Celebrating The Resurrection

Good morning. Great to see all of you here. Thank you so much for choosing to worship with us today and what a glorious day it is and phenomenal worship this morning. thank you to the worship team for leading us in worship today.

I told Mike, I said, whatever this song selection was, let's do that every week. So, awesome, awesome and so great to have such a wonderful Lord to celebrate and, and worship through these lyrics that we have just sung. before we get underway with our message for the morning, we do have some good news to share with you. I have a, flower here to, my right, and this is in honor of, in honor of Braden Luke Barron.

Yeah. Yeah. Who was born to Baltazar and Nadia Barron, Wednesday, April the first. But if he grows up and looks anything like his dad, you will not be making fun of him for that.

At 2:35 a.m. coming into the world at 7 pounds, 2 ounces and 20 inches long. So let's rejoice with them. That picture was taken yesterday, so that's an up to-date shot.

but let's be rejoicing with Baltazar and Nadia, as they, treasure this gift that God has given to them and to bring this young, life up and the nurture and The instruction, of the Lord. God is so good, so good to all of us. also, just to say real quick, Carlos will be saying something about this, at the end, but I wanna go ahead and say this now, that we're gonna be taking up a collection for the Agape Fund. And we've been announcing to you that the proceeds of that offering will be going in their entirety to the San Bernardino Pregnancy Center, a ministry that is all about saving babies and saving souls, and a number of people in our church, are participating in this ministry, and it's a wonderful ministry that we're blessed to have a partnership with.

some people asked me about this after we said something about the offering on Friday. I just wanna clarify, you would just make the check out to Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church and put Agape Fund on the memo line. and we will make sure that every penny of that, if you put Agape Fund on the memo line, your offering will go, to the Agape Fund will go to the San Bernardino Pregnancy, Center. So, just wanna let that, upfront.

Anyway, what I wanna do this morning is I want to speak to you on the subject. Of what the resurrection. tells us about Jesus. What the resurrection tells us about Jesus.

And we'll be looking at a variety of scriptures this morning as we just gaze at Christ and ponder the meaning of the resurrection of Christ and in particular what his resurrection tells us about him. there are many important questions in life that we may ask, but I would submit to you that there is no question that is more important than the question, who is Jesus? Maybe you're here today and your heart is full of questions, even good questions, great questions, but I would submit to you that the most important question that you can ever ask is the question, who is Jesus?

work on that question, find the answer to that question, and it will give you perspective as you approach every other question in life.

Who is Jesus? That's the question I wanna put before us today. Even if you say, well, I know who Jesus is, even if the answer to that question, you probably should still be asking that question every day because none of us knows Jesus as fully as we can know him. There is so much more to know about him than what even someone who has known Jesus for 40 years has come to know.

Now, if you come to Jesus and you ask him, hey, I wanna know who you are. I'm asking this most important question, who is Jesus? Can you tell me who you are? Jesus would very happily answer that question for you.

On the pages of scripture, Jesus makes staggering claims about himself, more staggering than anyone else in the history of the world. He says things like, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one gets to the Father except through me. He says things like, I am the resurrection and the life. He doesn't just say I am a, the means by which you can obtain resurrection in life.

No, he says, I am the resurrection and the life. In John 6, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever and never die. In that same chapter, Jesus says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

Now, for those of us that have known the Lord for any length of time, we're used to these statements, but imagine anyone else talking this way and making these kinds of claims about himself. No one in human history ever spoke about himself the way that Jesus spoke about himself. And so we're left with the questions, what do we do with these claims? What do we conclude about Jesus?

Who is this one who says these types of things about himself? We really have only 2 directions to go in answering this question. There's only 2 categories, in my opinion that I think we can put Jesus in. The two options are we can conclude that Jesus was a truth teller and that he is who he says he is, or number 2, We can conclude that he was crazy.

I know there are some who would say that there's a third option, and that is that Jesus was a deliberate deceiver, and I get that, there's a lot of wisdom in that, but someone who outright deceives people with these kinds of claims that I just read to you is as crazy as he is evil. So for the sake of simplicity, let's say there are only 2 options. Jesus was either who he said he was, or he was crazy. You almost have to arrive at one of these two options if you are intellectually honest in answering the question, who is Jesus?

