Sermon: Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?

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Big day. Amen? If you would open your Bibles to Matthew 28.

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Matthew chapter 28. The last chapter of the gospel according to Matthew. We are actually in a study right now of the gospel according to Matthew, verse by verse.

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But here is the fulfillment of the promises right before our eyes.

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Matthew chapter 28. I'll read the text and we're going to pray together.

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Here now is the word of the living and true God. Matthew 28 1.

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Now after the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,

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Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the

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Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was what was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.

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The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the woman,

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Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.

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He is not here, for he is risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he was lying.

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Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has been, he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going ahead of you into Galilee.

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There you will see him. Behold, I've told you. And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to report it to his disciples.

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And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

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Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid, go and take word to my brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see me.

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Now while they were on the way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened.

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And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers and said,

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You are to say his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.

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And if this should come to the governor's ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. And they took the money and did as they had been instructed.

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And this story was widely spread among the Jews as is to this day. But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which

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Jesus had designated. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were doubtful.

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And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the

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

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And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Let's pray.

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Lord Jesus, we worship you right now. You are our

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God and Savior. You are our great God and Savior. You are the one that was promised.

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We confess you as Lord. We confess you as our Savior. We confess you as Messiah.

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And Lord, we trust in you and we believe with all of our hearts that you have been raised from the dead. Lord Jesus, you are the sum of all of our hopes, everything we have ever needed.

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God, you are the fulfillment. Jesus, you are the one that we worship.

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We exalt you. We lift up your name. And Lord Jesus, we recognize that, Lord, this very moment before your eyes, this moment is a moment that you have carried along, that we are the fulfillment of your covenant promises,

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God. That, Lord, you have been faithful to Abraham, faithful to David, faithful to all your promises.

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And Lord, we give you praise. Thank you, God, so much for your word. It's a gift. Thank you, Lord, that you have walked with us, carried us along, and you have,

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Lord, given us life, the gift of eternal life. We praise your name. Bless this time that we spend together in your word,

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God. I pray that you would lift up, Lord, the name of Jesus, that it would come from our lips, that you would put your gospel on our lips.

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And Lord, make our feet move fast. Give us strength, Lord, to fulfill your great commission.

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It's in your name we pray. Amen. So, Matthew chapter 28 is a big moment in the entire book because the entire book begins with a promise of the work of Jesus Christ, that he is, in fact, the promised

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Messiah. The genealogy fits. All of the time fits. The promise of when Jesus was coming, what he was going to do in history.

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Here he comes, God walking among us. As you read Matthew, you're not reading the story of just simply a prophet.

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You're not simply reading the story of a good teacher or a good philosopher. Jesus is unparalleled in history, and you must grasp that.

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This significant day, this important day, by the way, every Sunday is supposed to be, he is risen.

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Every Sunday, the first day of the week, Jesus conquered death. He fulfilled all the promises that God had made about Mashiach, the

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Messiah. But this unique day, we celebrate in this time when

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God became a man, fulfilling all the promises, walking among us, totally again unparalleled in history.

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When you think about the gods of the pagan religions, they knew as they spread these stories, oftentimes these were just that, stories, mythologies.

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It was more of a cultural thing. We see that many religions today. It's more of a cultural thing. We do this thing.

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We go to this place. We worship with these people before this book. They recognized, though, in many of these pagan religions that these were just that, stories.

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And it's unparalleled what you see in the Bible. Before you in Matthew, is God the only

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God, the eternal God, the one that is from all eternity into all eternity, that God, Psalm 90 verse 2, taking on flesh, walking among us.

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It's so unique, though. Philippians chapter 2, Jesus, who is in the very form of God, does not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to, but he empties himself.

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He humbled himself, and he's obedient even unto death. Jesus is

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God and man, fully God and fully man, walking among us, touching his people.

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And it was so actually confusing to many of them. They couldn't grasp the whole story.

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As a matter of fact, we're gonna see in a minute, even on the road to Emmaus, these disciples are confused with Jesus standing right next to them.

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He had been crucified, as was promised. He was raised as he promised, as the

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Scriptures foretold, and yet they still couldn't see it. Because there was something, I believe personally, about Jesus that was so humble, that was so human, and so broken, that you just couldn't grasp the whole story.

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They knew he was God. They worshipped him as God. They heard him say in John chapter 8, unless you believe, ego eimi, that I am, you will die in your sins.

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They heard him saying to the Jews in John chapter 8, before Abraham was, ego eimi,

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I am. And they picked up stones to kill him. Why? Because it was blasphemy what he was claiming.

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It's not that Jesus didn't tell him he was God. He told him he was God all the time. John chapter 10,

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I and the Father are one. They pick up stones again to kill him. He says, many good works have I shown you from the

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Father. For which of these do you stone me? And they said, for that good works we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, in that you being a man, make yourself

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God. There's something about Jesus, though, that was so humble and unparalleled in history.

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Here's God as a man walking among us, ministering to his people, serving his own people.

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Jesus actually washing his disciples' feet.

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God, the creator of the cosmos, the one who was sustaining all things, now humble enough to bow before the feet of his own disciples and to do something in that culture that was considered so low, to wash their feet.

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That's the God that you learn about in Matthew. And it was so confusing to them, because it was so unparalleled.

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God, as a man, humble, hungry, broken, probably sick with the flu.

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He probably had a stomach bug at some point in his life, like Pastor Luke. I'm wondering if it was the same for Jesus, if he was like, stay back, because I'm not feeling well.

