Just As He Said

The scripture reading this morning, the first of them is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, and you can find that uh in the Pew Bible on page 884.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

Encourage you to turn there as we study God's Word this morning.

Luke chapter 24, and and I do want to encourage you, if you're here this morning and you don't own a Bible of your own, you don't have a copy at your uh access, at your house or apartment or dorm, I want to encourage you that that Bible that's in the pew, uh that following this service this morning, that you would take it home with you.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

Uh we want you to have it as our gift to you.

We believe it's so important for you to have a copy of God's word for yourself, and so uh we've made that available, and we would ask you to please, uh, if you don't own a Bible for yourself, that you would take that one and make it your own.

Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 1, I'll read through uh verse nine.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.

And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.

As they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

He is not here, but has risen.

Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the third day rise.

And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

Now, if you return to Matthew's gospel, chapter twenty-eight, verses one through ten, and that can be found on page eight thirty-five.

Matthew chapter twenty-eight, beginning in verse one.

Now, after the Sabbath, towards the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord had uh the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here, for he is risen, and he has come, see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee, there you will see him.

See, I have told you.

So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

And behold, Jesus met them and said greetings, and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him.

Then Jesus said to him, Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.

There's a friend of mine that I talk to uh every so often, pretty pretty regularly, and um I remember one conversation I had with this person.

Uh she said, So Easter's a pretty big thing for you guys, eh?

And I assume by you guys she meant pastors, but maybe she just meant Christians, I'm not sure.

And and so I said, Um, yeah, yeah, it kind of is.

And she said, bigger than Christmas?

And I said, Yes, bigger than Christmas.

And she said, Really?

Why?

In fact, I I just uh saw her recently again, and uh friend of the family, and she she mentioned it again, and she said, Oh, so it's that big day coming up for you guys.

Well, why is Easter such a big thing?

Why is it uh truly the exclamation point of the Christian faith?

Our whole culture, even to this day, uh, pauses at some level in some way to recognize the significance of the day that we celebrate.

Even those who try to uh deny it yet find themselves curiously interested about what this day represents, what it means.

We call it Easter.

I think in reality it would be better to be called Resurrection Day, because that is what we celebrate.

We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We celebrate the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That the Jesus who lived, who came from heaven, took upon himself human flesh, and lived a perfect life, died on the cross, that he was dead.

His lifeless body was taken from the cross and placed in the grave, that that lifeless body on the third day physically rose from the dead.

And so we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Well, why is it such a big thing?

And I want to give us four reasons why the resurrection, the day we celebrate Easter, is such a big thing.

And so let me give you these four reasons, and there are many more, but I thought of just these four that really go to the heart of what Christianity is.

First of all, the resurrection is good news for bad people.

It's good news.

That's what the Bible says.

It is good news.

In fact, the word that we use, gospel, means good news.

Have you ever wondered why we call the day that Jesus was falsely accused, beaten, mocked, paraded through the streets, hung on a cross in humiliation to die.

We call that day Good Friday.

Think about the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion in the Bible.

And let me just share a little bit from one of the Gospels in Matthew in chapter 27.

It says, And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand, and kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews.

They spit on him, and then they took the reed and they beat his head with it.

And they they, after they'd mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, the robe that would have had his drying blood on it, they stripped him of it, and put on his own clothes, and they led him away to be crucified, parading him through the streets.

They came to Gelgotha, place called the Skull.

They offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall.

When he tasted he wouldn't drink it.

When they crucified him, they divided his garments among them and cast lots.

And then it says, From the sixth hour to the ninth hour, there was darkness that fell.

And Jesus cries out in a loud voice, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabactini, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And he hung on that cross, experienced within him the abandonment of God the Father in a way that goes beyond our ability to understand and comprehend fully, suffering on the cross, experiencing the wrath of God.

And they mocked him.

And when they had given him something to drink, he cried out in a loud voice.

What he cried out was it is finished.

And he yields up his spirit.

And we call that good.

We call that Good Friday.

How can that be good?

Well, it really needs to be understood in light of the rest of the statement I said, it's good news for bad people.

And we really can't understand Good Friday and Easter, the resurrection, without understanding what the problem is.

When do we need good news the most?

Good news is most received and best understood when we understand how bad the situation is.

If I'm absolutely broke and have no money, and I'm rummaging through the doors, the drawers of my house, and I find a check that I haven't cash that's still good, that's good news.

If I am sick, and I go to the doctor and I don't know what's wrong with me, and they run a barrage of tests, and maybe I go down to Mayo Clinic and they run all of these tests, and I'm wondering what in the world is wrong.

And they come back and they say, There is nothing terminal.

You'll make a full recovery.

That's good news.

When we see a natural disaster and we know people who live in that city, who live in that town, maybe it's a tornado or an earthquake or a hurricane.

