Sermon for Sunday July 16, 2023The Work of God in Joseph of Arimathea

Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and a righteous man who had not consented to their decision and action, and he was looking for the kingdom of God.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb, cut in stone, where no one had yet been laid.

It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.

Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath day, they rested according to the commandment, thus far as the reading of God's holy word.

If you'll recall, last week we left off looking at what we refer to in the scripture refers to itself as the spectacle of Christ on the cross.

We did our best to look and to see the miracles that took place that day at Calvary.

We saw the sun going dark. We saw the curtain of the temple being rent in two.

We saw and heard and read in Matthew's gospel account as well how that the graves were opened.

And then after Christ's resurrection, we'll find and see that there was some bodies of the dead saints, some of the dead saints that arose and went into the city.

We also last week observed in the text, the miracle of salvation, how that the centurion who saw what had taken place, the scripture says he praised

God saying certainly this man was innocent. Matthew's account tells us that this man said certainly this man was the son of God.

And we know that it was the miracle of regeneration that took place because the scriptures teach us in 1

Corinthians that no man can say that Jesus is Christ except by the

Holy Spirit of God. So we can know and we can have a certainty and assurance that this centurion believed in God because of his declaration.

His declaration again followed the declaration of the apostle Peter. When Jesus asked who do men say that I am, they said this, this and this.

Jesus said, who do you say that I am? Peter said, you are the Christ of God. Jesus said,

Simon Barjona, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father which is in heaven.

The miracle of regeneration is a miracle worth noting. And so as we move forward here into the last section of chapter 23,

I want us to for just a little while this morning to consider if you want to put this title on your notes, the work of God in Joseph of Arimathea.

The work of God in Joseph of Arimathea. I also had another title, but the other title really doesn't translate.

It's just a blinking cursor. If you've ever typed, if you like to type, if you use

Word, you'll notice that every time you get to the end of a word, there is that cursor taunting you.

It's just blinking at you as if to say, what's next? But as I read this text,

I could not help as I read this passage, particularly the last part of verse 56 on the

Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment. It's as if the cursor was blinking. And my friends next week, when we begin, when we begin in chapter 24, we see what the cursor is blinking about.

It's blinking about the fact that we are going to be studying and reading about the resurrection of our

Lord and of our Savior. What we have been looking at throughout the gospel from the time that we began

Luke's gospel, Luke told Theophilus he was writing to him so that he might have a more perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ than the work that he did.

Luke continues his work in the book of Acts, again to Theophilus to give us a fuller picture and understanding of who

Jesus Christ is. So as we pick up here in the text, let's notice a few things following immediately on the afternoon of Jesus death on the cross is where we pick up.

So all that we've been looking at these weeks that we have been just in chapter 23 alone, we're talking about 12 to 15 hours of time that has gone by and around 12 to 15 hours earlier, this narrative began in the garden of Gethsemane.

As our Lord is praying to the father for this cup of wrath to be passed over him, if it be possible, thrice, three times,

Jesus prayed, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And the third time

Jesus resigned to the will of God said, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

And then Jesus last words from the cross, as we see it in the other gospels, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and he declared it is finished.

This is what we have in John's gospel. As a matter of fact, let's read a text section from John's gospel again to give us context.

John chapter 19, John chapter 19, verse 17 through 30. This is the word of God.

And he went out bearing his own cross to the place of the skull, which in Aramaic is called

Golgotha. There they crucified him and with two others, one on either side and Jesus between them.

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read this,

Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek.

So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but rather say this man said,

I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I've written, I have written.

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier and also his tunic they took.

But the tunic itself was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.

This was to fulfill the scripture, which says they divided my garments among them and for my vesture, for my garment, they cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus, where his mother, his mother's sister,

Mary, the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom

Jesus loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold, your son.

Then he said to the disciple whom he loved, which is John, behold, your mother.

And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. After this,

Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, said,

I thirst. And a jar full of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch, held it to his mouth.

And when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.

And he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. The King James says he gave up the ghost.

