Living In Light Of The Resurrection - [Romans 1:2-4]

The Resurrection as the Core of Christian Life and Ministry

Amen, it's good to be here and especially on Easter. The core of all that we are and our standing that Christ has come. He became our mediator and he crushed our sin and he defeated it in that final victory.

He's resurrected from the dead. That's why we live. And that's why we preach and that's why we minister. That's the energy of my work in India. I know yours too as a Servant of God a child of God and we have been there for 12 years now.

And I think you you guys have been supporting us almost that whole time. It's it's hard to believe I feel like I'm 12 years old and I've been there for 12 years but we have Sent out now in India and there's a few Indians out there.

I can see hello. We've sent out in India To the great need of the harvest there of people that are lost in Hinduism 80 Hindus That don't know Christ and are lost in invisible idols. Even we have sent out 37 soldiers for Jesus Christ in the last 12 years and we want to send several hundred more.

So keep praying for us. We had our graduation on February 23rd Just recently and it's always an emotional time because we're just realizing that it's the work of God that he chooses men and Gifts them to the church and that we get to be part of that and we sent them out and there's so many amazing stories.

All of our men have been given ministries already that they're going to to to mostly plant new churches. I'll give you an example one of our men that we graduated this year Vijay Kumar. He has since he was studying at PTS been just so convicted by The heritage that we have of being able to translate the text we teach them Greek and Hebrew and he was visiting Different mission areas and he he got just fell in love with the need at a tribe that's on the India Pakistan border predominantly Buddhist the Brock Brock pot tribe and they Don't even know how to read or write in their own language.

It's only a spoken language. There's many tribes like this several thousand of them in India, so Vijay he's gonna get married next month and then in June he and his wife who's a nurse in India to look after him when they get snowed in over there for six months.

That's you know, God's way of just keeping them there. They want to over the next ten years they want to teach this people how to read and write through translating the Gospels and Then because God's Word is powerful to see a church raised up there as the gospel Visits that place and Christ is known in that place and and that's the kind of thing that we want to keep doing till he comes.

So that more and more people may worship him as the risen Savior just as we're doing this morning. I was training pastors Just recently. We had a pastor's seminar in Goa. That's where we're based and I was as I was preparing for it.

I got my kids around, you know I like them to get involved in our ministry and I said I have four kids my oldest is eight I said. So give me your ideas on preaching. And it was fun and my youngest Micah he youngest boy.

He said daddy Preaching needs to be short. You need to smile. Sure and then Hannah my my oldest daughter she said and daddy needs to be about Jesus and That hit the nail on the head. I was like, thank you.

I'm glad you're learning that. I'm trying to learn that too. Because if we don't preach Christ and his death and his resurrection, we got nothing to preach. We got nothing to help people with and Paul said that especially on Easter as we say Christ is risen.

He said if Christ is not risen my preaching is in vain. It's it's garbage I believe that and Our faith is in vain, but he's saying that in the sense of that's The whole sense of all that we are and all that we do and that's why our preaching is so alive.

It's not vain and this morning. I want to do that in a very special way. Focus on how Christ is all that we believe and all that we rest in. Especially in his doing and his dying and so turn to Romans chapter 1 and Verses 2 through 4 and I'm going to start with verse 1.

But we're really going to look at verses 2 through 4 as Paul speaks the Apostle Paul Speaks about this gospel that was delivered to him through Christ himself. Romans chapter 1 starting in verse 1. Paul a bondservant of Christ Jesus.

Call as an apostle. Set apart for the gospel of God. Which he promised beforehand and that gospel being his son being Jesus Christ, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh and Who was declared the Son of God with power By the resurrection from the dead.

That's what we're celebrating every Sunday that we meet according to the Spirit of Holiness Jesus Christ our Lord do you sense the the the drive that Paul has to say nothing that I am nothing that I say and nothing that I do is Anything except for Christ the gospel he says in verse 2 and and 3 is concerning his son and Then he summarizes it with this great triumphant cry at the end Jesus Christ our Lord.

