Jeff Durbin: The Glory of The Resurrection of The Son of God

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If you want to open your Bibles to the Gospel according to Matthew. Gospel according to Matthew.

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We're actually going to start in verse 57. Sorry, chapter 27, verse 57.

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Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 27, verse 57.

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Hear now the word of the living and the true God. When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named

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Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

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Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock.

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And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other

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Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is after the day of preparation, the chief priests and the

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Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, Sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive, after three days

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I will rise. Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away, and tell the people he has risen from the dead.

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And the last fraud will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, you have a guard of soldiers.

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Go, make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

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Now, after the Sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other

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Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the

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Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

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And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women,

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Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.

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Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.

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And behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, see I have told you.

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So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.

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And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him.

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Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.

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While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place.

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And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said,

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Tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.

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And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed.

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And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which

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Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him. But some doubted, and Jesus came and said to them,

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All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

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Let's pray as God's people. Lord Jesus, we worship you.

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You are the King of kings and Lord of lords. You are the ruler of the kings of the earth.

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You are the one who is coming to judge the living and the dead. You are the only one through which we can have peace.

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And so we trust you. We confess you as Lord, as God, a

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King and Savior. We praise you that you're alive, that you've defeated sin and death.

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And that you've paid a once for all sacrifice. We thank you that it's finished. We thank you for the gift of eternal life.

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We thank you for your promises. That if we trust in you and believe in you, we have eternal life.

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And you'll never lose us or forsake us. Please bless the proclamation of your word today. It's in your name we pray.

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Amen. So of course, every Lord's Day since this time,

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Christians meet on the first day of the week. We get together. We have this time where we gather as God's people to worship on the first day of the week in recognition of the resurrection of the

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Son of Man. God became man. He took on human flesh.

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He lived a perfect, obedient, righteous life. He was the true law keeper.

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He did in his life what none of us have ever done, what none of us never do and never will do.

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It was absolute perfection and obedience. He represented humanity in the way that God calls us to.

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And so Jesus lives that perfect life, dies a death that each one of us deserves. We deserve the wrath of God.

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We deserve justice, not grace, not love, not mercy. And Jesus took that upon himself.

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He was the substitution for his people. Then he conquered the grave. He rose again to never die again.

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There were people, of course, in the ministry of Jesus where Jesus raised them to life. A little dead girl,

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Lazarus. Jesus is raising the dead during his ministry and yet they died again.

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But Jesus is the first to truly conquer death, to never die again, to be resurrected.

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And that was the starting point. That was the promise. That was that deposit that Jesus not only conquered death himself, but he ultimately will conquer death for all of his people.

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Amen? And so we gather every Lord's Day, every Lord's Day, we should celebrate the resurrection.

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We are celebrating the resurrection every Lord's Day, but this time of year, of course, we pay special attention to and we focus on and we meditate upon the events of the passion of the

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Messiah on Good Friday and, of course, on Resurrection Sunday, that Jesus is alive.

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He is risen. That was real weak. He is risen.

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And so we focus on this and here's probably what is, of course, shocking to and it makes no sense to the secularists, the atheists, the agnostics, the unbelievers of our day.

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Here we are now, over 2 ,000 years later, still talking about the

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God -Man, still talking about the Messianic King. You can't get Jesus out of the news.

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You can't get Jesus out of the public square because he's the ruler of the kings of the earth.

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He came to have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. He accomplished all that God said the

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Messiah was going to accomplish and even in the last two weeks, people still can't stop talking about the central message of the

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Christian faith that will never change. We should always be bold with it. It's why they killed us in the first place.

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Jesus is King. And his resurrection from the dead was proof from God the

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Father that Jesus is the Messianic King. And here in this moment, at the end of Matthew's Gospel, Matthew has this moment that was expected in God's story of redemption.

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You have, of course, the crucifixion. Then you have the resurrection. And finally here, you have the testimony of the

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Messiah that all authority in heaven, and everyone's fine with that spiritually.

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The atheists are fine with that. The secularists are fine with that message. All authority in heaven.

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They say, that's fine. You can keep that spiritual, gassy existence out there.

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You can have the floating babies and harps and clouds. You can have all this between your ears.

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What people have always had a problem with is what's said next. All authority in heaven, and what?

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On earth. The Messianic King says, and on earth has been, that's past tense, given to me.

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And on that basis, go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, because that's what the

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Messiah came for. What you need to understand is this. The resurrection is central in the story of redemption.

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Without the resurrection, we're lost. Without the resurrection of the Son of Man, we are all dead. We have nothing.

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We have no peace with God. It is central, but we don't understand the resurrection today in the way that it is biblically.

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Jesus does not come, as one of my friends said, He does not come to die and go to heaven so that you and I can simply die and go to heaven.

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Jesus died, went to the Father, then what? He is resurrected.

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Resurrected here in this cosmos, in this world. He conquers death here.

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It's not just some spiritual, gassy existence thing. It's not something so we can escape and go there.

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No, God came to redeem and restore and resurrect all of creation.

