Staring at the Resurrected Savior

Good to see you all. let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 28 for our time of study and God's word this morning. And just to let why the pulpit is here rather than in the center, our spotlights are out, and there's only one working and it's shining right here. So, that's why I'm over here today.

So anyway, You like it on this side? Good. Yeah. Matthew 28, we're gonna be looking at the contents of this chapter, not every verse, but much of what is in this chapter with the time that we're in God's word this morning.

If you want to give a title to the, the message, it would be Staring at a resurrected Savior, staring at the Resurrected savior. Normally it's not polite to stare, right? We were taught that at a young age, but It's OK to stare at Jesus. In fact, if there's any problem with us, it's usually that we don't stare at Him enough, right?

So this morning we'll spend our time gazing at Jesus as the events of this chapter unfold. Let me start on somewhat of a downer of a note. This is a story that I've been carrying with me since February, and it's been, weighing heavy on my heart. Charlotte Dawson is a name that might be familiar to some of you.

she was a famous television personality in Australia, and she served as a judge on the TV show Australia's Next Top Model. In her memoir, she tells how she was raised in a home. where she was taught truth about Christ, but she didn't think too highly of what she was taught. In fact, listen to a part of how she characterizes what she was taught when she was growing up.

Jesus died for us, apparently, although letting that happen right at the beginning of Easter seemed like an odd choice to me. Then he came back to life, and then whoosh, up to the sky to become God's assistant manager. I questioned the validity of this and other Bible stories as a child. I didn't want to be one of those good churchgoing people.

I didn't want any part of it. She goes on to share, How there were some painful experiences that she endured at the hands of good churchgoing people that contributed to her choice. But nonetheless, she reached a point in her life where the teaching about this, Jesus who died for our sins and was raised, she set that aside, and she moved on in her life without him. Well, she grew up and became quite successful as a television personality.

She married an Olympic athlete in 1999 and became pregnant shortly thereafter. She was ecstatic to discover that she was pregnant. She was looking forward to carrying the baby and, and having a baby come into the family, but she noticed very quickly that her husband was not very happy that she was pregnant. And she came to find out that one of the reasons why he wasn't happy is because her due date would have been during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Her husband was trying to get on the Olympic swim team for Australia. He was pursuing a gold medal and he didn't want the distraction. So together they decided to abort the baby, even though she really wanted to keep the baby. She decided against her better judgment to go ahead and abort the baby and then maybe down the road after things settled down, they would be able to have, A baby.

They went to the abortion clinic together, but her husband was so weirded out by the atmosphere there at the abortion clinic that he left the clinic and left her there by herself to undergo the procedure. In her memoirs published two years ago, she talked about that procedure, the abortion that, that occurred and what happened inside of her. As a result of that, listen to what she says. When I got home from the abortion, when I got home, I felt that something had changed.

I felt a shift. I felt the early tinges of what I can now identify as my first experience with depression. But she kept telling herself that the abortion was OK. She did it for her husband and for their future together.

Nonetheless, she began battling with depression and did so over the next 14 years. Just weeks after this abortion procedure, evidence surfaced that her husband had been unfaithful to her. She found out about his infidelities while reading the gossip section in the Sunday paper. When she read it and knew with certainty what had happened, something crumbled inside of her.

In her memoir, she said, Something inside me completely broke that Sunday, something that is beyond repair, something that has never come back. 6 weeks prior to Olympic trials, her husband fell down the front stairs of their home and broke his foot. So he never got his gold medal. In fact, he never even made the Olympic team, and within a year, their marriage was over.

Left in the awful wreckage of her marriage, Charlotte Dawson battled with depression and unceasing guilt. As she put it, she learned the gentle art of drowning sorrows with bucket loads of wine, unquote. But that did not work two months ago. February 22nd, her body was found hanging from a rope in her home.

