Easter Sunday 2026

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Happy Resurrection Sunday.

Why don't you take your Bibles this morning and turn to Isaiah chapter 53?

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Great job, choir.

Great job, praise team.

Can we give one more clap of praise for that?

Now, Miss Knive, I'll be looking for my lessons.

That was awesome.

Take your Bible there, Isaiah 53.

If you're visiting with us today, I just want to say from my heart, if you don't have a church family that you call home, we would love for you to consider CCW.

We are a sweet church family.

We say that often around here.

It feels like family.

And if you're visiting with family and you have a church home, that is fantastic.

Be faithful to your church.

Love your church.

But if you don't, please.

We were just talking earlier and we thought as a council we decide together.

We're going to do Easter next Sunday also.

So come back, join us.

I've said that joke for five years, so probably on the statue of limitations on that.

Isaiah 53.

This is a really interesting chapter in the Bible.

Commentators call it the fifth gospel.

And it's right in the middle of judgment and prophecy.

It's like that the Holy Spirit didn't want to wait any longer.

Didn't want to wait until Matthew, some 400, 500 years later.

And it's written, the gospel is written right in the middle of those things.

And it doesn't feel like that what has come before and what comes after it, that it is following suit, but it follows perfectly.

And so I want you to look in Isaiah chapter 53 this morning.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Let me pray.

Father, we are so thankful today to be in your presence.

We're thankful, God, that Jesus came, that he died on a cross, that he rose from the dead.

And God, that we have this promise that's been placed in our heart.

And the good news is that gospel.

And I pray today that every person here would understand that clearly, that you would get any agenda out of the way, Lord, that there be no distractions, and that God, your message would be heard.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Look there in Isaiah 53, verse 1 and 2.

Isaiah 53:1

The first point as we get ready to read is the humble birth of the supernatural.

It says, Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and a root out of dry ground.

He has no form or comeliness.

And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Letter A is the tender root.

And the word for tender root, there is a word that's spelled out yonique, and it sounds like unique, which is interesting because it's the only time this one word is found in the Bible.

And that word unique is as a fell tree that has a sapling.

I don't know if you've ever seen this.

I've seen this at my house.

We had to cut down a piece of a tree, and up out of this thing that we cut, that we killed, a little bit of a root started to shape, and then a little plant came up out of a dead piece of tree.

And that's what this word is talking about is a felled sapling.

Now it's interesting because it's one word used one time, and there is no part of the Bible that is wasted.

So one word used one time, and here is what the prophet questions.

What he foresaw, he says, Who would believe in a Messiah like the tender root?

Who would believe what I'm seeing as the Messiah?

Because what we know about Jesus, Jesus was born in a manger.

He was born to a lowly, meager life.

He was just the carpenter's boy.

His father was a blue-collar worker, hardworking, a meek and humble mother in Mary.

But there's no royalty, there's no pomp, there's none of these things.

Jesus probably didn't grow up destitute, but Jesus grew up nothing of the perception of the Messiah.

And so the writer foreseeing said, Who would believe this report?

A root, a tender root.

Well, a root that comes out of fertile ground, that's one thing, right?

Because it said a root that came from dry ground.

Then you can attribute a lot to the soil.

It was good soil that came up.

But Jesus' birth tells us that he comes from a lineage.

If you track that through the Bible, the lineage of Jesus, you've got characters like Bathsheba, you've got Rahab, a harlot, you've got Judah who messed up majorly, and then you've got Ruth, a Moabitus, whom the Israelites could not stand.

This is not a who's who of people in the right direction.

And Jesus came up from that line, so you can't say, well, the soil was what it was that Jesus came from.

No, it said a dry ground.

Think about it.

What do you know about Jesus before his ministry started?

Say age 19.

What pops right into your mind?

He was into carpentry, I believe.

What about age 25?

Some more carpentry.

31, anything?

Ringing a bell?

Getting better at carpentry?

It's like everything that we know about Jesus is like his goal was to live a quiet, humble, and unassuming life.

And Christianity hadn't had a stir for 400 years.

So we can't say that Jesus came on the precipice of this great revival.

We can't say that Jesus' people that he gathered around, like he was really smart, and he gathered the ground.

He came and gathered the world's greatest leaders.

I mean, teenage fishermen.

You see where this is going?

This is dry ground, the birth, the life of Jesus.

And out of that, this root springs up.

Now you can compare your own life to this.

And I want you to take a moment and think about this.

The birth of Jesus Christ is the root of dry ground.

And the Bible says, in me, that in me, there in my flesh dwells no good thing.

Our nature is evil.

Our hearts, church, today, are Israel wandering in the wilderness, and we are looking for manna to eat that we would not starve and have substance.

So if you have grace in your heart today, you had nothing to give that grace.

You had nothing to offer.

It wasn't because you had good soil.

