The Formidable Meaning of Jesus' Resurrection

I want to speak to you this morning on the subject of the formidable meaning of the resurrection. The formidable meaning of Jesus' resurrection. And let's pray together and ask God to help us to See the meaning of Christ's resurrection as God intends for us to Lord, I just confess to you my need of you this morning and all of us together confess our need of you. We need to behold you, Lord Jesus, in a chaotic world, in a sinful world, in a reckless, world.

Full of brokenness and sorrow and woe and sin. We must behold you, and I ask Lord that you would help me to be a good servant to those who are gathered here today. I'm, I'm so blessed to be Their servant this morning. They are so precious, each soul, and the sound of my voice, they are so precious to you, Lord, and it is a blessing to be here with them and to be able to serve them Your word this morning.

Open our eyes that we might behold the glories of our Savior, and we ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus and all God's people said, Amen. Jordan Peterson. is a name that is probably familiar to many of you. He is a Canadian psychologist and a bestselling author.

he is not a Christian, but he is deeply respectful of the Bible, enough so that he has put together some, lectures on the Book of Genesis and Exodus that have been widely viewed, by many. A few years ago, Jordan Peterson was reading an article on the resurrection of Jesus that was written by the evangelical New Testament scholar, Gary Habermass, and Jordan Peterson posted that article online. And said, and I quote, This may be the most important topic I've ever considered. Unquote About a year later, Gary Habermass had the opportunity to sit with Jordan Peterson on a public panel at Liberty University and Habermass asked Peterson about that comment that he had made a year prior.

And he asked Peterson saying, and I quote, have you been thinking about the resurrection of Jesus for a long time? In reply, Jordan Peterson said that he wrestles with the resurrection of Jesus continually. But he admitted that he finds the whole topic overwhelming. Speaking about the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead, he said, and I quote, I don't know what to make of it.

I don't know what it means metaphysically, unquote. In a more recent interview, Jordan Peterson described the story of a dying and resurrecting Jesus as oddly plausible. But then he broke down weeping. And he said, and I quote, but I still don't know what to make of it.

Part of it is that it's too terrifying a reality to fully believe. I don't even know what would happen to you if you fully believed it. Unquote I doubt that I will ever have the privilege of meeting Jordan Peterson in person. But I love the fact that he thinks so much about the resurrection of Jesus.

And I love the fact that he sees it as one of the most important topics that he's ever considered. And my message this morning is in response to his transparent confession. That he doesn't know what the resurrection of Jesus means metaphysically. My message is also in response to Peterson's tenderness.

And his fearful. Sense of wonder. That I think all of us can learn from. Jordan Peterson knows that whatever the meaning of the death and the resurrection of Jesus is, it's radical enough to be both terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

And I think he's on to something that we Christians sometimes lose sight of. Some of us who are Christians have believed in the death and the resurrection of Jesus for so long that we forget how staggering and consequential its ramifications really are. Our belief in a dying and resurrecting savior should do more to us than we often allow it to do to us. If we truly let the meaning of it sink in.

So with the time that we have this morning, I wanna try to nudge us in that direction and talk to you about 5 things that we can know about Jesus by virtue of his having been raised from the dead. To say it another way, as you see in your notes, I want us to look at 5 terrifyingly wonderful truths. That Jesus' resurrection reveals about him. And the first of these wonderful truths, we can word this way, Jesus is the ultimate truth teller who deserves our attention.

Jesus is the ultimate truth teller who deserves our attention and his resurrection. Tells us this. Near the very beginning of Jesus' public ministry, Jesus promised in front of an audience of people in John 2 that he would die and then be resurrected on the 3rd day. In Matthew 16:21, much later in his ministry, the text speaks of a few months before his death and says, and I quote, from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem.

And suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the 3rd day. On their way to Jerusalem, sometime later, Jesus speaks to his disciples in Matthew chapter 20, verses 18 and 19, and he says, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priest and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him, and on the 3rd day, he will be raised up.