She had committed suicide. When I read that story in the In the news back in February and as I read the story again to my family yesterday, I just find myself wondering that of all the things in her final hours and days, of all the things that Charlotte Dawson stared at, of all the things that she was obsessing on and that her gaze was fixated on as she struggled with the brokenness and the guilt of the choices that she had made. Did there at any point, Come into her view. Jesus, the savior that she had been taught about as a child, the Savior who died, and who was raised again for her.

What might a good look At that savior have done for her. Had she looked at the savior, she could have known that there was forgiveness available, and there was healing available for her. Unfortunately, she had set this dying and resurrecting savior aside years earlier, and this left her without the equipment, the resources that she needed to deal with her guilt and her brokenness. It's a bummer of a way to begin an Easter sermon, right?

But what, we're not here to play church. There's a lot of brokenness in our lives. There's a lot of brokenness in this world. There's a lot of brokenness represented in this room this morning.

And I begin with this story this morning because it actually takes us to some understanding of even how Jesus' disciples were feeling Friday night and all day Saturday and in the wee hours of Sunday morning. If the disciples heard Charlotte Dawson's story, they would say, we get it. We get it, we understand, we can identify with her story. Their lives were shattered.

They had followed Jesus for three years and heard his teaching, they put their trust in Him, but he got crucified, and he died. On Friday of the Passion Week, the disciples' world fell apart and their life was left in shambles. Their faith was in shambles. Trust me, when Jesus died, the disciples were not thinking, Oh, this is Good Friday.

This is Good Friday. This is a good thing. No, they're devastated, they're broken by what has happened. On top of that, they feel guilty and responsible for what has happened to Jesus, and they're asking themselves, what could we have done to prevent This horrible thing that has taken place.

All of us, we fled from Jesus in his hour of greatest need. We abandoned Him. Peter denied Christ 3 times, saying, I don't know that man. And on the 3rd time, he pronounced a curse upon himself and basically said, May God damn me to hell if I'm lying when I say I don't even know that man.

Jesus heard what he said and turned and looked at Peter and for one awful moment, their eyes met one another's until Peter covered his face and ran out into the night and wept bitterly. In the hours after Christ was crucified, the disciples were broken. They were guilt-ridden. They were despondent.

Talk about feeling a shift. They would have said they felt a shift into what could only be known as deep depression. They would have said something inside of us completely broke on that Friday, something we thought was beyond repair, something we thought That could never come back. Yet the sun rose on Sunday morning.

And what was broken got repaired and the hope they thought could never come back had come back and the forgiveness that they thought they would never hope to receive had been received and their lives were forever changed. Amen. And this colossal reversal of fortune that eluded Charlotte Dawson. was brought about in the lives of these disciples by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and by the fact that they heeded God's call found in Matthew 28 to look And to see this resurrected Savior.

And all of this brings us to Matthew 28. Matthew 28, guys, is not simply the story of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It's the story of God trying to get his disciples' attention. And to get them to look and see the reality that he had indeed been raised.

The disciples were devastated, hopeless, discouraged, and ridden with guilt. And the answer to all of that brokenness was to look and see and behold the resurrected Savior. In fact, notice the language of looking and seeing. In Matthew 28, the story begins with women coming in verse 1 to look at the grave.

There's the word look. In verse 5. The angel says to the women, I know you are looking for Jesus. In verse 6, the angel tells the women, Come see the place where he was lying.

In verse 7, the angel tells the women that Jesus is going to Galilee, and he says, There you will see Him. In verse 10, Jesus tells them, To tell the disciples to go to Galilee, and he says, there they will see me. And then in verse 17, the disciples go to Galilee, and the text tells us they saw. Hi You see the emphasis there to top that emphasis off we find repeatedly throughout Matthew 28 the command to look.

This is not brought out in all of the English translations. In many translations it's translated behold, but it's literally the Greek verb that means to look. And whenever you see this verb, you can translate it look with an exclamation point! OK.

we see this in verse 2, look, verse 7, twice there is the command to look, in verse 9, look, verse 11, look, and verse 20, look. And so what we're going to do this morning is we're going to obey this call to look. At what God is doing, and what he wants us to look at here in Matthew 28. We have guilt, we have brokenness, we have depression, we have fears, we often worship the wrong things.