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There's so many things about Jesus that you have to think about. Like, when you put it together, you're like, I wonder what it was like to have

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God ministering to me. Walking among his people, people crowding around Jesus, so fixated on being a part of his life and getting to actually touch him, that at one point they ripped the roof off a house to lower people down, just to be a part of his life, to get into his inner circle.

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One woman is so sick for so many years, she had heard these stories. If I could just touch the hem of his garment, if I could just touch the edge of his garment,

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I know I'll be healed. Because the tradition was the Mashiach would be so powerful that you could touch the hem of his garment and be healed, and she just wants to have a piece of Jesus.

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He's so humble. He's so broken. Their ministry is at a point where they have all these followers, right?

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And you think it's a grand success, but they don't have any money to feed the followers. And so as God and man,

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Jesus actually multiplies fish and loaves to feed the multitudes. Why?

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Because they don't have enough money in their ministry accounts. A lot of it was being stolen from Judas. So there's betrayal, and there's brokenness, and there's poverty.

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A guy wants to follow Jesus in his ministry. He says, I want to follow you. And Jesus says, foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the

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Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. As I've said many times before, it's a very erudite beautiful way of saying,

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I'm homeless. Are you sure you want to follow me? This is the story unparalleled.

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Again, the pagan stories and myths, you have mommy gods, and daddy gods, and baby gods, and those gods fight those other gods.

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There's whole stories of gods making wars with one another. Gods that are sinful and capricious.

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Gods that fly off the handle, that can't be trusted, that are unjust. And yet the God of the

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Bible, the only God who is holy, who is just, who is merciful, who is love, who is so different and so other than us, that he actually says, what will you compare me to?

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What will you make me like? What will you put next to me and say that I'm like that? The answer is nothing.

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There's nothing we can compare you to. There's nobody we can compare you to, and it's that God that humbled himself and stepped into history to do what?

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To simply be served? He said the opposite. He said the Son of Man did not come to be served.

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He says what? To give his life as a ransom. To give himself away to people, to pay the debt that they owed to God for their sin.

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It's unparalleled. Another reason it's unparalleled is you look in history at religious leaders.

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You look at the famous ones. You look at Buddha. You look at Confucius. You look at Zoroaster.

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You look at Joseph Smith. You look at Charles Taze Russell, Judge Rutherford, Mary Baker Eadie.

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You go down the line at all the famous people. Muhammad. What happened? What do they all have in common?

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They all died and they stayed that way. Jesus shows himself as distinct and glorious and mighty and unparalleled in that when he died, he conquered that death.

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And the glorious thing about Jesus is that this doesn't take place in some place of secret knowledge.

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Take for a moment, we just did it last week, the story of Joseph Smith. His major point in his revelation is a private revelation.

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It's something that cannot be observed or touched or seen or tasted or smelled.

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It's not something that was part of anybody else's experience. It was a private story about a private experience with private knowledge in Joseph Smith.

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Where are the plates? Well, they're taken up to heaven. Who saw them? Well, really nobody, even though eyewitnesses denied seeing the golden plates.

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It's secret knowledge. And yet, the story in the Gospels is that God touched the earth.

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He walked among us. You can go to the places today that Jesus touched.

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We were recently in Nashville for the NRB conference. We had to go there because we have a

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TV show as part of our ministry on their network. It was really, I don't know if I'm just a nerd or what, but nobody else was near this thing.

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And I was hovering the whole time. They had the Greens who own Hobby Lobby. They have the largest private collection of biblical artifacts and manuscripts in the world.

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And they're actually building a Bible museum in Washington, D .C. that is spectacular. They had a whole thing there.

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You could walk in. The lights were dimmed to this special place because all the artifacts, you could see the manuscripts and all the crates.

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It was amazing. I was like drooling over this stuff. But one thing they had at this conference was, way away from that Bible museum stuff, is they had this single stone.

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This single stone from a synagogue during the time of Jesus. So it was in a synagogue during the time of Jesus from that actual generation when

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He was ministering. And this was from a synagogue that Jesus would have probably visited.

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I mean, He had to have visited this. This is part of where He went. And it's a stone from this synagogue that existed then.

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And I'm standing next to this thing. I'm putting my hands on this thing. And I'm touching a stone from part of a building that Jesus was probably in, and teaching in, and ministering in.

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And it was so spectacular. I mean, Jesus was around this rock.

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Now, if I was of another brand of religion, I probably would have built a shrine around it and started bowing before it.

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But as a Christian, I just get to enjoy it and say, you know, Jesus would have probably been standing next to this thing.

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That's the faith that we have. It's not private knowledge. It's not secret knowledge.

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It's knowledge that is booming across the world. A testimony about a God who loves the rebels so much that He will not let them go.

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He will not let them stray and run off and hate Him forever. He pursues them, and He loves them.

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And even despite their brokenness, in the middle of His pursuit of them, He keeps being faithful, though we're unfaithful.

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It's in history, and I want to show you just a testimony briefly of what that looked like in the first century for the eyewitnesses.

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So if you would, go to your Bibles too. You're in Matthew now. Go to the right to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1

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Corinthians chapter 15. I want to show you the sorts of things that were being said in the first century, not long after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

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This is really big. This is important. These are the kinds of things that were happening in the first century.

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The apostle Paul, who wrote this to the church in Corinth, was hostile to the

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Christian faith. You've got to grasp that for a moment. This is a guy who, technically speaking, you would say is a murderer, right?

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A while back, we had a really vicious, militant, hostile atheist on our radio program.

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It was actually on Redemption Radio. Some of you guys might remember the episode, two episodes we did with Bistrong.

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Remember that one? Yeah? Oh, someone said, yeah. Brett Strong. And Brett Strong is a really kind of militant, vile in many ways, atheist.