Very clear predictions from Jesus and exactly what Jesus said would happen.

ended up happening. The chief priest condemned him to death and then handed him over to the Romans. He was mocked by the Roman soldiers and scourged and crucified, and then on the 3rd day after his death, There was an angel at the empty tomb of Jesus, who said to the women who had showed up there, and I quote, He is not here, for he has risen just as he said. Matthew 28:6.

So here's my theory. If someone speaks a prediction and says I'm gonna get scourged and crucified, and then I will rise from the dead on exactly the 3rd day after I am crucified and their prediction comes true. Then we should probably pay attention. To everything that person says about anything.

Right? He is probably a speaker of truth in every area. And our question should be what else does this person say about anything at all? After all, If nowadays we are interested in what someone has to say simply because they can sing or they can act or they can play basketball really well.

Then shouldn't we be interested in someone. What someone has to say who predicted their own death and their resurrection, and those predictions came true. I'm thinking that we should. About two decades ago, I was listening to S.

Lewis Johnson deliver a lecture and he was talking about how it was that during the heady days of the French Revolution, A group of men were trying very hard to develop a secularized religion that featured a good moral code without the trappings of Christianity, which they hated. But they were frustrated in their attempt because they could not come up with a secularized religion that would attract any significant following that would rival that of Christianity. And when they shared their frustration with Bishop Talleyrand one day, who by the way, was no saint at all.

He said to them, Surely this can't be so difficult as you suppose.

It's easy to start a religion that attracts a huge following. What do you mean it's easy? How? they asked.

He replied, All you have to do is go around telling people that you're going to get killed. And then 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 from the dead.

Do that and you'll have no trouble attracting a following. And that's great advice, right? But impossible for anyone to follow except Jesus, for that's exactly what he did. This means that Jesus is the ultimate truth teller who ought to have our attention.

That's why an entire religion is founded upon him. That's why we are gathered here today 2000 years later and talking about him. That's why we call this year 2024 and mark our calendars by when Jesus came to earth because he was raised from the dead, like he promised he would be. And showed himself to be the ultimate speaker of truth.

And if he is that Then, like I said before, you and I ought to be interested. In what Jesus has to say about everything, and we should be ready to take Him at His word. What does he say about himself? What does he say about us?

What does he say about God and how we can get to God? We should want to hear from him on these matters because he's the ultimate truth teller. And we should value his words above anyone else's words on these topics, right? After all, Oprah Winfrey has her own opinions.

That she is happy to share with the world that disagree with what Jesus says. And so does Deepak Chopra. And Rob Bell and Marianne Williamson and Richard Dawkins. And many others, but none of them have made predictions about their death and resurrection and had those predictions come true.

But Jesus did. And so we should want to hear from Jesus and be riveted by every word that he speaks, because he is the ultimate truth teller and his resurrection from the dead tells us that. Related to this truth, there is a 2nd. terrifyingly wonderful truth that Jesus' resurrection tells us about Him.

Number 2, you can fill in the blank here. Jesus has the right to intrude upon our life and direct our religion. Jesus has the right to intrude upon our life and direct our religion. There's an amazing incident that happens early in Jesus' ministry in John chapter 2.

Jesus had come into the city of Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to look around and to just observe what was going on. And the text tells us in John chapter 2 verse 14 that as he looked around, Look at the text, John 2:14, he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their table. As many of, the religion of Judaism at this time was centered at the temple, and people from around the world would make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to worship God and to offer sacrifices of animals there.

These pilgrims did not want to be hassled by the burden of bringing their animal for sacrifice the full distance of their journey, some of whom travel across the sea to get to Jerusalem.

So, these pilgrims would simply bring their foreign currencies with them. And then once they got to Jerusalem, they would purchase an animal for sacrifice and then offer that animal that they purchased in Jerusalem. Well, in order to do this, they needed someone who could exchange the currency of their home country with the currency being used at the temple, so money changers were needed for that. The problem was that these Jews needed to set up operations for this money exchange and animal sales somewhere close to the temple.

In order to be convenient for these pilgrims, and it is here that the Jewish leaders hit upon a brilliant idea. How about we set all this up in the court of the Gentiles? That way, it would only be the Gentiles who are inconvenienced and distracted in their worship. So that's what they did and they felt entitled to set things up in this way, and it seemed that everyone was good with this.

