Christ Arose! - [John 20:1-10]

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. The most important event in history.

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If I were to ask you to list what the most important event in history was, what would you say?

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And I think if this were a Sunday school class, I would have loved to get a bunch of different ideas. Since it's not a

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Sunday school class, I'll just tell you what I found. Give you some of what I found, anyway. Number 15,

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I thought this was appropriate. Who does a top 15 list, by the way? But anyway, this is what they did. The Black Death.

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The Black Plague. The Bubonic Plague. Between 1346 and 1353, killed 30 to 60 % of the entire population of Europe.

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It's amazing to think about that. Somewhere upwards of 200 million lives taken.

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In fact, it took about 250 years to make up the population that was lost during the

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Black Plague. Number 12 on their list is the American Civil War, and you might think, the

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American Civil War, but this is just a local war, even though it killed more Americans than any other war we've ever had.

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But the American Civil War, they say, was significant because it stopped slavery.

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If the Confederacy had won, then slavery throughout the world would have received a boost.

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Number 11, appropriate for this weekend, the Reformation. Only number 11.

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They say reformers moving to the New World would have enormous influence on the founding of the

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United States. Here's what I really like, though. Neither the Age of Enlightenment nor the

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Industrial Revolution would have been possible without the Protestant Reformation. So yay, Protestants.

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Number 7, the Gutenberg printing press, which arguably should be higher on the list, but after this, people, because books were expensive, they were hard to make, they were expensive, they were hard to get, but now people can have their own copies of books and read them for themselves.

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Number 4, World War II. Everybody knows about that. Number 3,

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I thought this was interesting, was the communist takeover of Russia. Number 3, most important event.

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And I would say yes, because without it, communism wouldn't have spread as far as it did.

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Number 1, not the American Revolution, but the French Revolution.

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Why? And they say this, because it will always be remembered as the event that ended feudalism and whose shockwaves led to a total transformation of social structures in every country.

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That's their list. And I'm going to suggest you can just basically throw that away.

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Those events are impressive, but they pale in comparison to one event, and the event that we're going to look at this morning, the resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the raising of him from the dead. And what a great thing on Reformation Sunday to be able to look at the resurrection of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. John chapter 20, verses 1 to 10, follow along as I read.

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Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

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So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the

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Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb.

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Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first, and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloth lying there, but he did not go in.

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Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloth lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloth, but folded up in a place by itself.

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Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.

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For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

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Then the disciples went back to their homes. Now over the last several months, we've looked at the

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Last Supper, which, if you recall, it's before the Passover celebration, and it's kind of to start the whole celebration.

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And it was on Thursday evening. We're looking this morning at Sunday morning.

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So when you consider all that's transpired here, it's in a very short period of time, and I think it's important to remember that, just as we think about, really, the emotions of Peter and John as all these things transpire, and to understand why they're doing things the way that they're doing them.

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But if you recall the Last Supper, here are all the disciples gathered together.

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They're reclining on one another, as was the custom there, and they're enjoying this meal together. They want to know who it is who's going to betray

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Jesus. So they, Peter and John, kind of ask

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Jesus, and he indicates that it's Judas. Then he dismisses Judas, tells him to go do what he's going to do, and do it quickly.

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And they just, the rest of them, just continue having this meal. Judas is important because he goes and he arranges to get troops, and he leads those troops to where Jesus and the disciples are, because he knows where they're going to be later on.

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He knows they're going to be at Gethsemane. And then we saw the travesties of justice, the so -called trials before Annas and Caiaphas and Pilate, with Pilate ultimately sentencing

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Jesus to death on a cross. And the last time that I was in John, we looked at what really happened with the body of Jesus as it was taken off of the cross, and it was buried by what

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I called two secret disciples, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

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They were men who were in the Sanhedrin, in the Jewish leadership, whose lives would have been destroyed if everybody knew they were disciples, so they kept it quiet.

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And then the crucifixion happens, and they come forward. They ask for the body, they get it, and they go to bury it.

