Luke 24:1-12

On a day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

They found a stone rolled away from the tomb.

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

While they were wandering about this, suddenly two men enclosed that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground.

But the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not here, he has risen.

Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee.

The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hand of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again.

Then they remembered his words when they came back from the tomb.

They told all these things to the eleven and to all the others.

It was Murray Magdalene, Joanna, Murray, and the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.

But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb.

Bend over.

He saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

I feel like I'm doing a gymnastics move there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's uh let's pray.

Because when we study the Bible, the first thing we always want to do is what?

Pray.

We want to pray.

Lord, we um again, we ask that this text would intersect our lives.

Lord, by your Holy Spirit, would you just work in us?

Lord, we just um we don't even know our own hearts sometimes.

We're just a mess, Lord, and um we need your healing touch.

We've got circumstances outside of our life, Lord, where we need you to rescue us, but then like inside of us, Lord, the attitudes that we have, the way that we think, we just we invite you to come into our life and to work upon us and in us.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay, so we've got 12 exciting verses that we get to go through.

And here's the thing we get to do Easter twice.

This is very confusing to me.

Like, so first of all, the fact that Easter like moves around every year is confusing.

So like last year, this was Easter, because we our first like gathering was on Palm Sunday, and then the following Sunday was Easter, right?

But then so last Sunday we celebrated our one-year anniversary, but then today's not Easter, but we're studying the resurrection.

So I'm all confused.

But hey man, we um we there's like we can't exhaust the depths and the application of the resurrection upon our lives, right?

And so what I'm what I want to do this morning is I I think that we're gonna look this morning at one side of the coin on resurrection in a more negative way, and then on Easter Sunday, we're gonna look at the same idea but from a positive perspective.

I think that's where we're going, all right?

So um let's let's kind of pick up where we left off last week.

Um at the end of chapter 23, what we saw was that the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, they had prepared spices on a Friday night.

Right?

You we saw uh Joseph of Arimathea had gotten permission from Pilate to take Jesus' body, to wrap it in a hundred pounds of linen, and place the body in a tomb, probably his tomb that was carved out there near Golgotha.

And it was a three-hour window that they had from his death until Sabbath started on Friday night.

And so uh this was a fast job of wrapping Jesus up and getting him into the tomb.

And so probably the um normal protocols were somewhat skipped over in his burial.

And the women had prepared these spices, but they just didn't have time to get the spices onto Jesus, um, or the full amount of spices onto Jesus.

So they have to take a break for Sabbath, which is um Saturday, and then we pick up in verse 1 with them coming back and um early, before the sun rises, um to anoint Jesus' body with the spices.

At the end of last week, we I I mentioned that um death in our culture, that the Bible's um perspective and teaching on death is both um worse and better than our culture.

It's both worse and better.

It's worse in the sense that that death represents to us God's moral judgment.

It's God's moral reckoning with mankind.

So people die not accidentally.

Death is universal for everybody because sin is universal.

There's something that underlies death, and this is what the Bible teaches, is that underlying death that that's just a symptom of an underlying cause.

And the underlying cause is rebellion against God, universal rebellion against God, which uh Romans 3.23 teaches, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So death is worse than maybe what the world will tell you about somebody dying, but death is also better than what the world will tell you about somebody dying, because death is spoken of as basically a transition.

Like the idea of going to sleep and then waking back up is a metaphor that scripture uses.

The idea of changing an outfit, going from uh putting one pair of clothes on to the next.

So, and and literally the Bible says in Philippians it talks about you know, to be dead means to go into God's presence and to be face to face with God.

And so death is um this great moment for us as followers of Jesus because we enter into the presence of God.

Today I want to continue this theme by looking at the shadow of death over our routine, the shadow of death over our routine.

Let's first, though, make some observations from the text.

Um we see here mention the first day of the week, these women come to anoint the body of Jesus with these spices.

So this is speaking of Sunday morning.