I want to speak and and live nothing else and there's a sense in which as Christians We need to discover that lifeblood again and again and have the gospel preached to ourselves. It's fascinating that as Paul is writing the book of Romans, which is the Magna Carta of the gospel he's writing to believers in Rome because they need to be Rooted in Christ and in this gospel for them to be able to speak to others about Christ.

We need to know Christ in this way as the core of our lives to know Christ is to live. To not know him is to die. Even in temporary ways as Saints we struggle when we don't know him enough. I was counseling with my dad just recently a lady in his church and she was Really scared because she was going to go into surgery and the details aren't important, but she was scared.

And I remember just listening to my dad. He's isn't 60s and he said to her You know, it's sin For you to be scared. Oh, he can say this. I said that I'd be in trouble and then he went on to say to her, you know what you should really be scared about and and Fearful off is that the doctors in India?

They're so good. They're gonna save your life and You're not gonna get to see Jesus. My mouth felt like oh my what's she gonna do now and then she started crying and she said that's so I just wasn't Thinking about the fact that there is nothing that Jesus hasn't gone before me and especially the fact that he is risen.

Death doesn't have a hold over me anymore. When we think like this when Christ is all that we are and all that we know we live. Because he lives and there's three ways in which this text helps us even this resurrection Sunday to know Christ.

In this invigorating way, there's three ways we need to know him. Stop knowing ourselves. Stop knowing our circumstances stop even knowing, you know, just human beings even your spouse as great as they may be.

They can't help you live. Like Christ does that's Christianity. There's three ways. We need to know Christ in the first way. In verse two is we need to know him as the hope of Scripture. He's the hope and the promise and the aspiration of of all of Scripture that's what Paul says the first way in which you can know Christ and in which Christ can just be supreme and and central and just Satisfying in all that you do.

Especially after Sunday, it's easy to sing songs on Sunday, but to sing a song in the trials of life. That's hard, but Christ as he is known can help us be there and do that and The first way that he helps us to do that.

It's very interesting is through a view of him in the prophets in the scriptures. That's what it says in verse 2 which he promised and this is speaking about Christ the gospel. Who was promised? Beforehand through the prophets and Paul is first pointing the Christian or even the depressed human being to say see Christ.

But not in a in a physical manifestation because that's what we would normally crave right or a vision or a dream. But he's saying see him and it's interesting because that's so different from how we normally think.

I live in an area I think even as you do I live in an area in India, which is predominantly Roman Catholic and I Was actually at a wedding recently where my Catholic landlady had invited me her daughter was getting married and and her son sat Down with me afterwards and this is true in India, and he just said to me.

He said Sammy why is it that? There's just no life and and the priest is so hard to deal with and he was going through some struggles, I guess and I said, you know, it's because. They don't see Christ they don't know Christ and they're seeing all these physical idols and manifestations and pictures of him and Because of how idolatrous we get.

We only see that and we're enamored with that when with with superficial features that we don't see Christ. Christ knows that weakness there is going to be one day when we're gonna see him in the fullness of his glory.

But he knows this this Insufficiency and weakness that we have of being lost just in the physical and he says I want you to know me Spiritually first and you can know me that way in the scriptures. That's why we've been given 66 books.

It is great that my friend Luke 24 because it shows that doesn't it? Jesus is meeting with Cleopas and the depressed disciples. It's a good name for a rock group and they were You know discouraged because everything had gone wrong in their minds and and their Savior who had been with them for three and a half years was dead now in their minds and Jesus visits them because he's that kind of Christ.

He's that kind of Messiah and I would think that what he would do would be to say ta-da here I am be encouraged. That's what I would do in counseling. But he doesn't he hides himself from them why. See, he's a Savior that knows our our frame and our weakness.