It was something that helped the Jewish pilgrims to live out their faith, and it was very convenient for everyone, and it certainly brought a lot of money to The chief priest and their families. So what's not to love about that? After all, everyone has the right to shape their religious practices however they want. Right?

Well, observe how Jesus responds to their religious practices in John 2 verses 15 and 16. The text says, and he made a scourge of cords and 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. Stop making my father's house a place of business.

How intolerant of Jesus. This is an amazing display of audacity on Jesus' part. Instead of tolerating their religious practices, he makes wreckage of what these religious people are doing, and he starts ordering them around. He acts like he is their authority who has the right to tell them what to do and what not to do.

Who does he think he is? And what gives him the right to come crashing against their religious practices in this way? That's exactly what the Jews ask of Jesus. Observe what happens next in John chapter 2 verse 18.

The text says, and the Jews then said to him, What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? Here's what they're asking. What right do you have to make wreckage? Of our religious practices that we're comfortable with, what possible sign could you give to us to show us that you have the right to act this way and be the boss of us?

Look at his answer in verse 19. And Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in 3 days, I will raise it up. That's his answer It turns out that in the moment, no one really knew what Jesus was talking about. As the story unfolds, John tells us that everyone thinks that Jesus is talking about the Jerusalem temple, but in verse 22, John tells us that Jesus was speaking of the temple of his what?

His body. So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this. And we know Jesus said this even from a historical point of view because at his trial, his enemies were quoting this. To use it against him.

So here's the simple takeaway from Jesus' words here. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is what Jesus points to in order to validate his right to clean house the way he just did in John 2, and to make wreckage of the Jews cherished practices and to give them orders about what they are to do and stop doing. And this has a world of bearing on every one of us, including you. The resurrection of Jesus means that you don't have the right to be your own boss.

And just set up your life however you please. The resurrection of Jesus means you can't just determine what's right and wrong for yourself. And to determine your own morality. The resurrection of Jesus means that if you want to have a religion, there's an authority that you need to reckon with about that, and that authority is Jesus.

The resurrection means that you need to let Jesus call the shots in your life and allow him to come crashing into your life and shape your entire life and your religion according to his liking. And this truth is terrifying. To modern Western sensibilities, right? Nowadays, It seems like most everyone professes to be either religious or spiritual.

The problem is that their spirituality is a lordless spirituality. In which people feel free to pick and choose from wherever they like and to make up their own version of spirituality that is to their own personal taste and liking without any authority over them telling them what to believe and to do. But the resurrection of Jesus changes all of that. For all of us.

Nowadays, more than anything, people want their own autonomy. Never mind that being one's own master puts an impossible burden of pressure on ourselves. And it leaves each of us as isolated and exhausted and anxious little sovereigns. Over our petty little kingdoms of me.

But the resurrection of Jesus ushers in the terrifyingly good news that we don't have to pick and choose. What we want to do and believe based on our own subjective preferences, the resurrection of Jesus means that there is someone greater and someone smarter and more powerful than us, and that someone is Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus means that we can And we must let Jesus call the shots. And it means that you and I can discover our truest and freest selves.

In submission to him. So given the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead, you should respond to Jesus by saying, OK, Jesus, you have every right and my permission to make wreckage out of anything in my life that you do not like, and to rearrange my life in any way that you see fit, I give you My full permission to shape my life. And my spirituality. And my religion to your liking.

Because you were raised from the dead. Just from what we've learned so far, we know that Jesus is worthy of such a response from us, right? But there's more, and this brings us to the 3rd terrifyingly wonderful truth that Jesus' resurrection tells us about Jesus. Number 3, Jesus is stronger than death.

Jesus is stronger than death. Let's face it, death is the enemy of us all, right? Its power is overwhelming. It comes to us all.

It attacks every person. And it always comes out. The victor in every conflict. Death takes away our parents, death takes away our loved ones and our friends.