So the reason why we were here on Sunday morning doing church is because of this text.

Because Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, which is Sunday.

So this, you know, when we get into Acts and we look at um the story of Antioch, there's this historic reference that the church gathered on Sunday mornings for worship because it's the day that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Now, Jews have their religious day on Saturday.

That's their Sabbath, right?

And so while Jesus fulfilled Judaism, and there's a kind of a um some practices of Judaism that translated over to Christianity, this is one where we kind of break rank with Judaism, and we have our religious day, kind of our our holy day, is on a Sunday, because it's the day celebrating the resurrection.

Now, as we go through this text, um I don't think I'm gonna have enough time to mention this in depth, but there are some crazy parallels or mirroring between this account and Genesis 1 through 3.

So when I say Genesis 1 through 3, we're talking about um God creating the heavens and the earth, God putting Adam and Eve into the garden, then um Eve being tempted by a serpent, right?

And and what is the serpent, right?

It's a it's a manifestation of an of the evil spirit, Satan, in a snake, right?

So you have the woman talking with a fallen angel, right?

Then you have the woman, Eve, after she falls, going back and reporting and talking to the man.

Do you see some of those parallels that are going on there?

We also see here, right in the first verse in verse 1, 24.

That I think we lost the door.

You better check the uh better check the flag too.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

So, first day of the week, we get our whole seven-day week from creation, right?

So this is the first reference, the first analogy, the kind of the first, you know, connect the dots, one string here in this story ties back to Genesis that we see as it's the first day of the week.

So the women are, they had prepared these spices on Friday night, and they are coming to anoint the body of Jesus.

This is a part of the ritual that would have gone on.

And you remember that that spices have this theme all the way throughout the life of Jesus.

When do we first see spices in the life of Jesus?

With the wise men, right?

The wise men bring spices as a gift to Mary and Joseph in either the second, third year of Jesus' life.

And it's, yeah, frank, frankincense, myrrh, and um it's it's this symbol.

But then, but that's not the only time, right?

Remember Mary Magdalene, who's in this account here, she takes a alabaster box of perfume and breaks it over Jesus' feet and anoints his feet with this perfume.

It would have cost a salary to be able to have had that perfume.

All of these spices speaking and symbolizing the death of Jesus, that he would be buried.

And so these women have the spices.

Now, it's significant to us in looking at this story because we remember back at the beginning of Luke, when this whole book started, and and and for us as a church, that's like late 2017, right?

It's like December 1st, thereabouts of 2017, when we started our study.

Luke starts his book this way: He says, Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those from whom first were I witnesses and servants of the word.

With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too have decided to write an orderly account of you, most excellent Theophilus.

He goes on, so that you might believe the things that were reported to you.

Here's the thing the book of Luke was written by a doctor for the man who was basically his benefactor as evidence that Jesus is a real historic character.

So Luke has gone to great lengths to record names and locations and significant geographical, you know, symbols, um, politics, politicians.

He's doing all of this so that the story of Jesus is trustworthy.

And here in this account, he does not pull punches.

He, knowing culturally that a woman's accounting of an incident was not as authoritative as a man's accounting culturally, he still says it's the women who saw the empty tomb first.

It's it is significant that that Luke is giving us what really happened.

Because look, if you were trying to, if you had this bias, that you were trying to establish who Jesus was and you were trying to make up the resurrection story, you would not have women finding the tomb empty.

Because that would not have been a that would have been taboo culturally, it would not have been a trustworthy witness.

We also see that women here, it's significant because the women are too weak to move the large stone in front of the tomb.

So there's a problem.

In fact, you read the other synoptic gospels, and the women are like, okay, we've got our spices, who's going to move the stone away?

And so again, this plays into the historicity, the authenticity of the story.

And then again, the women are significant because it continues this parallel with the Genesis account of the garden and the woman interacting with a fallen angel.

So then we come into the story when we get over to verse 4.