We're idolatrous people even in the way in which we approach him and he gave them scripture. Because scripture shows you Christ the prophets show you Christ as you look at Genesis and you see the seed of the woman shall crush the serpent said it in Abraham seed all the nation shall be blessed a sacrificial system.

You have no righteousness of your own. You need a righteousness. That's only in Christ all the prophets and all the scriptures are Sermons that take you to the cross and to Christ and to hope in him in a clearer way than anything else.

Isn't that amazing? God gives us what we need now what we want and don't ever neglect. This great tool that you have in your own soul as a ballast as a Christian if you're depressed if you're discouraged today the first Place you need to go to know Christ and see Christ is in the scriptures.

If you have a loved one that is just blind and lost. There's nothing that's more Promising and life-giving and even Gospel enabled than the scriptures to point to Christ, right? We believe that. That's why it says at the end of this verse He promised Christ through all the scriptures and these are what kind of scriptures.

They're not weak scriptures. They're holy scriptures. They're powerful. To aim to be able to make dead wretched sinners holy because the Spirit attends them. Love scriptures for this. I love to I love to preach because I just think you know, I'm not a great preacher.

But I just love the fact that I get to preach the holy scriptures and die to myself and most of the time I get more Rejuvenated than anybody else. It's a privilege to handle the scriptures. It's a privilege to have this in our hands and To be able to give this as life to dead dead people.

So that they can live. My my youngest son Micah he came to me a few weeks ago. And I was busy with something else. I wasn't really paying attention to him and he said daddy I wasn't really listening to him till he said this.

He said daddy my heart has exploded. So I put what I was doing down. What's going on? I said, where are you getting these ideas from? Mommy just was teaching us the night before because we go through scriptures with our kids.

Romans 3 11. There's this is the prophets right? This is the Psalms. There's no one righteous not even one. Our tongues are just filled with lies all the time. He says daddy I just keep praying and the sin just doesn't go and and and my heart is exploding.

And so I prayed with him and I was just so encouraged by the fact. My son is not saved. I long for my kids to be saved but God is is working in them through the power of Holy Scriptures and taking them to See their insufficiency in the sufficiency of Christ.

There's nothing better Than the Holy Scriptures in taking us to Christ and this morning I'm praying that that you as a Christian or even if you don't know Christ. You would see Christ because I can't make you see Christ through my stories and my testimonies and many Theatrics that I can do except through the scriptures.

There's nothing more powerful. I Pray you will see Christ this morning and I know you will. The next two verses show us how scriptures point to Christ. We know him Not only as the the hope of scriptures but verse 2 Goes on then to go into verse 3 the help.

He's not just the hope of scriptures, but specifically he's the help for sinners. He's the Savior That comes to the aid of the broken of the destitute. Of the downtrodden. He loves those kinds of people.

I was Convicted when I was reading About Jesus after a long day of ministry in Mark's gospel. Maybe speaking to ten thousand fifteen thousand. He gets with his disciples in a boat and you know that story and he was tight.

He was so tired he fell asleep and and I Was always curious Why did Jesus get into that boat at the end of the ministry and crossed the lake and it was because there was one man across that lake the gathering demon That Christ wanted to deliver.

That's the kind of Savior years and I'm that man. I was lost in sin. It doesn't matter how visibly manifest it is. I mean sin is just Visible in our hearts and and Christ came and he identified with us that that was Christmas, right?

He he was a son that became the seed of David that identified with us in every way so that he could Conquer our our sin and our weaknesses and deliver us from those shackles. That's why we live. Because we have this kind of a God we have this kind of a Savior who loves to help sinners.

And if you're thinking this day, I'm I'm lost and I'm hopeless and I'm discouraged. That's good. If you think you got it together you don't need Christ and he's the help of sinners because This verse starts off with saying he is strong when we are weak concerning the son.

What does that mean? It's not talking about how we normally talk when we say, you know, he's my son in terms of a father-son relationship. But this is a way of speaking in Scripture. Even God spoke like this eternally.

