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And this week, we've alluded to it now a few times. I'm trying to think of who was there with us when we were there.

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Anyone else? Brandon was there. I was preaching the gospel.

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When we go to preach the gospel, we don't try to fill in the caricature of what a street preacher is.

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We simply want to tell people that there is a God, that He is holy. We say, there is a

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God. He is holy. We are man. We have sinned against Him. This is the Christ. This is what He has done. This is how we respond.

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God, man, Christ response. We stay within that lane.

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Just the pure gospel. And this man who I immediately recognized from a couple weeks ago, came and tried as hard as he could to kick that box out from underneath me.

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He ended up kicking our box and punching my Bible and attacking us in any means that he could try to do so.

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Eventually some people ushered him away. It was actually beautiful to see that there were other people that realized even though they weren't

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Christians, I can tell that by their actions, they realized that what he was doing was wrong. They ushered him away.

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He ended up getting pushed into the street. That's a different story, much to our dismay. And I looked at Lowell and I said, well, what do we do now?

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Let's put the box back. Get back on the box and proclaim Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ died even for sinners like that man.

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And I know that because he died for sinners like me. A sinner like me. And then Lowell said, I don't know that I feel like preaching today.

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I said, that's okay if you don't want to preach. And he said, actually I do want to preach. He got up in the box and he preached

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Jesus Christ crucified, risen, coming again.

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We believe, therefore we speak. We see that Christ has died, that he was buried, that he's risen, and he is alive.

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We have a story to tell to the nations that shall turn their heart to the right.

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A story for every passing generation. It's not a fable. It's a true account that Christ died, he was buried, and he is alive.