So all that just as a kind of a refresher on where we left off last week. Jesus gave up his spirit, said, father, into your hands,

I commit my spirit and then cried out, it is finished. Now in verse 50 in our text today, no, we're going to notice five things today we're going to look at.

Number one, who was Joseph of Arimathea? Who was Joseph of Arimathea?

Number two, what he did and did not do in relation to his position as a member of the council.

What Joseph did and what Joseph did not do, particularly in relation to his self being a member of the council.

Thirdly, what we'll see in the text, Joseph asked for the body of Jesus. This is what we see in the text.

Joseph asks for the body of Jesus. Number four, we're going to see where did he put the body of Jesus and why is this important?

Where did he put the body of Jesus? Where did Joseph of Arimathea put the body of Jesus? And why is this important?

And lastly, fifthly, what day did all of this take place on and why this day matters?

What day did all of this take place on and why did this day matter?

So beginning with our first question, who was Joseph of Arimathea?

Well, the scripture, the plain reading of the text tells us basically who he was, right? His name was

Joseph. He was from the town of Arimathea. Ulrich Zwingli in his commentary notes these words concerning Joseph of Arimathea.

He said this, that this man Joseph is set forth as an example, both of great constancy and of faith.

We typically don't think about this when we read through the text. Again, this is another one of those little statements that we read over for years and years and we never give thought to it.

But Joseph of Arimathea was a man of great constancy and a great faith. Zwingli goes on to say he put himself in, hey buddy, he put himself in a great danger.

He passed by and said, hey, Pastor Claude, he put himself in a great danger when he did not consent to or else withstood the plans of the malicious counsel.

Zwingli goes on to say who cannot see that it would be a real danger for any person to ask for the body of Jesus where there was so much hatred and so much cruelty.

And not only on top of that, but to bear Jesus honorably. Faith, if it is a true faith,

Zwingli says this, faith, if it is a true faith, attempts great and perilous things with invincible courage.

That is a good statement right there. Faith attempts great and perilous things with invincible courage.

And faith does so because faith itself is not even from us, but it is a gift of God. And our faith and our constancy and our hope and our longing and our looking is not to ourselves or even to our brothers and sisters in Christ, but it is to Christ himself that we look to.

He is the rock from which we have been hewn. So Zwingli says the evangelist says that he was a noble and he was a rich man.

And we must not only respect those things, but we must also pay attention to his courageous mind and his great faith.

So who was Joseph of Arimathea? He was a man named Joseph of Arimathea. This is what we have from the text.

We need not try to go any further than that. We know who he is. We know what he's done.

Therefore, we can rightly infer that he was a man of courageous and great faith. John Calvin said this, we ought to consider the providence of God.

How does God, by the way, question eight of the Westminster Catechism, how does God work out his decree?

Through his creation and through his providence. And what is his providence? How he works all things according to the counsel of his own will.

Right. Very important. So Calvin said we ought to first consider the providence of God in subduing a man of high and honorable rank among his countrymen to wipe away the reproach of the cross by the honor of burial.

And indeed, and this statement will go to what we're going to look at here shortly. But Calvin went on to say, indeed, he exposed himself to the dislike and to the hatred of the whole nation of Israel and the great dangers.

And there can be no doubt that this singular courage arose from a secret movement of the spirit in his heart and in his mind.

It came from a working of the Holy Ghost in him. It came from the spirit of God regenerating his heart and his mind, making him a new creature.

Calvin goes on to say this, for though he had formerly been one of Christ's disciples, he had yet been

Christ's disciple because we see through the passing of time, we can infer because of the passing of time that he had been following Christ all along, yet still being a part of that council.

He did not agree with the council, but going on, yet he had never ventured to make a frank and an open profession of his faith.

When the death of Christ now presents to him a spectacle full of despair and fitted to break the strongest bonds, how comes he suddenly to acquire such noble courage that amidst these great terrors that he feels no dread, that he feels no anxiety, that he feels no fear to seek, pilot himself out and to say, can

I have the body of our Lord Jesus Christ? Remember, it would be a death sentence for him.