There was never a time when the Sun was not the Sun and song to eternally. God said you are my son. The Bible speaks of people being sons of thunder and that doesn't mean there was a guy named thunder that had sons.

But it's talking about the fact that these guys were thunderous and boisterous like a good preacher should be. When Jesus is called the Son of God It's saying that he is One who has all of God's nature in him.

There's nothing that is In God that is not in Christ. He's full of all that God is in holiness and righteousness and power and might and he brings that To us by becoming like us. That's why he's the rescuer of sinners.

No, no other mediator can save men because they're not as mighty as Jesus, right? No Gandhi or or whoever else Nelson Mandela and all these human heroes we have are like this because They were men. They were sinners.

But Christ was strong where we were weak. That's why we preach him and him alone and he is strong. Where sinners are weak? You know if you if you struggle with loneliness Christ brought His identification to understand everything that you struggle.

That's what the writer of Hebrews says. He understands Rejection from even family members. He understands well death itself and and the amazing thing about this is his strength and his identification as it says here who was born of a descendant of David and Yes, that's a sense of the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament.

But I think in this verse it's speaking very simply about the fact that he became a man. He became a mediator. He became like us for Jesus to become a descendant of David is not a great thing. It's actually lowering himself.

And we didn't think of it in that way. He was a son who became a descendant according to the flesh and I think that's what it's talking about is that he had this glory and he he he laid the exercise of that glory so that he could identify with us and our our wretchedness and our loneliness and our ultimately our death and our sin according to the flesh in every way the writer of Hebrews says He became a high priest that sympathized with our weaknesses and yet was without sin.

In a sense Jesus understands the flesh. More than I do the struggles of man more than I do. Because I go through temptation like even small things like having stray dogs around my house. We have a stray dog problem and it it just takes five minutes of them howling in the night and I pull out my gun.

I Can't last for more than five minutes. I get irritated. I give up but it says Jesus Identified with all those struggles and that's a stupid struggle, but he identified with greater struggles and he he didn't give up.

He was without sin. That sonship was seen in his victory over all the temptations that we had and and he lived This life of sinlessness in the midst of this sinful world. That's what's amazing about Jesus.

There's no one like him. That's why he could bear our sin. And that's why he's the wonderful counselor and that's why he's the sufficient Redeemer. Jesus is a help for sinners and this Morning, I don't know where you find your help in.

Whether it's your your resources or the people around you you need to stop doing that because they will all fail. Even other Christians they will fail. This is why sometimes we struggle so much as Christians, right?

Because we're we're depending after a while even on human things instead of that fountainhead of strength and of counsel and of Righteousness and of substitution and it's Jesus and Jesus alone. We need to run to for sinners in time of need as we go to the scriptures.

And as we see Christ and we see all that he has done for us. He encourages our hearts, doesn't he? And he lifts us up through all that he is for us sinner run to him. But he didn't only Stop there praise God.

He didn't just identify with our weaknesses and ultimately According to the flesh even die that death in the flesh that we deserved and we we celebrated that on Good Friday. And it's Good Friday not bad Friday because in that death He actually took our sin and he crushed it in six hours on the cross as he cried out my god my god.

Why has thou forsaken me and that was our sin? He was forsaken for so that we could be seen with favor. Praise God. He went on to give the final full stop and this is all the gospel, right? He is born according to the flesh and then he was raised according to the Holy Spirit.

That's the full stop of salvation. That's where we keep looking towards as he he died. He he defeated that death through the resurrection and He's a living Savior. That's what's different about Christ compared to any other person that has tried to help sinners and people in this world.

Many people have died, but nobody has been raised from the dead. All great heroes have tombstones. Jesus doesn't not only is the the help of sinners, but he's the holiness of the Saints. We can't live through anything else, but a Savior who lives every day for us.

That's what he says in verse 4 son of God. According with power by the resurrection from the dead. According to the spirit of holiness and I'm I'm camping on that last phrase and I'll get to it a little bit.