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He's hostile to the faith. And we did our very best to love that man and to share Christ with him. But we had him on.

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And one of the things he said about the apostle Paul, this is like his argument against Christianity. None of them were good arguments, but here was one of them.

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He says, Christians essentially are crazy because they follow a man who wrote most in the

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New Testament, who's a murderer. I mean, he says, think about it for a second. This is a guy, Brett Strong says, who's going into houses, and he's grabbing people's wives, and he's dragging them out into the streets like a pig, like an animal.

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And he says, and that's the guy. He's psychotic. He's crazy. He's evil. And that's the guy that Christians are listening to.

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Now, I want to say first and foremost, yeah, that's nuts.

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A guy who's killing Christians, trying to destroy the church. He's trying to throw Christians into jail.

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That's the apostle Paul. As a matter of fact, that resonates with me when you say, that's crazy.

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I want to say, that's the kind of God that we worship. He takes people that are vile, broken, rebels, hostile, and he switches them.

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He turns them into something new. And Saul turns into Paul. His eyes are opened.

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He sees Jesus, and he changes. This is a guy who's trained in the highest school of Jewish thought.

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He's trained under Gamaliel. It's like the Harvard or Yale education of his day. He's going after Christians.

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He says in Galatians, listen, he says that he was so zealous that he tried to destroy the church.

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That's who wrote this. So when we talk about the resurrection of Jesus in history, we're talking about all these things that take place around this story.

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Like a very hostile man who is not open -minded to the story of Jesus. He's actually attacking the

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Christian church. And when he's changed, he's changed violently. He's changed in a moment.

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He's on his high horse. He's knocked off of it. He's on his way to destroy the church.

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And Jesus reshapes this man's life. And he writes most in our New Testament.

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That's the kind of thing God does to people. That's why people are sitting in this room right now. We're all a bunch of rebels against the king, and he grabs a hold of us, and he changes us.

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But Paul wrote this in the first century. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which

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I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast to the word which

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I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.

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Pause. Really important thing. You can't really get necessarily by jumping into the

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Bible and seeing and not understanding the background. But when the apostle Paul says this phrase, For I delivered to you as of first importance what

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I also received. Listen, that is a very first century way of talking about a tradition that was passed around.

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It was a saying. It was like a creed. It was a creed of the early Christians not long after the resurrection.

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So get this. What you're about to hear from Paul was something that early Christians were saying as a creed.

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And here's what he says. That Christ died for our sins according to the

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Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

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And that He appeared to, and the person there is Peter, then to the twelve. After that,

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He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom have remained until now, but some have fallen asleep.

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Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all, as to one untimely born,

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He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

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It's amazing when you see people who are critics of the Bible and hostile to the Bible. If they would only read the Bible, they would recognize there are the answers in the text to what you're actually saying.

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You're crazy. You're a madman. Paul's like, yeah, for real. Like, I'm not even worthy to be in this position.

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I recognize that. He says that Jesus appeared to me. And this is the amazing thing about the testimony of Christians in history.

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We are not saying that this is private knowledge. We are not saying this is mythology. We're not saying this is just a good story.

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We're not saying we want you to be part of our club. We really like this click. We're saying that God is who

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He says He is. And we're saying that Jesus is that promised Messiah and that He's walked among us.

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And watch. In the first century, the Apostle Paul writes in a time where, listen, hostile witnesses could have been brought forth to rebut the

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Apostle Paul. And what does he say in a time where hostile witnesses can come forward and say, no,

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I know where the body is. That's not true. I know that's not true. In the first century, it was so bold, they weren't saying, well, it feels good to me.

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Well, I prayed about it, and I have a burning in my bosom. They weren't saying that. What's the Apostle Paul say in the first century?

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He says, Jesus came. He appeared. He appeared to him and to him. And he says this, and at one point, he appeared to 500 eyewitnesses.

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And he says this, if you don't believe me, go ask them. Jesus is alive.

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And he appears to people who are disbelieving, not there. They're not even trusting, not even close.

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James, Jesus' half -brother, he does not follow

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Jesus in his earthly ministry. Something was wrong. You've got to have some grace for James.

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If your brother's walking around town telling everybody he's God, you've got to give him some grace.

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Can you imagine people in your neighborhood saying, hey, isn't your brother going around saying he's, I am like Jehovah God?

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But James, watch, something happened to him. When Jesus rose from the dead, that did it.

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His life was transformed, and James ended up writing a book of the Bible and dying for his faith in his brother as his

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God and as his Savior. And I love this. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for in the life of Jesus.

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I want to know the people who are closest to Jesus that can say whether or not he was worthy to take away their sins, and James, Jesus' brother who grew up with him, says he's worthy to take my sins, he's my

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Savior and my God, and I'll die for him. Think about it. James is written about in Josephus.

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That's not in your Bibles. Josephus records the account of James. James was martyred for his faith in his brother as Savior, as Messiah, as God.

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James was thrown off the temple, he hit the ground, his legs broke, and then he was beaten to death with clubs for his testimony in his brother as God and Savior.

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And the Apostle Paul says here, look, we saw him, that's why I believe in him. According to the

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Scriptures, he's come and died and been raised, and I saw him. I saw him, and I'm changed forever because of it.

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You've got to see one more. I want you to see it in the text. Go to 1 Peter 1, this is

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Peter. Many people are,

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I'm sure, in the first century suspicious of Peter. He doesn't have a very good track record. He's the guy who has a problem of stick -your -foot -in -your -mouth itis.

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Some of us know about that, right? And he's the one that is recorded now in Scripture for good.