But God, providentially working all things according to the counsel of his own, through God working all things providentially according to the counsel of his own will, we see this man,

Joseph of Arimathea, a man of great faith. Moving forward, going on,

Calvin closed by saying this, let us know then that when the Son of God was buried by the hand of Joseph, that it itself was the work of God.

OK, so there we have Joseph of Arimathea, verse 50. Moving forward, let's notice a little bit about who he was.

The latter part of verse 50, the scripture says he was a member of the council, a good and a righteous man.

Joseph of Arimathea, John Gill in his commentary said this, Joseph of Arimathea was an honorable counselor.

He was a man of good aspect. He was well -dressed and that he behaved well and he did his office honorably as a counselor.

He seems to have been a priest and of the bench of priests that sat in the high priest chamber, which is called the

Council of the Chambers also or the Chamber of the Counselors with whom he advised there in important matters.

So Joseph of Arimathea, it's very likely that he was a member of the

Sanhedrin. We've heard that the Sanhedrin is the 70 that set out in every way, shape, form and fashion from the beginning of Jesus incarnation to put him to death, to trip him up, to catch him in his words.

And yet in the midst of that council, God still had a man.

He had a man who he himself had put there. Did this one man change the tide of everything?

No, but he did play a part in the council of God working out things according to his good will.

Going on, he did not agree with the rest of the council. The scripture says this.

He was a member of the council who had verse 51, who had not consented to their decisions and actions.

And he was looking for the kingdom of God. We'll look at that as well here in a moment. So he did not agree with the rest of the council.

All along the way, he was in disagreement with the council of the Sanhedrin to catch

Jesus in his words and to have him be put to death. It may seem many times to us that godly wisdom and counsel are absent in the world in which we live.

And we may be even tempted to think that there are none who champion the cause of our savior as we do.

But I want to encourage you, church, do not lose heart. We must never lose fact of the fact that our great

God has his people exactly where he wants them. And God's providence itself is perfect.

And he always provides the ways and the means for both the large and the minute details of his defined counsel to be worked out.

The old Christians would sing this old song. There is an unseen hand to me that leads me through ways

I cannot see while going through this world of woe.

This hand still leads me as I'm trusting to that unseen hand that guides me through this weary land.

And some sweet day, praise God, I'll reach that strand, still guided by his unseen hand.

We see this throughout the whole of the scripture itself. You can go back to Genesis and you see the work and the mighty hand of God at work.

When the children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt's bondage, it was by the strong hand of God.

It was by the hand of God. How did the sea divide hither providence?

By God who sees hither and thither. So that when the children of Israel, we must be confident, church, even though we cannot see beyond the curtains, even though we don't know the secret counsel of God, we can be sure of the word of God, that God is working according to the counsel of his will, who are his called in this life.

Hope, hope is one of the things that Joseph of Arimathea had.

Have any of you read the book Pilgrim's Progress yet? I would encourage you, go to Amazon this week, order the modern day

English version of Pilgrim's Progress. I encourage you to read this work of John Bunyan, one of the great preachers of years gone by.

One of the great men who stand out in church history, as we sing about folks who stand through church history.

This book, Pilgrim's Progress, is an analogy of the Christian life. And in this book,

John Bunyan writes about his main character named Christian. This man,

Christian, leaves the city of destruction and he's headed to the celestial city. And along the way,

Christian encounters many perils and Christian encounters many dangers. Christian finds a friend to travel with him, a friend named

Hopeful. And in one part of the book, Christian and Hopeful fall asleep and they're taken captive by another character called

Giant Despair. And they're taken to Giant Despair's castle, which is called

Doubting Castle, and they're locked in Doubting Castle where they are beaten, they are told to kill themselves, they are pressed to end their own lives.

And then it comes down to the fact where Giant Despair himself. But in Bunyan's work, this is what he says.

On Saturday around midnight, Christian and Hopeful began to pray and they continued praying until morning.

Now, a little before dawn, Christian had a sudden revelation and became very excited.

And he said, what a fool I am, Hopeful. I've been lying in this stinking dungeon when

I could have just as well walked free. I have a key in my pocket next to my heart called

Promise that I'm sure will open any lock in Doubting Castle. Hopeful could not believe what he was hearing.