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Without the crucifixion, which we've looked at, there would be no payment for sin.

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We would not have a lamb suitable to pay the price for our sins.

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He had to be spotless. Jesus was spotless. Without the burial of Jesus, as we said last time, we would have no assurance that he was fully human, a man who could be our representative, who could be that spotless lamb, who could, as it were, take our place.

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This morning, we're going to begin looking at the resurrection, which again, the most significant event in history, and also it's a great promise of what lies in the future.

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Why do I call it the greatest event in history, though? It is in so many ways, but I think maybe the one that stands out the most in my mind is it separates a naturalistic worldview from a supernatural worldview.

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What do I mean by that? This, atheists, anti -supernaturalists, those who say that this life is all that there is, they say, guess what?

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When you die, you become worm food. You go into the grave and your body disintegrates, it's eaten by insects, you're done.

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That's all there is. What the Bible says, what the supernatural worldview is, is this.

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You have a soul, you've been granted that soul by God. That soul occupies your body, and when you die, that soul lives on.

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But the resurrection teaches this, that one day your body and your soul will be reunited.

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And the question before us this morning is, what sort of body will you receive?

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What will your soul and body be doing for all eternity? Will they be joined with Christ?

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Will they be worshiping him in heaven? Or will you be suffering the torment of hell forever in a new body with your soul?

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The resurrection separates the natural from the supernatural. Natural worldview from the supernatural worldview.

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Now this morning, I've divided our text into three segments, three Fs to help us understand the progression of the text, and to a certain extent, the astonishment of the disciples, and certainly the accomplishment of God in raising

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Jesus from the dead. What are the implications of that? And so our first F is faithfulness.

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I want to focus on the faithfulness of the women who tended to the body of Christ. And yes,

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I said the women, but first we're going to focus on Mary Magdalene, verse 1. Now on the first day of the week,

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Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early. Now as an aside, it's interesting, it's really kind of curious that John points to the first day, or to the day, saying it's the first day of the week.

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Why not on the third day? You'd figure that he'd mark things from the crucifixion to the resurrection, wanting to emphasize it's the third day.

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Each one of the Gospels relays that bit of information, that it's the first day of the week.

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Each one of the Gospels identifies Mary Magdalene, and the book of Acts goes on to stress the first day of the week.

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Well, why? Because the church, as a body, didn't gather on Saturday, it gathered on Sunday, the first day of the week.

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It celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, I'd put it this way, we're not seventh day

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Adventists, that is to say, we don't gather on Saturday morning to celebrate the birth of Jesus, right?

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We gather on the first day of the week, Sunday, we're first day resurrectionists.

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We celebrate the risen Savior. We worship Him. R .C.

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Sproul said this, he said, every Lord's Day, every Sunday, is to be a celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

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So this text should be one that we come to again and again.

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So, Mary Magdalene, as we read this, it's easy to think to ourselves, because here in the text, she's alone.

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We think, oh, poor Mary, she's going off to the tomb all by herself. And then we have to think for a moment, think logically, and think, okay, everybody, every

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Jew, every observant Jew from around the Roman Empire comes in for this holiday,

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Passover. Would a woman at Odark 30, you know, wrap herself up and go through who knows what to get to the tomb, knowing that, yes, righteous people would come into Jerusalem, but many unrighteous people would come into Jerusalem.

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Would she do that? And the answer is, of course not. And we don't really have to go very far in our text, we're going to skip just a little bit and then we're going to go back to verse 1, but if you just look at verse 2 for a moment, you see the word, we.

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When she goes to Peter and John, she says, we. Now, we have to assume one of two things is true, either that she's using the plural of majesty, that is, you know, we are concerned, you know, and she's presenting herself that way, or she's in a group of women, which is more likely that she's in a group of women, of course.

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And we know that she's not alone because we can look at the other, the other gospels. Mark 16 tells us that Mary, the mother of James and Salome were with Mary Magdalene.