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As the one who denied his Lord and Master when Jesus needed him the most. But in 2

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Peter chapter 1, if you go to verse 16, this is Peter in the first century after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

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Here's what he says. For we did not, verse 16, we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

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And the text there literally in the Greek is, we eyeballed Him. We eyeballed

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Him. We didn't follow cleverly devised tales. And Peter's saying, it's not a story.

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This is not some story. It's not mythology. It's not a fable. It's not just something that makes you feel good.

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He says, look, we didn't follow cleverly devised tales. We eyeballed

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Him. We set our eyes actually on Him. And Peter ends up dying for his faith.

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All the apostles that were ordained by Jesus to be apostles, all of them died martyrs deaths save one.

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John was the only one that didn't die a martyr's death. Although Nero tried to kill him by boiling him in a pot of oil.

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Her church history tells us, but Peter died for his faith in Jesus. He eyeballed him.

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He knew what it meant to follow Jesus. Something happened in his life after the resurrection. Before the resurrection,

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Peter is a guy who's like most of us. He's getting it wrong. Often he has weak knees.

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He can't trust enough. He sinks when Jesus is walking on the water. He doesn't keep his eyes off the water.

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You know, he looks down and he sinks down into the water. He denies Jesus. He's like most of us.

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He's like most of us. But something happened in his eyeballing Jesus after Jesus was alive from the dead.

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Jesus comes to Peter after his resurrection. Peter can't wait to see Jesus, dives in the water, swims to Jesus, and Jesus just reconciles him.

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He says, do you love me? And Peter's like, yes, I love you. He says three times, do you love me?

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Yes. The third time he says, do you love me? And Peter says, Lord, you know everything.

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And then Peter is told, feed my sheep. Something switched in his life.

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Something, a switch was flipped and he turned into a whole new person after the resurrection.

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But you got to understand something. That phrase, according to the scriptures, according to the scriptures, according to the scriptures, that's the sum of it.

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I want you to see what that means right here in Luke 24. Move back to Luke chapter 24.

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This is after the resurrection of Jesus. This is what we're going to talk about briefly today to celebrate today.

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Luke chapter 24, verse 13. This is after the resurrection.

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Jesus is now alive and he's appearing to people. And in verse 13, it says, and behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named

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Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place.

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While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them.

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I love that. I do. I love it. Now, these guys are having a conversation far away from Jerusalem and Jesus appears and he's just walking with them.

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But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, what are these words that you're exchanging with one another as you are walking?

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And they stood still looking sad. Death has already been defeated and these guys can't get it.

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One of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of these things, of the things which have happened here in these days?

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And he said to them, what things? And they said to him, the things about Jesus in Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him.

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But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things have happened.

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But also some women among us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body.

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They came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.

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Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said, but him they did not see.

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And here we go. And he said to them, oh, foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.

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Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

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That is the most amazing Bible study in the history of the world. Jesus alive now from the dead, crucified and now alive, walking with people who are now completely broken.

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And what do they say? All of our circumstances speak to us that God is an absolute failure now. Everything we had hoped in is shattered.

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We thought he was the one that was going to redeem Israel. We thought all of our hopes were summed up in him. We thought he was the one, but he's dead.

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He's not alive anymore. We're lost and they're sad. And that's oftentimes what each and every one of us do in all of our circumstances in our lives.

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We have a financial collapse. We don't get the job that we wanted. Something's going on in our family. We get moved somewhere we didn't want to go.

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Our life seems like it's in disarray, right? And all the while it's in disarray.

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Here's Jesus walking with us, directing our paths, fulfilling everything he said he was going to do in our lives, shielding us, loving us, pursuing us, standing right next to us.

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And here we sit somber, sad, sulky in the very presence of our Messiah.

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And Jesus now takes them through the most spectacular Bible study in the history of the world.

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It beats Spurgeon. It beats MacArthur. It beats Paul Washer. Paul Washer, right?

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It beats James White. It beats everybody. Best sermon in history.

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Jesus walking them through Moses and all the prophets doing what? The same thing Paul said as part of his confession, that Jesus died according to the

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Scriptures, that he was raised according to the Scriptures. And when Jesus condemns people for not believing, where does he anchor it?

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He says, you don't believe all that God had promised in his Scriptures.

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You see, that's the thing, is you think, I don't get it. I don't understand it. It's crazy. With a new heart, you have to say it's confusing.

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I don't understand it. When Lazarus is dead for days, and Jesus says,

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Lazarus, come forth, it actually says, when he came out of that tomb, some believed, some didn't.

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Are you guys nuts? He's so dead, he smells, and there's people that are standing there going,

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I don't know. It's some kind of David Blaine stuff going on here, right?

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Seriously, they're like, it's some kind of magic trick, right? It's an illusion. Where's the mirrors? It's a setup, right?

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And it even says in Matthew 28, the very text I read at the very beginning of the sermon, it's the ascension of Jesus.

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We're like, I mean, seriously, I recently saw, what's that recent movie, that Christian film, what is it, The Soldier, what is it?

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Risen, there you go. Even in that film, it's amazing. Even in that film, they've got the scene where the guy's there, he turns around, it's like the sun's behind him, it's like the halo, right?

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It's just so over -spiritualized and exaggerate things, right? And it's like the ascension of Jesus is all like glory and glowing, and people are like floating.

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It always depicts it that way, right? And the crazy thing is, in the text of Matthew 28, it says that as Jesus is there, alive from the dead, he's gonna ascend into heaven, people are there, and it says, some doubted.

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And that's the honesty in the text of the Bible. The Bible doesn't sit and just whitewash it all. It says some people were there and they believed, and some people doubted.