Let me give you two examples of two individuals that made their choice as to which category they would view Jesus in. The first is Mick Jagger. who I am not accustomed to quoting in my sermons. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones has examined the claims of Jesus and he has made up his mind and landed.

At a conclusion about Christ. Listen to what he said. If Jesus had been indicted in a modern court, he would have been examined by doctors, found to be obsessed by a delusion, declared incompetent and incapable of pleading his case, and sent to an asylum. Now I would disagree with Mick Jagger's conclusion about Christ, but to his credit, he gets it.

He gets it. He understands the magnitude of the claims that Jesus made about himself and he knows that Jesus was either who he said he was, or he was insane. While we're quoting from rock and rollers this morning, let's hear from another singer who comes to the opposite conclusion about Christ. A few years ago, Bono of U2 was being interviewed and the interviewer asked him this question, who is Jesus?

Bono responds with keen insight. Listen to what he said. He said, it's a defining question, who was Christ? I don't think you're let off easily by saying that he was a great thinker or a great philosopher, because actually he went around saying he was the Messiah.

That's why he was crucified. He was crucified because he said he was the Son of God. So he either in my view was the Son of God, or he was nuts. Forget rock and roll messianic complexes.

Charlie Manson type delirium. I don't know much else about what Bono believes, but on this score, he's totally right. His interviewer then said, so you believe that he was divine? And Bono replied, yes.

Yes, I do. So which view Do we side with today? Jagger's view? Orbano's view.

The Jagurean Christology. Or the Bonoan Christology. Which of those two do we side with this morning? And more importantly, how do we figure that out?

How can we know? Is there some decisive thing that maybe we can look to that answers that question conclusively for us as to whether Jesus was who he said he was or whether he was insane. I want to suggest this morning that The greatest thing that you and I can look at to determine the answer to the question, who was Jesus, is to look at the event of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead, happened on this exact Sunday of the year, 2000 years.

Ago almost. In fact, just a little historical tidbit, if Christ was crucified and raised in the year AD 33, which is what many scholars would suggest, then that means that he was actually raised on April 5th. Which is today That doesn't often happen. The last time there was an exact alignment of the actual calendar day of Christ's resurrection with Easter Sunday.

It was in 1953, so about 62 years ago, so this doesn't happen often. But this historical event. Speaks volumes to us about Jesus. And tells us almost everything we need to know about him.

And with the time that we have this morning, I wanna just talk to you about 5 things that we can know about Jesus by virtue of his having been raised from the dead, which will help us in answering the question, who is Jesus? 5 things that Jesus' resurrection tells us about him. If you just go to the tomb and just think. There at the empty tomb and conclude that the resurrection actually happened, and then if so, what does this mean?

You could draw these five truths about Jesus from the fact of the resurrection. Number 1, Christ's resurrection means that Jesus is the ultimate truth teller. He is the ultimate truth teller. It turns out that Jesus did not merely die and rise again on the 3rd day, but he called it.

He actually promised and predicted that he would die, and he predicted that he would be raised, and he predicted the very day of his resurrection. From the dead. At the very beginning of Jesus' public ministry, in John chapter 2, Jesus predicted that he would die and be raised from the dead 3 days later. In the weeks prior to his crucifixion, when Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to suffer and to die, Jesus told his disciples that he was going to die, suffer many things and die and be raised on the 3rd day.

In Matthew 16:21. The text says from that time Jesus began to show His disciples that he must be killed and be raised up on the 3rd day. Again in Matthew 17. Verses 22 and 23, Jesus says, To them, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the 3rd day.

And sure enough, Jesus was killed. He was crucified on Friday of this week of the year, and on the 3rd day, he was raised from the dead. And when the women came to the tomb of Jesus, After he was raised, the angel said to them, why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, for he has risen just as he said.

I love that. The angel doesn't just want them to know that Jesus was raised, but he wants to remind these women that Jesus was raised just as he said he would be raised. Here's my theory. If someone speaks a prediction and says, I'm going to get killed, And after getting killed, I will be raised on the 3rd day.

And that prediction actually comes true. Then we probably ought to pay attention to everything that person says. He's probably a speaker of truth in every area. Our question should be, what else does this one say about anything?