Sometimes death takes away our children. Before it takes us away. Many of you have experienced the death of a precious loved one either recently or even years ago, and you still feel the sting. Of that loss.

Death is awful and we should hate it for what it does to those that we love and we should also hate it for what it does to us. The poet Edmund Vance Cook says death comes with a crawl or it comes with a pounce. And for 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, disfiguring us. And separating us from the abilities and the strength that we once took for granted in our youth. And death is not content until it takes from us our very last breath. I am just shy of 60 years old.

And I have to tell you, I think about death every day. Seriously, not a, not a day goes by that I do not think consciously about my mortality and the fact that I am dying And that's not because I'm a spiritual man, it's because we have mirrors in our home. And when I wear my glasses, which I need now, I can see that I am aging. Which is a polite way of saying I am dying.

My hairline recedes by the day. I find myself more and more noticing other men's hairlines. And envying them. A guy might be pouring out his heart to me and I'm, I'm looking at his hairline and Thinking what I wouldn't give to have his hairline.

My hearing is still pretty good at this age, at least good enough for me to hear the sound of my knee joints when I'm walking. Up the stairs in our home. I think about the fact that I am dying every day and I know that many of you do as well, especially as we get older. The older we get, the more we think about such things daily.

And if we really let the looming reality of death sink in, it can be overwhelming. Yeah. Leo Tolstoy. was a Russian novelist and playwright who died in 1910.

And he found himself at the age of 50 overwhelmed with the looming reality of death in his own life. And looking back on that particular year, he wrote these words, and I quote, 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. Here's the question, Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? 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 offer himself as an answer to that question, had better be someone who has power over death. After all, what savior is someone if they can't save you from death?

But here's the good news for all of us this morning. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead demonstrates that Jesus is more powerful than death. In fact, listen to what the apostle Peter says in Acts chapter 2. In verse 24, he's just spoken about how Jesus was nailed to a cross and killed, and then he says in Acts 2:24, but 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 what Peter is saying for a moment here. Death, he says, has power, but death's power was no match for Jesus. Which is why Jesus so eagerly took on death the way he did, and then overcame it through his resurrection. In effect, Jesus said to his enemies, Go ahead and punch me and slap me repeatedly.

Take a crown of thorns and beat it repeatedly into my brow. Strip me of my clothes and lash me with a whip and tear the flesh 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 leave me hanging there for six hours until I die.

And after I die, go ahead and thrust a spear into my side just to make sure that I am really dead. In other words, don't just kill me. Overkill me. Let me be completely 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 empire of Rome. Put some highly trained Roman soldiers in front of the tomb to guard it.

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

I've already had a contest with death and I won easily. I don't know about you, but that's the savior for me. I don't know how many people have lived and died in human history, but let's say it's been 20 billion people. Who have lived and died throughout human history.

If that's the case, then deaths, win loss record. is 20 billion and 1. 20 billion wins and 1 loss. And I don't know about you, but I'm real interested in that one loss.

And if that person Who in that one loss was the one who triumphed over death. If that person says that he would like to be my savior, then I'm all ears. On a related note, there is a 4th terrifyingly wonderful truth that the resurrection of Jesus tells us about him. And that is number 4, that Jesus and His love are stronger than our sins.

Jesus and his love are stronger than our sins. If you and I are honest with ourselves, we intuitively know that we have a sin problem. We try to overcome our sin by ignoring it, by not thinking about it, or by minimizing it, or maybe by just talking about other people's sins. Or by comparing ourselves with those who are worse than we are.

And then applauding ourselves for not being as bad as they are. Or we rationalize and make excuses for our sins. Or we hide the reality of our sins behind therapeutic terminology. Or we blame other people for our sins.

But try as we might, our sin problem remains in every one of us. We all have sinned against a holy God who created us, and we have sinned against others. And we have a natural bent towards selfishness and towards sin, and every truly honest person would have to admit that. And therefore any savior who is worthy of the name.

Must be someone who can bring us face to face with our sins. And help us to look squarely at our sins. And turn us into courageous repenters. If a supposed savior does not do this, Then that savior is not worth much at all.