They're wondering, it says, while they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground.

But the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not here, he is risen.

Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee, the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified on the third day, and to be raised again.

So these angels are there for two reasons.

There's two of them.

In the other accounts, there's one.

This account, there's two angels.

The first reason that the angels are there are to roll away the stone.

That's not in our account.

You have to go to Matthew or Mark or John to see that that was the work the angels did.

The second reason that the angels are there is really to remind and give instructions to the women.

If we compile the different narratives, these angels have this message to remind the women that, hey, this is what Jesus told you.

He's told you that he was going to go to Jerusalem, he was going to be crucified, and that he would be raised on the third day.

That's the first part of the message.

The second part of the message, which is not here in our text, but in the other synoptic gospels, it is this message of go to Galilee, Jesus will meet you there.

Go to Galilee, he will meet you there.

So in Mark 16, 6, here's what the angels say.

They say to them, Don't be alarmed, right?

So they set their fear at ease.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who is crucified.

He is risen, he is not here.

See the place where they have laid him.

If you go over to Matthew 28, verse 6, the angels say this: He is not here, for he is risen.

Matthew 28:6

He uh he said, Come and see the place where the Lord lay.

So you've got this beautiful, we have these four different accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John of what took place on this morning.

And we kind of get at this window into women coming, empty tomb, angels, Peter.

In another text, it's Peter and John that come and see.

So Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene in another text.

And then we have at the end of our text that we're looking at this morning, we have the women go back.

We see that these women include Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and then the others.

And they're reported to the apostles.

And what do the apostles say?

The apostles are like, we don't, this doesn't make any sense to us, right?

They don't, they basically reject the women's account.

And then Peter's like, okay, I want to go check it out.

So he runs to the tomb, he looks into the tomb, and he sees the strips of linen laying there by himself in verse 12.

He went away wondering to himself what had happened.

So who is Peter?

Well, Peter is this guy who we just saw a few weeks ago.

He's denying Christ, right?

He's the one that is one of three of the closest disciples to Christ, and yet he's had this huge failure in his life where he's denied even knowing Jesus.

And so he's eager.

He's eager to see if it is true, and he is bewildered, it says, by what he sees.

Let's spend a little bit of time just on this statement of the um angels, right?

The angels say to the women, um, why are you looking for the living amongst the dead?

He is risen, right?

He is risen.

This is um a central tenet of the Christian faith.

The resurrection, the idea that somebody goes from being dead to being alive is a central part of the gospel message.

It's also very supernatural, it's a supernatural claim of scripture.

So let me just for a second make a defense, an apologetic for the resurrection.

Because if you reject the resurrection, um then you're rejecting Christianity.

But if you accept the resurrection, then you have a lot of problems on your hands.

Um there's a lot of kind of uh things that play out if you accept the premise of the resurrection.

So some arguments.

Why do we believe that the resurrection really was a historic account?

First of all, we have internal evidence, which would be the um eyewitness testimony of the women.

Then we see, are going to see that the apostles, the 11 apostles, they see Jesus.

Paul talks about seeing Jesus.

Um, and then in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that over 500 people saw Jesus as raised from the dead.

So there are numerous people that saw Jesus raised from the dead.

Now, when was this written?

This was written within the generation of this resurrection.

And so it was possible for a reader of the book of Luke to go and track down these women.

Mary Magdalene, tell me about it, right?

Tell me about what you saw, Peter.

Tell me, you know, James, what did you see?

Any one of these 500 people could have attested to the resurrection of Christ.

So the eyewitness testimony is very powerful.

In our court of law, when we want to try a case, we look for evidence, right?

The evidence that these eyewitnesses provided would have made the case, would have made the case in the court of law.

The second piece of evidence that we would look at is just the transform, the transformation that took place in these apostles.

They go from being these weak, scaredy cat individuals that run away when Jesus is taken.

They go from denying Christ to becoming these bold witnesses that are like, hey, take me.