I'm interested. if nowadays we are interested in what someone has to say simply because they can throw a football well. or swing a golf club, well, then shouldn't we be interested in what somebody has to say who predicted their death and their physical. Bodily resurrection from the dead three days later.

I think we should. Imagine this prediction, I will suffer many things and be killed and in 3 days I will rise again. And then imagine that actually coming true. You wouldn't just be amazed at that, you would found a religion upon a person.

Who makes a prediction like this that actually comes true. That's why we're gathered here today, almost 2000 years later. That's why we call this year 2015, as we mark our calendars by when Christ. Came into this world.

It's a staggering thing that at the center of our religion is one who predicted that he would die and that he would be raised on the 3rd day after his death, and that's exactly what happened. S. Lewis Johnson. A pastor tells how that during the heady days of the French Revolution, There was a group of people who were trying to develop a secular religion that featured a good moral code without the baggage and the trappings of Christianity.

But they were frustrated in their attempt because they couldn't come up with a secular faith, a secular religion that would attract any significant following from the people. So one day they were sharing their frustration with Bishop Talleyrand, and as he heard their complaint, saying, man, we, we've got this great religion set up, a good moral code, but we can't get enough people to follow us. And Bishop Talleyrand said, surely this can't be so difficult as you suppose. It's actually easy to start a religion that attracts a huge following.

They responded by saying, what do you mean it's easy? How? Tell us what we need to do. And he replied, all you have to do is go around telling people that you're going to get killed.

And that you're going to rise from the dead 3 days after you are killed, and then go and get yourself killed, and then 3 days after you are killed, rise again. Do that and you will have no trouble attracting a following. And that's so true, is it not? That's exactly what Jesus did, and that means that Jesus is the ultimate truth teller.

And if he is the ultimate truth teller, then we should be interested in what he has to say about everything and anything. What does this one say about me? What does he say about salvation? What does he say about how to get to God?

What does he say about death and about life on the other side of death? We should want to hear from him. I don't wanna be left to myself to figure that out. I would wanna know what he has to say and then develop my belief system based on what this truth teller says about such things.

Related to this first truth about Jesus that we can see from his resurrection, there's a second thing that Jesus' resurrection. tells us about him. And that is that Jesus has the right to intrude into our life and direct our religion. Jesus has the right to intrude into our life and direct our religion.

I wanna show you, from the Bible, how it is that Jesus has the right to come crashing into your life and rearranging your religion, rearranging the furniture of your life in any way that he sees fit and directing you in what to do and what not to do. There's an interesting incident that happens early in Christ's ministry in John chapter 2. Jesus had come into Jerusalem and entered into the temple, and he began looking around and just watching what was happening in the temple.

And the text of John 2 and verse 14 tells us that as Jesus looked around, he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated.

At their tables. This had obviously been a practice that had been thought through for the convenience of the Jews who were coming from a variety of nations around the world coming to offer sacrifices. They needed to exchange their currencies. They didn't want to bring an animal hundreds of miles for sacrifice, so they needed to buy the animals when they got to Jerusalem.

So this was very convenient. To have this all set up in the temple in the court of the Gentiles where the Gentiles worshiped and prayed. This had obviously been thought through and approved by the religious authorities, and it was very convenient for the Jews who came to the temple to worship and offer sacrifices. And it seemed that apparently everyone was good with this practice.

It was something that helped Jewish pilgrims to live out their faith. And so that's cool, right? everyone has the right to shape their own religion, however they want, right? Well, observe what Jesus does when he sees this practice.

In verse 15, it says, and he made a scourge of cords, and he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables and to those who were selling the doves, he said, take these things away and stop making my father's house a place of business. So apparently Jesus comes in. And he wrecks what they were doing. He acts like he is their religious authority who has the right to go telling them what to do and what not to do.

He's acting like this is his house. This is an amazing display of audacity on Jesus' part. Who does he think he is? Where does he think he gets this authority to act this way?

What gives him the right to come crashing against their religious practices in the way that he does here? In fact, those questions are exactly what the Jews are asking who are on the receiving end of this whip. And who are being told by Jesus to stop doing this. And so look at what happens next.