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They doubted Jesus as he's right in front of them, alive from the dead, ascending to be seated on his throne, and it says, and some doubted.

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And doubted what? They were slow to believe all that the prophets had spoken. This is God's story in history, and ultimately, it's about his glory.

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You gotta get this real fast. I'm gonna say this as we touch a few verses just to celebrate for a second. God understands something.

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I was talking to a guy this week, and I was just trying to talk to him about salvation and the glory of God.

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It's amazing how some people see the story of Jesus and the Scriptures and salvation. When we don't understand the

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Scriptures right, we think it's about us. We think it's about our salvation.

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We think the story's about me, and think about my stuff and what God does for me.

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You gotta understand something. The whole life of Jesus, everything from cradle to grave to sky, everything was so that God would get the glory.

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It was so that God can show that he keeps his promises. All that the prophets had spoken, that's what the story's about.

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It's about the glory of Jesus Christ being made famous in all of the earth, that when salvation comes, it's not about you.

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It's not about me. It's about Jesus receiving glory. And the whole story about Jesus is laid down long before he ever touched the earth in his earthly ministry.

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The entire Scriptures of the Old Testament tell a story landing on this one.

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It's all about him. It's all about him. When your Bible opens up, it's about Jesus.

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Genesis chapter 1, God creates. Jesus is there creating everything alongside the

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Father, the Holy Spirit, one God, eternal, three persons. This tri -unity, this

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God is creating. The Spirit of God is there. The Father is there. The Son is there.

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Perfect unity. God creating all things, speaking it into existence. He creates everything, the creeping things, the animals, the oceans, the stars, everything.

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He expands this universe that we cannot even begin to understand. He just, with a breath, let it be.

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And it is. And then we rebel against our Creator. In Genesis chapter 3,

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God says, when he confronts our first parents, he says that it's the woman's seed,

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Genesis 3 .15, that will crush the head of the serpent, but we wounded on his heel in the process.

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You might say, that's really cryptic and sort of mystical in a way. What does all that mean? Well, the woman's seed is a very unusual way of speaking about anybody's kid in that day.

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You would talk about somebody's seed as the father's seed, but it's the woman's seed. The virgin birth is right there in Genesis 3.

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The woman's seed, singular seed, is going to crush the head of the serpent, deliver the death blow to Satan and his work, but be wounded on the heel, a temporary wound.

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And then God does something. God kills the first animals. He kills the first animals and he covers

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Adam and Eve's nakedness and shame in the skins of these animals, the innocent covering the guilty.

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First picture of Jesus in the Old Testament. So when Jesus, I believe with all my heart, unless I'm missing something, when

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Jesus began with Moses, I think he began right there. I think he began right there.

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And the Old Testament tells you everything about Jesus the Messiah in vivid detail long before he comes.

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The Old Testament's not about Moses. It's not about David. It's not about Joshua.

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The Old Testament's about Jesus. Moses is a picture of a lawgiver.

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Jesus is the perfect lawgiver. David is a king and he's a failure. Jesus is a perfect king.

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Everything you see, all your stories, it's all leading up to Jesus. It's all about him.

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It's all about our salvation in him. It's all about his glory. And so I've done something, and many of you guys know this.

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When I ask the question from the Old Testament scriptures, is Jesus Mashiach, is he

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Messiah? I say most definitely. M -O -S -T.

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There you go, okay, there, here. M -O -S -T, most definitely. And as you're walking through the

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Old Testament, I think you can show that Jesus is the Messiah in a number of different ways. And I've done it through an acrostic, most definitely.

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And the first one, M, is Messianic prophecies fulfilled. Messianic prophecies fulfilled.

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The O in the acrostic is the original life of Jesus. The S is the symbols fulfilled.

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And the T is the transformation of the lives of the apostles and the world, most definitely.

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If it's Jesus said, it's all about me, the Apostle Paul in the early creed said it was according to the scriptures, according to the scriptures.

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The Messianic prophecies were clear about Jesus. The who, the why, the where, the what, the when about Jesus is in your

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Old Testament. Who is he? God coming to save us. God's coming to save us.

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Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, what's it say? Unto us a child, a son is given, what?

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He shall be called wonderful, what? Counselor, mighty

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God, El Gibor, the mighty God. One chapter after Isaiah 9, it calls

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Yahweh the mighty God, El Gibor. Yahweh the only God is the mighty

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God. And it says this one who's coming as a child and as a son, that's a human, is

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El Gibor. He's Yahweh coming to save us. He is the father of eternity.

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And this is spectacular because Isaiah is written by a Jew who is monotheistic.

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He only believes there's one God. And yet he's writing about one God, the mighty

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God, the father of eternity who's coming as a son and a child. And it says that of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

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And of peace, there will be no end. And it says the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish it.

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God's coming to save us. Who? It tells us very specifically where.

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Where's he coming from? Where? It says in Micah 5, 2 as an example that the

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Messiah is coming from Bethlehem, but it says something unique, and you've got to see this. In Micah 5, 2, it says specifically in Micah 5, 2 that the one coming to Bethlehem is from everlasting.

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Well, it says in the Scriptures again, Psalm 90 verse 2, from eternity into eternity, you are God. It says once again that the eternal one is coming to Bethlehem.

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And it tripped him up in the first century. You know the story, right? Jesus they knew was from Nazareth, right?

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And when they found out he was from Nazareth, what did they say? He can't be the Messiah. Why?

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Well, number one, can any good thing come from Nazareth? But number two, they knew the Messiah had to come from where?

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Bethlehem. He can't be the Messiah. Why? He has to come from Bethlehem. If they would have just asked him, he's got a bit of a backstory.