You know, I'm gonna, we're gonna proclaim Jesus as the resurrected Christ.

There's this new boldness that's kind of all of a sudden uh is evident in the apostles.

Another piece of evidence is just the existence of the early church, that the that the church as an entity started as a movement and it continued.

And given, that is not the strongest piece of evidence, but just the fact that the church emerged based upon this key tenet of the resurrection, and that it thrived and within 300 years transformed the Middle Eastern region, southern um Europe, um Western uh Asia, or or Eastern Asia or Western Asia, right?

That's crazy that all that happened in that place.

In Acts 1 3, and who wrote Acts?

Luke, right?

In Acts 1 3, it says, after his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.

So Luke talks about this.

Suffering, the suffering of the cross, it says that Jesus presented himself to them, speaking of the apostles, the disciples, and gave them many convincing proofs that he was alive.

He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom.

That's another important piece that I don't have in my notes here, is that with this day of resurrection, we now have a 40-day timeline.

Okay?

We have 40 days until Jesus is going to leave the earth.

He's going to ascend up into heaven.

And we have 50 days until the day of Pentecost, which was the next Jewish feast.

That's the day when the Spirit comes upon the church.

So just keep that in mind in your chronology as you're looking at this.

So the resurrection is a spectacular claim of Scripture.

But if you believe other non-biblical accounts, like a Josephus, like a Philo, that they are accurate in how they describe history to us, it is um it is only appropriate to trust Scripture's, uh, the Bible's um claim that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Let me give you nine, nine, I know, not that not the typical three, but I want to give you nine significances or um nine ways in which the resurrection is significant.

Nine ways in which the resurrection is significant.

First of all, it is a fulfillment of Jesus' prediction before his death.

So the fact that Jesus is raised proves that Jesus was prophetic, right?

Jesus is um, his words are meaningful because he said he would be raised, and he was.

The second is that the resurrection is an evidence of Jesus' power.

It is arguably the most powerful miracle that could have been performed.

Um, Romans 1, 4 is a passage that you could look to regarding this, but it's just it's an evidence of the power of God.

Third, it's symbolic in a series of atonement acts.

And we spent two weeks looking at atonement.

Atonement is the idea that there has to be a payment for sin to remove guilt, right?

Guilt is on the books, humanity is guilty, there needs to be a way to put away guilt.

And so God instituted means for atonement, and his means of atonement were symbolic throughout the Old Testament.

You had animals being sacrificed to put away sin, which then points to Jesus.

Jesus comes and he dies on the cross to pay for humanity's guilt, that's atonement, but without the resurrection, it would not um it would not complete the atonement act, right?

Our sin is paid for through his death, but with his resurrection, we are justified.

So justified is again a legal term.

If you go into court, you're accused of something, and you're found not guilty, you are justified of that charge.

Right?

You're justified of the charge.

And so in Romans 4.25, it says that he was delivered up, Jesus, he's delivered up to the cross because of our offenses, and he was raised, he was resurrected because of our justification or for our justification.

So because Jesus was raised from the dead, you and I in the courtroom of God are found not guilty for our sin.

That's if you have believed in him.

If you have allowed God to advocate on your behalf, then Jesus' atoning work on the cross is good enough for you and I to be justified.

And the resurrection is the seal, the evidence of our justification.

The resurrection, this is number four, it's close uh and closely related to this third one.

It's the vindication of Jesus' innocence.

Remember, death is the wages of sin, right?

It's God's penalty, it's it's the result of God's charge against humanity.

You've sinned, therefore you must die.

If Jesus was not innocent, he must stay dead, right?

He must die again.

And yet Jesus is raised from the dead to no longer die, thus vindicating, proving his innocence.

Fifth, we have it's an evidence of God's, the Father's approval of the Son.