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His resurrection is proof that this creation is not a throwaway. His resurrection is proof that sin and death and the devil will have no ultimate victory.

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Jesus died and resurrected, so Jesus dies. And Jesus rises from the dead here in this life, in this world.

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And it's proof that He is coming back to judge the living and the dead. And He will resurrect all of God's people.

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We will enjoy the powerful resurrection that He had. You and I, because of His resurrection, will live also.

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Amen? And so the resurrection and the story of Jesus, we can't get out of the public eye.

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It will never be gone. It's never going to be vanquished because He came for the nations. The big controversy right now over saying

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Jesus is king is not a new controversy. It's precisely the controversy that got the early

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Christians killed. They didn't like it in that culture. They don't like it in North Korea. They don't like it in communist

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China. And now they don't like it in Biden's America. Amen? And we're still going to proclaim it.

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Why? Because He is risen. He's alive from the dead.

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Every other charlatan, religious leader, man -made religion in history, they have the same thing in common.

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We've talked about it often. They all died and they stayed dead. Jesus demonstrates that He actually is who

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He claimed to be and that He died the most brutal of deaths and He conquered death and victory.

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And just consider this in terms of His death and the nature of it. These disciples heard

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Him. Think about what you just heard in Matthew. In Matthew's Gospel, this eyewitness account pulled together here.

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In Matthew's Gospel, the enemies of Jesus remembered what He was saying. They understood what

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He was saying. That this imposter says that He's going to rise after three days. So do something about it.

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So nobody's deceived. So they set a guard to make sure nobody can steal the body.

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And all of a sudden the guards say, yeah, we were sleeping and someone stole the body. You think that really happened in Rome? That the guards would get away with that?

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We were sleeping on duty. You're dead. But those enemies of Christ understood

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His story and the followers of Jesus heard Him say it too. And yet they thought after what they saw on that cross, after the blood loss, after the beating, after the suffocation, they thought there is no way this story is true.

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There's no way that someone can conquer that kind of death. And Jesus did.

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He came out of that tomb in glory. He is alive from the dead. And this story of the resurrection, the life, the death, and the resurrection of the

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Son of Man is at the center. It's at the center. It's the focal point of all of human history.

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It still is. It will never not be. Because this is God's story. There's a sovereign

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God over all of redemptive history. And the death and the resurrection and, of course, the ascension of the

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Son of Man is the focal point. It's at the center. And here's what's important for us to hear today.

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Our response to the life, the death, and the resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus will be at the center and will be the focal point of our eternal future.

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That's what you need to hear. Why does it matter to me? Because your response, according to Jesus, if He is who

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He claimed to be, your response and my response to His life and death and resurrection will be at the focal point and center of your eternity.

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You will be thinking about it for all eternity to one degree or another. If you are among the redeemed, if you turn to Christ in faith, if you trust in Him, if you're covered in His righteousness, then for all eternity you will be rejoicing at that point of human history.

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That the Son of Man loved me and He died on that tree and He conquered death for me.

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That's what you'll be saying and I'll be saying for eternity. And yet if you do not respond to the

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Son of Man, the Messianic King, if you do not turn to Him in faith, then for all eternity you'll be thinking the same thoughts about the death and the resurrection and ascension of the

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Son of Man. It will be at the focal point of your eternity. We will never stop talking about it.

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We will never stop thinking about it because it is the greatest act and display of divine love, power and mercy.

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There is nothing like it in history. You've heard it called the greatest story ever told. That's because it is.

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There is no story like this. With rebels like us and enemies like us and haters of God like us, the not righteous like us being chased down by a loving and merciful

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Holy God. There is nothing like it. No story will overcome that. It is the most glorious, beautiful thing in history and will remain that way.

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And here's what's important to get. If you and I reflect on the life and the death and the resurrection of the Messiah, we need to think about it in terms of, okay, my eternity depends upon my being united to this risen

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Savior by faith. So you have to ask the powerful and important and honest questions about Jesus.

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Think about what his claims are. There are so many today in our society that like aspects of the

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Christian faith in terms of love your neighbor as you love yourself. Be hospitable. Lay your life down for another.

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Greater love has no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends. Even the leftists love that.

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Even the rainbow wearing collar lady preachers in the local

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Methodist church love that story. They'll deny the rest of the scriptures, but they love that story.

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By the way, there's no such thing as a lady pastor. Everyone get clear on that? Just as an example. If we believe the

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Bible. But see, we don't like at times the actual claims of Christ.

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The actual claims of Christ that we need to contend with. We need to take them seriously. If we're going to focus on the resurrection and its meaning and its power, we need to think about the claims of Christ.

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It's a famous verse. You probably know it. You can finish it for me. John 14, 6, Jesus says,

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I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the

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Father but by me or except through me. Think about it.

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Think about how big that claim is. Think about how powerful that claim is. If Jesus is a charlatan, if he's a false messiah, if he's just one other example of man -made religion, then that claim is meaningless and it is so haughty and arrogant and destructive and deceptive.

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You can't put Jesus into the nice prophet category. He was just a good man, right?

