1 Corinthians 15:1-4 | After Darkness, Light

We're going to be considering 1 Corinthians chapter 15,

verses one through four, 1 Corinthians 15, one through four.

Pray with me.

Our Father and our God, we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, your

people filled with your spirit, asking that you be with us in this moment more.

I pray that I have done my due diligence.

I pray that as I speak, you go forth through your power of your spirit and you

call to memory the scriptures, Lord, that you awaken

their mind, that you open their mind to the scriptures.

Lord, we love you and we praise you and we give thanks for everything that you have done for us

through Christ Jesus, our Lord and savior, amen.

Who has believed what the Lord, who has believed what he has heard from

us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look upon him and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by man, a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.

As one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we

esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God

and afflicted.

He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds, we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb led to the slaughter, like

a sheep that was before its shears is silent.

So he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.

And for his generation, who consider that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people.

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

Although he had done no violence, there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord, Yahweh, to crush him.

He has put on him, he has put him to grief.

With his soul, when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong

his day.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge, shall his righteous one, my servant, make many to be

accounted righteous.

And he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I will divide to him a portion with many, and he shall divide a

spool with the strong, because he has poured out his soul to death.

And he was numbered among the transgressors.

Yet he bore the sins of many, and he makes intercession for

the transgressor.

I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand.

He shall not be shaken, therefore my heart is glad.

And my soul, my whole being rejoices.

My flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence, there is fullness of joy.

And at your right hand, there is pleasure for evermore.

Jesus answered him, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

The Jews then said, it has taken us 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it in

three days?

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they

believed the scriptures.

And the word that was spoken to them by Jesus.

Our theme today is after darkness, light.

Post tenderbrush lux.

After darkness, light.

We looked last week, we spoke about how God created the world through Jesus Christ.

That before the spirit was, when the spirit was hovering over the world, before God spoke and said, let there

be light, what was on the face of the earth?

Darkness.

But then God spoke, let there be light.

The announcement of who he is as Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The sun was not created till the fourth day.

So when he said, let there be light, he was saying, it is I, Jesus Christ, the

word of God.

After darkness, light.

It's the story of the whole Bible.

Joseph, sold into slavery, darkness.

Joseph, second in command at Egypt, light.

The Israelites, enslaved in Egypt, darkness.

The Israelites brought into the land of Canaan, given the promises of God, light.

The work of recreation,.

You are dead in your trespasses and sins,

darkness.

But Christ Jesus raises you up to be with him.

He makes you alive in him, light.

It's the story of redemption.

And that's the story that we will be looking at today, the story of redemption.

What God has done for us in Christ Jesus.

My proposition is this.

In the same way that Jesus was raised from the dead, you too

can be raised from the dead.

In the same way that Christ was raised to life in his glorified body, you

too can be raised to life in glorified body.

So look with me, please, at our text.

1 Corinthians 15, verses one through four.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received and

which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received,

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance

with the scriptures.

From our text, gives us the outline.

Our text feeds us, it's hand feeding us the outline.

In our text today, we will see the central theme of the gospel after darkness, light.

It is given to us here, this is the key text for defense of

the gospel.

It's given to us in three points of first importance.

And the three points follow.

First, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

Our second point, he was buried.

Like I don't have to make anything up, right?

Third point, he was raised in accordance with the scriptures.

This is of first importance, Paul says.

So as we transition, I wanna say that, I wanna say that truth

never loses its power.

Truth never loses its power.

People, however, often lose their grip on the truth.

Amen?

Truth never loses its power.

If it's true, it's true.

But we as flawed human beings oftentimes lose our grip on the truth.

We as Christians, we have the very power of God on our lips.

But more than often, we do not display it by preaching the gospel to

the lost, by reaching out to our loved ones and telling them what Christ has done for us.

We have the very power of life and death.

You are dead in your trespasses and sins.

How are they brought to life?

Through the preaching of the gospel.