What you and I need more than anything else is to stop what we're doing and take a look at the resurrected Savior. So let's do that together. What we'll try to do this this morning is take 7 looks. At the resurrected Savior.

And just to let, we'll spend a good amount of time on the first one. And then, we'll, we'll go much quicker on the remaining 6. In fact, you'll probably find each of these points get faster and faster and faster. All right.

so as we look at the resurrected Christ in this chapter, at first glance, what we see is we see him receiving worship. We see him receiving worship. Let's begin in verse one. Now, after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.

Verse 2, and look, this is a literal translation. I'm going to leave it literal, look! exclamation whenever it shows up in this chapter. And look, a severe earthquake or a mega seismos occurred.

This word earthquake is the word seismos from which we get seismograph. Seismic activity. A severe seismos had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone. And sat upon it.

note that the angel does two things. He removes the stone and then he sits on the stone. I don't know if you've wondered why does he sit on the stone. Why does he do that?

Is he tired? That's a heavy stone. And I came all the way from heaven to move this stone. I need to sit down and catch my breath.

Is that why he sat on the stone? Why did he sit on the stone? We don't know for sure, but my suspicion is that this angel had been given a twofold job description with regard to the stone. Number one, remove the stone.

Not so Jesus could get out, but so that everyone can see in and see that he's gone, right? So assignment number 1 is remove the stone. Assignment number 2, make sure the Roman guards are not able to put the stone back in its place. OK, because they're there guarding.

The site and so the angel removes the stone and then he sits on it, basically saying to anyone interested, you're not touching this stone. And this stone is staying right here. Well, the guards who were there on the scene were not interested at all in challenging this angel. Verse 3, and his appearance was like lightning and his clothing as white as snow, and the guards shook, and that verb shook is the Greek word seismos.

So the earth was quaking a moment earlier and now that the earth is no longer quaking, the Roman guards are quaking. They shook for fear of him and became like dead men. And the angel, and by the way, they, they would have a paralysis would have come over them. They would have fallen to the ground somehow.

They would have collected themselves and fled the scene. And as they're fleeing the scene, it's right at this point that the women are arriving. On the scene, and they see the angel verse 5, and the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen just as he said, Come see the place where he was lying.

Literally, the angel is saying to the women, Stop being afraid. So he observes that they were fearful of him, and he assures them, Listen, you have nothing to be afraid of. I know that your intentions are good, that you're here to see Jesus, but I just want to let he's not here. He has risen just as he told you many times would happen.

In fact, come in with me to the tomb, and I'll show you. Come and see the place where he was at one point lying. They would have come in and seen the linen wrappings lying there, but his body was not there inside the linen wrappings any longer. Verse 7, they check this out.

They see this, and then the angel says, Go quickly. I don't want you lingering around here. You have no more business here. Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and look.

He is going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him. Look, I have told you. Notice how twice the angel has to get their attention and tell them, To look, it's clear that the women are dazed and the angel is trying to get them to stay focused. Look, it's like snapping your fingers when you're talking to a child.

Like, listen to me, pay attention. Look, behold, he's trying to keep them focused on what he's saying and the instructions that he's giving. Look, he says, Jesus is going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him. Look, pay attention.

This is what I have told you. Parents, we know what this is like, don't we? Talking to our children. teenage children, especially, and we're, we're trying to speak to them and we're like wondering, is anybody home?

And so if we could speak in this language, we would be saying, behold, behold, look, snapping our fingers, pay attention to what I am saying. That's what the angel is doing here. I have this issue with my own kids. in fact, just this week, I was with my son, Benjamin, out of state and there was a point where, I wanted to talk to him and I, I just turned to him and I said, Can I talk to you for just a few minutes?

I have some things I want to share with you. And I noticed that, he had his earbuds in. And it was plugged into his laptop. He was listening to music and I said, Can I, can I talk to you?

And he said, Sure, and he took one of the earbuds out. And then I thought he turned the music off and so I began to share my heart with him just trying to speak vision into him and stuff, just pouring out my heart for about 7 to 10 minutes. And then when I got done, he turned his head and I noticed that the other earbud was still in. His other ear and, and I was like, So you had that earbud in your ear the whole time I was talking to you.

And I said, were you listening to music, while I was talking, he said, yeah, I was. And I felt hurt by that, but then he said, Dad, don't be bothered. What you said sounded so much more epic with the music playing. So I don't know if he just made that up to make me feel better or or what, but we have that trouble and just trying to keep people focused and riveted on what we're saying.

These women are dazed and the angel's giving them instructions, and so he has to keep them focused. Look, he says he's going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Look, I've told you, I've explained this to you.

Now go, go quickly and do this. So verse 8, they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to. His disciples. So they leave the, the tomb.

They have two emotions, the emotion of great joy. They're excited that Jesus apparently is alive. but there's fear. and we can understand that, yeah, he's alive.

That's great. But wait a minute, what is, what is Jesus' disposition right now? Is he angry? Do we really want to see him?

Is he gonna be mad and act as a judge, or will he be kind? What will his disposition be towards us and towards his disciples? But the women, to their credit, with these mixed emotions of fear and joy, ran to the disciples to give them the news that he had been raised from the dead, and while they were making a beeline to the disciples to give them the news. Look at what happens next.

And Matthew now is saying, look, all right. So he's saying, make sure you're paying attention to me as you're reading this narrative. Look, he says, Jesus met them while they were running to the disciples, saying, rejoice. Unfortunately, some of the English translations say something like Jesus met them and greeted them.

Literally in the Greek text, it's what you see on the screen. He met them saying, rejoice. One word, he delivers a command, and it is a command to rejoice. And what Jesus is doing is he's recognizing these women have two emotions, fear and joy.

He's affirming the emotion of joy that they have, coursing through their being. He affirms that joy, and he basically commands them, Go ahead, rejoice. You have great reason to be joyful. So rejoice away, dear sisters.

And so Jesus sets the tone right away with this word rejoice. Verse 9 And the women came up. This is their immediate response. The women came up and took hold of his feet, and they worshiped him.

They immediately respond to Jesus by running to him, falling at his feet, taking hold of his feet and worshiping Him. This word worship literally means to bow down. It can have the idea of kissing in homage to a person. And given the way Matthew describes this, they would have run up to Jesus, fallen at his feet, laid hold of his feet, been kissing his feet, paying homage to Him in the most humble, affectionate way possible.

These women are utterly smitten by this risen Lord and Savior standing before them telling them, rejoice. This is their first response. A response of worship. There's nothing said here about what the women may have said to Jesus, but just by their act of worship, They're speaking volumes.

Here's what they're essentially saying. You, Jesus, are greater than we are. You are God and we are not. You are the best and we adore you.

We are at your mercy, trusting you completely with our faith. Do unto us as you please. We are totally at your service. Just by their posture, and the homage that they are paying to him and the worship that they are rendering to him, this is what their actions are conveying.

And I want to ask you this morning, listen to this question carefully. Have you ever met anyone in your life that has elicited that response from you? Who has so blown you away and impressed you that you responded that way to that person. Have you ever met anyone?

Anyone that Has elicited that response from you? Most people in this world have not. There are many in this room probably who have not. And what, when we've not met someone like Jesus who elicits that response from us, We're not blown away by his greatness.

We tend to be a little overly impressed with ourselves. Because we have no one greater to compare ourselves to. And so we are content to go ahead and try to be our own lords, and our own savior, and we become lords of our own little skull size kingdoms, the kingdom of self. But what, guys, we were not made for that position.