Well, we've already seen that Jesus is more powerful than death, but is he more powerful than our sin? After all, death is merely the byproduct. Of sin In Romans 6:23, we're told the wages of sin is death. So death is powerful, but sin is the mother of death, as it were.

For the Bible teaches in James 1:15 that sin literally when it comes to full term brings forth what? Death. So is Jesus more powerful than the sin that brings forth death? The resurrection shows us that the answer to that question is a resounding yes, and that's very good news for us.

If you wanna have a right view of your sins, then you would want to listen to Jesus, who's the ultimate truth teller as he speaks on that subject. And just as an example, in John chapter 8 verse 7, Jesus speaks to some men who were wanting to stone a woman for adultery, and he says to them, he who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. This is Jesus pointing out. That every man Who was bothered by her sin.

Himself had a sin problem too. Then in John 8:34, a little later in that chapter, Jesus says to his audience, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. And being slaves of sin, there's nothing that you and I can do in and of ourselves to free ourselves from that bondage or from that slavery. But then Jesus goes on to promise that he can free us from sin, saying in John 8:36, if the Son, S O N, if the sun makes you free, you will be free indeed.

That right there is a crazy, bold claim from Jesus telling us that he, the Son of God, is more powerful than our sins, and he can free us from our sins. But how does he free us from our sins? Well, in 1 Peter 2:24, Peter makes this statement to us and says, and I quote, he himself speaking about Jesus, bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Think about the sins that you have committed.

Through your life. Think about the words you've said and the things you've done that have brought hurt to yourself and to other people and to the heart of God. Think about the sins you've committed that no one else knows about, and you shudder at the thought of others knowing. Think about those sins that you wake up at 3 in the morning haunted by.

And realized that Jesus willingly bore those sins in his body when he was on the cross. As for what our sins actually did to Him when they were placed upon Him at the cross. The literal Hebrew of Isaiah 53:5 says he was pierced through from our transgressions. He was crushed from our iniquities.

This means that from one standpoint, Our sins killed him. Making us all violators of the sixth commandment which says you shall not kill. And because it was our sins that pierced and crushed him, we must admit that we all are complicit in the death of Jesus, the Son of God. And so we then turn from the sight of that realization at the foot of the cross and we begin to see our sins more seriously than we ever saw them before.

Our sins and their very essence are the murder of God's Son, Jesus. If you could take the smallest sin that you have ever committed in your life and cut into the nucleus of that sin, you would find that the DNA of that sin and every other sin you have committed is the murder of Jesus. And we can't argue. With that fact.

We have no argument against it anymore, because when Jesus came into the world, what did sinful mankind do to him? We killed him. And exposing our sin for the ugly, murderous thing that it really is. So at the foot of the cross, we learned that we're not just well-intentioned people who have a few imperfections that we need to tweak and work on here and there.

We're sinners with a deeply serious sin problem. The Bible in Romans 3:23 teaches us that all have sinned. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And in that passage, all means all.

All have sinned. Democrats have sinned. And Republicans. Right and left, rich and poor, oppressors and the oppressed, black and white and every other ethnicity, Russians and Ukrainians, Israelis and Palestinians.

Citizens of the United States and those living and those ruling in North Korea. Donald Trump. And Joe Biden have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and stand in need of God's grace. At the foot of the cross, we discover that there's a certain equality that is taught in the Bible.

It's the equality of sin. We discover that we all have in common this sin problem, and we come to see that our sin problem is far worse than we ever imagined before, and we stand in desperate need of the grace of God. But what? Though Jesus bore our sins in his body while on the cross.

And was pierced through and crushed from the sharpness and the weight of our sins. He died But then was raised from the dead. Teaching us that there is something more powerful than our sins, and that is Jesus. And he didn't just rise from the dead and then take vengeance on us.

No, he rose from the dead with love for the very sinners who killed him. That's amazing news. Think about it this way. Here's how I think.

