What Does the Resurrection Mean?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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John chapter 14 verses 15 through 21. Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

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And I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the

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Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you.

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I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you yet a little while and the world will see me no more.

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But you will see me because I live you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in the

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Father and that you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them.

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He it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

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In the name of Jesus. Brothers and sisters on Easter Sunday, you heard me say these words.

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He is risen and you responded. He is risen indeed. And now the question that stands before us this morning, this fine cold drizzly morning, is the question of what does it mean?

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You kind of imagine if you would if you were there poking your head into the empty tomb and seeing the grave clothes all folded up and wondering what does it all mean?

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Well without a biblical text to explain what it all means we humans because of our sinful nature are prone to give our own answers prone to all kinds of wild and crazy speculations and That is not how we do sound doctrine think of it this way if you were somebody heading to Jerusalem and you were a little bit late for the

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Passover So it's good Friday as you arrive in Jerusalem just in time Of course to sacrifice your

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Passover lamb and you arrive there Just before noon and no sooner does your watch say noon

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Then the Sun darkens and you wonder what is going on And as you get closer to the city gates, you have to pass those fellows those fellows being those who are being crucified

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You see the Romans had this obsession with sending messages almost kind of like terrorist threats you cross us

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This is what happens to you. We stick you on a cross And so as you're passing by in the dark heading into the gates

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You see three fellows nailed to a cross and then one in the middle cries out Eloy Eloy Lama sabbath on II my god my god.

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Why have you forsaken me? You think that poor fellow? crying out in agony and yet Jesus is there quoting the

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Psalms Psalm 22 to be exact Some have wondered did he cry out my god my god.

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Why have you forsaken me? Since the Psalter was Jesus's prayer book. It makes you wonder

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Maybe he was singing it a Little bit of a thought there But as you pass by you think oh, this is horrible terrible

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And you get into the city and you do all the preparations just in time to have your Passover lamb

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Sacrificed at 3 in the afternoon and just as you are about ready to kill that little lamb the

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Sun turns back on And you wonder what does it mean?

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What does it mean Well without God telling us what it means We'll probably never know but the good news is that God has told us what it means

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So what does Christ's death mean? Well, Isaiah tells us that he was pierced for our transgressions

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He was bruised for our iniquities or the Apostle Paul tells us that Christ died for our sins

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That's why he died so the question is well he rose again bodily from the grave

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What does that mean? And so what we're gonna do today, we're gonna do something I don't normally do and that is we're gonna take a look at all three of our texts today and we're going to Kind of do this vignette style

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Check in with the Apostle Paul in Athens We'll listen to the Apostle Peter preaching to us from his wonderful epistle and we'll hear the words of our

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Lord in John chapter 14 and the thing we're looking for today is What does the resurrection?

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mean each of these texts gives us a different piece of the puzzle of what the Resurrection means and in looking at those meanings

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I am hoping that you will draw comfort from the fact that Christ has bodily risen from the grave

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Because there's much comfort to be drawn from it. So our first text is Acts 17 Verse 16 is where we'll begin a little bit of context.

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The Apostle Paul is on a missionary journey He went into Thessalonica and things really didn't turn out so well there

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Apparently preaching Christ in him crucified and risen from the dead in the synagogue is a wee bit of a dicey

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Proposition some believe others do not and in Thessalonica those who did not believe became verbally abusive and physically hostile and So Paul had to leave

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Thessalonica and he headed to Berea and when he got to Berea He preached the gospel to them and we hear in the text just before this that the

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Bereans were of a more noble character Then the Thessalonians and the reason being is because when they heard the gospel

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They searched the scriptures diligently to see if what

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Paul was saying was true And they found indeed that the Old Testament texts prophesy of the

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Messiah Bleeding dying suffering for our sins and rising from the grave and they received it with joy

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Until the Thessalonians showed up they decided to chase Paul From town to town we got to find that guy and we need to shut him off It's kind of their thinking and so the

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Apostle Paul is kind of whisked away Kind of sent on furlough if you would think of it as a soldier having a little bit of R &R