We were not made for lordship. We were not made to be at the center of our existence just like planet Earth was not created by God to be at the center of our solar system. And if planet Earth tried to be at the center of our solar system, everything would go haywire, right? The same with us.

We were created to have God at the center and to orbit our lives around Him. This is actually when we allow Him to be at the center and we revolve orbit around Him. That is actually the place of greatest joy and freedom, where we find our truest selves. As counterintuitive as it may sound, the place of deepest misery for any of us is at the center.

Of our own existence, trying to be our own lords. As Timothy Keller beautifully puts it, nothing makes us more miserable than self-absorption, the endless, unsmiling concentration on our needs, our wants, our treatment, our ego, and our record, and you can add to that list. The offenses of people against us. Nothing makes us more miserable than trying to live at the center of our own existence.

But these women are totally delivered from that. They're in a place of extreme freedom and joy. They see Jesus resurrected. He commands them to rejoice.

They fall at his feet and they are caught up in the worship of Him. They are completely delivered from such self-absorption. They're totally enamored with Christ, and they are experiencing in this moment the truest freedom. That is available to anyone.

As we take this first look at Jesus, we see Him receiving. Worship. He is God. He doesn't rebuke them, saying, Don't worship me.

No, he receives their worship. A second look that we take at Jesus, we see him calming his worshippers' fears as we gaze at him this morning in this chapter. We see him not only receiving worship, but then we see him speaking to those who are worshiping Him, and we see him calming their fears. He says, then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid.

Do not be. Afraid What's touching to me about this is that, they're bowing at his feet and worshiping Him. Jesus isn't standing there saying, yes, worship me, give me more worship. It's all about me.

Yes. That's not what he's doing as they are. Released from self-absorption, caught up in the worship of Jesus. what Jesus is doing?

He is studying them. and caring about them. And he notices something. He notices that they are afraid.

He notices that they are shaking and fearful. And so he, while they worship him, he speaks to this fear that is in them and literally says, Stop being afraid. This call to stop being fearful is a call that Jesus only gives to those who bow before Him in worship. He tells them to not be afraid.

If you will but become a worshiper of Christ, you will find in Christ a God who is concerned about your fears, your brokenness, and He will speak to those fears and address the causes for fear in your life, and he will put you at ease and say, you don't need to be afraid any longer. There is no reason for you to be afraid any longer. In fact, we can say that the place of greatest safety in all of the universe, the greatest place of freedom from fear in all of the universe, is at the feet of Jesus worshiping Him.

No one has anything to fear who in all humility yields up the center of their life to Jesus and falls at his feet and worships Him.

Do you believe that? Now, to those who don't worship Him, what is Jesus' message? Be very afraid. Be very afraid.

In the 2nd Psalm in verse 12, The psalmist says worship the sun, literally kiss the sun, pay homage to the Son, lest he become angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled, and how blessed are all who take refuge in Him. When we become worshippers of Jesus, what we get in exchange is a Savior who's deeply concerned about us, who studies us and who speaks to us and our needs, and who calms our fears. What is not to love about a savior like this? We're freed up to worship Him because we know we're being loved and cared for by this one that we worship.

If you don't have a savior like that, you're doomed to live a life where you have to love yourself. You have to love yourself, and that's a miserable existence. As we take a 3rd look at this risen Savior in Matthew 28, we observe Him, we see him acting with grace toward those who had failed him. Verse 10, Jesus says to the women, go and take word to my brothers, to my brethren, to leave for Galilee, and there they will see me.

Might want to underline that word brothers or brethren. Jesus He is wanting the disciples to know that he's been raised, and he indicates by his wording that when he thinks of his disciples, he thinks of them as brothers. That's the way he speaks about them to these women. He, he could have said, but he doesn't say, ladies, go take word to those losers.

Who failed me and abandoned me on Friday, go tell him I've been raised. Go take word to that one guy who swore an oath swearing that he didn't even know me. Go tell those betrayers that I have been raised. No, Jesus doesn't talk this way.