And the picture that we see is a tender root.

If you've been given that grace, the tender root has come and it has provided that little sapling to give you new life.

And life in the full.

So we see that Jesus is the tender root.

Letter B, we see a tolerated rejection.

Look at verse 3.

He is despised and rejected by men.

Now, all of you and me included, we all desire one thing in this life, and this is it.

We desire to be accepted.

It's innate.

About a year or so ago, I got a scratch-off flyer in the mail.

And, you know, I I tell my kids if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

But I went to scratching.

You know, it's one of these car dealerships, and I'm scratching, and I said, I won! Nobody was there.

But I won.

And I was like, this is unbelievable.

And it was, right?

And I I was skeptical, but I was every I read it again and I was like, I won.

All I have to do is go to the dealership.

Nobody was home, so I had this extra time on my hands.

And what it said, listen, y'all, it said that I won$2,700.

And I like, Heather's gonna come home and we're gonna be rich.

This is gonna be awesome.

She's gonna be so happy for me.

Us.

Us, babe.

Us.

So I get in my car, I drive down to said dealership, takes about 30 minutes, I get there with my scratch off, and I have this like wry smile on my face.

I just can't wait to go in there and show them my winnings.

And there is fine print, and I thought I read all of it.

But I got to the man and he began to explain to me, and I gave him my scratch.

I said, I won.

He's like, oh, okay.

He reads it or not, I don't know.

And then he says, actually, what you have to do, there's supposed to be, it's it's in the print, you have to match up some numbers.

Let me go see if the numbers match.

I don't know what that means.

I'm still kind of excited, not sure.

But he goes and he says, Oh, good.

You get to pick an envelope.

An envelope.

There's a line of envelopes on this wall.

And I do, and I'm still a little excited.

I'm like, okay, maybe it could be more.

Could be bigger.

They were waiting for me all day.

I get the envelope open, folks.

There is a crisp$5 bill.

I knew I had been had.

I look at the man, I take my$5.

Cost me$11 to get there, by the way, in gas.

And I'm walking out, and I knew that he knew what was going on in my mind and could tell that I was severely feeling rejected, that I felt like a big loser because he didn't even try to ask me or try to get me to go see the showroom or see about a car.

Like he was like, that one's done.

He's done.

Take your$5, go on home.

But as I was thinking about that feeling, none of us like, want, or desire the feeling of rejection.

And that word here in Isaiah is Hadal.

Listen to what it means.

He said, He would, he is despised and rejected.

It means to be unoccupied.

That's what rejection means here.

That's interesting.

Because Jesus had to unoccupy something to come to earth.

He had to release himself of the glory of divinity.

And Philippians 2 says it.

Let me read it to you.

Philippians 2 says, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking form of bondservant, in the likeness of man, and humbled himself all the way to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

I want you to understand this this morning, that Jesus didn't come to set up the kingdom as Messiah, and the prophet said, Who will believe this report?

Jesus came as a tender plant, and he came to serve when he was here on earth.

The Jewish people and people that thought about a Messiah when he came thought about a political power, a strength that was coming to save them from Roman tyranny.

But what Isaiah foresaw said, This man is going to be rejected.

Well, let's continue on in the prophet's words.

Isaiah down at verse 4 through 9, we see the second point, the holy burden of sorrows.

It says, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent.

So he opened not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment.

And who will declare his generation?

For he was cut off from the land of the living.

For the transgression of my people he was stricken.

They made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

We see here the holy burden of sorrows that Isaiah mentions that this vision, this tender root, was going to go through as Messiah.

I want you to see letter A this morning.

The why of it.

The why of it is sheep that stray.

Sheep that stray.

The word stray here is tall ah.

And that Hebrew word means to wander, to vacillate physically, to vacillate mentally.

It has the idea of inebriation, drunkenness.

It has these descriptors, seduced and deceived.

Do you ever stray?

Do you ever feel like you stray?

I listen, I've been a Christian since I was nine years old.

And for me, and I've given my heart, I've surrendered to the Lord, but life feels like a roller coaster sometimes.

And sometimes I feel so close to the Lord, and other times I say, Why am I in this place?

Do you ever stray?

My dad loved beagles.

And I don't know, anybody here have a beagle dog?

God bless you.

Thank you.

The altar will be open in a little bit.

We have beagles growing up, and beagles, they would get on a scent, right?

We had sometimes seven, eight, nine of them, and they would get on a scent, and they just go to barking.

I mean, it could be two, three in the morning, and a rabbit runs by, and they're just going off, barking, barking, barking.

One time.

I don't know why, but I've fallen asleep on a couch in my parents' room.

And my mom worked for New York Times.

She worked night hours, weird hours.

Um, and my dad got up, opened the door that was at their bedroom that led outside, and he yelled at the dogs.

He said, Shut up! You're gonna wake up, Patty! