Matthew 22:22-33 - The God of the Living

Today we're going to be continue on in Matthew.

We're going to be in Matthew chapter 22, verses 23 through 33.

Matthew 22:23–33

Before we begin, let's go to the Lord again in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we know we need you, and we need your work upon our life.

We know that Lord Jesus said that apart from me you can do nothing.

And so we come and we humbly ask that you would be at work in our lives.

Holy Spirit, please reveal the truth of your word to us, convict us of our sin, show us Christ's righteousness, and help us live in a way that honors you.

And we know that is only by your power.

For those who are not trusting upon Jesus for salvation in this room, and we ask, Lord, that you would stir in their hearts and bring them from death to life to be able to see the beauty of the truth that Jesus is the Lord of all.

We know that only you are powerful to do that.

We thank you that you hear our prayer, and when we can come in confidence to hear your word and what you have to say for us.

Please use my failing words and weakness, Lord, for your glory, and thank you that your strength will be known in our weakness.

We pray these things in your name, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Death is what we're going to be talking about today.

Now you might be surprised to hear us talk about death this morning.

And in our culture today, it's not something we're very familiar with.

Yes, we know people who have passed away, and it is a common thing we hear of on the news, but we are not familiar with it.

We don't come face to face with death very often.

We have special places that we put sick people in hospitals, and we have nursing homes to put people who are aging, and these are not bad things, but it is it shows that our culture has an aversion with death.

We don't want to face this reality.

And how odd is that?

Because we will all face death one day.

Each and every one of us in this room will most likely, unless the Lord comes or comes back, will face death.

We will stop moving, breathe our last, and die.

And even at funerals and wakes that we go to, we see people who have died and passed away.

But we dress them in clothes, we put makeup on their faces to try and make them look like they're a little bit less dead.

Because death is not palatable.

No matter how often it is romanticized in books and movies, death is a hopeless thing that we must all face for many people.

Yet if death is a hopeless thing, the reality that we can't avoid death, why am I talking about it?

Am I here to discourage you?

No.

It is worth talking about death this morning because death is not completely hopeless.

And because we will all face it.

Today we will talk about the hope in death because of the resurrection.

We have hope in death because of the resurrection.

Let's read our passage.

Matthew chapter twenty two, twenty three through thirty three.

The same day some Sadducees who say there is no resurrection, came up to him, that's Jesus, and questioned him.

They said, Teacher, Moses said, If a man dies having no children, his brother ought to marry his wife and raise up offspring for her brother.

Now there were among us seven brothers.

Now there were seven brothers among us.

The first got married and died, and having no offspring, he left his wife to his brother.

The same thing happened to the second, and also the third, and so on until the seven.

Last of all the woman died.

In the resurrection, then, whose wife will she be?

Will she be one of the seven?

For they all had married her.

Jesus answered them, You are mistaken, because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

Now concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't you read what was spoken to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham, I am the God of Isaac, I a I am the God of Jacob.

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

Today we're going to see the Sadducees come to Jesus with a confusing question.

And then Jesus gives a perfect reply.

And then after that we will consider what we should do.

So first we should consider this confusing question that the Sadducees bring.

Now, who are the Sadducees?

Anytime you're at you're reading a story, you have to know who the characters are.

Who are the Sadducees?

We haven't seen them in the Gospel of Matthew yet, but we've seen parts of them in the chief priests and the scribes.

But to give more background on the Sadducees, the Sadducees were a religious group, much like the Pharisees, or a religious group like the Pharisees were.

They were quite different from the Pharisees.

But they oversaw the temple sacrifices.

And so they were able to kind of work things out, and so they could approve what sacrifices were okay and what sacrifices weren't okay, thus, able to kind of line their pockets and kind of become very affluent.

Thus, around in Jerusalem, they had a lot of authority as those in the temple who could approve these sacrifices.

They weren't a very large group.

They were a smaller group of people that weren't very popular, but they held the authority.

Now, unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were quite different.

The Pharisees were very liberal in their interpretation of God's word.

They added on top of God's word oral law and traditions to kind of help them augment and create their own way of living.

And Jesus confronted the Pharisees for that, as we saw earlier in Matthew, telling them that by their oral traditions, what they added, they then undermined God's word, so that people would obey God's would obey their oral commands, not what God's word had told them to.

Now the Pharisees were on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Instead of adding to God's word, they took away from God's word.

They had a very cons um a very narrow application of what God's word.

They only obeyed the literal interpretation of God's word, only what it said.

And even that, they had a very narrow view of Scripture.

They only held the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

And they only applied these very, very literally.

And so that's who these this is the group of people that's coming to Jesus with a question.

Now they have been implicated when Jesus cleared out the temple and said, You have made you have made my father's house of prayer into a den of robbers.

Jesus is implicating these Pharisees, these Sadducees in this robbery of God's temple.

And so the Sadducees are wanting to come to Jesus to undermine his authority.

They want to show that Jesus is not the authority in the temple, but that the Sadducees are the authority.

So this is why they're coming to Jesus.

In verse 23, Matthew begins by giving us clarification that the Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection.

And so from the get-go, we see that this question is meant to be a trap for Jesus.

They're hoping to show that Jesus doesn't know what he's talking about.

Let's read their question.

They asked, Teacher, Moses said, If a man dies having no children, his brother is to marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

So the Sadducees are quoting Deuteronomy 25, verse 5, where Moses tells the Israelites that if you have a family, a couple, and one of the brothers gets married, and he dies before producing any children, the wife should marry one of his unmarried brothers, to continue, to continue on that family name, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel.

Deuteronomy 25:5

This was a way the Lord had given Israel to continue on their families, even in the midst of death.

Now, although this may seem odd to us, to think about marrying your siblings spouse in order to produce children for them, this is a common thing in the Old Testament.

We see Judah command this to Onom, his second son, when his first son Ur dies.

And yet Onam doesn't want to produce children with Ur's wife Tamar, because he knows it won't be his own.

And so he deceptively doesn't obey his father, and the Lord kills him for it, showing that God takes his commands and his words seriously.

We also see this play out in the book of Ruth, in which Boaz takes Ruth to be his wife, because he is a relative of Naomi's family, to continue on their family name.

Now, with the context of this good law, the Sadducees take it to the extreme.

They say, Now we're that now there were seven brothers among us.

The first got married and died.

Having no offspring, he left his wife to his brother.

The same thing happened to the second, also the third, and so on to all seven.

Last of all, the woman died.

So they construct this story.

Now, whether it is real or not is not what matters.

The Sadducees are trying to take this law that God had given and pull it to the extreme to show how foolish the resurrection is.

That's what their intent is, to show how foolish the resurrection is.

And so you've got these seven brothers, all who were married to this one woman.

Which you gotta feel bad for the fifth and the sixth, and who know they're probably gonna die after seeing four or five of their brothers die, but they still marry the woman.

And yet the Sadducees are saying, in the resurrection, you've got these seven guys who are all married to this one woman.

How is God gonna work that out?

Is God gonna make it so that maybe the first is the one who's married to them?

Is it the one who's married last, maybe?

Maybe it was the one who had the most time?

But they're showing, they're they're ridiculing the thought of the resurrection, wondering whose wife, whose husband will this woman be?

And they think they have trapped Jesus, that Jesus will have no good answer, and the crowds will see that he isn't the teacher, that he isn't a good teacher, re-establishing their own authority.

They think they have gotten Jesus with this confusing question.

But Jesus gives a perfect reply.

And Jesus is clear into the point.

In verse 29, he says, You are mistaken.

You the new the King James Version says, you do err.

You are wrong, because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.

Jesus doesn't beat around the bush, but tells them that they are wrong.

They don't have any idea what they're talking about.

And the Sadducees would have been really offended by this.

Not only does he tell them that they're wrong to their faces, but Jesus tells them they don't know God's word.

These would have been people who their whole lives were spent to studying God's word.

And they had probably memorized all of the first five books of the Old Testament.

They thought themselves to be the Michael Jordans of Scripture.

But Jesus explains that they don't know the truth, that they are foolish.

And he begins first by talking about the power of God.

Jesus says in verse twenty in verse thirty, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

Now, where is Jesus pulling this from?

This is something he kind of seems to pull out of a hat, but Jesus is pulling this from what marriage is and when God instituted marriage.

In the beginning, God created marriage because it was good for man to not be alone.

So God made a helper corresponding to him in Genesis chapter 2, 18.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

The union of man and woman was for the purpose of helping mankind work out the tasks that God had given them to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, to rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the ground.

And Adam for sure couldn't be fruitful on his own.

He needed a wife to help him with this task that God had given him.

And marriage is a good thing that God has given humans, but it is an earthly thing inherently.

The desire to have sex, to have a family, to have companionship for life here on earth was all wrapped into marriage that God has given us.

But the Sadducees were assuming that the way God had made the world was the way it would always be.

They doubted the power of God to make life new, to make life in a different way.

And Jesus corrects their beliefs that in the resurrection people will be made like the angels, not into angels, but like the angels.

We're not going to have six wings or probably wings at all.

We will still be human, though made new.

There won't be a purpose for marriage.

There won't be a purpose to procreate.

We won't have a need for companionship, because we will be in the very presence of God, who is all and in all, the fullness of everything good.

The angels, in the same way, don't have any need for marriage.

They dwell with God, they do his work, they worship him for all always.

Neither do they have sin or the effects of sin.

And when we are made new, the effects of sin will no longer have an effect on our bodies.

Neither will we have our sinful desires to wage war against our flesh, wanting to do what is wrong.

But the effects of sin we won't see any more.

There won't be any more weakness, no more old age, no more illness, no more death.

That even as we see others around us, our fellow church members growing old, even as our loved ones fall ill, and even as we mourn those who are passed who have passed away, we have hope, because when we are made new, we will be like the angels.

This life is not the end.

That is the hope of the resurrection.

That we can inscribe with confidence on our gravestones to be continued, because there is more to come.

That though the chapter of this life comes to a close, a new chapter begins.

The book is not over.

Where we'll be made like the angels.

Ready or not, death will come, but in death we have hope.

Jesus then points to what they cannot argue with.

They might be able to argue with his his reasoning on marriage, but they cannot argue with the truth of God's word.

So that's where Jesus goes next.

And although the Sadducees had picked their five books that didn't have any mention of the resurrection or spirit or angels, Jesus pulls from that very from Exodus, from their scriptures, and quotes Exodus chapter 3, verse 6, in which Moses and God is talking to Moses and says, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

Exodus 3:6

Now before we get to the grammar and how the see this proves Jesus' point, read verse 31.

Now concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't you read what was spoken to you by God?

Now in Exodus chapter 3, God is speaking to Moses.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

But Jesus says, Haven't you read what was spoken to you?

Jesus saying, God spoke this to you, the Sadducees.

And we see Jesus is reaffirming the truth of Scripture that is not just an old book written two thousand years ago, but it is living and breathing.

God's word is what he's speaking to us today.

That is why we can read God's word.

That's why we can listen to preaching, because we know that God is still at work teaching us from his very word, spoken to you.

Now we'll go to the argumentation Jesus makes in verse 32.

Now I was not a very big fan of grammar or English in school.

Maybe you're like me.

Um, but here Jesus is making a very simple point using grammar, talking about the past and the present, the things that were and the things that are.

Now, if I said to you, it was wonderful having Emily as a wife, you might be a little concerned.

And you might ask me, Chad, what happened?

Is Emily okay?

Emily's fine, she's at the back of the room.

And you'd be you'd be dumbstruck.

You'd be like, Chad, why did you say it was wonderful having Emily as a wife?

I should say it is wonderful having Emily as a wife.

Not just because it's good grammar, but because it's true.