He wants those who have failed him to know that he has been raised from the dead, and he wants word to get to them as quickly as possible. Guys, we, we can be so petty. If you If you were in Jesus' situation here, and you were raised from the dead after the way the disciples abandoned you, They were clueless about all the pain you were going through. They slept while you were in agony, sweating drops of blood.

They all abandoned you when you were arrested, and then one of them was cursing and swearing that he never knew you. And then on the third day you're raised. What would you have done? What would you have said to these women?

The women said, Should we tell the disciples that you're raised? What would you have said? Would you have said no? let's wait a little while on that.

Let them sit on what they've done for a while. Would you have given those disciples the silent treatment? No, I'll just let them hear through the grapevine that I've been raised. And then maybe one of them finds their way to you after you've been raised and yeah, Jesus, I, I heard you've been raised.

That's great. Yeah, yeah, I was raised. It was actually the 3rd day after you abandoned me. Yeah.

How would you have responded? We can be so petty. And yet after these sins and failures of these disciples, Jesus is saying to the women, go and go tell them. That I've been raised from the dead.

I want them to know. I want them to know as quickly as possible. What grace is this? And he calls them brothers.

You see, when Jesus thinks of those who belong to Him, who have believed in Him, He does not think of who they are at their worst, but he thinks of them as forgiven of their worst, and he thinks of them in terms of who he has made them to be brothers. This word brothers denotes relationship, family ties, camaraderie. He's calling them brothers. This is crazy.

Jesus has never appeared more exalted than he is right now on this side of the resurrection. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. And what does he want to do with that authority and power? He wants to be a brother.

He wants to be a brother. To these disciples who have stumbled and failed in a variety of ways. What is not to love about a savior like this? I'm so thankful that Jesus with us does not wait until we reach perfection before he decides to be our best friend.

He is our best friend right now if we have believed in Him. With all of our mess, with all of our brokenness, He's our best friend now, and it's that friendship and that love that melts our hearts and transforms us into something that becomes more and more beautiful. But Jesus isn't standing at the end of the line saying, Yeah, when you clean up your act and you get your ducks in a row and you've reached perfection, or at least close to perfection, then you and I can get a relationship going on.

That's not what he does.

He comes to us in our mess and in our brokenness. He's like, Let me be a brother to you. Let me be a friend to you. Let me save you.

Let me bring you into a relationship with myself. And what? You've stumbled in a lot of ways. But my love for you will never die.

will never die. What a beautiful look at Jesus in this chapter. There's a 4th look that we can take. And as we take this 4th look at Him, we see him drawing near to those who worship Him imperfectly imperfectly.

ultimately, as the story unfolds, verse 16, the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had designated, and when they saw him, They worshiped him, but some were doubtful. So the picture we need to have in our minds is of the 11 disciples who are bowing and worshiping Jesus. But among those 11, some of them had no doubt, and their hearts were bursting with confidence and excitement. But of those who were bowing, some of them had doubt.

That was roiling in their hearts. We don't know what their doubts were, but maybe they were asking, is this really him? Has this really happened? Has he really been raised from the dead?

What does this really mean? And what are we supposed to do with this on the road ahead? And so here the 11 are bowing and worshiping Jesus, and some of them have doubts and questions in their hearts. And how does Jesus respond?

To these 11 who were worshiping Him, and some of them had doubts in their hearts, Jesus receives their worship. This shows us that Jesus is happy to receive worship from those whose faith is not yet perfect. He's willing to receive worship from those who have doubts. He didn't, he received their worship and then not only that, but the text says he actually moved towards them and he opened his mouth and he began to speak to them.

What a savior. If you're here this morning and You're like, yeah, I like a lot of things about Jesus that I hear, but I have a lot of doubts. I have a lot of questions. Listen, if that's the case, don't keep Jesus at arm's length until you get your questions answered or until your doubts are taken care of.

In fact, you most honor him. When you take your doubts and your questions. And you bring them with you. And come before Jesus and worship Him.