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We like his moral teachings. Jesus had a good ethical system. We'll keep

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Jesus because we like some of the Christian teachings. Jesus doesn't allow you to do that. You can't do it.

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His resurrection doesn't allow you to place him in the corner of your life. He is either a ruler over your life, you come to die and rise again, or you don't come to him.

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Jesus makes the claim, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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Not a way, not one truth among many, not many versions of life.

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I am the only way, the truth, and the life. And Jesus says, no man, that is to say, no human being can come to the

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Father except through me. That means the only God, the eternal God, the everlasting

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God. That God will only allow passage to him, a passage of peace through Jesus Christ.

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We have to contend with that. That's the message of the Christian faith. Pluralism, not allowed.

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Many paths, not allowed. Jesus says that he is the exclusive way to peace with God.

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And his resurrection from the dead is a demonstration of the Father's stamp of approval upon the message of Jesus.

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He is raised, so you must listen to him. And Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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No man comes to the Father but by me. There is no other way than Jesus. So you must turn to him in faith.

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That's another meaning of the resurrection. His resurrection from the dead is a guarantee and approval.

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It is the assurance from the Father that this is my Messiah and his life is the only way to your life.

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That's the truth, the message of the gospel. Jesus makes other claims. We have to contend with it as we think about the resurrection.

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Jesus says, I am. In John 8, 24, Jesus makes a bold claim to Jewish people who know the

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Jewish story. They know the Jewish scriptures. They know God's name. They know there's only one

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God. And Jesus says to the people who know their scriptures, unless you believe

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I am, you will die in your sins. So he takes the divine name of God.

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The Jews are monotheistic. They believe there's only one God. It's part of their morning and evening prayers.

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They recite, there is only one God. The Shema, there is only one God. They know this.

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They're strict monotheists. They know the name of God. And they see it as so important and sacred that even to this day you'll have

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Jews that will not write the name of God. They'll change the name of God to show, quote, reverence for it.

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However, Jesus says to Jewish people who know their Bibles, unless you believe

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I am, you will die in your sins. He takes the divine name of God for himself, and he says it again later in John 8, 48 through 59,

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Jesus has this moment where he says to Jewish people who know their Bibles, before Abraham was,

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Ego eimi, I am. And they knew precisely what he was saying. They were confused by it.

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Many people today will try to distort the meaning of the text in the New Testament about Jesus taking the divine titles upon himself, but they knew.

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Jesus says before Abraham was, I am. And they pick up stones to kill him.

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Later they pick up stones to kill him again when he says, I and the Father are one. And he says to them, many good deeds have

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I shown you, from which of these do you stone me? And they said, for your good works we stone you not, but for blasphemy and that you being a man make yourself

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God. They knew exactly what he was saying. They knew exactly who he was. This is why after the resurrection you have these accounts where when they finally are confronted with the risen

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Christ, what's it say twice here? They worshipped him. They knew who he was, and Jesus doesn't allow us to put him in the category of just a moral man or just a great teacher.

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Jesus is God in the flesh. Now this section of scripture is important and you know it.

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You know it. As we reflect on the resurrection of the Son of Man, John 3 .16,

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more claims from Jesus. Just consider the weight of these teachings. Just consider the power of these teachings.

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Just consider the audacity of these teachings in certain contexts.

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John 3 .16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

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For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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Whoever believes in him is not condemned. Stop. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.

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Do you believe in him? Do you believe in him? You're not condemned. He took your condemnation.

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You'll never be condemned. That's the glory of the gospel. Sometimes we feel condemned.

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Sometimes we feel like a mess. Sometimes you reflect on your past and even your present.

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You think about what a mess you are and how you fall short and how awful you have been. The things that you have done.

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What you've participated in. What you've wanted. And even as a believer today, as God is sanctifying you, you think about what goes through your head at times.

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The thoughts that you think. The ways that we fall. The ways that we sin. And here's the promise of our

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Savior and you can believe him because of his resurrection at least. He says,

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Whoever believes in him is not condemned. But he also says, Whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only

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Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed.

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But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

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So those are the claims of Jesus. And we have to think how important it is to respond because Jesus says that he's the only way.

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We know that we're mortal. We could die at any moment. Our lives are fleeting.

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We have to respond and respond in a hurry. Just consider this. It's been said many times before in many different ways.

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A hundred years from now, 150 years from now, nobody's going to know who you are.

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You won't even be a memory in hardly any people's thinking. All of your stuff and all of my stuff will have either turned to dust or will be in somebody else's possession.

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You spend all your money down payments, mortgages, buying a home, and in a hundred years someone else is going to be living in it.

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Or you spend all your money, work so hard to buy a house, and as soon as you die, your kids are going to sell it to get the cash.

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Right? It disappears. The money in your bank account? Erased. Your house? Gone. I want you to think about this for a minute.

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How many of you guys know who your great -great -grandfather was? What was his name?

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Or how about your great -great -grandmother? How many of you know that? Raise your hand if you know it. Raise your hand. It might be some unique people in here.