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In Luke, we find that there were still others. So it was a small group of women that actually went to the tomb.

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And that's why I say it's the faithfulness of the women. And notice also that our text tells us that the stone is moved.

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It's been taken away from the tomb. Verse one, while it was still dark and saw she was going while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

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Now this is kind of a mixed bag of information. Because in the gospel of Mark, we would see that the women were talking about this and they were concerned about this.

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In fact, Mark 16 three says this, and they were saying to one another, they're having this conversation, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?

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They know they can't move it. So who's going to do it? And you think, well, maybe it was customary to put some huge stone in front of a tomb so that nothing could be moved.

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Well, no, it wasn't customary. In fact, turn for a moment to Matthew 27, Matthew 27, verse 62.

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And we'll see why it was there.

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And it was really because the Pharisees were afraid. They were afraid they'd killed

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Jesus. And yet they were still afraid. Matthew 27, verses 62 to 66.

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The next day, that is, and listen carefully. After the day of preparation, the chief priests and the

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Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, sir, we remember how that imposter said while he was still alive.

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

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

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

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Now, grave robbing was not unknown then. It was a crime that occurred from time to time for various reasons, mostly for money.

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And if we think about it, we might think, well, Jesus is buried in a tomb of a rich man. So maybe somebody might break into his tomb.

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Right. But what are they worried about? They're worried that the disciples and keep in mind what we know about the disciples, that when

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Jesus is arrested, what do they do? They split, right? They're worried that somehow the disciples are going to band together and put this plot together and make it look like he has risen to fulfill his own words and thereby pull this massive trick on people.

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So they go on the day of preparation. Now, who remembers what the day of preparation was?

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Nobody remembers. OK, good. The day of preparation is the day before the

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Sabbath, Friday. So again, look at the text. The next day, that is after the day of preparation.

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The day after the day before the Sabbath would be the

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Sabbath. Now, it's curious how Matthew phrases that, isn't it?

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He doesn't want to offend Jewish sensibilities as they're reading this. But imagine this. The Pharisees go before a pagan on the

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Sabbath to plead for him to make sure that Jesus' disciples, who have no intention of doing any of this, don't pull off this massive plot.

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Well, let's go back to John. Now, again, this is Saturday. I just want to read what scholar

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Leon Morris says. He goes, they recalled Jesus' prophecies and feared that the disciples might attempt to stage a mock resurrection by causing

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Jesus' body to disappear. They had taken notice of what Jesus had said. They recalled the interval of three days, and they even used the passive voice, be raised, not

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I will rise, which he will see. He did say that also. But this, the way they phrase it refers to a resurrection, resurrection action by the

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Father. Now, only the governor, only Pilate could send troops. Only he could put troops outside of a grave like this.

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So he orders that to be done, and then they seal it with a stone to make sure it's secure. Ultimately, there is no way a fake can now be pulled off.

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So what does that mean? That means when it happens, it's genuine, even though they will later even claim that a fraud has occurred.

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So why did the women go to the tomb that way? I said they were faithful. Well, here's what they wanted to do.

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It's likely, as I said last time, that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, because they were in a rush, they had all this, all these spices and all these wrappings to put on Jesus to kind of do the

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Jewish, Jewish means of preparing a body for burial.

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They probably didn't get it all done. So they wanted to finish. There were still some spices left and some bandages left.

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And so they were going to go in and apply these to Jesus. They wanted to honor Jesus. In other words, in his death, they get to the tomb.

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What do they find? If we looked elsewhere, which we don't have time for, we'd see that the stone has been moved.

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The guards are passed out. They've been supernaturally passed out. And there are angels in and around the tomb and no body of Jesus.

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But before they enter the tomb, before they see any angels, before anything else has happened, as soon as she sees the stone moved,

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Mary Magdalene says to herself, self, we need help.

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Who do I go to? What am I going to do? And she takes off running and she runs to get some backup, some help.