God's power is reflected through that power.

We have that.

Sometimes we just, we lose grip on it.

We shy away from it.

So our first point of first importance is that Christ died for our

sins in accordance with the scriptures.

First Corinthians 15, one through three.

I'll read that again.

Now I will remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preach to you, which you received in which you

stand and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word that I

preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died

for our sins according to the scriptures.

This is darkness.

This is as dark as the world has ever been.

This is darker than it was in the very beginning when the spirit of God hovered over the earth before he

spoke, let there be light.

There was no darkness as the disciples were faced with in this moment.

And they were told that they were going to, you know, the Messiah's here, the kingdom of the Messiah's here.

He's going to rule and reign on the earth.

And then the Messiah is put upon a cross and

his sheep scattered.

And Paul is bringing this as a first importance.

He says that this is a reminder.

I remind you of the gospel.

He's reminding them because in all of the letters, we find that there's false teaching.

Remember, we just went through the book of Galatians and we had the Judaizers propagating a false

gospel.

Do this and live.

You have to adhere to the what custom of Moses in order to live.

Yes, bring Jesus, add Jesus to it.

But you have to keep the custom of Moses in order to live.

False gospel, damnable.

If even angels preach this gospel, let them be accursed.

Here is no different.

Here is no different.

We come to chapter 15.

Look at verse 12.

Verse 12 says this.

Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can someone say

that there is no resurrection of the dead?

A false gospel was being preached that there would not be a resurrection of the dead.

It goes on to let us know that Christ was the first fruit.

That just as he died, was buried and rose again, those of us who are in Christ, when

we die, eventually at the last day, the resurrection of the dead, when Christ has put all things under his

feet and the last enemy to be put under his feet is death, you and I will be raised.

Because when the dead is raised, there will be no more death.

The last enemy is put under his feet.

And it says that we will be like him with glorified bodies.

A lot of times when preaching the gospel, we do not mention this part.

A lot of times we just stop at the resurrection.

We don't talk about him ascending to be with the father who is at the right hand of the father,

who at the right hand of the father, who is putting all enemies under his feet.

All enemies are being footstool.

And he's also making intercessory and prayer for those who draw near to him by faith.

And that is one day coming again, and he will judge the living and the dead.

And that will be when the last enemy is put under his feet at the resurrection of the dead.

And Paul here is reminding them, he's calling their attention that Christ has died.

That darkness has come upon the earth once again.

That darkness has come upon the earth.

He says, brother, I remind you of the gospel.

He says, I've preached this to you.

You have received this.

He says, this is what you're supposed to stand on.

It's the gospel.

The gospel is not just for your salvation.

It is for your sanctification as well as your glorification.

It is the heartbeat of the Christian life.

It is resurrection Sunday today.

But as a reformed Baptist, every Lord's day is a resurrection Sunday for us.

We proclaim that the crucified Christ who was put in

the grave and rose again.

We proclaim that every week.

But I really felt the need to kind of move away

from our study of Hebrews and to focus on this for a moment, just

to show how important it is for the reminder.

Because sometimes even if, you know, you ever think about breathing?

It just comes so natural to us.

Unless you got a code, right?

Unless one of your nostrils is stopped up, then you're having to strive to breathe.

You don't have to remember to breathe.

We need to understand the gospel so well that we don't have to even

remind ourselves to think about it.

We don't have to remind ourselves to preach it to ourselves.

It needs to be our heartbeat.

The gospel is everything.

It's essential to the Christian life.

Not only does it bring spiritually dead man to life, but it causes those who are in Christ

to live for Christ by faith.

And one day it's the gospel that's gonna raise us up from the ground.

And he's saying, I'm reminding you this.

And he mentions the part of being saved.

He says, still in verse two, and by which you are

being saved, if

you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, and unless you believe in vain.

See, the Bible, there's, you know, the Bible talks about

saved, being saved, and saved, being

saved, and will be saved.