And we read these stories of the devastation, and we know people who live there.

We have loved ones who are there, and we begin frantically to make phone calls and emails and text messages, trying to find word of if our loved ones are okay, and we finally get word back.

Everybody is safe and sound.

That's good news.

We don't understand the good news until we understand the bad news.

And so the good news comes into sharp relief, and we see it clearly and we understand it when we understand what the problem is.

And the Bible says that our problem is sin.

In fact, the Bible says that every other problem that we have in this life, every struggle and every difficulty, uh, every issue that we face, in some way, shape, or form can be traced back to the reality of sin.

Either it is the sin in us that we have uh that we have lived out by our choices, our sinful nature manifested in the practices that we do, the choices that we make, or it is sinful things that people have done to us, the hurt and the pain and the misery of other people living out their lives in opposition to God and rebellion to God, or even the natural disasters are a consequence of the curse placed on this fallen world that's under the curse of God, that's under the judgment of God, that we experience the consequences of natural disasters that are really an indication of the judgment of God because of the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve.

And so when we think about life and we think about all of the different things that we struggle with and we go through and we experience, and all of the pain and the misery and the emptiness and the hurt, all come back down to the reality of sin.

We have the guilt of sin that we inherit from our first parents.

We have the reality that our very nature is bent towards sin, towards doing our own thing.

In fact, I have three children, and as cute as they are, the one thing I've never had to teach them to be is bad.

Yeah, it's just amazing.

I've never had to teach my children to say, mine.

This is mine, or no.

Somehow I think that's the first word kids seem to learn.

They just seem to instinctively understand rebellion.

You ask them to no, you ask them to do something.

No.

It's amazing, just from the youngest age, as soon as they're able to exercise their little will, they exercise it in independence and rebellion and selfishness and self-centeredness.

And the reality of it is that at the very core of who we are, we have a disposition and a bent towards going our own way, doing our own thing, and living independently of God.

And we live that out every day.

We practice that.

Well, what is sin?

Because if we need to, if we want to understand the good news, we need to understand the bad news, and so we need to understand what our problem is.

And the Bible says our problem is sin, and so how do we define sin?

Well, very simply, sin is all of the things that we do that we shouldn't do.

All of the things that we do that go contrary to God's nature, to God's standards, to God's character, every violation of God's standards is sin.

In fact, even when we violate our own conscience, even when we think something is wrong and we do it anyway, we sin.

We sin against our own conscience.

So that every lustful thought, every angry attitude, every prideful feeling, every response and reaction and choice that we make that we know goes against what God would have for us, the Bible says is sin.

But the Bible has another whole category of sin, and that's the things that we don't do that we should.

The Bible says that we should love God with our whole heart, that everything about us should love God, that all of our decisions, all of our life should be lived in light of the reality of who God is, and when we don't do that, the Bible says that we sin.

That we should live in relationship with God and pray and read His word and worship Him and fellowship with other believers.

We should protect the powerless.

We should give of our time and talents and efforts, we should seek God, we should be kind to others, we should be patient and understanding, we should never be angry without just cause.

All of these things, the things we do that we shouldn't do, and the things we don't do that we should, the Bible says, are sins.

And so when we stop to think about our own lives, we realize, every one of us, that we fall short of the standard that God has.

And this is what the Bible says it says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks God.

All have turned aside.

Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one.

And so the Bible says, God's assessment of each one of us, no matter how hard we try, no matter how many things we do that we in our own assessment call good, the reality of it is, it says, the final analysis is there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of honoring and glorifying God to the degree that we ought to.

So, how is this good news?

Come back to the original question.

How is this good news?

Well, that's when I said that we need to understand Good Friday and Easter Sunday and the resurrection in light of bad news, in light of the reality of what is the situation for every single one of us.

Without exception, the Bible says.

Well, the Bible tells us the purpose for which Christ died.

When he died on the cross, he died for a purpose.

And the Bible says that Christ died for sinners to pay the penalty for sin.

In fact, it says this in Romans 5, verses 6 through 8.

Romans 5:6–8

It says, For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

But God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Bible says elsewhere that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree.

Another passage in 1 Peter says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

People often wonder, why can't God just forgive sins?

The message of the Bible is that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that he was God Himself, the second person of the Trinity, come to earth, and that's why we celebrate Christmas.

It's the reality of God Himself taking upon Himself human flesh, born as a baby, living a perfect, sinless life, obeying all of the law, obeying all of the requirements and the expectations of God the Father that were laid out perfectly without sin.

And then he died on the cross.

And the Bible tells us he died on the cross, not for himself, but that he might be the sacrifice for sin.

That this perfect, infinite being would take upon himself the pain and the penalty and the guilt and the consequences of our sin and experience the full, undiluted wrath and judgment of God the Father.