We're gonna study Acts in the middle of this year, the first um 12 chapters, and one of the things that we will see over and over and over again is that when the apostles teach about Jesus dying on the cross and being raised from the dead, they say, God the Father raised him from the dead.

As a proof, as a as an evidence of his approval of the Son.

The Father approved of the Son's work on the cross.

That's what we see all the way through the early teachings of the apostles.

Okay, I think are we on number six?

Yeah, number six.

The resurrection is the basis of future miracles.

It's the basis of future miracles.

So when Jesus was raised from the dead, we um we see him.

This is like the chief miracle of God, right?

His son is raised.

So God, Jesus is doing all these miracles throughout his ministry, right?

He's healing people, and um he's the lame are walking, and the blind see, and so Jesus is doing all these miracles, but the resurrection is the chief miracle.

So God's way of doing, God doesn't just indiscriminately like hand out healing, right?

It's not like, hey, you can be healed and you can be healed.

No, there's an orderedness to it, right?

Because suffering is in the world for an ordered reason.

People suffer because the world is fallen in a sinful condition.

Not necessarily because of personal guilt, but just because of universal the guilt of humankind, right?

That's the orderedness of suffering.

And so to overrule suffering is to bring about a miraculous healing, right?

So we have people in our church we're praying that God would heal them.

When that person is healed, it's an overruling of this judgment, this suffering that's there because of sin.

Well, again, God can't just indiscriminately do this.

It has to be worked out in God's courtroom.

And the the resurrection of Jesus basically justifies God to bring his kingdom in through healing, right?

So in Acts 4.10, in Acts 4.10 it says this.

These are, I'll give you two kind of proof texts for this idea.

Acts 4.10 says, then knowing this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth who you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead that this man stands before you healed.

So Peter explains to the crowd in Jerusalem why this lame man has been healed.

This is now past the day of Pentecost.

This is into the first couple weeks of the church.

They've healed this man, and people want to know, like, how come he's healed?

And they say, it's because he's healed in the name of Jesus who is crucified and raised.

But also in Romans 8.11, Romans 8.11 says this for if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you.

So this is written in a logical way, verse 11, and it's a comparison.

He it's an if-then statement.

The spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you.

He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal body.

So was Jesus raised?

Yes, right?

So therefore, God is justified by his spirit to raise your mortal body.

God can't is allowed to heal because of his raising of the Son and what that symbolized, right?

Okay, number seven, the resurrection of Jesus is the basis for his followers to walk with renewed life.

So we live differently because Jesus was raised from the dead.

And this is found in Romans 6, 4 and 5, where it says, um, just kind of jumping down to the end of verse 5, for if we've been united with him in death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in the resurrection like his.

That's actually not it.

It's the end of verse 4.

It he says, We too, uh he's raised from the dead uh through the glory of the Father that we too may live a new life.

Right?

So Romans 6, 4, and 5, if you're taking notes, you can go back and look at those passages.

But the whole idea is because Jesus is raised and lives a new life, we are identified, we're found in Christ.

Like our life is in him, and so we live a new life.

Like the way we do life is different.

When a person goes from death, like living out like life separated from God, and then they come to that point in their life where, okay, God, I want to surrender my life to you.

It's at that point that they're, it says, the Bible says they're made new, right?

And they are given a new life to live.

You don't have to come up with the strength.

This isn't like pull up your bootstraps and just get it on.

No, it's a God-empowered new way of living, a new way to be human.

It's really actually, if we want to use the whole Genesis parallel, it's a renewed way of living, going back to the garden.

Okay, number, I lost count.

Are we on eight, nine?

I think we're on eight.

Let's pretend we're on eight.

Okay, the resurrection of Jesus shows us that the reigning power of death has been broken.

So it says in Romans, it says in Romans chapter six, that death reigned, right?

Death had this authoritative relationship amongst humanity.

It governed over humanity.

Has anybody ever escaped from death?

No, right?

Nobody's escaped from death except for uh we have Elijah.