It's the point of justification, sanctification, and glorification.

And right here where he's talking about being saved, he's not speaking of, you know, he's speaking,

he's writing to Christians.

He's speaking to those who have received Christ.

They have received the gospel.

So when he says being saved, he's mentioning that this gospel is their sanctification.

That it's by this gospel that you're able to live the Christian life.

First Corinthians chapter one, verse 18, kind of gives you the idea.

118, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

But to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So the word of the cross, the preaching of the cross, it's foolishness to those who are perishing.

But to those of us who are in Christ, to those of us who are saved, who are being saved, who are being

sanctified, it is the power of God for our salvation.

This is the perseverance of the saints, the preservation of the saints.

That if you're saved, you will continue to be being saved in Christ

by the same gospel that saved you.

Not a different gospel, not a different message, the same message.

It's one message.

God created the world through Jesus Christ, and he is recreating the world through

the message of Jesus Christ.

That's the message of the gospel, the

perseverance of the saints.

I wrote this down.

The essence of the gospel contained in this verse, verses three and four,

as well as we'll see, but the key point here for the Jews to

grab was that the gospel was according to the scriptures, according to the Tanakh.

Paul here emphasizes by saying it twice, that is,

these three points of the gospel set forth in the new covenant, spoke forth,

spoken, spoken, spoke forth by the prophets, prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures,

which is our Old Testament.

Verse three, let's read verse three again.

It says, for I deliver to you as a first importance what I

also received.

So what he's about to say, this is it.

This is a first importance, that Christ died for our sins

in accordance with the scriptures.

He says, you can go back in your Tanakh, in your Old Testament scriptures, and you can see.

I read it earlier.

I read to you Isaiah 53.

If you can possibly go through that text and not see Christ in hindsight,

you are blind.

This past Friday was the Jewish Passover.

They gathered together to slaughter a lamb, to put its blood on the doorpost.

We know as Christians that that lamb was slaughtered before the foundation of the world.

Then that in time he came and was crucified for our sins, that Christ

died for our sins.

At the Passover, Jesus lifted up the cup.

Well, he lifted up bread and he lifted up the cup and his betrayer was there who

shared in the bowl of the bread with him.

And then his betrayer, after taking the Passover with him, takes off and he goes and gets the

guards and they come after Christ.

We see Christ in the garden of Gethsemane praying to the Father,

let this cup pass from me.

Not my will, but yours.

Paul Washer famously says that what was in the cup?

Was Christ afraid of Roman soldiers?

Christ was not afraid of the Roman soldiers.

He was afraid of what took place in Isaiah 53.

Verse 10, it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He was not afraid of a beaten with a cat of nine tails.

He was not afraid of the crown of thorns.

He was not afraid to be nailed hands and foot to a Roman cross.

He was not afraid of the spear.

It was the wrath of God taken upon sin.

Your sin being placed on him.

He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become righteous in Christ.

We, that's, think about it.

He who lived the life that we could not live died the death that we should die.

He became the sacrificial atonement.

He became, he's the one that stood in our stead.

And he said, man, if there's any other way, if there's any other way,

but not my will, your will.

Darkness, the world has never been that dark before.

He's crying, sweating great drops of blood.

Or the God man, the God who looks down from heaven and

Psalm 53 and Psalm 14, who looks down from heaven and sees that no one seeks him.

So what does he do?

He becomes a man in the person of Jesus Christ, the hypostatic union, the God man,

fully God, fully man.

But yet he's in the garden, not wanting to become sin,

not wanting the wrath of God.

Because you can't tell me he was afraid of Roman soldiers.

At his trial, he was betrayed, he was lied about,

he was crucified, he took upon himself

what we should have had upon us.

I say it many times, I say it every time that I'm out street preaching that, that as he was on the cross, the

mercy of God and the wrath of God met.

The mercy of God that you and I do not deserve comes to us because the wrath of God

that you and I deserve fell upon him.