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And so Jesus comes from Bethlehem. The who? It's very specific. The eternal God's coming to Bethlehem.

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The eternal God's coming to bring his government and of peace to the ends of the earth. Who? The where?

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This is big. The what? What's going to take place? I want you to see it.

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I was just with my kids this past Monday talking about this text with my kids. Go to Psalm chapter 22.

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Most of you guys know these texts, but let's do it together because I need you to see on this day where we celebrate his resurrection what the

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Bible says. Psalm 22. This is, by the way, just before the famous Psalm that's on all kinds of postcards and refrigerator magnets.

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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. So Psalm 22. Ready? My God, my

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God, why have you forsaken me? Who said it? I love it.

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I can't stop talking about this text and how significant it is because my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me is in their book of hymns. We don't use a book of hymns in many churches today.

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A lot of churches still use them. It's really good to do that, actually. If we had stuff in front of us, I might actually have us get books of hymns.

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We generally put it up here, so maybe it's just for ease, but a book of hymns is a really important thing for the church, the life of the church to know about God, what we believe and how we worship

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God. But this was the Jewish hymnal. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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Listen, was sung by Jewish people for a thousand years before Jesus touched the earth.

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Can you imagine them in their church service? Like we are gathered here on the Sabbath singing, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And listen, they probably thought as they sang that song together, they probably thought, it's me, that's me, that's my life, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And they were singing this song and they were probably thinking, it's about me.

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This is like my experience. I feel like I've been abandoned. I feel like I'm that one who is poured out like water.

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And they probably sang that song in a way where it resonated within them because they connected to the song and they thought it was about them, right?

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Do you ever do that? You ever have a moment in your life where you're completely broken and you feel like God is this absentee landlord and he is far off and he doesn't care and he's not listening and you go to the

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Psalms and you realize that that's you in that text. You start crying out to God and you recognize, God, you're my deliverer.

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God, you're the shield about me. I lift up my head to the hills, oh Lord. Where does my help come from?

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It comes from you, the maker of heaven and earth, and you're singing these songs before God and you're worshiping

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God. Jewish people were singing this song for a thousand years before Jesus.

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's amazing because it was like amazing grace, amazing grace that saved us.

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Remember, I once was, but now I was blind.

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See, you know it and they knew it. And Jesus on the cross when he dies, he says and he means it, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And the amazing thing is if they would have just started singing with him, they would have been singing together before the cross itself, the very things that spoke about the cross a thousand years before it happened.

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Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. My God, I cry, oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.

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Yet you are holy, oh you who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. You move farther down to verse 6, but I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.

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All who see me sneer at me. They separate with the lip, they wag the head saying, commit yourself to the

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Lord, let him deliver him, let him rescue him because he delights in him. Yet you are he who brought me forth from the womb.

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You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts, upon you I was cast from birth.

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You have been my God from my mother's womb. Be not far from me for trouble is near, for there is none to help.

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Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me as a ravening and a roaring lion.

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I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joints." Crucifixion was brutal.

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Some of you guys know when we use the word today in English, excruciating.

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We say, that is excruciating pain. We should probably be more careful of how we use that word.

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We usually say, oh, that was excruciating when I stubbed my toe, right? Or that was excruciating, and this actually may be accurate, when

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I stepped on that Lego in the dark. That actually might be right, okay? Excruciating literally means out of the cross, out of the cross, excruciating, out of the cross.

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So, when we say that's excruciating pain, we're saying that's out of the cross kind of pain. I doubt it.

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Crucifixion was so brutal, and it was meant to be brutal, and it was meant to terrorize the populace, because they wanted,

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Rome wanted people to be obedient subjects to Caesar.

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So, when you would pass by a road and see men dying on that cross, crucified, you knew it was brutality.

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You were crucified with a nail through here, not your hands, they wouldn't have supported you, but through here, holding you up, and a nail through your ankles, and you were held up on this cross, and it was an excruciating ordeal where you not only bled, but the nails caused your body to rest down upon a nerve that ran through here, so your nerve was shooting fire through your body.

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And when you were hanging on that cross, you would get so exhausted from the whole ordeal, and from a lack of blood, that you would slump down, and your bones would pull out of joints.

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And the text says, all my bones are out of joint. It says, my heart is like wax, it has melted within me.

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Jesus is on that cross, and he dies. Now, they want to make sure he's really dead, really, really dead.

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And so, one of the ways they do it is, and I think they even showed this in that last film, is they break the legs of the people on the cross, because if they break your legs, you can no longer pull up and gasp for air, you would slump down, and you'd suffocate because you can't fill your chest up with air.

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So, they break your legs, so you die quickly. They come to break their legs. They break the legs of the criminals next to Jesus.

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They don't break his legs, because he's already dead. But, just to make sure that he's dead, they take his spear, and they shove it through his rib cage.

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They pierced his heart sac. The text says that it was like blood and water that flowed out, really showing that it was his heart sac that was, in fact, pierced.

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And the text in Psalm 22 says, my heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

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I think there's more to it than simply that. I think it goes deeper, but that is what is on the surface.

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My strength is dried up like a pot shirt, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you lay me in the dust of death.

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Pause. This text is about the Messiah being laid into the dust of death.

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For dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me.

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They pierced my hands and my feet. They divide my garments among them, and from my clothing they cast lots.

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That's terrifying. It is. It is the kind of thing that ought to cause the fear of God to wash over you.

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If you're in Christ, it's a comforting fear of God that washes over you. If you're not in Christ, it should be a terrifying fear of God that washes over you.

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Because God spoke in history about his Messiah, about Jesus, long before he comes, down to the detail of his death, what was going to take place.