I am Emily's husband, not I was Emily's husband.

And so when God says I am the God of Abraham, Abraham's been dead for 400 years.

But when God says I am the God of Abraham, he's not saying I was the God of Abraham.

He is still Abraham's God.

He is still Isaac's God, he is still Jacob's God.

And this is the the the once we see it, we see like this can't be refuted.

God's word speaks for itself, that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

That though Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob might have passed away, they will live again, and that their souls are in heaven waiting for the resurrection of their earthly bodies.

And we know this from the rest of Scripture.

We see in Psalm chapter 16 and 20, and Isaiah 53 that there are allusions and direct references to the resurrection from the dead.

Psalms 16 · chapter mention

The clearest one we see is in Daniel chapter twelve, in which Daniel writes Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to eternal contempt and disgrace.

And the rest of God's word validates this truth of the resurrection.

So that is the hope that God's word affirms there will be a resurrection, both by the power of God to be able to create things anew, as well as the truth written that has been spoken to us.

Now you may have caught Daniel chapter 12, verse 2, and realized that not all of the resurrection is for hope.

Daniel 12:2

That all who are resurrected some to eternal life and some to eternal contempt or condemnation and disgrace.

That there is a distinction.

Some have hope for resurrection, and some the resurrection is not a hope, but a judgment to them and a discouragement.

And so you ask, what is this distinction?

What is this separation between the two?

God's word speaks of a final judgment, a final judgment day, when the world we when all people will divide it into two camps, those who are God's and those, those who are to live with God forever, and those who are to face God's eternal perfect wrath.

And we know Jesus Jesus said in Matthew 5 48, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, that the standard that has been given is perfection.

That those who are perfect receive eternal life, and those who are not do not.

And even and perfection is a very high bar, that even by our own standards we fall short, that when we teach our children not to lie, but then we twist the truth to try and show ourselves to be better.

That we tell others not to cheat, but then we use our company's time to daydream or to check social media or to do our s to do what we want.

That when we tell others to be faithful in their marriages, but then we lust and desire after others, or we we dwell on things that are impure, our own hearts condemn us, because if we evaluate our lives, we are not perfect.

We fall short of God's perfection, even by our own standard, how much more by God's perfectly good standard.

In Ephesians 2 makes us clear how God sees us, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

That each and every one of us is born dead spiritually.

And Paul continues, We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also.

We lived according to what we wanted to do, not what God said we should do.

That by our very nature, not just by what we do, but by our very being, we were facing God's wrath.

Not children of God, but children under God's wrath.

Each of us does not make the cut.

We are spiritually dead.

And you might stop me and say, Chad, you were going to talk about hope.

You said there was hope.

So what is this hope?

The hope is in the power of God and the scriptures.

Ephesians 2 continues, but God.

But God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for those, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive in Christ, even though we were dead in our sins and trespasses.

That though we were dead, God can make us alive.

The truth of God tells us that the power of God is not just for a physical resurrection, but for a spiritual resurrection, to pull those who are dead in their sin to be made alive in Christ.

Jesus, as we will see in several chapters, died on the cross to pay for the sins of the whole world, to pay for the sins so that all who repent and seek after him could be made from dead to live alive.

He died a horrible death, not just by how excruciatingly painful it was, but because he faced the full and complete wrath of God that we deserved.

What grace is this that we the death we deserved, Jesus died for us that we might be made alive.

And after his death, he rose from the grave, proving that there is a resurrection, proving that those who are alive will be made alive one day to live forever, that death has no power over the children of God.

He is the beginning of the resurrection of the dead, the first fruits of all creation.

And we are offered a part in that by grace, simply by accepting and repenting of our sins.

We have a hope for the resurrection physically and spiritually, because of the power of God and the truth of God's word.

Which leads us to our last point, what we should do.

And this is our application, and we have six points of application today.

The first point, as it should always be, is repent of your sins.

Believe in Jesus and trust upon his work.

Follow him.

Now, if you have already repented of your sins, praise God.