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Some weirdos. Good. Okay. All right. Just joking. Okay. Most of us don't know, right? It was

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I think during COVID for the first time I had a little bit of time on my hands and I decided

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I'm going to figure out where I've come from and I had very little information because my family just hasn't talked a lot about it.

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So I had to dig and dig and dig and find things out and I found out that I have this uber -famous preacher in my history.

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One of the most famous orators before Congress in the history of our nation.

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He was an abolitionist against slavery. He was one of the most well -known circuit preachers.

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He has many books. He was told by the Vice President of the United States of America that as he preached before Congress he said,

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Sir, I hope you never preach another sermon again. Which bothered my grandfather and he said,

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Why? He said, Because that was the best sermon preached in the history of Christianity and I don't want you to ruin it.

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So I thought, Hey, that's pretty great. I have an old preacher in my, that's wonderful.

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Then I did some more digging and worked through not very many grandfathers and grandmothers to get back to the first Durban that came to the

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United States of America was Thomas Durban. And I'm related directly to him. And I'm like,

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Okay, what's his story? And really the only thing on record about Thomas Durban is that he signed some important documents and he was killed in an

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Indian raid. And that's his mark. That's the story of Thomas Durban, the first Durban to open to America.

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That's about all that you get from him, about a paragraph and nothing else is known about the guy. And as you move further and further back there's no story, there's no history.

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It's just names with no stories and nobody cares.

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And when you and I die no one's really going to care either. People will cry. People will be sad.

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Of course your family's going to be broken. But that will all pass after some time. People will go on living.

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You will just be a memory and then not very long you disappear from Earth's story.

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Most of us are like that. And so what are you living for? And more importantly what are you dying for?

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The meaning of Jesus, the message of Jesus is something you cannot avoid. Your eternity depends upon it.

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And today as we think about his resurrection we need to think about the meaning of that resurrection for the world and in our lives.

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And we have to also just announce this. You've heard it a million times before but it is the truth. If you're just coming into this conversation maybe for the first time or now you're really thinking

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God has opened your eyes maybe to this truth you have to consider these claims of Christ that he's the only way to salvation that he's

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God in the flesh. You have to consider the claims of Christ in light of the fact that C .S. Lewis said

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Jesus is either Lord, liar or lunatic. You can't put him anywhere else. So don't. Respond to him in one of those ways.

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You must. Because what Jesus claims being the only way to the Father being God in the flesh if he really wasn't if he really wasn't and he knew he wasn't he was deceiving people and he's a liar.

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He's not a good man. He's not a good moral teacher because he wasn't moral himself if he made those claims and knew he was lying and was deliberately deceiving people he was not a good man.

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He was not somebody to emulate. Or Jesus actually thought he was God but was not

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God. That makes him crazy. Don't follow a nutter. Amen? But if Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God's prophecies if Jesus is who he claimed to be that makes him

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Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Amen? And then we must bow and we will bow. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is

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Lord. You and I all will. Now we gotta think about the resurrection of Jesus in terms of more of its meaning in Acts chapter 17 the

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Apostle Paul once a skeptic and a persecutor of the Christians now he's a leader in the

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Christian church. He's living a difficult life. He says at one point that he's been beaten times without number he's been shipwrecked he's in danger every day.

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He lives a life of poverty, brokenness, persecution. Some of the content you have in the

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New Testament he writes basically in a dungeon and he ultimately has his head cut off.

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He's martyred for his faith that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. In Acts 17 the

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Apostle Paul goes to a very famous place in human history. It's Mars Hill, the

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Areopagus. This was the central place of philosophical debate and discussion.

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This is a famous space in history. People knew of this place. Now I personally think that Paul was probably being brought up here on preliminary charges for some of the things that he was saying.

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But hear the story in Acts 17 verse 16. Here's what it says.

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Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

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I think many of us need to be more provoked by the idolatry around us and that should lead to the kind of preaching that Paul gives to us here.

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So if you move ahead to verse 22 you'll see the result, the address.

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So Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.

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For as I pass along and observe the objects of your worship I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown

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God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

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The God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

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And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek

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God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

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For in him we live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said.

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For we are indeed his offspring. Being then God's offspring we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

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The times of ignorance God overlooked but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

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And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

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There's Paul's message. Paul turns the world upside down through his preaching of the gospel in the 1st century.

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Paul is that church planter extraordinaire in the 1st century planting churches faithfully on the run constantly in danger and the apostle

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Paul here gives us this beautiful moment of his proclamation of the gospel and the meaning of the resurrection. And I want us to think for a moment about how the apostle

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Paul talks about the resurrection of Jesus and its meaning before a pagan audience.

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Two points. And this is important. It's important in many ways but the practical one for me is

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I think one of the greatest blessings. Number one. According to the apostle

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Paul here Christ's resurrection is assurance from God that there will be a day of judgment.

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Stop and think about that. Stop and think about that. God has fixed a day.

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God has fixed a day. It's planned. It's coming.

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It will be here. There's a day of judgment. And the apostle Paul says that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is

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God's assurance of this. There will be a day of judgment.