We don't know about Moses, maybe he escaped death, and there's Enoch, right?

Other than those three guys, those are the only ones that we know of who have escaped death.

Um if there happen to be, if two of those happen to be the witnesses in the um end times, then we end up with this picture of they ultimately die and they're raised.

So um that's getting a little technical.

But here's the thing Death reigned, right?

So death had this authoritative relationship.

Um, but with Jesus' resurrection, the sting of death is removed.

It's the beginning of the death of the end of death authoritative reign over humanity.

So you have Romans 6.9, 1 Corinthians 6 14.

It says that uh that he will raise us up just like Jesus was raised up as the Son of God.

So that's 1 Corinthians 6.14.

And then you can also see 2 Corinthians 4.14, Colossians 2.12.

I'll put these notes, these nine things.

When I post the sermon um audio, I'll put all nine in there, then you can kind of have that for you.

Final one, this is the ninth one, legal authority, right?

There's a new boss in town, right?

Because of the resurrection.

Jesus has legal authority.

We talked about the theological term, a federal head.

We use the example of like cooking pasta and then not having to try every individual piece, but God allowed Adam.

Remember Adam and Adam and Eve.

Adam, when he took the fruit and he ate it, he represented all of humanity, right?

He was the federal headship of humanity, right?

So flowchart, Adam's at the top.

Everybody under Adam's affected by his sin, right?

Jesus is the second Adam, right?

He's also a federal head, right?

And so when you are born into this world, you're a son of Adam.

C.S.

Lewis didn't come up with that, right?

That's Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

But he uses the same term, right?

So you're born as a son of Adam, but then when you follow Jesus, you step out from that flow chart, you step under the federal headship of Jesus.

Jesus is the new authority in town.

So in Romans chapter 7, 1 through 4, it says that the resurrection provides us with a new spouse.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

You see, the this whole like being under Adam, the spouse under in this relationship, right?

So who are we like taking a picture of the woman, kind of under the governing authority of the man?

Who whose authority are we under when we're under Adam?

We're under the law, right?

And the only way to break up a marriage covenant is through the death of that spouse, right?

So that so that that's what frees the spouse from that governance right there, right?

And the law.

When Jesus died, there was this freedom from the law, but when he was raised, we're given a new spouse to be married to.

Kind of weird.

Actually, Romans 7, 1 through 4, the commentators are kind of like wigging out on that because they're like, wait, you're mixing metaphors.

But but but the whole idea is that we're leaving one chain of command, we're moving under a new chain of command, and it's because of the resurrection that Jesus has that authoritative position where he is at work.

Okay, so we have five minutes to finish.

Um, I want to just apply this into our lives.

We talked at the beginning about this idea of how the shadow of death, how we live kind of in our routine under the shadow of death.

And I just want to point out the frailty of humanity in our text, okay?

The frailty of humanity.

We see the women are acting on Jesus' death by preparing spices.

Do the spices get used?

No.

Right?

The women are confused when they don't find Jesus' body, right?

That confusion, where does it come from?

It comes from the frailty, the fallen condition of humanity.

Then the apostles will not listen to the women when they bring back their report, right?

Another evidence of the fact that the world is fallen.

And finally, Peter sees the empty tomb, he sees the linens that are there, and he's like wondering what's going on, what's happened.

It may be, this is uh one one commentator says this, it may well be that our Christianity has lacked an essential something because we too have been looking for him who is alive amongst the dead.

Some people look to Jesus, if you're a Muslim, you look to Jesus as a prophet, you're or some people look to Jesus as he has a good teacher, he had some good ideas, you know, he took care of the poor.

That was great, right?

But they forget, they they leave off the resurrection that that Jesus was raised from the dead.

The reality is what the angels said.

Look, he is alive.

He doesn't need your spices, he doesn't need your tomb, he doesn't need your strips of linen.

Instead, he calls us to remember, to be reminded that he is alive.

And with his life comes a renewed life.