They ask Jesus a question, says, and the Jews then said to him, What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? What they're really saying is, what right do you have to wreck what we are doing? These practices that we're OK with and we're comfortable with, what right do you have to act this way and to tell us what we should Do and not do here at the temple. Well, look at Jesus' answer in verse 19, and Jesus answered them.

Basically saying, here's the sign of my authority, destroy this temple and in 3 days, I will raise it up. It turns out that no one, when you read the passage here, understood what Jesus was talking about in the moment as the story unfolds, you realize that everyone hears that and they think he's talking about the literal physical temple that he was in at the moment, but John tells us in verse 22 that Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said, This So here's what I want us to learn from this.

They asked Jesus, what right do you have to intrude upon what we're doing and direct us in what to do and not do.

Jesus says, Here's my badge that certifies that I have the right to do this. One day I will be raised from the dead. My resurrection validates my right to crash into what you are doing and direct you in the way that I am. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is what he points to.

That gives him the right. To make wreckage of their cherished practices and to tell them how to live out their faith. As for you, this means that because Jesus was raised that you don't have the right to set up your own religious practices as you please. It means that if you wanna have a religion, There's an authority that you need to reckon with, and that's Jesus.

You need to let Jesus call the shots and be allowed to come into your life and rearrange your life in whatever way he pleases. The resurrection of Christ from the dead certifies that he has the right to be the Lord of your life and to come into your life and clean house and to tell you what to do and what not to do. This is his license. His resurrection is his license to rule over you and to be your ultimate authority who directs your life and directs your religion.

This is so important for us. To hear today. Nowadays, most everyone you talk to is religious. Everyone is spiritual.

Being religious and being spiritual is in vogue today. Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, said recently, I think I am a spiritual person. Madonna herself said, I am a very moral person. Nowadays, everyone is spiritual.

Everyone is moral. The problem is that people's spirituality is a Lord less spirituality. The spirituality where you get to pick and choose whatever you want to compose your spiritual life. It is spirituality without an authority.

Spirituality without a lord, it is morality without any authority above a person to tell them what to do and how to live their life. But the resurrection of Christ changes that. I really want us to get this. listen to what Timothy Keller says, and he says this tongue in cheek, but hopefully we'll get his point.

He says the resurrection of Christ makes Christianity the most irritating religion in existence. Why? Because the issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like Jesus' teaching, but whether or not he rose from the dead. The resurrection of Christ changes everything.

This historical event of the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb means that you and I can't just pick and choose what we like and don't like. If Jesus was raised from the dead, then that means that he has the right to intrude himself into our lives and call the shots and direct our religion. If your heart is truly open to God this morning, you should be able to visit the tomb of Christ and see that it's empty and understand why it is empty and that he was raised from the dead, and the only right response.

To that empty tomb is to say, OK, Jesus.

You have every right. And my permission to make wreckage out of anything in my life that you don't like and to rearrange my life in any way that you see fit. I give you full permission to shape my spirituality, my religion, my life. You are the Lord of my life.

That is the only true, legitimate response. To the empty tomb. That's not all that we see about Jesus from his resurrection from the dead. There's something else that Christ's resurrection tells us that is true about him, and that is that Jesus is stronger than your worst enemy, death.

Jesus is stronger than death. Let's face it, death is the enemy of us all. Some people speak of making peace. With death, but in the Bible, death is something to be destroyed, not something you make peace with.

Death comes to us all. Death reigns, it attacks everyone, and it always comes out the victor in every conflict. Death takes away our parents, death takes away our loved ones. Death takes away our friends.

Death takes away sometimes our children. Some of you in this room have experienced the death of a precious loved one over the course of this past year. the sting of death. Death takes away life from us.

It dissembles, disassembles us and separates us from the people and the things that we hold dear. Death works in various ways, as one poet says, death sometimes comes with a crawl, and sometimes death comes with a pounce, but death always comes, always. With most of us, death comes with a crawl, slowly killing us one cell at a time, taking us from the bloom of youth to the wrinkles and the incapacities of old age, and death is never content until it takes from us our very last breath, until it takes the very last breath from those that we love.

We should hate death.

Death is a problem for us all, and death is powerful. And because of the awfulness and the power of death, I am personally not the least bit interested in believing in anyone or anything that is less powerful. Than death. If you're not more powerful than death, then you're disqualified from being a true savior of anybody.

And by the way, because you're, you are not more powerful than death yourself, that means you're disqualified from being your own savior. OK. I stand before you as a 50-year-old man and at the age of 50, I can honestly say that I think about death every single day. Seriously, not a day goes by that I don't think about at this age, about my mortality and the fact that I am dying.

And, and don't get me wrong, it's not because I'm some super spiritual man. It's because I own a mirror. And when I wear my glasses, which I need to wear now, I can see that I am aging. I can see that I am dying and I still have good hearing.

My hearing is so good that I can hear the cracking of my knee joints when I walk down the stairs. In the morning, that didn't used to happen, but it happens now. Everyone, I think, at this age, Thinks about death every single day. Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist and playwright, found himself at the same age that I'm at right now, at the age of 50, and he became overwhelmed with his contemplation of the reality of death.

Listen to what he says. He says, my question, that which at the age of 50 brought me to the verge of suicide. Was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man, is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? What a question What a question that is, is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?

Any savior. Who would ever offer himself as an answer to that question must be someone who is stronger than death. Amen. And I have good news for you.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead demonstrates that Jesus is more powerful than death. Listen to what Peter says in Acts 2:24. He says, God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. Think about that.

According to what Peter says, Jesus, our death had power, but death's power was no match for the power of Jesus. Jesus essentially said to death, he said to his enemies, go ahead, punch me. Slap me. Take a crown of thorns and beat it into my brow, strip me of my clothing and lash me again and again and again with a brutal whip, tearing the flesh repeatedly from my body.

Do violence to my body and to my face such that my face will be more marred than that of any man. Hang me on a cross and nail me through my hands and through my feet and let me hang there for hours. And after I die, go ahead and thrust a spear deep into my side until blood and water come pouring out, just to be sure that I'm really dead. Don't just kill me, overkill me.

Let me be swallowed by the very jaws of death and then put my dead body in a tomb and put a great stone in front of that tomb and put on that stone the seal of the governor of Judea. Put some Roman soldiers in front of the tomb. To guard it. I will spot you all of that.

And 3 days later, I will pry open the jaws of death and come forth alive again physically and bodily from the dead. And that's exactly what Jesus did. That's exactly what Jesus did on this very Sunday of the year, 2000 years ago. Death is the great opponent that we must all get past in order to have eternal life, and Jesus says, I'm here to help you with that.

I've already had a contest with death and I won handily. That's the savior for me. That's the savior for me. And part of the beauty of the resurrection of Christ is that It is a harbinger of what is to come for us who believe in Jesus.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 20, Christ has been raised as the first fruits of those who died, who have believed in Jesus. Jesus is merely the first of many to be physically, bodily raised from the dead, and so to all of us, he comes to us in his resurrected state and says, come and behold and touch me and look at me because when you look at me in this glorified, resurrected state, you are staring at your future, if you believe in me. The resurrection of Christ tells us that Jesus is more powerful than death, and that is really good news.

There's a 4th thing that the resurrection of Christ tells us about him.

And that is it tells us that Jesus and His love are stronger than our sins. Jesus and His love are stronger than our sins. Guys, we just need to face this. We all have sinned.

We prefer not to think about this. We try not to think about our sin. We try to avoid our sin by Minimizing our sins and maybe just, hey, let's just talk about other people's sins. Or by comparing ourselves with people that are worse than we are.

It's called comparative morality. Just makes us feel better about our sin. If I can just think about everyone else who's worse than I am and say, well, I'm, at least I'm not that bad. And our conscience is appeased.

We do that sometimes. Sometimes we deal with our sin by coming up with different words for our sins. We rationalize our sins, but what, the Bible won't let us get away with this. We all have sinned and our sins that we have committed have been against God.

Any religion, any religion that is worth anything must bring us face to face with our failures and with our sins, and to help us to look squarely and honestly at our sins before God. If a religion does not help us to do this, then that religion is not worth anything at all. Do you do that in your life? Do you face your sins honestly and squarely and daily repent?

Are you broken over your sins? Let me ask you a question. How many of you want to be the person that God stares at and says, I really like what I see. How many of you wanna be that person who catches the eye of God and when God looks at you, God says, I like looking at you.