Repent again.

We still have sin in our life.

We still wage war against sin.

Paul gives the perfect description of this in Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

That we wage war with the law of sin in our heart, in our flesh.

That sin seeks to drag us back down to death, even while the Spirit of God seeks to make us alive.

They're at war within us.

And in this war he says, What a wretched man am I, who will rescue me from this body of death?

Praise be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord.

That the gospel and the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection is not just for those who are not saved, is not just for those who are dead, but is for those who are alive to fight against sin, to be made alive again, to continue to repent, to confess our sins before others, to walk in the light as Jesus is in the light, and to know that if we if we say with our mouth that we have no sin, the truth is not in us, that we still sin, we still wage war, but the hope of repentance is still there.

Application number one was repent of your sins.

Application number two, live for eternity.

If there is a resurrection from the dead, and you have life here on earth, and you have life afterwards, which one weighs more?

You have life on earth, which by God's grace and strength may be 70, 80 years, and then you have life eternal that has no end.

Of course, life eternal holds more weight, holds more umph that we should live for life eternal than life for life here.

And we understand this, and we we might mentally think of this like, yeah, 100% Chad.

And I agree with myself.

But then when I examine my own life, I realize I'm not.

I'm not living for eternal comfort, for eternal reward.

But I'm living for life here on earth, just try and pull as much comfort as I can for life here on earth.

I choose not to love others because it makes me it because it takes time and effort.

New York has a culture that pushes against this.

They tell us to to work hard, to make more money, to buy more comforts, to have an earlier retirement.

Work, work, work.

Work is not bad.

Comfort is not bad.

Early retirement are not bad things.

But when we s when we t when we seek to grasp at them, instead of grasping for eternity, they become bad.

Our lives should be defined by commitment for God's word and for his church.

Have we made so many commitments that we aren't able to serve and to be a part of the body of Christ?

And I'm not just talking about Sunday mornings, which are necessary and good, and you I would it's good for you to be here.

And I'm not just talking about Sunday evenings or Wednesday evenings, prayer meetings, which are also good, and I recommend you should come to them, both for your own encouragement and to encourage those around you.

But I'm also talking about day-to-day life, inviting family a family member, inviting another family in the church over for a meal, to encourage them, to talk about what God's Word has been teaching you, to hear about the struggles in their life, to be able to share more of what God has done in your life and to encourage them from God's Word.

I'm talking about taking to breakfast a less mature believer to be able to read God's Word and to pray with them and seek to encourage them.

I'm talking about taking to breakfast or lunch an older, a more mature believer, to read through God's Word and to pray with them and to ask them to impart the wisdom that God has given them into your own life.

Offering to babysit for a family.

Yes, they have the money to hire a babysitter.

Yes, it's an inconvenience.

But what an opportunity to provide them an opp to provide them the ability to go work on their marriage and spend time together.

To provide you an opportunity to love those who are younger, to model that God loves all, that even those who are young are still worth time, to provide opportunities for you to share the gospel with them.

And please don't think I'm asking you to offer to babysit Elias.

That's not what I'm doing.

Please, we will be gone soon.

Offer to babysit those who are still here.

Disciple those who are younger and ask those who are older to disciple you.

May our lives be my example of living for eternity.

Jesus said, A new command I give for you.

Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Jesus spent time, time here on earth and poured into his disciples both the twelve as well as the multitudes that followed him.

Number three, number application point was live for eternity.

Application point number three is life will be different in eternity.

And you might say, Duh, Chad, of course life will be different in eternity.

We aren't going to die, we're not going to have any sin.

You've covered these points.

But take what this should be an encouragement to us.

When the discouragement of sin clouds our judgment, that we will be made like the angels, that sin will no longer have a weight on our lives, there will no longer be sickness and death, that God will redeem all things, that even the consequences and the bad effects of sin will no longer have an effect in this world, but God's glory will be revealed, and we will see all the bad that happened in light of how God used it for his glory.