But it's the spirit of holiness and there was an affirmation in the resurrection that Jesus's Righteousness was stronger than our sin. He's our holiness not only is he the one that bears our sin, but he's the one that gives us righteousness.

That's what the Spirit was saying in the resurrection. There's a positive side that we need to end on he's our holiness. And we have no holiness apart from him, you know, I used to struggle with this even as a man training and ministry one one Specific way was in the way.

I used to get really nervous about preaching when I was in school in seminary. I would shake I would sweat I would tremble I would learn ways to hide that but you know It was always there bug me and my professor saw it praise God.

And he came up to me and he said, you know the reason you're preaching is struggling is because you're preaching to prove yourself before men and you need to Recognize that you're a fool. The only thing valuable they have to give people is Christ and his righteousness you keep even you're preaching it's it's it's it's not.

It's not valuable. It's not valuable and the day I realized that I wasn't valuable and The more I am seen as a fool and Christ is seen as magnificent people grow. I stopped shaking. That's really what it means for us to understand this, you know.

That we have righteousness only through the life of Christ and we're glad To be insufficient. It's the gospel and the first way we can we can Know Christ in this way is by resting in his holiness. Look at what he says who was declared The Son of God now, it's very important.

We saw in verse 3 already that Christ was the Son of God eternally and We need to keep that in mind. There was not a time when he was not equal with God ever. He was eternally God and he brought that to redemptive work his strength.

So what is it talking about in verse 4 when it says he was declared to be the Son of God and I think the key Phrase really is the phrase in power He was seen in the fullness of his glory. Nothing changed about him nothing changed about him intrinsically, but what changed was the way in which we saw him as He was raised from the dead as he was raised from the dead He was seen in the fullness of his glory that he had actually veiled and he had actually Let lie low so that he could be a redeemer for sinners.

That was the only reason why Jesus's glory was not seen while he was here on this earth. It's so that he could go to the cross and he could die for you. Wondrous love this is right and it comes up in in different occasions.

One of my favorite places to see this is in John 18 When a cohort of soldiers go to arrest Jesus, I guess that's about 500, you know hardened soldiers Going to arrest one man. There's something going on there, you know that shows us they were frightened and Good reason to be frightened as they go Jesus meets them.

He's purposed it's he's sovereign and he says who do you seek and they said we're seeking Jesus and he just said very simply I am. Those were that was the voice that had created the universe those were words that were spoken to Moses in the burning bush and There was such intrinsic power even in this incarnate Christ That those men 500 hardened soldiers fell down in a sense They fainted if Jesus had had exercised the fullness of all that he was as the Son of God in glory and in power.

They wouldn't have been able to keep him on that cross. He created that cross. He created the centurion he created that mountain and It's an amazing mystery that he he did exercise his power and his strength and he allowed himself to die for you and me.

But then in the resurrection that stopped praise God he was declared to be who he really was. Because he had finished his work. Is that so encouraging to to just know Christ? I I don't even have to make application.

This is just so. It's encouraging to know Christ in all that he is to us and. And so the first thing Paul is saying is he's saying we need a rest in this righteousness. And we need to rest in this Savior and you need to stop just thinking about what you can do and you need to be.

Thinking about the power of Christ that is always made manifest to us in the fact that he's the conqueror of death. Just makes us live. I. It was a year ago I was at the deathbed of The 70 year old Catholic lady her children used to come To our church and so they had asked me to just spend some time with her.

She was dying of leukemia and I just talked to her about Christ and I said you have no righteousness of your own. It's the most loving thing to tell somebody that's dying. And and you have nothing in your works and your church attendance and all the ceremonies that you've gone to because that's all Filthy rags filled with pride the only thing that you have to give Jesus is your sin and he gives you his righteousness.

And I was just sharing that with her and and I said, do you understand this. She said yes and she said I want to pray. This was after a few hours of talking. She was dying. She was weak. She looked she looked frail.