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He's got a he's got a pass now in Athens. And so he's doing a walking tour of Athens He has a smartphone out and he's taking photographs of the city and putting him up on Instagram and Facebook and having quite a good time

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Until that's what we call a historical anachronism, by the way But you kind of get the idea

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So he there he is in Athens and our text can starts now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols

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So Paul rolls up his sleeve and does what Paul does Gets back to work

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So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout Persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there

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This guy seems obsessed with telling everyone about Jesus no matter where he is now some of the

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Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with Paul and Some said and I almost picture these fellows speaking in a

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British accent and What does this babbler wish to say and others said well, he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities

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This is how philosophers talk. You're right now because he was preaching Jesus and he was preaching the resurrection

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So they took hold of him and they brought him to the Areopagus and they said may we know what this new teaching is that you?

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Presenting for you bring some strange things to our ears and we wish to know therefore what these things mean

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This is how philosophers talk and then the text says this now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there

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Would spend their time and nothing except telling or hearing something new

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Now if you think well, that's then and this is now May I note this that you'll notice that our society is quite obsessed with all kinds of new thinking

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In fact, we've put replaced all the old thinking with the new thinking and if you think that people are actually binary that there's male and female the new thinking says there's no such thing as a binary human being and I've heard now that there are actually doctors who when a child is born will not say it's a boy or it's a girl

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They'll just note what type of genitalia the child has Because after all gender is something different than what you biologically are this is the new thinking see our society is obsessed with this and I would also note that Academia really seems to be the place where all these new thoughts are always

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Perkling up and then being disseminated into the culture and unfortunately, there are many seminaries

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Many seminaries who wanted to catch up with the latest new things and began teaching those new things

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Rather than the old things in scripture and as a result of it shipwrecked the faith of their seminary students

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And then when they were sent out into the churches to preach the gospel They failed to do so they preached the new thing and the new thing can't save you

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The faith is once delivered to the Saints So there's the

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Athenians all obsessed with the latest new thing. So what does the Apostle Paul do?

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So Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus He said men of Athens I perceive that in every way you are very religious

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Mm -hmm, whereas I passed along and observed the objects of your worship. I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown

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God Now this is important The Apostle Paul did not pick Zeus Zeus kind of the the ringleader if you would of the pantheon of the

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Greco -Roman gods The God who if you get on his bad side he's likely to throw a lightning bolt your way to get your attention or maybe to smite you and Keep this in mind that idolatry kind of works with this idea that God has the important things that I need and I've got to somehow get his attention and I've got to get his attention by well

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Demonstrating my devotion to him in a way that he says, okay Yeah, I can see that you're serious.

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And then of course if you really want to demonstrate your seriousness and devotion well, that also involves a little bit of money maybe a little bit more than a little kind of a lot and Sacrifices and things like this and then the deity who generally his posture towards human beings is

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I don't have time for these people If he sees that you're really devoted you've given enough money.

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You've kind of done enough to get his attention. He goes. All right There's a blessing

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Just a little one tiny little and we are to sit there and go. Thank you.

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Thank you for these bread crumbs of blessing this is how we think and This is because we had the law written on our hearts, but the gospel is something different and watch what

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Paul reveals about God, so he says let me tell you about the gods. You don't know about the unknown one

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What therefore you worship is unknown Well this I proclaim to you the God who made the world and everything in it being

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Lord of heaven and earth He does not live in temples made by man Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything

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God gives and This is the reason why Martin Luther at one point said listen,

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God doesn't need your good works He doesn't need any of them, but your neighbor does so get busy loving and serving your neighbor

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They need your good works God doesn't need him God is the one who has given you life and breath and everything and he is not served by human hands

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So knowing that we are now free to serve our neighbors in true love for them and for their benefit

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So God gives he made from one man Every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth

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Notice here the Apostle Paul wasn't privy to that new thinking called evolution And so he proclaimed that old revelation that old revelation

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That we were created in the image of God that all humanity Descends from one couple from one man

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Adam all humanity does in fact Eve came from Adam keep that in mind So you'll notice the

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Apostle Paul is a firm creationist and I wonder why could it be that because that's what's true

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Of course, so he made from one nation of mankind You know one one man every nation of mankind to live in all the face of the earth having determined allotted periods

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And the boundaries of the well Dwelling place that they should seek God and the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him yet He's actually not far from each of us for in him

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We live and we move and we have our being and as even some of your own poets have said For we are indeed his offspring so being then

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God's offspring we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone or an image formed by the art and Imagination of man now the times of ignorance

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God is overlooked but now and listen to this command Now God commands all people everywhere to what?