If my sins alone were placed upon Jesus, At the cross and he died from that experience and he remained forever dead, I would think that figures, my sin is that bad. But I would know that my sin was more powerful than Jesus. If Jesus died on the cross bearing my sins in his body, and then rose from the dead on the 3rd day but decided after his resurrection that he was done with me. And never wanted anything to do with me ever again, I would say that figures, I understand.

But I would know. That my sin was more powerful than his love. But this is not what happened. In Acts 2, Peter is talking to a crowd of people, many of whom were involved in the very crucifixion of Jesus.

And in verse 23, he says, this man, Jesus, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death, but God raised him up again. Verse 36, therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. And when Peter's audience heard The news about Jesus' resurrection from the dead, that was not good news to them. It scared them.

It terrified them. The thought of a resurrected Jesus. was the worst news, the most terrifying news they could have heard. So in verse 37 of Acts 2, it says, now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said, What shall we do?

And in reply, Peter says in verse 38, repent. And let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We're so used to a verse like this, we forget how staggering this is.

Do you hear what he's saying here? Peter is promising these people who killed Jesus, that if they repent of their sin and get baptized while calling upon the name of Jesus, they can receive the Holy Spirit as a gift from heaven and receive the forgiveness of their sins from the very person that they crucified. A couple of months prior. And if you keep reading through Acts 2, you learn that on that very day, 3000 people.

Jumped at this opportunity. 3000 sinners called upon. Jesus Christ for salvation and their lives were forever transformed. Do you realize how wonderful this is?

These people killed Jesus and he rose from the dead and returned to them with a word of forgiveness. And an offer of salvation, and he saved them who believed in Him, showing them and showing us that His love is stronger than our sins. I am personally amazed that Jesus was resurrected. After he was killed on the cross, but I'm more amazed.

That his love for sinners survived his death. And that he comes back from the dead resolved to love sinners like you and me. Forever Think about Jesus' disciples real quick, who had all abandoned Jesus on the night that he was arrested before his crucifixion. Peter denied him.

With a curse and an oath. He denied him 3 times. After Jesus died, I have no doubt that every one of these disciples were ravaged with guilt and remorse and figuring that their guilt would forever haunt them all the way to their graves. But Jesus rose from the dead on the 3rd day, and he made appearances.

He sought them out and made appearances to them, and he loved on them and showed them by many convincing proofs, not only that he was raised, but also that he loved them. And that he stood ready to forgive them. And in the end, it was the resurrection of Jesus and his undying love for them, a love which their sins could not extinguish. That transformed them into the men of courage that they all became.

They had been exposed. At their worst And they discovered that they were still loved and forgiven by Jesus, whose love is stronger than their sin. And upon experiencing that love from a resurrected Lord Jesus, these men feared nothing at all. Because they learned once and for all that Jesus and his love was stronger than their sin.

And his love is stronger than our sin as well. This leads us to the final point, the final terrifyingly wonderful truth that the resurrection of Jesus tells us about Him. Number 5. Jesus has authority to save us to the uttermost.

Jesus has authority to save us to the uttermost. We'll just look at this briefly. You go to the tomb You find that the tomb is empty, and that empty tomb means something profoundly personal for you. It means that you have a savior if you want one.

A savior who is more powerful than death, a savior who is more powerful than your sin. But it also means that Jesus now has absolute authority to be every bit the savior that he wants to be to you with no higher authority ever to overrule him. In his saving intentions towards you. We don't like to talk about authority in our culture today, and that's unfortunate.

But I hope you appreciate how true it is that Jesus' authority. And his ability to save are linked. Profoundly And that you understand how his authority is an essential component of his ability to save us forever. And it was after his resurrection that Jesus says in Matthew 28:18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

In Philippians 2, the apostle Paul speaks. About how Jesus surrendered himself to death on a cross, and then says for this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In other words, every being in the material and the spiritual universe will find themselves looking up to Jesus one day and honoring him as the highest authority of all.

And that is really good news.

For you and me. Because it means that we never ever have to worry about our Savior ever being overruled by anything or anyone else in his efforts to save us. Just think about that for a moment. Nowadays we have lower court judges who render judgments that can then be overturned by judges sitting on higher courts.