She was 70 and she grabbed my hand as she thought about this Christ Who is the Son of God in power raised for her sins and she raised herself up, you know. That's how invigorating Christ can be you can be in the grave and you can laugh at it and she prayed.

She died three days later, but she's not dead. She's at the right hand with Christ in him. Because he defeated her death being a part of that kind of reconciling message. That's what Jesus has done in me.

That's what he can do in you. He's powerful over all your tragedy and all your sin. As you rest in him he's declared we need to rest in this declaration this declaration is not for him it's for us every day.

To know Christ is risen and he's declared to be the Son of God with power. And what is this power? It was seen in the resurrection. But it's a power that's expressed at the end of this verse as a power that is affirmed by the Spirit of Holiness.

That's an interesting phrase. It's a power that is expressed to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit. There's really two Aspects to his ministry and his work and one is that he creates life. Therefore.

He's he's influential even in the resurrection. He creates life even at creation physically and then he creates life every time a sinner is saved and he regenerates us. But he creates life and this is something I didn't think of before I went to this verse.

He creates life because he's the Spirit of Holiness that life comes from righteousness. The righteousness of God that is able to to wipe away the sting of death. Which comes from sin? See we think of life and death and we're just thinking of them physically and God thinks of them as holiness and sin.

Sin is death and holiness is life and and the power of Christ that is ours the life of Christ that is ours is a life of holiness before I was dark and dead and and just lost and now Christ has given me his robes of righteousness and that's why I live and The resurrection is a mark of that holy life that Christ has for you and me through the Spirit.

We need to rest in this Righteousness you see. It's not an abstract power. It's a power that's connected to to the life every day that you can have now in your broken marriage where you can actually Die to yourself and love your wife because Christ has shown you how in your work.

Where you can be enabled to live in new ways and in ways that are above reproach. Because not you have any righteousness, but because Christ has made you alive. You see. It's an everyday kind of practical life.

But the Spirit of holiness affirmed in Christ and is now giving to us we rest in this righteousness That comes from Jesus our Lord. I don't know where you are as a as a believer even this morning. Sometimes we can tend to as we grow more and more In in the Christian life become more independent and that's the worst thing that can happen our old pride coming back again.

And Christ is saying even this morning Be dependent on me and me alone, or you'll die. Even today, and if you don't know Christ this morning, I pray that this morning you realize that you have no sufficiency in yourself in your efforts in your resources and that you are Dying today in your sin, and you have a Redeemer that has made himself Available for you to to give you life where you have death through his fleshly Mediatorship and through his spiritual resurrection that gives you the will to live every day.

That's the only way that sinners can may you know that today. I have a friend That I think even Mike knows his name is Steve Fernandez. He's a pastor. He's been a pastor for 30 years. I just spent some time with him Last week and he's got a brain tumor.

I got an interesting email Easter email this morning. Saying the doctors are saying he might have only a few days more to live through all the chemo he's. He's just continuing to get worse and that again is God's sovereignty, but It was so encouraging when I went to meet him.

I said Steve how you doing, and he grabbed my hand and he can only be with you for about five seconds, and he said I want to preach Christ again in India Sammy. I'm gonna get on a plane. He's not thinking about death because he's there and he knows that death is conquered.

He knows that Christ is his life. He knows that Christ is his righteousness. And I I walked away from that and said Lord help me to die like that because you can live in the valley of death Because of how powerful Christ and when you do that God will use you when you live through yourself.

He won't use you. But when you die to yourself and Christ lives in you You will become a beacon of the gospel So that many would know again this resurrection Savior till he comes again. He is may he come soon Father God we thank you so much for the encouragement that we get as weak broken sinners Being lifted up by a strong sufficient Savior Who has not only died for us, but who lives for us and who lives for us continually?

So that we can be forgiven washed and walk in him Help us Lord this Easter even to do that not just to say Christ is risen But to live like he is risen so that others may see. We pray this in his name.