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She goes to Jesus or sorry to Peter and to John. Look at verse two.

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She runs. And this is our second point. First one was faithfulness. Second one, fleetness. And Mary is running.

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Verse two. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom

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Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.

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Now it's likely, can't be sure, but it's likely that Peter and John are in separate houses.

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And if you remember, Jesus on the cross says to John, behold your mother. You know, in other words, he says, take care of my mom.

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So Mary is in John's home. Mary Magdalene goes to Peter's home first,

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Simon Peter, and then to John's home. Her message is not about the resurrected

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Christ, this wonderful thing that has happened. She's in a panic in her mind.

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Maybe the grave has been robbed. Who knows what's happened? Maybe the

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Pharisees got him. All she knows is that the body of Jesus is missing. Sproul puts it this way.

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He says an empty tomb could have indicated many things. And the option that would have been last on the list would have been a resurrection.

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So now Mary has run to tell them what has happened. Watch what

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Peter and John do in response. They wind up running. Verse three. So Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going toward the tomb.

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Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

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And the picture, the construction here is this. She goes to the separate homes and, you know,

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Jerusalem is big, but it's not that big. And they were probably somewhat close to each other.

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Peter comes out. John comes out. They're walking along. And at some point their paths merge.

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Could have been sooner. They could have been next door neighbors. Don't know. But they start walking together and you could almost see it.

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That they're walking and they're going, what is going on? What is Mary all about? How can anything like this have happened?

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They're walking along. And as they talk, they're getting more and more concerned or anxious or excited.

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We don't know. They start running. Maybe it started as a jog, but then it's a sprint. John wins.

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You know, there are lots of theories as to why John wins. He's younger. You know, Peter had a three pack a day habit.

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It doesn't matter why, why it doesn't. John gets there first.

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Look at verse five. And stooping in to look, he saw the linen cloths lying there and he did not go in.

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Now if you're to look back at the door of the back there, it's what six and a half, seven feet, whatever it is.

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That's not like the interest of the tomb, right? It's at least half that and probably less than that.

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So it's not like he can just kind of, you know, glance in like this. He's got to get down and look in there.

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And that's the picture. And so he's getting down and he's looking, he's examining there. He looks pretty carefully and he sees the linen cloths lying there, but he doesn't go in.

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Now, I don't really think he's there for minutes. He's maybe there for a few seconds, several seconds, however long it is.

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And then Peter comes along. Look at verse six. Then Peter came, Simon Peter came following him and look, and went into the tomb.

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He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

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It's as if Peter says, you know what, John, you can just stand out here and look outside. And John maybe is a little edgy, kind of wondering what's going on in there.

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This is his best friend who's been buried. And the idea that the stone has been moved away, doesn't,

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I think it gives him a little bit of trepidation. What's in there? What's happened? Does he really want to look?

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But Peter in typical Peter fashion just blows right by him, goes right in.

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Right. I'll take a look. I don't care. What does he see? Everything orderly, everything set out in just such a way.

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Well, why? By the way, I mean, I was reading all sorts of things here. You know, there are some people who think that like the bandages were floating in the air.

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There are all kinds of bizarre theories here. None of that is true. What is true is what's in the text.

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The things were very orderly. Well, why is that important? Well, it's important because if it was a grave robbing,

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I've been to a few crime scenes in my life. Criminals generally are not too pristine.

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They're not too careful. I won't say that, but I'm just thinking, you know, they don't really care about what they leave behind.

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Right. And what we see here is a very orderly scene, things laid out just so as if the body had been laid in such a way and the body had gone right through the bandages, leaving them laid out just so now we come to, we've seen fleetness or faithfulness, fleetness, and now fulfillment their death.

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John enters the tomb and believes. Look at verse eight. Then the other disciple, again, that's

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John who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed.

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Now he's writing this about 60 years after the event, maybe 65.

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And it doesn't take much. I mean, he's like 90 years old when he's writing this doesn't take much to imagine.