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There's no escape from it. God is a just and a holy God. And though he extends his hand of love and grace and mercy though he is patient, he is long suffering there is a day fixed where the judge is going to bring the gavel.

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There is going to be a day of judgment. And Paul says that God commands men everywhere to repent.

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Turn from your sin. Turn your face towards God. Put your faith in Christ. God commands people everywhere to repent.

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And he's fixed a day. And it's coming. We can't escape it. And God assures us that day is coming.

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And it's this Jesus. He's raised him from the dead. And so my encouragement to all of us is to look deep.

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To think deep thoughts about the nature of your relationship with God. To think about your soul.

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Do you really have peace with God? Because you can try to deflect it. You can try to wave your hand at it.

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You can try to say, I don't need to think about it now. But none of us knows the day when the

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Lord will call us home. And whenever that is, there is a day of judgment where God is going to judge.

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There's a fixed day. So the call of the gospel is to repent and to believe the good news.

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The second point though. The day of judgment. This world is awful sometimes.

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It's awful. I saw I was talking today as we had dinner as a family.

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We had some friends over. I was talking about a horrible video that I saw a couple times came across this week of a

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New Mexico state trooper who was pulling a car over on the side of the road.

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I won't go into all the graphic detail. It was one of the worst, most murderous things I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen police shooting videos.

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You probably have too. It's scary. It's violent. All of that. It impacts you.

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You can't avoid it. But this was, this was something else. Police officer pulls a car over.

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He's on the passenger side of the car. He recognizes that the driver is wearing a gun on his waist. And he says, do you mind if I take that off of you while we have this conversation?

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And the guy says, sure. And so as the police officer starts to return to the back of the pickup truck to come around to the guy, the guy comes out the driver's side with a

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AR -15, a rifle of some sort. And like he had done it a million times, just started unloading this weapon into the officer.

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You can hear the horrific screams of the officer in his lifeless body. This man killed this other human being for absolutely nothing.

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For absolutely nothing. Our hearts are filled with so much darkness. I can't imagine what that man lost and how his family must have felt.

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Maybe he had kids. Maybe he had small children. Maybe he had just left dinner with his wife, kissed her and said,

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I'll see you tonight. And then this evil, murderous man just kills him like he was an insect.

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That's the world we live in. This stuff happens all the time because this world is filled with darkness and people love the darkness rather than the light.

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And there's more though. In each of our lives, if you've been in this world for any length of time, you've been hurt.

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You've been victimized. You've been broken in some way. You've been sinned against.

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Yes, you've sinned against others, but if you live in this fallen world, you will be hurt by others.

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And the hope I want to say in the resurrection also in terms of our peace with God, in terms of the peace of our own souls, is that there will be a day of judgment where all of these wrongs will be righted.

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Where all of it's going to be answered. Nothing is going to be missed. The judge of all the earth will always do right.

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And though people victimize and sin against and harm other human beings, there is a fixed day where Jesus returns and he answers all of it.

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And that's the hope that we have. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.

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Amen? There's our hope as believers. But Paul addresses the resurrection in his day and he says, this is

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God's assurance. He's raised him from the dead. There's a fixed day. There's going to be a final judgment.

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So repent. All of history is in the hands. And under the sovereign plan of the eternal

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God, according to the scriptures. And Paul says that here at the Areopagus, he points out that God has appointed times and boundaries.

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He's the sovereign over all things. He's not like your stupid idols. He's not like the gold and the silver.

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You take the stuff that God made and you build it into a little God. That's not the true God.

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This God's the only God. This God's the sovereign God. This God doesn't need your temples. This God doesn't need your hands.

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He made your hands. And this God raised Jesus from the dead. But all of history is in the hands of this sovereign

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God. Now, what's important to consider about the message of Jesus is that this message of Jesus is not something that was a novelty for them.

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It wasn't something that appeared out of nowhere. And oh, lo and behold, we have this amazing story of redemption where we have a

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Messiah who substitutes for his people and dies for sin and rises from the dead. This is all new.

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No, that was the expectation. And in Luke 24, 13 through 27, go read it later.

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It's a story of some very confused disciples on the road to Emmaus after the death of Jesus.

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Get this. These disciples were not people who were just ready to believe anything that Jesus said.

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You can see even in the text in front of you. You know it's honest eyewitness testimony because they say it.

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Some people believed and some doubted. The resurrected Jesus? I don't get it.

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These people actually see these things or even see Lazarus raised from the dead. They know he stinketh.

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They know he's been dead for days and he comes out and it says, some believed, some didn't believe.

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These aren't people who are just ready to fall into anything and on the road to Emmaus, you have some sad saps, confused disciples who are saying, oh,

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I thought he was a Messiah and we thought, we swear he was and he's dead now? Where have you been? And they're walking with Jesus.

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And Jesus' challenge to them is so important when you think about the meaning of the resurrection and the truthfulness of the

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Christian faith. When Jesus confronts them, he tells them that they're foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

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And he challenges them over the message of the resurrection. And says, wasn't it necessary because of what

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God had promised that the Messiah was gonna die and rise again? And in Luke 24, it says that Jesus takes them through Moses and the prophets and shows them everywhere it spoke of him.