When you have doubts, this is the time of all times when you need to worship Him and draw near to Him and allow Him to draw near to you. Jesus accepts the worship of broken people who are not afraid to come before Him and worship Him, even when they have doubts in their hearts. Jesus could have looked at those that were doubting and say, what, get out of my face. What do I have to do?

Been with you 3 years. Have I failed in some way? I told you repeatedly I would die. I would be raised on the 3rd day.

I did that. I've made resurrection appearances to you guys to make things clear, and here you are bowing before me, and you still have doubts in your hearts. Why don't you go home and take care of some things and don't come back and try to worship me until your doubts are addressed? Is that what he does?

No. He receives their worship. He receives their worship and actually walks towards them and begins to speak to them in a way that addresses their doubts. There's a 5th look at Jesus that we can Take here and in this 5th look, we see him assuring his worshippers of his absolute authority.

In verse 18, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. When, when Jesus says this to them, all authority has been given to me. Jesus is not bragging here. Jesus is giving to them some very good news.

Especially to those that were experiencing doubts. This is awesome news for any of those who actually do worship Jesus. This is like hearing news from your very best friend. Just imagine your best friend in this world, who loves you, cares about you more than any other, they would do anything for you.

Imagine that person comes to you one day and says, I just received word that starting tomorrow, I will be the absolute monarch of the world. And I've been given the keys to everything. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, I can give to you anything that I want. And there is no higher authority that can ever stop me and say, what are you doing or overrule me.

If you found out that your very best friend who loves you more than any other became the absolute monarch of the world, that would be good news to you, right? And it's good news to these disciples. This is Jesus who loved them so much that He died for them. They know how much he loves them and cares about them, and he's here telling them and addressing their doubts, saying, Hey, I've been given the keys to everything.

I have all authority in heaven. And on earth, and I can do whatever I please. And there is no higher authority ever to overrule me or stop me from fully carrying out my loving intentions towards you. Wow.

It'll never happen that Jesus, if you believe in Him, will ever come to you and say, what, I really wanted to answer your prayer. I really wanted to do this for you, but I got overruled. But my heart, I wanted to do this. I just, I'm not all powerful.

That'll never happen. He's the highest authority. All authority has been given to him. He can do as he pleases.

He can give out righteousness and freedom and love and relationship and power and forgiveness to anyone that he pleases. And he can fully carry out his loving intentions towards you. A 6th look at Jesus in this chapter we see Him telling his worshippers to go spread the word about Him. We're not going to linger on this other than keep in mind they're gathered here.

They're worshiping Him. This great commission Jesus speaks is being spoken to people who were worshiping Jesus. Jesus, and he's saying, go, go forth from here. I know you would love for me to be here in the flesh to the end of time for you to gather in my presence and worship me in this way.

But this will not last forever. Go forth from this worship. that you're engaging in right now, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. When Jesus tells them to teach other people what he's commanded, don't think there's some big long list of do's and don'ts that he's telling them to impose on people.

The, the greatest command Jesus gives is this. Listen, I did it all. I did it all. I came into this world and I lived the life that you have failed to live.

I died the death that you deserve to die. I was buried in the earth. On the 3rd day, I was raised again. I now have all authority in heaven and on earth, and you want to know what I expect of you.

Believe in me. Believe in me. I am the vine. I am the door.

I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the bread of life. So I've done everything that needs to be done.

Your responsibility is to believe in me, to abide in me, to abide in my love, to live and walk in the good of who I am and what I have done for you. That's the essence of the commands that Jesus gives, and then the rest is just living out of that fullness in a practical way. He says, I want you to go forth from here, and I want you to tell other people about me, and we can be so grateful that these disciples did that. The record of their testimony is found in our Bibles in the New Testament, so we can read our Bibles and learn who Jesus is and what savior he is.

The 7th and final look here in this chapter is we see Jesus promising to be with his worshippers forever. He says, and look, Stay focused. Look, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. They knew he was going to be with them at the end of the age.