That's good news, Christian. Pull it out of your pocket and try it right now. Christian took the key and began to try the lock of the dungeon door when the bolts sprang back easily.

The cell door flew wide open, freeing Christian and Hopeful. Next, they made their way to the castle yard door and his key easily opened the door as well.

Eventually, they arrived at another gate, which also had to be open for them to escape. Christian found that this lock was a little harder to turn, but when it finally did, they threw open the gates and they quickly escaped.

However, the hinges made such a loud creaking sound that it woke Giant Despair, who jumped out of his bed to pursue his prisoners.

As he did, he fell into another one of his seizures, making it impossible for him to chase them.

And after escaping, Christian and Hopeful made it back to the King's Highway where they were safe once again and out of the

Giants jurisdiction. Now, if you know the scriptures, you know that in the book of Acts, there is an analogous passage of scripture that tells us about the

Apostle Peter being in prison and the scripture says the church made prayer for him.

And at night while he slept, an angel of the Lord came, tapped him on the side, said,

Get up, Peter, we're going to go out of this place. And the door opened to him freely.

He went out one gate. He went out to where the church of God was praying for him.

He knocked on the door and they come to the door and they said, Who is it? And Peter says,

It's me. And in excitement and in joy, they were beside themselves and thinking maybe this is just the ghost for Peter to get out of prison.

They've been praying for Peter to be delivered. And they ran back and they said, I think it's

Peter's ghost. And the other guy said, No, wait, I think you need to go back. That's Peter. I know his voice.

Their hope was founded in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his sovereignty and in his providence.

Next, moving forward, number four, we noticed in the text. Well, we're going to read it here in earlier in Luke's gospel, too.

We're going to go back in Luke chapter two, if you want to go ahead and be turning there. But we need to notice something very, very important for the scripture said in the latter part of verse 51 that Joseph of Arimathea not only did not consent to the decision and actions of the council, but he did and was looking for the kingdom of God.

He did and he was looking for the kingdom of God. Good news to you, saints,

I would encourage you in the text of scripture to be reminded that Jesus Christ came incarnate in the flesh.

One hundred percent God, one hundred percent man lived a sinless life, crucified, buried, resurrected on the third day so that we might have the forgiveness of sins.

He was looking for the kingdom of God. Now, how did the kingdom of God come?

The kingdom of God came in the person of Jesus Christ. So he was waiting.

He was looking for the kingdom of God. J .C. Ralph said this expression reminds us of the words that were spoken about Simeon and Anna, how that Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea, as Simeon and Anna did, were expecting the

Messiah's spiritual kingdom to be set up and believed that Jesus himself was the

Messiah. If you go to Luke chapter two, verse twenty two through thirty eight, the scripture states this.

When the time came, speaking when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple, when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the

Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the

Lord and they and offer sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the

Lord. A pair of turtle doves or two pigeons, which, by the way, was the provision for those who didn't have as much as others.

We talked about this in Bible study Thursday night. Listen, the Lord's provision is sufficient.

The Lord's provision is sufficient. The scripture goes on here to say this. There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was

Simeon and this man was righteous and devout and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

He was looking for the kingdom of God. He was waiting, hoping on the consolation of Israel.

And the scripture says this. The Holy Spirit was upon him and it had been revealed to him by the

Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

And he came in the spirit to the temple. And when the parents of the child Jesus brought him in to do for him, according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and he blessed

God. And he said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace and not only departing in peace.

But why was he departing in peace? Because it was according to God's word.

If you, men, women, boys and girls alike are going to have peace in this life, you will have it in Jesus Christ or you will not have peace.

Jesus said, my peace I give to you, not as this world gives, give I unto you.

But my peace, my peace that I give to you will be a peace that passes all understanding, as the

Apostle Paul puts it, when we pray and we seek the Lord's face. Going on, his father and his mother marveled.

Joseph and Mary marveled at what was said about him by Simeon.

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child, Jesus, is appointed for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed, for a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

And not only was there Simeon, there was a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Fanuel, of the tribe of Asher.

She was advanced in years, having lived with a husband seven years from when she was a virgin.