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And you have to grapple with that. The prophecies, the details of the

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Messiah. Now, we don't have time today. Actually, we do. I didn't do a large opening. Let's do, I'm just, okay.

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We have a lot of messages on the

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Messianic prophecies of Jesus. Go back and pull some of those up.

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But in terms of the details of the Messianic king, the resurrection is not simply a demonstrable fact of history.

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Yes, it is. Yes, you can demonstrate clearly that this is eyewitness testimony.

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That it's eyewitness testimony that involves people that were skeptics and critics.

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It's eyewitness testimony that involves multiple groups of people. Sometimes 500 eyewitnesses of Jesus at once.

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You can talk about this as reliable historical testimony. Eyewitness testimony. You have, of course, external pagan and Jewish traditions and writings that confirm details about the death of Jesus, the burial of Jesus, and even stories of the resurrection of Jesus, the claims in the

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New Testament. They're all there. Yes. Internal evidence from the New Testament, the eyewitness testimony, external evidence.

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Yes, you can do Josephus and all those things. The principal witnesses to the resurrection were martyred for their claims.

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How many of you guys would die gruesome deaths for something you knew wasn't true? They died, flayed, burned in ovens, stabbed, killed, beheaded.

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To say that Jesus is Lord, that he's the only way to salvation, that he's risen from the dead.

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They knew whether that claim was true or not. And they sealed that with their blood.

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The many appearances to the risen Christ, small groups again, large groups, skeptics and believers.

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You can demonstrate all of that historically. Yes, we can talk about that. However, the resurrection of the

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Son of Man is the most, most importantly, is something that God himself foretold in the

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Old Testament and in the ministry of Jesus. Think about what happened there on the road to Emmaus.

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He took them through the prophets and said, wasn't it necessary?

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Because God had already said, wasn't it necessary that this would happen? And you're foolish.

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You're foolish for not believing it. You're slow of heart to believe. The message of Jesus and his life and death and resurrection is something that God said was going to happen.

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And just for today, just a piece today, let's look at the text itself. A couple of the texts. Go to Psalm 22.

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Tim did an amazing job giving this with passion as we think today and reflect on the resurrection and rejoice in it.

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Think about Psalm 22. This song that was sung by God's people long before the crucifixion of Jesus begins with,

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Doesn't that sound familiar? Limited things that Jesus said from his trial to the crucifixion.

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Limited things. Said very, very little. Very little. One of the things that we know, he said,

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it's interesting because he's on the cross. He's dying.

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He's in pain. He's been brutalized. People are mocking him. And we know according to scripture that the

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Father is counting him as guilty. Even though he wasn't. The Lord is laying on him the iniquity of us all.

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He's suffering in a way we cannot possibly understand. He's suffering in a way that I should. And he says,

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And we've said this so many times before because it's powerful. My God, my

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God, why have you forsaken me? As Jesus said that, they should have finished the song. There were

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Jewish people and leaders at the foot of that cross. They knew their scriptures. This was the Jewish hymnal.

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These were their songs. They sang this song before. And now here we have Jesus starting that first verse for them.

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Not only was it true for him, but he starts the song. And if they would have started singing along, they would have been singing about the very events unfolding before them because the text says in verse 6,

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But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me.

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They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him.

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Let him rescue him for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb.

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You made me trust you at my mother's breast. On you I was cast from my birth and from my mother's womb you have been my

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God. Be not far from me for trouble is near and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me.

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Strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion.

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I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax.

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It has melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue sticks to my jaws.

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You lay me in the dust of death. So much here that's been part of their singing for so long and they had no idea.

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They had no idea that this was the passion of their own Messiah. Of course you connect to things here as God's people.

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There's some of these Psalms. It just goes right to your heart. You say, Father, that's how I feel and that's what I want and God, would you deliver me?

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And yes, that's what the Word of God does. Sometimes it's written not about you but for you.

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Yes, but this is about Jesus and Jesus, it was his bones that were not broken.

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They broke the bones of the criminals on the crosses next to Jesus. But not his bones, but his bones were out of joint.

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His heart like wax melted within his breast. They pierced his side to make sure that he was dead and blood and water poured out demonstrating they pierced his heart sack.

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Jesus said, I thirst. My tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death.

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Jesus was killed. For dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me.

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They have pierced my hands and feet. They have pierced my hands and feet.

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A description of crucifixion before crucifixion is even a thing. I can count all my bones.

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They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots.

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There's the darkness of the passion. There is that moment of death and despair. And then the psalm turns from darkness and pain and death and the psalm turns.

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But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid.

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Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion.

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You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation.

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I will praise you. He goes from the dust of death to telling of God's name to his brothers.

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To his brothers. You who fear the Lord, praise him.

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All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him. All you offspring of Israel.

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And then the text says, verse 27, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the

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Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before you for kingship belongs to the

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Lord and he rules over the nations. Does that not sound like Matthew 27 and 28?