So I think the challenge to us from Scripture, and I'm not saying that this is easy, but I would encourage you to spend some time just considering what activities in your life may resemble a dead Jesus versus banking on him being raised.

Go through and take account of your life.

What attitudes are you kind of living out?

What words are you speaking?

What actions are you taking that may be like these women, pretending Jesus is dead when he's really alive?

Forgetting that he said what he said, that he would be raised.

I think that it is possible for us to live as if Jesus were still dead, to be governed maybe by hopelessness, to be cynical, to be a people without foresight.

Um there are a number of character qualities that that we as Christians can get caught up in that really kind of if somebody was looking at us, they'd say, Do you really believe in a resurrected Jesus?

I think that that's that's maybe something that that we this week should spend some time considering.

Let me close with this scripture.

Romans 5.17 says this.

For if by the trespasses of one man, and this goes back to the federal headship, so the trespasses of one man, who is Adam, by that one man, death reigned through that one man.

How much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ?

Do you see this?

God wants to take you from this position where death is governing over your life to you being in this position where you reign with Christ in life.

That everything about you, you just smell like a person that is fully alive, right?

Fully alive.

In Romans chapter 12, the apostle tells the church that we are being transformed, like we're we're being transformed and conformed, our minds are transformed and we're conformed into the image of Christ, right?

Romans 12 · chapter mention

There's this new way of thinking that um we adopt as Christians, and it's based upon this firm foundation of a resurrected Jesus, a Jesus that was raised.

It causes all kinds of problems.

Like how many people are like, claim innocence, right?

Uh claim to be the Son of God, and then they're raised, right?

Like this doesn't happen every day.

It has um direct ramifications upon you and I.

It puts us under a new governance, and we are identified with them with the the victor, the the one who has victory over death.

So this morning, if you have come in and maybe you're new in your relationship with God, we're kind of going through some deep waters theologically of just kind of Genesis all the way up to Luke, right?

We're we're paralleling stuff and we're talking about federal headship.

But here's the simple the simple reality is that all of us, everybody in this room, are sinful, right?

We're in rebellion against God's ways.

Now, you may not be a murderer, you may not be a thief, you may not be cheating on your spouse, right?

But the attitudes, God looks at our heart, God looks at our thoughts, and if you we fall once, we've fallen short of God's glory.

And we are a people that deserve separation from God, which we call death physically, spiritually, ecologically, relationally, socially, like we deserve death because of sin.

And yet God brings into the world his son, taking on flesh, perfect humanity.

He goes to the cross to pay for our sin, right?

So that we could be justified in his presence, right?

We can pray with a clean conscience, we can receive the love of God, we can wake up every morning knowing that we are the inherit inheritors, uh, the recipients of the mercy of God.

So I hope that you understand the love of God in this in Jesus Christ is demonstrated through the resurrection that that you are a loved person.

And all that God asks, He doesn't ask you to clean up your act, he doesn't ask you to perform some ritual or some rite.

He just says, look, just place yourself under Jesus.

Like let him be the Lord, the King of your life.

Surrender your life to him and be the recipient.

Everything that he did through his death and his resurrection.

Let it just flow down into your life.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's bow our heads in prayer for a second.

Lord, we just are so grateful for Jesus as the resurrected Lord and Savior.

Lord, in our life, where we may be preparing spices and going to the tomb and looking at the linen cloth, Lord, where we're just like making preparations for your death.

God, forgive us.

We want to live as if you were a resurrected Lord and Savior, which you are in truth.

We want to live out the resurrection truth in our life, a new and a living way.

You're the victor, and you lead us in victory.

So, Lord, help us.

Lord, put the dot, connect the dots.

Lord, connect our emotions, our words, our actions to this reality of the resurrection.

Infuse my friends, my brothers and sisters with a sense of hopefulness, grace, mission, vision.

Lord, just pour out the work of your spirit upon us.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand and close with this last song.