And then as a widow, until she was 84 years old, she did not depart from the temple.

Worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day and coming up at the very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel.

Good news is good news to those who understand the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Christ came to save us from our sins.

The good news is not good news to those who are perishing. It is not a sweet, a rolling savor unto

God, to the lost and to the dying, but unto us which are saved. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation.

This is why we relish in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So he was looking for the kingdom of God.

He was looking for the kingdom of God. Let's learn from Joseph of Arimathea.

J .C. Ryle said, let's learn from Joseph of Arimathea to be charitable and to be hopeful in all of our judgments.

As I said earlier, all is not barren in this world. Even when our eyes perhaps see nothing, there may be,

Ryle said, there may be some latent sparks of light when all appears to be dark.

There are little plants of spiritual life that may be existing, as Ryle put it in his day in the 1900s.

There may be some, there may be spiritual life existing in some Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Armenian congregations.

Graves of truth may be lying hidden in some neglected English parish which have been placed there by God.

Despite the fact in the Old Testament, there were 7 ,000 true worshippers in Israel of whom

Elijah knew nothing. Elijah had lost hope. Elijah had given up.

But God said there are still yet 7 ,000. My goodness gracious, don't you know this?

We live in a big, big world today. We may think we know a lot.

We may think we see a lot, but God sees more than we see. God knows exponentially more than we know.

So going on, lastly, let's move to the close here. He asked, what did he do next? Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body of Jesus.

Calvin said this, it is true, indeed, that God determined for another reason that Christ should be buried.

Very, very important. Notice, because what we're seeing here is a literal death.

And when we think and consider the gospel, we must not we must not look at this in some some way where we think this is on some kind of other mystical plane.

We believe in the literal death, the literal burial and the literal bodily resurrection of our

Lord and of our Savior. That is our the literal death, burial and resurrection.

Calvin said this. Christ should be buried, that it might be more fully attested that he suffered real death on our account, not a supposed death, but a real death.

It ought to be regarded as the principal design, Calvin said, that in this manner, the cursing which he had endured for a short time began to be removed for his body was not thrown into a ditch in the ordinary way, but it was honorably laid in a sepulcher.

Very important for us to understand this, because the practice was for the criminals, there was no proper burial.

They were taken down from the cross. They were piled up in ditches with the other criminals. But my friend,

Jesus Christ was no criminal. Jesus Christ was the sinless, perfect, pure, holy, heartless of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And God would not see his son be disgraced in such a way, nor would he see

God, nor would God have his people be in the dark about what he did. Because remember,

God does nothing in a corner. So Christ died on the cross. Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate, the governor who had sentenced

Christ to death, giving him over to be crucified and says, can I have the body of Jesus Christ?

So although at the time the weakness of the flesh was still visible and the divine power of the spirit was not clearly seen before his resurrection in this moment, yet God determined by this as a sort of preparation to shadow out what he was shortly afterwards to do.

He'll barely talk what he was. He was getting ready to show what he was getting ready to do. So that he might exalt gloriously above the heavens, his son, who, by the way, is the conqueror of death.

Another reason we have it that he was laid in a new tomb. Very, very important. Notice, because the scripture says this, he took the body down, wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone where no one had ever yet been laid.

Very important here, again, because of what went around after the resurrection.

The PR scandal that came about after the resurrection was that somebody had just stole the body of Jesus.

But here again, in the text, we see specifics brought to light. He laid him in a tomb where nobody had ever laid.

Here in the text, we see it was a new tomb, which means no one was laid there.

So what, right? Which means that no one could say that the bodies were switched once Jesus was raised to life, because the practice of that day was for families many times, because,

I mean, you couldn't just dig out a tomb for every family member. Sometimes you had to put several family members in a grave.

But here, that was not going to be an opportunity for scandal. There was no other bodies in this grave.

There had never been anybody laid in this grave, so nobody could say, well, the bodies were switched or Jesus just exchanged this body for that.

No, no, no. Christ went into that grave.

He was taken down by Joseph, wrapped in a linen shroud, placed in the grave, as we have it in the other gospel accounts.