I like what I see. Well, God actually tells us the person that he enjoys looking at. And I don't have this on the screen behind me, but write down Isaiah 66:2. Isaiah 66:2, God says these words, to this one, I will look upon this person, I will look, God says, to him who is humble and broken of spirit and who trembles at my word.

How are you doing on those things, especially the brokenness part. Based on this verse, God finds very attractive a person who's humble, who's broken over their sin, and who trembles at the word of God. God finds this person beautiful and attractive. And any religion that is worthy of the name must be a religion that brings us to that state of brokenness and humility and trembling.

At the word of God. Do you want to have a right view of your sins? I got the perfect place for you to go. Go to the foot of the cross.

Go there. And behold Jesus suffering and dying for you there at the cross. In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter makes this statement to us. He says, he, Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.

This means that all the sins that you have ever committed, Christ bore them in his body while he was on the cross. Think about the sins that you have committed, the sins that have hurt other people, the sins that no one else knows about, the most horrid, embarrassing things that you have done. Christ bore those sins in his body on the cross. And as for what our sins actually did to Jesus, When he was on the cross, the prophet Isaiah tells us what those sins did to him.

This is a literal rendering of Isaiah 53:5 where The text says that when the Messiah is on the cross, look at this, he was pierced through from our transgressions, and he was crushed from our iniquities. Yes, the Bible teaches that he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, but also this passage is telling us that he was pierced from our transgressions and crushed from our iniquities. As your sins and my sins were placed upon Jesus at the cross, he was literally pierced through and crushed by our sins that were put on him.

Our sins pierced him and crushed him.

Making us all violators of the sixth commandment which says you shall not kill. Because of our sins that were placed upon him that pierced him and crushed him. We have murdered Jesus. The perfect Son of God.

And hence we turn. From the cross and we look at our sins and we see our sins like we have never seen them before. Our sins and their basic DNA. Our sins are the murder of God.

At the foot of the cross, I see that my sin is far worse than I ever imagined before. And that I am a far worse sinner than I ever knew before. I see that I can no longer brush my sins off or make light of them any longer. Sin is bad, it's way worse.

Than I ever imagined. But what? That's not all we learn at the foot of the cross. Yes, our sins crushed and killed Jesus.

Yes, he was buried in the tomb. Yet on the 3rd day, he came back to life. He was raised, he shows up again, and he comes back to us, teaching us that there is something more powerful than our sins, and that is Jesus and His love for us. Jesus took the very worst that your sins could unleash upon him.

He suffered and died, and on the 3rd day he came back to life, and he says, I'm here and I'm ready to love you. And give you forgiveness. For your sins. If my sins alone were placed on Jesus and he died from that, I would say, what, that figures, that figures.

And if he remained forever dead, I'd be, that figures, that figures. My sin is awful and it's powerful and that's what it did to Jesus. But what? My sins killed him, as it were, but on the 3rd day, he rose from the dead and he's telling me by that, that I and my love for you are more powerful.

Than your sins. Your sins are great, but there's something greater than your sins, and that is my grace and my love and my power. Read Acts chapter 2. Peter is preaching to this audience just like 50 days essentially, a couple of months, within a couple of months after Christ was crucified, and he's telling his audience, you killed Jesus with wicked hands, and they are smitten to the core.

And they say to Peter, what shall we do? And Peter gives them a message of grace and love, and he says, I want you to know that this one you killed, God raised him from the dead. And if you repent and you believe in him, you will have the forgiveness of your sins. I love this about Jesus.

Jesus knows very personally what it means to have your sins piercing him. And crushing him. Jesus had every right to be raised from the dead on the 3rd day and come to us and say, yes, I'm alive again, but my love for you is dead. I'm done with you I will live forevermore.

But I have felt your sins upon my person. And I want nothing more to do with you. But instead Jesus comes back and he says, I did feel your sins upon my own person. I bore the weight of them and the piercings of that.

I have felt the sharpness of your sins and I have been raised by the power of God to live forever and to love you and to save you to the uttermost. If you will come to me And let me be your savior. I am amazed that Christ survived his death. And was raised I am more amazed that his love for me.

Survived His death And that he comes back from the dead resolved to love me. See, the Bible does not make light of sin. Christianity does not make light of sin. You come to Christianity and you want to know what does it say about sin, and you come to discover that your sin is a very big deal.