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Repent Repent and repentance means to change your mind

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Repentance basically acknowledges God. I'm a sinner You're in the right

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I'm in the wrong. I Was worshiping falsely Please have mercy on me.

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I Was in the wrong Lord, it was wrong of me to hurt and harm my neighbor

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Lord. It was wrong of me to lie It was wrong of me to covet. I Have no excuse

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I am guilty. That's what repentance looks like and to the one who repents The one who is brought to repentance by God himself

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What does God do? He says I'm glad that you recognize you're guilty into the lake of fire with you

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No He forgives them. And so here's the next part Fascinating so God is commanding all people everywhere to repent and the reason for this is because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed and Of this he has given full assurance to all

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By raising him from the dead and now we see one of the answers to the question

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What does the resurrection mean the resurrection means that Jesus is our judge and That there is a fixed day now when

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God will judge the living and the dead And you sit there and go yeah, but pastor That it scares me

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To have to stand before Jesus as my judge and I would say if it didn't scare you you're a fool because each and every one of us are guilty

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But the question is what kind of judge do we have in case you haven't noticed

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The scriptures as summarized in the creeds say that who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and Was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate You see the one who is going to judge you has gone through great lengths in fact miraculously great lengths to save you

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To forgive you to pardon you of your sins The one who bled and died for you is the one who's going to be your judge

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Does that give you some comfort it should Because scripture is very clear.

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It's not his will that any should perish But that all should be brought to repentance and be forgiven including you

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Vignette number one. Let's take a look at another text the

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Apostle Peter this morning Writing to Christians and one of the Catholic epistles.

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He writes first Peter chapter 3 verse 13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous?

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For what is good? That's a rhetorical question and the reason why it's a rhetorical question because we all know that in the age that we live in The axiom that we say no good deed goes unpunished

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Oftentimes is very true Especially for those who speak the truth who proclaim

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Christ who calls sinners to repent and to be forgiven by the shed blood of Christ So he says now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?

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But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you will be blessed and that's what

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Christians are called to do So have no fear of them nor be troubled but in your hearts

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Regard Christ the Lord as holy Kind of a shorthand for what

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Peter is saying here is this whom do you fear? Who do you fear?

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Do you fear your neighbors? Do you fear your family members? Pastors do you fear your congregation or do you fear

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Jesus? Who do you fear the most? Who is it that gets the last say as to what it is that you will do?

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Will you do the right thing because Jesus is holy or will you do the wrong thing because you fear?

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Reprisal from those who are hostile to Christ. It's kind of the thought that's being laid out here.

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So who do you fear? But he says have no fear of them. Do not fear your neighbors Do not fear those on Facebook and do not face fear the media do not fear

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The people out there saying there's no such thing as binary human beings. Don't fear them In your hearts regard

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Christ. The Lord is holy and always being prepared to make a defense

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To anyone who asks you for the reason and the hope that is in you

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You see you don't need to fear them because your hope is in Christ. Your hope is in the resurrection Your hope is in the new world

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We are all heading to our graves and our hope is eternal life because of what

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Christ has done. So when they Challenge you question you block you on Facebook.

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Call you bad names on Twitter send you a harshly worded snapchat

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This is how people communicate nowadays or worse they send you a text message with really angry faced emojis on it

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When they do this be ready to make a defense a defense of the hope that you have in Christ and do this with gentleness and Respect having a good conscience so that when you are slandered notice, it doesn't say if It says when?