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You're John and you're recalling this event. I think, you know, just like when you first get saved, it had to be kind of exciting to even write it.

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Why? Because look at what he says, went in and he saw, he saw what he saw the bandages, but he'd already seen them.

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What he saw was what he didn't see. Jesus was not in the tomb.

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The tomb was empty and he believed whatever his worst thoughts might've been, they evaporate.

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He can only come to one conclusion based on what he sees or doesn't see that his friend, his teacher, his master, and his

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Lord was also the Messiah, the son of God. And he was risen from the grave.

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Now John believed before, had he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ?

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Well, we would know even from John 17. Yes, he had believed, but he hadn't comprehended everything.

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He hadn't believed in the resurrection because he didn't understand it. He still didn't understand all the ramifications of the resurrection, but he knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

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Why? Because there was no other explanation for it. There was no other way he could be missing.

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And it is the empty tomb that will eventually account for the explosion of Christianity across the

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Roman empire, across the world. No other religion has been founded by one who rose from the dead because no one else could.

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You ever talk to an atheist, they'll say, well, you know what? Jesus is just a copy of Zoroaster.

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I've heard that one before. And here's my response. Zoroaster is dead.

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Siddhartha is dead. Confucius is dead. Muhammad is dead. Moses is dead.

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Ellen G. White is dead. L. Ron Hubbard is dead. Joseph Smith is dead, dead, dead, dead.

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Only Jesus rose from the dead. He could not experience corruption.

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Look at verse nine. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

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He must rise from the dead. Neither of the disciples fully understood the resurrection at this point.

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How could they? It would be as if, I mean, you know, it's amazing when we read the account of Noah and the flood.

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You know, how could those people, you know, die? How could they not go into the ark?

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Why would they not listen to Noah? Because guess what? Not only had there never been a flood before, so they had no concept of what that was.

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It never rained before, but that's another story. There had never been a resurrection.

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You say, well, what about Lazarus? What happened to Lazarus after he was raised from the dead?

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He died. That's what people do. We die. Now, what scripture is

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John referring to here? He says they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Well, there are several possibilities.

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Listen to Psalm 1610, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your

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Holy One see corruption. Psalm 118 verses 22 and 23, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

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This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. What's marvelous? That you would raise him from the dead and that he would become the cornerstone.

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Isaiah 53, 11 and 12, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

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What did he see? All the people that would come to faith in Christ, who would be forgiven of their sins.

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By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.

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Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

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

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We have a living high priest. Every one of these and many other

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Old Testament passages necessitate the resurrection. Even if it wasn't clear to the disciples, yet it would be.

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On other occasions, John referred to Jesus' own words as scripture. And listen to what

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John 2, 19 says, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple. In other words, destroy my physical body.

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And what? And in three days I will raise it up. As he's recalling the resurrection and thinking back on the words of Jesus, you think he thinks about these things?

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Yes. What about Peter? How about first Peter chapter one, verse three, blessed be the

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again.

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Listen to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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Think the resurrection impacted Peter? I think it did. Again, John writing in 90

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A .D. would have been familiar with Paul's writings, his epistle to the church at Corinth.

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First Corinthians written about 55 A .D. First Corinthians 15 verses three and four, for I delivered to you as a first importance what

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I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture, right? According to scripture, verse four, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

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Jesus taught Paul that this was something that the disciples learned.

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They knew or they would know that this is what the old Testament taught.

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And the message we should take this morning from this passage is that believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus is essential to the

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Christian faith. Jesus didn't stay on the cross. He didn't stay in the tomb.

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He was raised from the dead and a professing believer who denies the resurrection of Jesus is no

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Christian at all. You must believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the physical, actual resurrection of Jesus.

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Now returning home, verse 10, the disciples went back to their homes. I mean, it's kind of an anticlimax, right?