He drank the whole cup.

That was the cup, that's what was in the cup.

Your, I can't say that right, yours and my sins and the wrath of God fell upon him

because of yours and my sins.

Again, it's just, listen to Isaiah 53, verse five and seven, five through seven.

But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

You and I, peace.

And with his wounds, we are healed.

Oh, we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned aside everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

And he was oppressed and afflicted.

And yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that was led to the slaughter, like a sheep that was before its

shears.

He was silent.

So he opened not his mouth.

He says in another place that if he willed, if he wanted to, he could have called legions of

angels to come down and take care of business.

He could have had them come down and take care of business.

This is what I like to call, describe in a substitutionary atonement way,

that as the ax of God's wrath, if you can imagine God swinging an ax as the ax

of God's wrath is coming down to destroy all mankind, because we

deserve it, we deserve it.

Jesus on the cross steps in front of the wrath

and he absorbs the punishment for us.

He stood in our stead.

He stood in our stead.

He died for our sins.

He died for our sins.

Look with me at our next point.

He was buried.

This is the second of the first importance.

1 Corinthians 15, 4a.

And it's simple, that he was buried.

He died according to the scriptures.

He died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried.

This too was according to the scriptures.

In Matthew 12, turn with me if you will, Matthew 12,

just so you can see this, Matthew 12, and in here, he's going

to be pointing back to the Tanakh.

Matthew 12, verse 38, 38 through

40.

And some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, teacher, we wish to see a

sign for me.

But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no

sign will be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, great fish,

so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart

of the earth.

Jesus is saying that Jonah being in the fish

is a foretelling, it's a prophecy that was to come of him being put into the earth

for three days and three nights.

That Jonah was a sign, it was a sign for them of the coming Messiah,

who will be put into the heart of the earth.

And it also, in Isaiah 53, it talks about him, his generation killing him, putting

him to death as a, I believe it says a wicked man,

but in his death as a rich man, which points to

Joseph of Arimathea.

Joseph of Arimathea gave to Christ a young, unused tomb.

All this is in the scriptures.

His being buried was in the scriptures, the Tanakh, the prophets.

As we transition to our third and final point,

let's look at where we are.

Jesus has been crucified, he has died for our sins.

Listen, I said this a minute ago, you talk about darkness.

You talk about darkness.

Imagine, put yourself in that place.

Again, God, the God -man comes to earth.

He is supposed to, the Messiah, according to the Jewish scriptures, the Messiah was

to come and he was to reign.

They were living in what was called that age, what was called, the Bible called this age, and they

was waiting for the Messiah to come, which would usher in what they call the age to come

or the age of the Messiah.

The Messiah came, they did not recognize him.

They rejected him.

Some did not reject him.

They knew that the Messiah would come.

They knew what the scriptures were telling him, that this Messiah was gonna come.

He was the son of David.

He would sit on David's throne forever and rule.

Then all of a sudden, he gets put to death.

They did not understand scriptures.

The disciples were face -to -face with darkness because they did not

at that time understand the scriptures.

Point number three, he was raised according to the scriptures,

1 Corinthians 15, three and four.

I wanna read it all.

For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also receive, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the

scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day

in accordance with the scriptures.

Again, look at, this is speaking of

first importance.

Nothing is more important than this.

Nothing, absolutely nothing can be more important than this in your life.

We're gonna go home today, and we're gonna love on our family.

We're gonna love on our in -laws.

We're gonna love on everyone that's around us.

But listen, nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than the death and burial and

resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Your relationship with Christ is more important than anything, than anything.

I had a conversation yesterday.

This is off the fly.

I had a conversation yesterday.

A cousin called me.

He gets upset, and he blames God for everything.

I just could not take it anymore.

And so I had to tell him, I said, I said, you love your mom, correct?

Yes, I said, you love your old lady, correct?

Yes, I said, listen, I love God more than anybody, more than my wife,

more than my kids, more than anybody.