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When you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame

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It is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will then for doing evil

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So if you're gonna just if you're gonna suffer for something Suffer for doing good rather than suffering for doing evil people who suffer for doing evil suffer justly

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Those who suffer for doing good do so unjustly and you sit there and go but but but but but but that's not fair Why would

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I want to live like that? Oh Peter gives us the answer next verse for Christ Cuz Jesus for Christ also suffered once for sins

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Though righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God now notice there what it's pointing to It's pointing to Jesus his work on the cross for our salvation

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But it's also pointing to his cross and his sufferings as a way of life that we are to emulate

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Think of it this way we talked a couple weeks ago about the fact that we are all part of the Royal priesthood of all believers and priests they pray and they offer

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Sacrifices and what's the sacrifice that we as Christians bring? Not our money.

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We bring ourselves We are living Sacrifices and our sacrifice is modeled after Christ, but hear these good words though Christ suffered once for sins only once the righteous for the unrighteous

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When you were born which group were you in? the unrighteous me too and The good news is that you are declared righteous by grace through faith in Christ So now we are part of those who are declared righteous and on the last day

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We will be clothed in righteousness forever So the righteous for the unrighteous so that he might bring us to God and he was put to death in the flesh

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But he was made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison

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Now we remember it when we think when we say the Apostles Creed He suffered and was buried.

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He descended into hell or Hades and what does that mean?

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You see where Jesus is on the cross and he cries out it is finished and he dies

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Where does he go? He descends into hell and here's the passage that explains what's going on.

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So why did Jesus go there? Did he go to suffer for us? Nope, because it is finished. He's done doing the suffering.

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So he goes down to Sheol Goes down to Sheol and there he proclaimed to the spirits in prison

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Because they formally did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in Which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through water

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Part of the order of business if you would while Jesus was down in Sheol was for him he was on the side where Abraham was

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Abraham's bosom and he shouts and proclaims across the chasm to those who are suffering in the fire

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I won and Those of you who were alive and refused to listen to Noah, how long did

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Noah preach by the way? 100 years and how many converts did

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Noah's preaching produce? The only people on the ark were members of his own family

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Hundred years of preaching that's a tough road to hoe. I mean we pastors we have very frail

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Personalities and we're very sensitive, you know we want to see results and so could I can't imagine as a pastor preaching for a hundred years and No one believing except for my family

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What a terrible preacher I would be right Maybe the problem wasn't the preaching. So here we have

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Jesus down in Hades in Sheol proclaiming to the spirits in prison

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I Won Noah was right That's what he was doing in part

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And then Ephesians tells us that when he ascended he led captives in his train Those would be the ones who are on the other side the

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Abraham's bosom side of Sheol, but that's a different text altogether So now pay attention now because we're still looking for the answer to this question.

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What does the resurrection mean? Here's what it means So there's Noah and the ark eight persons survived they were brought safely through water

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Baptism which corresponds to this let me put it back into Greek for a second so you can see how this works baptism, which is the anti to pass to this

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Anti to pass the Greek equivalent is anti type. The flood is type

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The baptism is anti type you see the flood always pointed to something bigger the baptismal font

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So watch baptism, which is the anti type to the flood now saves you

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Saves Are you baptized? Are your sins washed away?

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This is important and watch we says it saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body

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That's called a bath by the way, and it's no fun without bubbles It's not a removal of dirt from the body, but is an appeal to God for a good conscience

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So baptism is an appeal to God through a good conscience and watch through the resurrection of Jesus Christ Who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of the of God with angels and authorities and powers having been?

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Subjected to him in other words because of the resurrection because Jesus is bodily raised risen from the grave

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You in your baptism are united with him in his death and his resurrection and So now because of that because we've been united with him in his death and his resurrection

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We now have a good conscience Knowing that our sins are washed away that we are forgiven and that we are united with Christ so What does it mean?

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What's the significance of the resurrection? Well significance is that baptism now saves

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Or as the Apostle Paul preached the significance and understanding Why is it important that Christ rose bodily from the grave because now we know?