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The passion of the Messiah is right there. And again, when Jesus is on that cross, crying out, saying, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? They could have started singing the song with him, and they would have been in the very presence of the hymn itself.

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But I want to say this. The story doesn't end there. In the very same psalm, after he is crucified, his hands and his feet pierced, after he's laid in the dust of death, after he is surrounded by evildoers wagging their heads at him, commit yourself to the

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Lord, after they cast lots for his clothes, look at the text. It says, same chapter, 22 -27, all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the

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Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before you. The song goes, watch, from total brokenness and death to victory over the entire world.

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You see it? The passion is such a low, debased situation, and in the very same psalm, it is brokenness, it is abandonment, it is death, and then it turns into the salvation of the world.

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And that is the what of Jesus and his passion. He dies, and then he brings his salvation to the ends of the earth.

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You know the famous text? John 3 .16, for God so loved the world that he gave his unique and one and only

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Son, so that what? So that every believing one would not perish, but would have what?

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Eternal life. God so loved the world, not just Jews, Gentiles also.

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God so loves the world that he gives his unique and one and only Son. And this is the kingdom of the

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Messiah, all the nations, all the families of the earth coming to worship before the Lord as a result of his passion.

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No one's like that. No one's got a God like me. No one's got a

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God like us, who is so near to us that he draws near and he takes the worst affliction, all of our judgment and condemnation, he takes it upon himself because he loves us.

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And that death, that lowest punishment, and that lowest form of brokenness, that death ends up saving the world.

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That's the God we worship. It's unparalleled. Who? God. Where? Bethlehem.

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What? His passion. Why? Why? It's all in your

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Bible. Isaiah 53, you can go there if you like.

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Isaiah 53, I have most of it memorized. Isaiah 53, why? It says what in the text?

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Isaiah 53, it says clearly that they thought he was going to be dying for his own sins.

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They thought he was dying for his own sins. What do you think the Jews thought at the foot of the cross? They're standing at the foot of the cross.

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They see Jesus next to two criminals, these haughty and prideful religious leaders that were upset with Jesus because he always called them out.

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They see Jesus on that cross, and what do you think they thought? He's dying with criminals.

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He's dying for his own sins. That's what they thought. And it says, but the Lord was laying on him the iniquity of us all.

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They thought he's dying for his sin, but the Father was laying on him the iniquity of us all, and it says what?

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He was pierced through for what? Our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

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The chastening for our well -being fell upon him, and by his wounds we are what?

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Healed. It says he made his grave with the wicked, but the rich in his death.

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He was counted among the rebels, it says. Counted among the rebels.

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And people say, like the thieves on the cross? No, you. Counted among the rebels.

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He was counted as though he was part of our lot. He was counted as though he was part of you and your experience.

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Counted among the rebels. That's you, that's me. He was counted among the rebels, and it says this, what?

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He will justify the many as he bears their iniquities. Do you believe?

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Do you trust him? That's the story. The Messiah, God is a man coming to save, bring his salvation to the ends of the earth.

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Justifying us, declaring us righteous before a holy God. Why? Because you deserve it, you don't.

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Because he loves us. You must say, why would God love me? I don't know the answer to that. I think it's something you're going to be asking yourself a billion years from now, in eternity.

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You ask yourself the question, why does he love me? I don't have the answer to that. The person that says that they do is lying to you.

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God hasn't given us that part of his secret counsel as to why he loves us so much, that he would take people that don't love him back, people that hate him, that are hostile towards him, and he would take them and draw them into his family and adopt them, and call them his children.

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I don't understand it. I don't understand the love of God. It says in Isaiah 53, when it says, why, it says, watch, the

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Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief, making him an offering.

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I don't understand that. That's the part of the whole story that really you can say,

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A, B, C, D, these events took place. This is what God did. This is what he promised in his word. But I don't think any of us will ever grasp the love of God poured out in Jesus Christ on behalf of me and behalf of you.

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I don't think we will ever get it. You will not ever comprehend that. But you can try, and you can try to dig deep, and you can try to get it all together, and you can try to grasp it.

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And the only thing that it should lead you to is to fall on your face before God and to thank him for his love for you and his grace.

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That's what it's about, the glory of God. When you reflect on who's coming, where he's coming from, why he's doing his work, and what he would accomplish, it ought to cause you to worship.

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It ought to cause you to fall before Jesus and to confess him as Lord and to put your faith and trust in him for the gift of eternal life.

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Final point, for Moses, all the prophets, I'm barely scratching the surface, kind of, sort of scratching the surface.

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The when of the Messiah is coming. Daniel 2, the kingdom of the

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Messiah, four kingdoms are coming. Babylon, those kingdoms starting at Babylon, Medo -Persian,

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Greek, Rome, and then Jesus enters and says, what? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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He brought the kingdom, his rule. Psalm 1101, it says, The Lord said unto my

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Lord, set him at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. That's where Jesus is at now, taking people like you and me and putting us under his feet.

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In our case, it's in victory and in his grace. For some, it will be in judgment.

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But the story of Jesus, you have to grasp, is ultimately not something that means anything to any individual apart from repentance and faith in terms of actual peace being brought.

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I was listening just now, actually, on the way in. It came up in my feed and I listened to it.

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It was a really well -known politician today running for president.

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We will not speak about he who should not be named. No, I'm just joking. Teasing. But in this audio clip, this person was asked, well, what do you do for family?

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What makes it special for your family? What makes Easter special for your family? What's it mean?

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And it was interesting because the answer that was given was all, you know, it's a very special day. It's a family day.

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You know, and I understand sort of those reasons. It's a very special day. Family day, it's an important day for all of us. There's cultural things with it.