It's bigger than you imagine. But then, Christianity shows you that God's grace and His love is infinitely bigger even than your sins. And that your sins are no match for God. He is more powerful than your sins, and his love is more powerful than your sins.

And these disciples who had followed Jesus and all of whom had abandoned him in his hour when he was arrested and in the hours that followed, they all were ravaged with guilt after Jesus was crucified. But Jesus rose from the dead and he made an appearance to all of them, and he loved on them and said, you're my disciples, and he wasn't just convincing them that he was actually raised, he was no doubt convincing them that I love you and I forgive you and we're all good. And it was that resurrection and that love that transformed them.

They had been exposed for what they were at their worst and still loved by Jesus.

Who had been raised from the dead, and once they reached that point of awareness, they were afraid of nothing. They gave their lives. For this one who loved them so. That leads us to the final point, the final thing that Christ's resurrection says to us about him, and that is that Jesus has total authority to be your savior.

He has total authority to be your savior. You go to the tomb and you find that it's empty, and that empty tomb means something profoundly personal for you and for me. It means that you have a savior if you want one. The savior who is more powerful than death.

He is more powerful than sin. And so he is fully qualified to be your savior from sin and from death. Just think about this for a moment. Authority.

And saviorhood, OK? I don't know if saviorhood is a word, but savior, saviorhood. Authority and saviorhood are linked together. If Jesus was not given absolute authority, he could never have freed us from death and from sin, and from the judgment of God that we deserve.

For example, if someone is in prison right now, I might love that person. I might wish that that person were free, but I can't just show up at that prison and release them because I don't have the power or the authority to do that. But if I become president of the United States, the chief executive officer of the United States, then I now have the power to pardon that person that I want to go free. So think about it.

If that prisoner knows that I love them and that I am their friend and that I am willing to die for them and that I wish deeply that they were free from their imprisonment, and then that person hears the news that I just became president of the United States, they would be thrilled to hear the news of that, right? They would be ecstatic to know that I now have the authority. To release them. And that's the way it is with Jesus.

Jesus loved us enough to come into this world. He lived among us and loved us at every turn. He died on the cross for our sins, and he was buried in the tomb. As long as Jesus stayed in the tomb, We would always be touched by the fact that he loved us enough to die for us, but we would know that he has no authority to save us.

But when God raised Jesus from the dead, God was thereby announcing that Jesus Christ is the ultimate Lord, the ultimate authority, which means that he has all the authority needed to carry out his saving intentions towards those who believe in Him, and that is really good news. In Acts 17:31. The Bible tells us that God has fixed today in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.

Jesus himself said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

By virtue of his resurrection in Romans 1:4, we learned that Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of God, that's a royal title, the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead. That's good news for us. The one who loved us enough to die for us, the one who wants to save us more than anything, this one has gained the position of the absolute sovereign Lord of the universe. And has gained the position of the judge of all men, that's really good news.

Don't you want to know that when you're standing in line on judgment day? To know what's on the screen behind me. Your fate is going to be determined for all of eternity. And as you stand in line, you're asking who's seated in the place of judgment?

Who is the judge who will be judging me? And if someone says, well, I just heard it's, it's Jesus. He's the one in that seat. It's really good news.

That's amazing news. Jesus is the absolute authority. And he's using this authority that he now has gained to save sinners. And because Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth, because he is the highest Lord by virtue of his resurrection, we never have to worry about his authority ever being overruled or trumped by some other higher authority because he is the highest authority in heaven and on earth.

For our salvation to be secure, we not only need a savior who's willing to die for us and who is raised for us. And who wants to save us and love us forever, but we need a Savior who is the absolute highest authority imaginable to where no one can ever overrule Him. No one can ever trump his loving, saving intentions towards us. Jesus is right now at the right hand of God, ruling from on high.

He's in a position of absolute lordship. He can do whatever he pleases and amazingly, what he's doing from that position of lordship? He's giving out. Repentance And righteousness and freedom and love and relationship and forgiveness.

To anyone who sees their bankruptcy and who looks to him and says, you are the savior for me. In Acts chapter 5 in the Bible, the text says God raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior, and look what he's doing from that position to grant repentance and the forgiveness of sins. That's what he's doing with the authority he has.