The Sadducees thought they had confounded Jesus and tricked him, but God used the sinfulness of the Sadducees to show the glory of Christ, to show that Jesus is the true wisdom from God.

He is the true teacher, the authority of God's word.

We should also take encouragement that life will be different as we realize and look it back at our past sins.

If we think about if you may have been divorced and realize that the brokenness that may have caused in this life, to recognize that that is not the end.

The bad effects of your divorce and the wrong you have done, whether before or after, as a believer, God will redeem for his glory.

That even those who have mutilated their bodies to seek to fix some internal desire, to fix with what gender they might think they are, that that is not the end for them.

There is a hope, because their bodies will be resurrected and made new, that the effects of sin and what they have done wrong against themselves will no longer have an effect on them anymore, that God will redeem that for his glory.

And even something as vile as abortion, the killing of a baby, that in God's power, which I don't know how, but God will show his glory and will use that for his goodness, for our goodness and for his glory.

That is not the end.

That the wicked deeds we have done in this life are not the end of the story.

We have a hope for the resurrection, because we will be made new, and sin will be no more.

Application number three was live, life will be different in eternity.

Number four is examine your own doctrine.

This might seem a bit of a stretch, but the Sadducees failed to do this, so we can learn by their bad example.

The Sadducees thought they had everything right.

They didn't search the scriptures to seek to understand what God had spoken to them.

They thought they knew what was the truth.

But we should be willing, unlike the Sadducees, to listen to what God's Word has to say, to seek to make sure we understand what the truth is.

That when people challenge us, we take a step back and say, okay, like let's look at God's word.

Let's make sure we know what the truth is.

Keeping the foundation of Christ, that he died and paid for our sins, that we are saved by grace alone, by faith alone, to the glory of God alone.

To believe upon that foundation, and as long as we keep that foundation, it will keep us from straying.

Today many people deconstruct their faith, showing they never had any faith to believe in, because they were not rooted upon the foundation of Christ.

But this is different from disentangling the lies we might have grown to believe.

That it is good to try and pull up the weeds that might have grown in the garden of truth.

A good example of this was my wife found herself facing this as she prepared for the ladies' brunch last week.

That she struggled to share about Mary because she had been thinking of Mary and putting Mary on a pedestal as different from the rest of humanity.

Not in the way, not in the Catholic way, but just in a way of like, she was the mother of our Lord, like used specially.

And yes, she was.

Yes, the Lord used her for a special time and purpose.

But to match that with the rest of Scripture, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that each and every one of us deserves God's wrath, and that we find a favor with God, not because of anything we have done, but because of his goodness and grace and love for us.

That when the angel tells Mary, you have found favor with God, that it's not because of Mary, it's not because Mary is special, although praise God that she obeyed, and God used her for a wonderful task, but it wasn't because Mary was special, but because God is good and loving.

And so we should we should tear up, seek to seek to disentangle the lies while remaining rooted to the truth of God's word.

Application number four was examine your doctrine to know you are believing what is true.

Application point number five, challenge those who are wrong, especially those who are teaching others what is wrong.

Jesus clearly challenged the Sadducees.

He didn't beat around the bush, he told them, You are mistaken, and gave a good example for how that was the case.

Now this is not this is not to give you liberty to freely go destroy people.

We're not supposed to carry around a bat waiting for anyone to say something that's not true, and to wait, ah, whack him in the head, gotta go, you're wrong.

No.

Jesus challenged them out of love, both love for the Sadducees as well as love for those who were listening, for the crowds around them.

Not out of spite or vengeance or to build himself up, but because he wanted them to know the truth of God's word, that they were living in falsehood, that they were believing what was wrong.

And so he wanted them to come to the knowledge of the truth, and he wanted the crowds to know.

Jesus' perfect reply was not just to the Sadducees, but also to the crowd around him.

I forgot to mention this.

The verse 33.

And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

Jesus is not just talking to the Sadducees, but to the whole crowd.

He wants them to know the truth of God's word.