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I understand that. But you've got to understand something. This day doesn't mean anything ultimately for any person individually unless it's met with repentance and faith.

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You've got to grasp that. You see, churches are filled across America today, filled across America with people who come to church on Sunday because it's

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Easter. It's Easter. I'm supposed to come to church on Christmas and Easter. We call them

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Christer Christians, right? Christmas and Easter, that's where you go to church. You got to do your thing, and that's what you do.

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Well, it doesn't save you at all, and it is absolutely and utterly meaningless. And in the end, watch this.

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If you're in this room right now, and you're under the hearing of the gospel, and you hear this amazing message about that cross, and you don't respond to it, this is a day of judgment for you.

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You have to understand that. If you hear the story of Jesus and His cross and His resurrection, and you hear about a

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God who is holy, and He was full of love and mercy, you hear the story about His grace and His mercy poured out of the cross, and you don't repent and believe, when you turn away from this message of life, and you walk out those doors not knowing

01:00:06

God, this moment is judgment. It's condemnation. Because here's the story.

01:00:12

He's King. He's God. He's the Savior of the world. He has all authority in heaven and on earth, and the message is

01:00:19

He's seated now, and the world is bid, come, be saved.

01:00:26

And if you don't come quietly, if you don't come submitting to Him, and loving

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Him, and putting your faith and trusting in Him, then that means that ultimately you will be judged by Him.

01:00:40

Jesus said this in John 5 .24. He says this, truly, truly, I say to you. He says, it's amen, amen,

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I say to you, He who hears my voice and believes Him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death and into life.

01:00:59

The story is we are dead, alienated from God, hostile towards God, and we are all worthy of judgment.

01:01:08

That's it. You got to grasp that Christianity is very, very simple in its essence. We are rebels.

01:01:13

We hate God. We deserve hell. God is love. He's given us

01:01:19

His Son. He's paid it all. Trust Him. That's it. But here's the thing.

01:01:25

Many of us, including myself, heard the message, knew the message, thought we responded to the message, but we're on our way to hell.

01:01:35

Maybe you're raising a Christian home. You've heard it your whole life. You've had it. It's right in front of you. You thought you knew it. You went to youth camp.

01:01:41

You did all the stuff, all the bells and whistles. You got your own Bible in your room, right? You go to youth group. All those things are there.

01:01:46

It's part of your life, but you don't know Jesus. You've never trusted Him. You've never turned away from sin.

01:01:52

You've never come to Him and understood what it meant for God to love people so much that He had to die to purchase them.

01:02:00

You've never been in a place where you fell on your knees before God because you were truly, completely sorry for your sins.

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You've never been in a place where you've actually clung to Jesus and you were so ashamed of your sin that you couldn't even look up to God like the tax collector.

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Many of us are in that place where you're in this room right now, and you've heard this message. You've heard it your whole life, but you never had a time where you were so grieved over your own sin that you cried out to God to trust in Jesus.

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And if that's you, this is the day of salvation. This is the day to know God, not know about Him, but to know

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Him intimately as your Savior, as a lover of your soul, as the one who sings over you.

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I was talking to some people this week about that. It's something I don't understand. I don't understand God's love in that He gave

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His Son and He was pleased to do it for me. I don't get that because I can't do that for any of you with my boys.

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So I don't get it. But I also don't comprehend what it is like for God to sing over me. I don't get it.

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I can't wait to hear it. But let me just say, if you're in this room and you have heard the gospel your whole life,

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Jesus is God. He lived righteously. He died for sinners and He rose from the dead. And if you've never repented and believed, then this is the day of salvation.

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Come to the cross. Come to have life. And if, listen, and if you are in Christ today, you love

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Him, you trust Him, He's your Savior, this is the substance of all of life.

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It's Jesus. It's Jesus. When I think, and this is just a personal moment before you guys, when

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I think of the mess of life, seriously, you turn the news on, you see just wretched, evil, awful things in word and in deed around the world.

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You see just the brokenness of people. You see it all. You get overwhelmed with just like this sickness of how dark things are.

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And as a believer, when you walk in life for long enough, you're going to walk alongside believers who hurt you. You're going to walk alongside believers who display on a daily basis that they need a

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Savior. And you walk alongside unbelievers who attack you for your faith and don't understand you, and you walk through life.

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I got to say this, for me, where my heart sets, when

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I think about the chaos that happens oftentimes in many of our lives, it is honestly in the simplicity of His love for me.

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He loves me. He loves me. He saved me. I belong to Him, and that's all

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I need, is that He has lifted me up out of my darkness and my death.

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And if you're a believer today, He is risen, that message is all of life.

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You do not need to ever fear tomorrow. You do not need to ever fear your circumstances.

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You do not ever have to fear condemnation and judgment from a holy

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God because all of it was diverted from you to Jesus and exhausted.

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And so what do you have to expect from your Father now? His love, and that's enough.

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And so the message of the gospel is repent and believe.

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Come to Jesus. Flee from your sin. Flee from your self -righteousness, and you come to Him and hide in Him.

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Come and die and rise again on this day where Jesus did.

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Let's pray. Father, I want to pray that you bless the message that went out. God, give life to the dead today.

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Jesus, you showed that you have power over death. Please give it today to those who are in their death.

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And for those of us that have been given life by you, Lord, would you give us strength and peace?

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Jesus, you said, whoever lives and believes in you shall never die.

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Help us, God, to live in light of that. God, I pray that the truth of your love for us heals us and heals the person next to us.

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Lord, I pray you bless our families, bless our singleness, bless our lives to your praise.

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Use us for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. So, Purchase.