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

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 And then another kid said

You need to smile Yeah 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 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 him

I remember just listening to my dad. He's isn't 60s and he said to her You know, it's sinning

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 you gotta do now, and then she started crying and she said that's so encouraging

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 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 in the scriptures 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 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 going to 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's great that my credit 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 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

Christ have been said it in Abraham seed all the nation shall be blessed the 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

And that amazing God gives us what we need not 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 then 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 I 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 Okay, 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? Mmm, daddy,

I've just got so much sin in my heart It's exploding

I said, where are you getting these ideas from my Mommy just was teaching us the night before because we go through scriptures with our kids

Romans 311 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 and 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 for sinners

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 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 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 demoniac that Christ wanted to deliver

That's the kind of Savior he is 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

Son was not the Son and Psalm 2 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

And in a greater way 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 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 our like this because They were men.

They were sinners But Christ was strong where we were weak

And 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 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 the son who became a descendant

According to the flesh and I think that's what it's talking about It's 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 in 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 had the 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 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 He's the help

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 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 He was declared the 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

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 It would 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

Yes, 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 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 that'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 and me

What 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 that 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 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 didn't 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 I know I do but you know, it's encouraging to know

Christ in all that he is to us 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 I said, do you understand this

And 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. I saw 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 in faith

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 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 that the Spirit of holiness affirmed in Christ and is now giving to us

We rest in this righteousness. It 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 to us 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 live May you know that today

I Have a friend That I think he might 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 are 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 is 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, let's pray 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