And people say, well, why did that have to happen?

Why could not God just forgive?

Why can't He just forget about the things we've done and just let bygones be bygones and just pass over it and ignore it?

Well, I would submit to you that the answer is that's not possible.

Because ultimately, and let's think about this for a moment, ultimately, every sin has to be paid for.

The Bible talks about sin in terms of debt.

And we don't think about this much in our culture today, but in some ways we still do.

When somebody goes to jail and when they're out of jail, we say they've paid their debt to society.

There's this moral debt that they've incurred.

There's a sense in which something they've done needs to be paid for.

So we use this term of uh payment, of uh retributive justice, so to speak, that there's a payment to be made for the sins that are committed, for the crimes that are committed.

But does this hold true across the board?

And I would submit to you that it does.

Think about something that somebody's done to you.

Maybe they've lied to you, or lied about you, or they've gossiped.

Maybe they've a friend that you have trusted stabbed you in the back.

In some way, you've been betrayed.

Maybe something was stolen from you.

But in some way, there has been a violation against you.

And there are only a couple of options that you have.

One of the options that you have is that you can make them pay.

You can you can, by either revenge actively, or passively, perhaps, and in some passive aggressive sort of way.

I'll ignore them, I won't talk to them, or I'll talk about them, or I will hurt them, I will make them pay for what they've done.

And there's this sense in which that we have this within us, this recognition that we want justice, we want them to pay in some way.

But what if you forgive them?

What if you say to yourself that I am not going to hold that against them, I am not going to reckon that to them, I'm not going to make them pay, I am going to offer forgiveness.

Well, what you are saying at that point is the pain that they caused me, the violence.

That has caused me this pain, I am going to take it myself.

I am going to absorb the pain myself so that the other person doesn't have to.

So even when we say, I forgive you, and you're saying to yourself, I'm not going to hold this against you.

I'm not going to account this against you.

What you're saying is the reason why I'm not going to account this against you is because I am going to take the pain of the violation against you upon myself.

And friends, that is the cross.

That is why it is good news.

The guilt and the consequences of our sin and the judgment, the righteous judgment of God and our violation against him was taken by the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, for us on our behalf.

And that's the beginning of the good news.

That it's good news for bad people.

The resurrection is hope for the hopeless.

This is what the Apostle Paul says about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.

He says, if Jesus Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

Think about what he says here.

If Jesus Christ, if he died and he did not physically rise from the dead, he says, what I'm doing here is a waste of time.

It's absolutely worthless because there's nothing backing it.

There's no proof that what we're saying is true, that there's forgiveness in Jesus.

He says, we are even found to be misrepresenting God.

He says, we're lying about God if we say there's forgiveness and there isn't forgiveness, if Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead.

He says, because we testify about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised, he says, if there's no resurrection, Jesus didn't rise from the dead.

And if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, everything he said and everything he did is a lie.

And then he says this, if Christ had not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.

In fact, he goes on to say, we of all people are most to be pitied.

So the resurrection, the death of Christ, and the resurrection are tied together.

And we need to understand that Good Friday and Easter Sunday are tied together.

You cannot have one without the other.

The resurrection is God's exclamation point of Jesus' entire ministry.

In another passage in Romans, it says this, concerning his son, who was a descendant according to David, a descendant of David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And what this is saying here, it's not that Jesus became the Son of God.

It was that there was a declaration in power of who Jesus always was and is.

That he is the Son of God.

When he came to earth, the glory that he had was veiled, and so he was the Son of God in humility.

But when he rose from the dead on the third day, God declared through the resurrection in power that he is the Son of God and that everything that he said and what he did on the cross is accepted by the Father.

It says, God the Father highly exalted him at the resurrection.

He restored to him the glory that was rightly his, that was veiled when he became, when he took upon himself human flesh.

The good news is hope for the hopeless.

We can't undo the past.

And we can't change who we are.

There is no amount of effort, no amount of work that we can do that can go back in time and undo the choices that we've made, the places that we've been, the things that we've done, the things that we've seen, the people that we've been with.

There is nothing that we can do in and of ourselves to change our history.

And there's nothing that we can do in and of ourselves to change who we are in the core of our being.

There is nothing that we have.

We are powerless and hopeless to effect change in who we are and what we've done.

And so let me share two final thoughts concerning the resurrection.

The resurrection is power for the powerless.

What we can't do, God has done through Jesus Christ.

Through his death and resurrection.

In 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 3, it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:3

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

That there is a living hope that God has done and that God does in our lives.

The death of Christ and his resurrection are two sides of the same coin.

We can distinguish between them as we celebrate Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but we cannot separate them.

We need to understand them together because it's truly the act of redemption that God has for us.

Let me share one other passage in Romans chapter 4, verses 23 through 25.