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Right there. The ruler of the earth, all authority. Go get the nations. Jesus telling you, go tell my brothers.

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It's all here. He is the messianic king. He was going to be laid in the dust of death and then he would tell of God's name to his brothers and all the families of the earth would return to worship

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Yahweh. Stop, and I love to do this. Stop and look around this room for a second. Now, yes, we do live in the valley so there's a lot of white faces in here.

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Okay? And that's okay. But also look around. Look at the differences. Look at the backgrounds.

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Look at the different colors. Look at this beautiful tapestry in one space in the desert testifying to God saving the nations.

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Right in front of us. One congregation. How many of you guys are descended from Israel physically?

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You are ethnically Jewish. Raise your hands. So we got one, two, three.

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Three. Three. And the rest of us descended from pagan parents.

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Right? Think about it. Now, some of us have Christian parents. I get that.

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I'm talking about way back when. We got guys like Luke that's like related to the Vikings. Those are some murderous guys.

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Okay. Definitely pagan. Right? Running into a village to destroy people like completely nude.

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And there are some crazy pagans. Right? We got some bad ancestry in us. Mostly Luke.

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But we have some. Most of us. I still don't know if we can fully trust him.

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Okay? We're keeping an eye for your sake. But you get the point.

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All the families of the earth will return to worship Yahweh. That's the result of the passion of the Messiah.

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So the resurrection is something that Jesus said was something they should have understood. It was in their

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Bibles. They're foolish and slow of heart not to believe it. Final thing we're going to do today is

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Isaiah 53. As we celebrate the resurrection of the Son of Man. Not the whole passage.

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Read it later if you haven't. In verse 4 of 53.

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A text written about 700 years before Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

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In verse 4 it says, Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

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Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Is that not the testimony of what they were thinking at the foot of the cross?

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Jesus is actually dying for the sins of God's people. And they thought He was dying for His own sins.

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They thought He was a false Messiah. They thought He was a deceiver. They wanted

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Him out of the way. So they're at the foot of the cross mocking Jesus. And yet He was bearing the sin and the grief and the sorrows of God's people.

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And they thought He was dying for His own sins. In verse 5 it says, But He was pierced for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

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And with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.

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We have turned everyone to His own way. And here it is. And I don't comprehend this.

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I'm not going to pretend to. I never will. I believe it.

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It's beautiful. It's glorious. I cannot comprehend it. It's true. And the

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Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

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One of the things that we need to understand about Jesus and His identity is from John 1.

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In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was

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God. The same was in the beginning with God. It teaches there in John that He created all things.

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Without Him nothing came into existence. It's come into existence. And then it says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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Talk about Jesus is the monogamous theos. He is the unique and one of a kind God in the bosom of the

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Father. The identity of Jesus is Jesus is the eternal Son with the

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Father from all eternity. And I don't comprehend this. I don't.

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I believe it with all my heart. I know that it's true. It is true.

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I do not comprehend it. That the Father would lay on Jesus.

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The one He was in perfect fellowship for all eternity. My sin.

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But I'm the guilty one. I'm the rebel. How could

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He love me that much? That doesn't make any sense. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

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The Father was in perfect unity and fellowship with the Son for all eternity.

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And it says that He was pierced through from my sins. That the Lord laid on Him my sins.

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There is no deeper, more magnificent display of love than that. It's the greatest story ever told.

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You're never going to beat it. You'll never overcome it. You're never going to outdo it.

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The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. That's substitutionary atonement.

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He's my substitute. And the context of this story, it makes no sense.

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You see, you won't delight or take pleasure in this story. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

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If you think that you're basically good so far as it goes. If you think you're kind of a righteous person.

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You're not as bad as that guy down there. But if you see your sin the way that God says that it truly is.

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That you deserve hell and condemnation for all eternity and only justice. If you see how unrighteous you truly are compared to a holy

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God. Then this will be incomprehensible to you. It'll be something that you'll be trying to examine for all eternity.

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The Lord laid on Him my sin? It's incomprehensible.

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And it says this. He was oppressed and He was afflicted. Yet He opened not His mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.

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And like a sheep that before it shears is silent. So He opened not His mouth. One of the things that's so shocking in Jesus' passion.

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Is that they can't figure out. Like why won't you say something? Why won't you speak up for yourself?

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Why won't you defend yourself? And Jesus could have. They're bringing false witnesses together to testify against Jesus.

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And they can't even get their stories right. And they're trying their darndest to do it.

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And it's still obvious to the judges. Yeah these stories aren't matching. This isn't working.

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And even Pilate's like give me something. Give me something Jesus. Say something.

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I have the power to let you go. Give me something. I don't want this to happen to you. Give me something. And Jesus says you don't have any power except that which is given to you.

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By God. Jesus knew what He was doing. He knew why He was coming. And in Matthew's Gospel before He comes into Jerusalem.

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To cleanse the temple that second time. He says this is why I'm going. I'm going to Jerusalem. I'm going to die.

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And I'm going to rise again. He knows exactly why He's going. He's like a sheep. He's like a lamb.