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That God has chosen one to judge all of human beings on that great day

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But Jesus himself in John chapter 14 verses 15 through 21

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Which is our gospel text for this sixth Sunday of Easter He gives us

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Ever so subtly, but it's there a very clear promise. That is very comforting for us who are dying

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Here's what he says If you love me You will keep my commandments

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Now this is an important thing that we have got to get right This is a conditional sentence if you love me, you will keep my commandments

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It's important to note that Jesus did not say if you keep my Commandments that will demonstrate that you love me then you will be saved

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That's not this kind of conditional sentence Think of it this way if I were to say there's snow on the ground and because there's snow on the ground

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That means it's snowing Pointing to the snow on the ground does not make it snow

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Pointing to the snow on the ground is evidence that it is snowing or has snowed. Does that make sense?

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So, how do we know that we are Christians? Well as James tells us

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Just as the body is breathing or the body that is not breathing is dead Faith without works is dead

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There's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't do good works.

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That animal does not exist But the fact that you do good works and you keep and you guard

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Christ's commandments Is one of the things that is evidence That you are his does that make sense?

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It doesn't cause your salvation It shows that your body is breathing that your faith is alive

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And that's what he's saying if you love me and it's important to note keep does not mean obey Keep here is that Greek word

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Tereo which means to guard? All right, if there were Roman soldiers outside of Jesus's tomb guarding it they were to reowing it

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They were guarding it in this way. So if you love me, you will keep my commandments and the reason you're keeping them is because you do love him and the reason you do love him is because you've been the

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United with Him in baptism because he has raised you from the dead. He has seated you with Christ He has forgiven you of your sins

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Then Jesus says so I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever

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That's the Holy Spirit Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him

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You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you I will not leave you as orphans.

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What a great phrase Note the love of Christ, although he knows he's going to the father and this is

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Ascension talk now But that's for next week, although he knows he's going to the father He refuses to leave those whom he loves as orphans

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And he says I will come to you yet a little while and the world will see me no more But you will see me and here's the promise ready because I live

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You also will live. What does the resurrection mean?

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It means that we have hope and The reason why we have hope and we need this hope and why this promise is so important is because so many of our loved ones are sleeping outside today and if the

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Lord tarries many of us will join them and We too will be sleeping outside Kongsvinger, but see we do not grieve as the world grieves

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We do not mourn as the world mourns because Christ has risen from the dead. We know that because he lives

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That we also will live you will live and so this is our great hope and this is a great

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Promise and so why is the resurrection important and what does it mean?

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It means everything it means that we will be reunited with those whom we love

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It means that we will see Jesus our judge who bled and died for our sins face to face and not hear him condemn us

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But we will live forever new heavens new earth in a world without end face to face with our

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Jesus and Reunited with those whom we love who've died in the faith and never again

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Will we ever have to say those horrible words? Goodbye, it will always be see you later because Jesus lives you also will live

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Jesus says that in that day the day when he returns You will know that I am in the father and you are in me and I am in you

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Whoever has my commandments and guards them he it is who loves me

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I remember in our first text the Apostle Paul said that God now commands everybody in all nations to repent the commands of Jesus are to repent and to believe that he has bled and died for your sins and Then you

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Being raised from the dead and forgiven Will love and serve your neighbor in good works and guard his word and cherish it in your heart and abide in him

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He it is who loves me is who one who keeps and guards my commands and he who loves me

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Will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.

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So what does it mean? That Jesus rose bodily from the dead

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Three different texts give us three big pieces of the puzzle It means that Christ will judge us

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Yeah, it means the baptism saves and it also means

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That because he lives you also Will live this is good news.

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And these are words that we can hang on to They give us hope and certainty of God's love and mercy for us

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Which then make it possible for us to suffer to do our good works for other people without getting tired

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Looking forward to serving each other day by day as we wait for that day

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When we will be made alive forever because Christ lives in the name of Jesus Amen If You would like to support the teaching ministry of kungsvinger lutheran church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to kungsvinger lutheran church 159 5 0 470th

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Avenue Northwest Oslo, Minnesota 567 4 4 and again that address is kungsvinger lutheran church 159 5 0 470th

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Avenue Northwest Oslo, Minnesota 567 4 4 We thank you for your support

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