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Consider this for a moment. Again, I think it's just important that we think of a mindset. They go to the tomb, not knowing what to expect, not knowing what they're going to see.

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They started a walk. They end at a sprint. John looks in as probably a little trepidatious,

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I'll just make a board. They look in, they believe they're going home.

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Peter's going to his house. John's going to his house. Well, what's at his house or more specifically, who's at his house?

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Mary, the mother of Jesus. How do you think that walk went for John? I think he was amazed.

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I think he couldn't wait to get there. I mean, there's that one little verse that you just go, oh, no, this is great.

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This is awesome. Last week,

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Pastor Mike asked if you were worshiping the biblical Jesus.

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If you had the right Jesus, have you trusted in the one who is the one who is master creator?

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Not the one the world says he is. Not even the one sometimes in your own mind you create.

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And when we look at this text, we need to understand this, that there is no more critical truth about Jesus than that of the resurrection.

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Why did I say it's the single most important event in history? Because if he is not raised, if he's still in the tomb, if he's in an ossuary, as they posited a few years ago, there's no hope for anyone.

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We're all doomed. But because he is risen, there's a sure hope for everyone who believes and trusts in him, who trusts in his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection.

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Listen to what Paul writes in first Corinthians 15 verses 13 to 17. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, in other words, if the grave is all there is, then not even

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Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

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We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God, that he raised

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Christ whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised for, if the dead are not raised, not even

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Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

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Those are the stakes. No resurrection means there's no forgiveness of sins.

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There's no removal of the wrath of God. In fact, it would put the lie to the whole concept of double imputation.

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That is to say that Jesus on the cross paid for our sins and we receive his righteousness, receives his perfect life.

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But listen to first Corinthians 15 verses 20 and 21. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

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The first fruits, the very first of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death,

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Adam, by a man also has come the resurrection of the dead. Second Adam, Jesus undid the work of the second

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Adam. J .I. Packer said this, he said, Christianity rests on the certainty of Jesus resurrection as a space time occurrence in history.

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The miracle of the resurrection, all four gospels highlighted the book of Acts insists on it.

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And Paul regarded the resurrection as indisputable proof that the message about Jesus as judge and savior is true.

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That's in Acts 17. We'd see that Jerry Bridges wrote.

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The resurrection proved that Jesus was indeed the divine son of God. How do we know that Romans 1 for tells us that he was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, that is to say, the

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Holy Spirit by his resurrection from the dead. And he says, just as it was impossible for the divine nature of Jesus to die, right?

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Jesus divine nature did not die on the cross. So it was impossible for the human nature of Jesus to remain dead because of its union with his divine nature.

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He also says the resurrection of Jesus assures us of our justification. If Christ were still in the tomb, it would mean

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God's wrath was not satisfied. We would still stand guilty. But in Romans four, we read that Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

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Bridges goes on. He says the resurrection assures us that we serve a living savior who is even now interceding for us.

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The writer of Hebrews wrote that he always lives to make intercession for us. He's our living high priest.

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And finally, Bridges writes, the resurrection of Christ guarantees our future resurrection.

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Even as John would write in first John three, two beloved, we are

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God's children. Now we belong to him now. And what we will be in the future after death has not yet appeared.

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But we know that when he appears, when Christ comes back, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

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We're going to spend eternity. Every believer is going to spend eternity with him, with his physical body, and we will have a physical body like unto his friends.

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Jesus Christ is risen. Let's pray.

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Our father, what a glorious truth to see. Not only the life, the death, the burial of Jesus Christ, but his resurrection and the impact it had on those who foresaw it, who saw the empty tomb, who realized what they had not realized before.

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Though they had heard many times, though they knew the word father, for any here, who today have not believed on the

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Lord, Jesus Christ had not fully comprehended the importance of his resurrection.

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Would today be the day that you would open their eyes? Father, would you open the hearts of those who are hearing today who do not know you that they might come to saving faith in Christ Jesus by the power of your spirit?

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We pray in Jesus' name. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org