Romans 4:23–25

It says, But the word, but the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, talking about it was counted to him for righteousness, but for ours also.

It will be counted to us who believe in him, who is raised, uh who raised from the dead, Jesus our Lord, who is delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

And what this is saying here is Christ was delivered up, he died because of our sin.

Because of our sin, Jesus Christ hung on the cross and paid the penalty.

And then it says he was raised for the sake of our justification.

So that we can stand before God declared not guilty.

There is a double transaction when we come to Christ.

And let me explain this.

What is the good news?

And here is the good news.

When we say to God, God, I realize I'm a sinner.

I recognize that there is nothing good in me.

There is nothing that can earn my way to heaven.

But I understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross, and he died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin.

And I'm asking you to forgive me.

What happens is this that our sin, the consequences and the penalty for our sin were paid for by Christ on the cross.

He took the payment that we deserve to pay.

But there's another reality that happens as well.

Not only is our sin not held against us because Christ paid the penalty, but also the righteousness that He has.

His righteousness is credited to our account so that we stand before God forgiven for all of our sins and made righteous, not because we're good people, but we're bad people clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And this is the good news.

This is the gospel.

But the resurrection of Christ reminds us of this final reality.

The resurrection is reconciliation for the rejected.

The Bible tells us that because of our sin, because of sin we're cut off, and because of our sin we remain cut off from God.

In fact, there's a passage in Ephesians that says, and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father, so that you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Here is the beauty of the gospel.

The gospel is more than forgiveness of sins.

It's more than forgiveness of sins.

The gospel is more than eternity.

The gospel is the entranceway into a relationship with the living God.

It is reconciliation.

It is in this fractured reality that sin, there is a chasm that has been created and exists for each one of us.

And the fact that we are far from God because of our sin.

And the Bible says that we who were enemies of God, we were estranged from God, we were cut off from God, that we have been brought near because of Jesus Christ.

And so the good news is about relationship.

It's a reality that we can be forgiven for all of our sins.

And that we can experience the embrace of God the Father.

Here's the beauty of the gospel.

It doesn't matter where you've been, it doesn't matter what you've done.

It doesn't matter what family you were born into, or how much money you have, or what your education is, or how bad you've been, or how good you've tried to be.

None of those things matter at all.

There is nothing within us that can earn God's favor.

And the Bible says that all who come to Christ receive forgiveness.

This is what it says at the close of the Bible.

The Spirit and the bride say, Come.

And let the one who hears come.

Let the one who is thirsty come.

Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Who is the good news for?

Maybe I should ask the question who is the good news not for?

It is not for the self-reliant.

It is not for those who say, I don't need God, I can do it myself.

It's not for those who are self-centered and self-righteous, those who self-diagnose themselves as, well, I don't have a problem, I don't have sin, I don't have guilt, I don't have shame, I don't need forgiveness.

Anyone who doesn't see a need and doesn't feel the weight of sin isn't in a place to understand the offer that is being held out.

But if you're here this morning and you are weary and heavy laden because of the burdens in your life and the guilt and shame of your past.

If you're here this morning and you feel the sickness of sin and have no hope of curing yourself, if you're here this morning and you feel lost like a sheep without a shepherd, you feel like you're wandering through life, you have no purpose, you don't know why you are here, you don't know why you exist, you don't know where you're going, either in this life or for all of eternity.

If you are here and you sense the reality of your desperate situation apart from God, if you are here and the hope of the cross and the resurrection and the empty tomb resonate with you, and you say, Yes, I need forgiveness.

I want a relationship with God, then this is for you.

All who humbly come to Christ in repentance, in faith, Jesus says this, all that the Father gives me will come to me.

And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

And so the Spirit calls, and Christ calls and says, Come.

And the one who hears says, Come.

The one who is thirsty, if you are thirsty and you feel the parchedness of your life, come.

If you desire to take the water of life without price, come.

I'm gonna close this in prayer.

We're going to sing a final song.

We're reminded this morning of good news for bad people.

That is the gospel, that is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it is for you and for all who call upon the name of Christ.

So let's pray together.

Father, I pray for each one here.

Lord, I know in a in a group this size there are some here who have never bowed their head in their heart before you, who are still far from you.

And perhaps this morning they sense it for the first time or for the first time in a long time, and they have they have resisted.

And Father, I pray this morning as they hear the message of the cross and of the empty tomb, of the infinite sacrifice of Jesus Christ as a payment for sin.

That they will sense your stirring in their hearts and they will turn away from their sin and from themselves and come to you with empty hands and say, I want the gift that you are offering.

And I receive it now by faith.

I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sin so that I might be forgiven and I might have a relationship with you.

And so, Father God, I pray right now that you will do a work in each one's heart and for each of us that know you, that we might stand in awe of the good news for us.

We pray in Christ.

Amen.