When history reached its climax and the kingdom was ushered in, they knew he'd be with them then. They were worried about the intervening time period. But Jesus says, I want you to know I'm going to be with you now all the way to that point when the end of the age has come. I'm gonna be with you.

Let me with you. Always What is not to love about a savior? Like this Charlotte Dawson that we began. The sermon with this morning set aside a dying and resurrecting Savior.

She did not have Him to look to and to look at. To give her the resource to deal with her brokenness, her devastation, her despondency, and her guilt. But the disciples had that resource and their lives were forever changed, and I'm asking you, will you respond to the repeated calls in this chapter to lift up your eyes and to look to Jesus and to put your trust in Him? This one who died for you and rose again on your behalf, will you take the whole heap of your brokenness, your guilt, your despair, your depression, your doubts, and will you just bring all that to Him?

Don't wait until all that's taken care of before you come to Him. That's never going to happen. Just take the whole mess of it. And say, Jesus, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm coming to you and I'm bringing my brokenness, my guilt, my despair, my doubts, my depression.

I come to you with it, and I'm asking you to be my savior. To thee, my friend, will you fall at Jesus' feet? And will you become a worshiper of Him? Will you say to Jesus, You are greater than I am.

You are God, and I am not. You are the best Jesus, and I adore you. I am completely at your mercy, and I trust you completely with my fate. Do unto me as you please.

I am at your service. Will you bow before Jesus and become a worshiper of Him? If you do that today, you might be interested to know how would Jesus respond if I do that today. Here's how he'll respond.

He'll speak to you. And he'll say, rejoice. You have great reason to be joyful. He'll say, Don't fear, stop being afraid.

He'll also say, you're my brother, you're my sister, you're family now. He'll also say, I got all authority in heaven and earth to fully carry out my loving intentions towards you. He'll also say, go and tell others about me. And he'll also say, I'm going to be with you.

Always. Through good times and bad, All the way to the end of the age and then beyond. I'm always going to be by your side. What is not to love about a savior like this?

Let's bow our heads. If you're here today and you've never fallen at the feet of this savior. I beckon you to look. Closely at him.

To Acknowledge Him as the wonderful saving Lord that He is. To give up control of your life, and to yield the center to Him. Get out of the center, get off the throne, and let him be there. And we have the freedom to let him be there because we know how loving he is.

What a gracious, studious. Loving savior he is. We can trust Him. We can yield the center.

To him. If you're here today and you're like Pastor Milton, I I'm hearing about the Savior who died for me. He died for my sins. He was raised on the 3rd day, and I'm getting to know him even through this chapter that you've gone through today, and there is a lot to love about the Savior, and this is, I don't want to believe in myself or anyone or anything else anymore.

I want to believe in the Savior and fall at His feet. I want Him to be the center of my life. And so today I'm believing in Him. If you're here today and the Spirit of God is working in your heart and you're You're responding to the Lord Jesus with faith and with surrender.

And believing in Him. Every head is bowed, every eye is closed. Can you just let me know that by raising your hand? Pastor Milton, today, I'm crying out to him to be my Lord and Savior.

Just raise your hand. I'm not going to single you out. Amen. Amen.

Jesus says, anyone who comes to me, I will not cast them away. I will not cast them away. He is happy to receive you. Just right where you're seated, cry out to Him.

And ask Him to be your Lord, your Savior, and the supreme object of your worship. Please talk to me afterwards or go to the table right outside this auditorium. We'd love to talk with you, answer any questions that you have. It'd be our thing to serve you in any way possible.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for being the savior that you are. You're, you're a wonderful God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are surrounded by your amazing love. And what an amazing gospel, good news that we have been given in the person of Jesus.

We respond in faith. We bow at your feet, Jesus, and we say we want you at the center of our lives, be our Lord, be our Savior every day. It is you that we trust. With that position and no one else.

Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give up our offerings to you, receive these funds and do much with these funds for the glory of Jesus. We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.