He is Lord and with that lordship, he's using it. He's wielding it on behalf of sinners who tremble at his word and who are humbled and who are broken over their sin and who come to Jesus and say, I need forgiveness for my sins, I need atonement, and I see that I can only have that through you and so I bring my bankrupt self to you and I believe in you and I call upon you as my Lord and Savior. Jesus takes all of the weight of heaven, all of his authority. And he brings that to bear in bringing salvation to such a person.

Who repents and believes. If you are feeling, just right now where you're seated, if you're feeling conviction over your sin and you feel God working in your heart, listen, that's Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, who might very well be in this moment granting you repentance. This is Jesus with all authority to do as he pleases, and he's choosing to work in your heart. The conviction, maybe the guilt that you feel, don't try to send that away.

That's a sign of life. The worst thing that could ever happen to any of us is to no longer be able to feel the weight of having done wrong, to be able to see and admit to our brokenness. Christ and His love from the right hand of God. is choosing to, to love and to grant forgiveness, to grant repentance to the souls of people.

And I wonder if he's giving to anyone right now. That gift of repentance. The gift of forgiveness. Who is Jesus?

That's the question we're asking this morning. Your eternal destiny hinges on how you answer. That question and so I beg of you, please go to the tomb, sit there and think, ponder deeply and observe what all the empty tomb says to you about Jesus. It tells you that Christ is the ultimate truth teller.

It tells you that he has the right to intrude into your life and direct your life and direct your religion. It tells you that he is stronger than death. It tells you that he and his love are stronger than your sins. And the empty tomb tells you that he has all the authority he needs.

To fully save you to the uttermost, if you will come to him and believe in Him. You say, well, what must I do then? To receive this salvation. Well, the council is very simple.

Let me read this and then we'll close. In Romans 10, it says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. You see the connection between Christ's lordship, his authority and his resurrection? If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, You will be saved.

For with the heart, a person believes resulting in righteousness. And with the mouth, he confesses. Resulting in salvation. If you believe that Jesus is Lord, if you look at his resurrection from the dead and see that that certifies his lordship, and if you open your heart to Him and recognize that he has the power to save, and you believe in him today, you will have forgiveness of sins.

You will be made a child of God. You will be brought into relationship with God and Christ resolves to use all of his authority. To save you to the uttermost for all of eternity. If you've never believed in Jesus and confessed Him as your saving Lord, As an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

I beg of you to do that today. that's all I have to give you. All I can do is stand up here and it's not about my cleverness or any power that I have. My only calling is to stand up here and to lift Jesus high.

He's the only saving Lord, and he's the one that our eyes need to be upon. And if you've never looked at him, And seeing the beauty of his person, the authority and the power that he has to save, and how much he loves you, that he was willing to come to earth and die for you, and that he was raised, even after bearing the full weight of your sins. If you've never believed in him. I urge you to believe in him today.

Let's bow our heads. Just gonna ask one question. If, if you're here today, I want every head bowed and every eye closed, but if you are here today and you Say, Pastor Milton, I really have felt God working in my heart. And I I am believing in Jesus right now.

I am, I am turning to Him, turning from my sins. I'm turning to Him. And laying claim to him as my Lord and Savior. I'm doing that right now.

If God is working in your heart and he's leading you to do that right now, if Jesus from the right hand of God is granting you repentance and forgiveness as you cry out to Him, could you just let me know that by raising your hand, every head bowed, every eye closed, Amen. Amen. Anybody else? Praise God Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you so much for your grace and for your love. For your power. This is not just playing games. You are the mighty Lord, you are mighty to save and it's just a blessing to be able to stand before these precious souls and to just speak of you, to honor and glorify you, to hold you high.

With a prayer in our hearts, Lord, that you would draw people to yourself, that they might Begin upon this journey from brokenness, the brokenness of sin to wholeness and ultimately to glory for all of eternity. Save souls, save souls this morning. And if there are any that have any questions, Lord, just bring them to us to tell us maybe how you're working in their heart and If they have questions that we would be able to serve them well and providing answers for them. And showing them what we have found in you, Jesus.

We thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord. We ask that you would receive these funds and do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, and all God's people said,