And when you talk bad about him, I have to get away.

I have to get away.

He is supposed to be of first importance.

And the worst thing about America, Americans, us, is that we put other things

before Christ.

We put other things before the gospel.

Verse 10, this is of first importance.

Yet it was the will of Lord, capital L -O -R -D, Yahweh.

It was the will of Yahweh to crush him.

Crush who?

Crush Jesus.

It was God's will to crush him.

He said, if it be your will, let anything else happen.

No, it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put on him, he has put him to grief.

When his soul makes an offering for guilt, that's what took place on the cross.

It was the offering for guilt.

And it says that he, speaking of Yahweh, shall see his offspring, and he shall prolong

his days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hands.

How does he prolong his days?

He raises him up from the grave.

He crushes him, and he raises him up from the grave.

He crushed him for your sake, and he raises him up from the grave.

If you will, turn to

Acts chapter two.

Acts chapter two, verses 22 through 35.

Acts chapter two, 22 through 35.

This is, Jesus has resurrected, he has

ascended to be with his father.

He pours out the Holy Spirit upon his people.

They are there, they're speaking in tongues.

Which is languages, they're speaking in tongues, which are languages

that people can understand.

People come from their area, they're able to hear Galileans

speaking their own language.

They accuse them of being drunk.

Peter stands up, and this is a portion of what he says.

He says, man of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and

wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.

As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and

foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless

men.

God raised him up, loosened the pains of death because it was impossible

for him to be held by it.

For David says concerning him, quote, I saw the Lord always before me.

For he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.

Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced.

My flesh also dwelled in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy ones see corruption.

You have made known to me the path of life.

You will make me full of gladness with your presence, end quote.

Brothers, I may say with confidence about our patriarch, David, that he

both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had swore with an oath that he would set

one of his descendants on the stone, and he foresaw and he spoke about the resurrection of Christ

that he would not abandon to Hades, nor did his flesh see

corruption.

This Jesus, God raised up.

Listen, and of that, you are all

witnesses.

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise

of the Holy Spirit, he poured out that which you are seeing and

hearing today.

For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says,

quote, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies a footstool.

The Lord said, David says, the Lord said to my Lord, Adonai, in the New Testament, would be

Adonai, said to Adonai, Old Testament, it's Yahweh says to Yahweh, sit at my

right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

For your feet.

He says, this is Jesus.

Clearly he's speaking of Jesus.

His tomb is over there.

He has died, he is buried.

We can go to his tomb right now.

He did not raise.

His body has decomposed.

His body has decomposed.

Surely this text is not talking about him, but it's talking about the descendant that would come from David, from the line

of David.

Again, I read this earlier, verse two of, I mean, chapter two,

John chapter two, verse 19, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in

three days, I will raise it up again.

Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up again.

I will raise it up again.

They were thinking he was talking about the temple.

That took them 46 years to build.

But again, this was a foretelling of that event that took

place in 70 AD, because that temple did fall.

That sacrificial system did come to an end.

But Jesus says, you destroy this temple, and in three days, I'm gonna raise it up again.

So many Christians and Jews today are looking for a third temple, and they don't

understand that Jesus is that temple.

Jesus is that temple, and you and I are part of that temple.

We're being built into that holy temple.

Every person that becomes a Christian, they are added to that temple, that body of

Christ, which was built on the foundations of the apostles and

prophets, with Christ Jesus being the cornerstone.

The apostles, the New Testament, and the prophets, which again, we can refer back to our

Old Testament.

That's what it's being built on.

Jesus came forth from the grave.

Why?

Because, like our text says, it was impossible for it to hold him.

It was impossible for it to hold him.

John 2, verse 22 says this.

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had

said this, and they believed the scriptures and the word that Jesus had spoken.

So at the time, whenever darkness came upon the earth, again, because

they did not understand the scriptures, they did not understand that the Messiah had to die,

be buried, and raised from the dead.