There is a hope for the resurrection, and to also point them to himself as the authority, as the way, the truth, and the life.

James five, nineteen through twenty says, My brothers and sisters, if any of you stray from the truth and someone turns him back, let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from error of his ways will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

To correct them someone for their own good is loving.

To correct someone when they are teaching others what is wrong is good and we should do it.

But we must make sure we have God's word to back us up.

To make sure we have a chapter and a verse to come and say, It's not my argument.

It's not my crafty argument I've created to try and persuade you, but it is the truth of God's word that says this.

That if someone says, a good example might be, if someone is constantly saying, like, oh then, like that was lucky or like, man, I lucked out today.

Uh, or they're talking about luck often as a believer.

And you you could come to them and say, brother, sister, like I hear you talking about luck, but and I know you might what you might mean by that, but do you realize you are you are taking away from the truth of God?

That God is in control, that you are saying God is not God by saying you are lucky.

And that the truth is that in Romans 8, God says God works all things out for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his good purpose.

That God is the one working this out in your life.

We should have God's word when we go to challenge someone.

Application number five was challenge others, especially those who are teaching what is wrong.

And our last point of application is prepare for when you will die.

Because you will die.

Death will come, and there's no use preparing for it later, because we may not know.

We don't know how many years we have on this earth.

You may walk out of this building and fall down dead, never to breathe again.

Jim Elliott, one of the five missionaries who gave his life while seeking to share the gospel with the Alka Indians, said, When it comes time to die, make sure all you have to do is die.

That when it comes time for your life to to to to expire, that make sure all everything is covered.

This is why we write a will, is to make sure everything is set aside, that we know where we've we've put everything in its place.

Now, by saying prepare for when you die, I'm not saying write a will, although that's probably a good thing to do.

What I'm saying is, do you know where you are going?

Where is your trust in yourself or in God?

It is your trust in Jesus.

Prepare also for the death of those around you.

They're going to die as well.

Your unbelieving family, your unbelieving friends, your unbelieving co-workers, even the believers who are not preaching what is true.

Warn them.

Say, I love you, and I need to tell you the truth.

That God's word says that you are dead and that you need God to bring you back from the dead.

Repent of your sins.

Love them enough to use the time here on earth because you know you will die and they will die.

I am not recommending fire insurance.

God does not offer us a get out of hell free card if we say some words or we do a couple deeds or we say a prayer.

But it is a life commitment to serve God, to say, I am not my own, but I belong to you.

In conclusion, today we have considered the Sadducees who were shown foolish to not believe in the resurrection.

But how much more foolish will they be when they stand before God after they die and are found wanting when they are found not believing upon Jesus' death and resurrection to pay for their sins, when they think they have done enough.

And I pray that will not be you.

I pray that you will prepare for when death comes.

Follow Jesus, who out of love told the Sadducees their error and taught the crowd what is true, pointing to himself as the authority of Scripture, pointing to Himself as the way, the truth, and the life.

He alone can raise us spiritually from the dead.

The power of God, that we have the hope of the resurrection, that though you were you might might have been dead in your sins and trespasses, you can be a Live in Christ by repenting of your sins and coming to Him.

And this is the hope of the resurrection, spiritually and eternally, that we can have hope in death, because our life is not the end.

That though we might die, we might still be staying alive.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today, thanking you for your word.

We know it is life.

That is the very word of you.

That Jesus was the word from you, Lord.

Thank you that we have this truth.

May we not be like the man in James who looks at his face in the mirror and walks away forgetting, but maybe listen to your word and obey.

May we not walk out these doors forgetting what we have heard today, forgetting that there is a hope of the resurrection.

But may we be diligent to repent of our sins, to believe upon Christ, to examine our own doctrine and to challenge those who might be teaching what is wrong, as well as to prepare for when we will die and to live for eternity.

Thank you for the encouragement you have given us in your word.

Thank you as well for the challenge and how you've convicted us.

We love you, Lord.

We give you praise.

And we pray these things in Lord Jesus' name.

Amen.