The Romans wanted to make this a sure thing, so they put a seal on the tomb.

They put guards outside the tomb so that nobody could come in and take the body of Jesus and say, oh, it was a miracle.

He arose from the dead. What we have here in the text is specifics that lead us to a hopeful faith in God, in his word.

We see this here. So we had this here, as we will see in the 24th chapter next week,

Lord willing, that all doubt was removed concerning Jesus' resurrection. Why?

Because he showed himself alive with many infallible proofs. Last of all, what was this day that this took place on and why did it matter?

What was this day? The scripture says in verse 54, it was the day of preparation and the

Sabbath was beginning. If you want to just note this passage down, Luke chapter 23,

I encourage you to read in Luke chapter 23 concerning the Passover or not Luke, Leviticus 23.

Leviticus 23. But while the Passover is one of God's appointed times, it is not listed in scripture as one of the annual

Sabbaths. It is still, even though a holy day, a regular day of work, in fact, it was the preparation day for the first day of unleavened bread.

But the first few hours, the evening portion of the day is a significant memorial.

It's a significant memorial of two great events, one past and one about to be a very present reality to them.

The first memorial was the death of the firstborn in Egypt, when the Lord commanded the people of Israel to take a lamb for a household, to put the blood on the doorpost and on the lintels of the door.

And when the death angel came, when I see the blood, the Lord said, I will pass over you.

There was a sacrifice to protect life at that day. Well, that sacrifice was to be practiced perpetually because it was a temporary sacrifice.

However, God made it so that the death of his son, the eternal spotless lamb of God, would not be a temporary, repetitive, needful, repetitious sacrifice, but it would be a once and for all sacrifice for sins for all of eternity, past, present and future.

So the bulk of the instruction about the Passover is written in Exodus 12, if you want to read there as well.

And a great deal of it concerns the Old Testament, the ritual meal that was eaten on that evening.

These details, this meal, these details in this meal are types, they're types in their shadows of what was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

So the New Testament church, the modern day church, the New Testament church is no longer required to slay a lamb.

We don't take the blood of bulls and goats and have to do anything because it was done once and for all in the death of our

Lord and Savior. Matter of fact, Paul put it this way, for indeed, Christ, our

Passover was sacrificed for us. And at the end there, we notice in the text, the women who had come with him from Galilee followed and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid.

Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. And on the Sabbath day, they rested.

The women saw where they laid the body of Jesus because the scripture tells us previously that they were watching, they were observing, they were seeing what was going on.

They saw Joseph come and take the body of Christ. They saw where he had laid the body of Christ.

And they knew also this, that the Sabbath was dawning upon them, the old

Sabbath. For the Sabbath would be done away with in the resurrection of our

Lord Jesus Christ. For he himself is our Sabbath rest.

In closing, how are we to apply this? I can only point you to more scripture. Second Peter, chapter one, one through eleven.

This may sound familiar to Ma 'am Rosie and Kira. Second Peter, chapter one, verses one through eleven.

This is what the word of God says. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of God and our savior,

Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our

Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us exceeding great and precious promises so that through them, through these promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

And for this very reason, you make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and supplement virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self control and self control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in what?

In the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and your election.

For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our

Lord and of our savior, Jesus Christ. Stand with us if you would this morning, please.

And I want to encourage you today. I want to encourage you today to take heart to take personally the word of God that you have heard today.

Excluding any of my additions, my words to exegete the text, take the word of God, take it personally know this that Christ died for your sins, and that you personally need a savior.

And that today you can be saved by believing and trusting in what

Jesus Christ did to atone for your sins. And that you today can have the forgiveness of sins.

That you today, like John Bunyan's pilgrim

Christian, that you might have that load, that burden taken off of your back by believing in Jesus Christ.

Because it will kill you. It kills and it destroys.

The Scripture tells us in John's gospel, the law came by Moses. Knowledge of the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

And Jesus Christ did for you because of his great love and his compassion what you are unable to do for yourself in taking the wrath of God on him.

And he, and you, by believing him today can be saved. You can have the peace of God that passes understanding today.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise him all creatures here below.

Praise him above ye heavenly hosts.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.