They were faced with darkness because of their lack of understanding.

But after Christ rose from the grave, he reminds them.

I mean, you can go back and look at Luke.

It's Luke, the last chapter of Luke.

It says that he, verse 45, and after he rose from the dead, he

opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

So after the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus opens their mind to understand the scriptures.

So by way of application is

our resurrection from the dead.

So we have the after darkness, and we have the light that takes place in the gospel.

But even now, we have darkness.

Even now, we have darkness.

We're living in this world.

We're living in the flesh.

We see crimes being committed.

We're surrounded by horrible things happening in our world.

As a post -millennialist, I'm always challenged.

How can you be a postman?

Look around, look at everything that's happening.

Look, look who's in office, Biden.

You mean to tell me you think things are getting better and we got Biden in office?

Like I hear all kinds of stuff.

We might be faced with darkness now, but like I said, every time the gospel's preached,

if someone comes to Christ, that is a brick added to the temple.

And one day, this temple of God, this temple who is Christ Jesus, who is

this stone that's carved out by no human hand in Daniel chapter two, that comes down and smites the statue

on its feet, and that statue on the earth grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth, that temple, that

mountain, where it says that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea,

that is the church of Jesus Christ, that is us.

And one day that will be a reality for us.

Maybe not for me, maybe not for my children or my children's children, but one day for the church,

it will be a reality.

That right now we might see darkness, but eventually there'll be light

if we understand the scriptures, if we don't panic and focus on the darkness

like the disciples did.

All they saw was darkness when their savior was put into the ground.

When he was crucified and taken and buried, they were surrounded by darkness.

Right now, a bunch of Christians, all they see is darkness because of the calamity that is coming upon them.

They're not understanding the scriptures that we win for God so

loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

How do we know that he loved the world?

He gave his only begotten son and he did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world

through him might be saved.

Not that the world will be destroyed through him, but that the world through him, who Christ, might be

saved.

That is light.

After the darkness comes light.

Post tender brass lux.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to focus on the scriptures.

And here's another thing.

And after all this, there will be a resurrection of the dead and some will be resurrected

in darkness.

They'll come from the grave covered in the man of dust

because they're from the man of dust.

But some, those that are in Christ, will come from the grave clothed in glory,

will be clothed in the man of heaven in a manner worthy.

Because right now we're not.

For God so loved the world that he sent us his son.

When it says world, it's talking about the whole earth.

As far as the curse is found.

How much of the earth got cursed because of Adam?

All of it.

How much of it is going to be fixed?

All of it.

Why?

Because as I said earlier, God created the world through

Jesus Christ.

And right now he is recreating the world through the message of Christ.

And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And by which he is going to footstool every one of his enemies.

So I challenge you today, listeners, to be vocal

about your faith.

To challenge people in their beliefs.

Welcome the atheists to a conversation.

Welcome the agnostic to the conversation.

Welcome those who profess Christ with their mouth, but do not believe in the resurrection

with their heart to the conversation.

That this really happened.

The Bible is clear that if you profess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart

that he was raised from the dead, you will be saved.

America is filled with people that profess with their mouth, but they don't believe with their heart that

he was resurrected from the grave.

And I can tell you that for sure, because they don't live for him.

If you truly believe he rose from the grave on the third day, your life changes.

Your life changes.

I am available if anyone would like to talk with me.

If you need prayer, I am available.

Please pray with me.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for loving us.

Thank you for faithfully calling your scripture to our minds,

Lord.

Help us to be more diligent in our study.

Help us to seek you in word and prayer, to seek your presence through word and prayer.

Jesus told that woman at the well that a day was

coming when his true worshipers would worship him in spirit and truth.

And that is those who are filled with his spirit, worship him in truth as the

one true God who has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And that knows the truth of the gospel, that justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, and

Christ alone.

Oh God, help us.

Help me, Lord, to be a witness for you.

In the name of Jesus, I pray, amen.