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He is going willingly. He's not fighting it. He's going and laying

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His life down as a substitute. By oppression. Listen closely. And judgment.

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He was taken away. And as for His generation. Who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living.

01:00:03

There's the death of the Messiah. And not just that He's going to die. But why

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He's going to die. For the transgressions of God's people. Cut off.

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Out of the land of the living. Stricken for the transgression of My people. And they made

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His grave with the wicked. And with the rich man and his death. You can't help but make the comparison.

01:00:27

To Jesus dying with criminals. And being buried in a rich man's tomb. Although. Listen. He had done no violence.

01:00:35

And there was no deceit in His mouth. What's that mean? Isaiah says this one who's coming.

01:00:41

Who's going to be cut off and die for the sins of God's people. He's not guilty. Isaiah is even telling you here.

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And he's not even like me. Because when Isaiah in this very book. Is confronted with the holiness of God.

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What does he do to his mouth? When he has that glorious scene.

01:01:00

Holy. Holy. Holy. When he has that glorious scene. What's he do?

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I'm a man of unclean lips. The same

01:01:14

Isaiah says here. He has no deceit. No deceit in His mouth. He's innocent.

01:01:21

So we know in Isaiah 53. 700 years before the coming of Christ. This one who's coming is dying for the sins of God's people.

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He's cut off out of the land of living. And then it says. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

01:01:34

He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring.

01:01:42

He shall prolong his days. He dies for the transgressions of God's people.

01:01:50

And then what? He sees his offspring. He prolongs his days. There is testimony to the resurrection.

01:01:59

Long before it happens. But finally. And here's where we're ending.

01:02:08

Verse 11. Out of the anguish of his soul. He shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one.

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My servant. Make many to be accounted. Righteous.

01:02:23

And he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many.

01:02:29

And he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because he poured out his soul to death. And was numbered with the transgressors.

01:02:38

Yet he bore the sin of many. And makes intercession for the transgressors.

01:02:44

There it is. Life, death, resurrection. The resurrection of the

01:02:50

Messiah. You think about the resurrection and the many meanings that it has.

01:02:58

It's so big. What it says about the future of the world. This is not a throw away.

01:03:05

We don't believe in Gnosticism. This is not a cursed creation that's never going to be fully resurrected and redeemed.

01:03:11

That's not true. We're not going to die and live in some spiritual ghastly existence for all eternity.

01:03:17

And leave all this material world behind us. No, Jesus' resurrection demonstrates that that is a fiction.

01:03:24

Jesus comes to restore, redeem, resurrect. What's heaven going to be like after the resurrection?

01:03:30

It's heaven and earth back together once again. I hope you like this world because you're going to be living in it. Resurrected, glorious, no sin, no pain, no shame, no curse, no nothing.

01:03:40

Jesus' resurrection guarantees that Gnosticism is stupid and untrue. Christians need to stop believing it.

01:03:47

We need to stop believing ideas like Jesus rose again from the dead so I can go disappear to heaven one day and God throws this world away.

01:03:55

Can we once and for all be done with Gnosticism? From the very beginning, one of the greatest enemies of the

01:04:00

Christian church. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates that this idea of just dying and disappearing into the spiritual world and leaving us behind as the trash heap of history.

01:04:11

The resurrection demonstrates that's a fiction. That's not Christian. We need to abandon it. Jesus' resurrection demonstrates that God cares about the material universe and your material body as much as He cares about the spiritual.

01:04:25

Heaven and earth united together. Your bodies, my body, will be resurrected like His body.

01:04:36

And some of us are like, I hope it looks better than it does now. And it will.

01:04:41

I believe that. But the resurrection of Jesus is also God's stamp of approval that He is going to judge the world in righteousness.

01:04:49

There will be a final judgment so repent and believe. But the resurrection of Jesus is foretold here in Isaiah 53 and here's what it says.

01:04:59

He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. He poured out His soul to death. Is He your

01:05:06

Savior? Is He your Savior? Have you turned from sin to God?

01:05:12

To put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord? Are you trusting in Him and Him alone for forgiveness and salvation?

01:05:21

Is He the source of your righteousness and your standing in your peace before God? Yes, Jesus is love.

01:05:33

Yes, He is filled with mercy. Yes, He is meek. But He's also mighty and holy and judge and He is justice.

01:05:43

So the call of the Gospel is to repent and believe.

01:05:49

Turn to Christ and live. Receive Christ. Receive the one who will intercede on behalf of sinners.

01:05:56

Receive the one who is crushed for our iniquities. Receive the one who is pierced through for our transgressions.

01:06:02

Receive the one who will take away all your condemnation. Come to Christ and live.

01:06:08

Let's pray. Thank you God for your word. Thank you for the resurrection.

01:06:14

We praise you God. Please bless the proclamation of your word that went out today for your glory and kingdom.

01:06:20

Thank you Jesus that you are alive. And because you live, we will live also.

01:06:26

We confess you as our Lord, our Savior, our God and our King. Jesus, you're everything to us.