You might get the judgment that you want from a lower court judge, but that judge's decision can then be overturned by a judge who's sitting on a higher court. All the way up until you get to the Supreme Court of the United States. And even Supreme Court decisions can be overturned decades later as new judges come onto that court with a different point of view, and this happens because human judges don't live forever. They eventually die and get replaced, and their earlier decisions can get overruled.

But you and I never have this worry about Jesus if we're trusting in Him for salvation. Because his resurrection from the dead means that he is the highest judge of all who lives forever. And whose verdicts about us can never be overruled by anyone higher. In Acts 17:31, the Bible tells us that God has fixed a day 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.

In raising Jesus from the dead. God is saying many things, one of which is he's the highest judge of all. And he's the one that every person, every man and woman will stand before in a future day at the judgment. He is the one who will determine each person's eternal destiny, whether it be heaven or hell.

Because he has been given ultimate authority to do this by the Father, and we know of this. By virtue of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But what is Jesus doing with this amazing absolute authority that has been given to him? On the other side of his resurrection.

what he's doing, guys? He's giving out salvation to sinners like us. What an amazing thing to do with his power. In Acts 5 verses 30 and 31, Peter again speaks to the very people who had killed Jesus, and he 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 to grant repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is right now at the right hand of God. He possesses absolute lordship over all of heaven and earth, and what is he doing with that authority? He's giving out repentance.

And salvation And the forgiveness of sins. To sinners What a gracious thing for Jesus to do. With this absolute power that he possesses. And I wonder if Jesus is giving this precious gift of repentance.

To any in this room. Right now. If you are feeling conviction over your sin, This morning, even right now as I speak and you feel God drawing you to Jesus, I plead with you not to resist that. That's Jesus who is right now at the right hand of God, who just might be giving you the gift of repentance and drawing you to Himself in love, and you should view that as an unspeakable blessing.

That tug you are feeling toward Jesus is the best thing that could possibly happen to you. So don't Even try to resist that. Bring your guilt and your sin to Jesus. Who bore your sins in his body while on the cross, and he died and shed his blood on the cross so that he could provide atonement for your sins.

And give you the forgiveness of sins that you need and make you a new person. You say, what must I do to be saved? Well, the council's very clear. In Romans 10, the apostle Paul says, 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. And that offer is to you this morning. And Jesus will save you in this exact way, not only because he can. But because he is really that good.

And he's more than good enough to save you. This very morning Jordan Peterson says he doesn't know what to make of the story of a dying and resurrecting Jesus and maybe you've not known what to make of it either, but we've seen this morning what Jesus Himself wants us to make of his Resurrection Jordan Peterson finds the reality of a dying and resurrecting Jesus too terrifying to believe and says, I don't even know what would happen to you if you fully believed it. But we've learned this morning that what would happen to you if you believed it is that you would be saved.

And your sins would be forgiven.

You would be made a child of God. And that you would have a home in heaven forever with God the Father and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and an eternal existence free of sin. Which means that the real fear. That should terrify us is the fear.

of what would happen to us. If we didn't believe. Let's pray together Lord, this is such a sacred. Privileged moment for all of us to be able to.

Behold These truths about our Savior Jesus Christ. I pray that if there is anyone here today, Lord, in whose heart you are working. That even where they're seated now that they would. Call out to you And believe in you.

Jesus, and call upon your name. To be their savior. Oh Lord, we pray that you would just move upon them to come and talk to us afterwards so that we could have the amazing privilege of sharing with them more about Jesus and how they can Find salvation through him today. For those of us who know you, Lord, forgive us for often making too little of these things.

Not allowing your death and resurrection to do to us all that you would desire them to do to us. May we see afresh the wonder. The glory and the gravitas. Of these things.

And be deeply changed by them from day to day. And being transformed in this way that a light would issue forth from us, being the very light of Jesus Himself. That the world might see your power on display, your resurrection power on display in our lives, and know. That Jesus is Lord.

And he is good. He's more powerful than death and more powerful than sin. And he stands ready to save sinners just like us. We give thanks to you, Lord.

For your goodness to us, through our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray, and all God's people said,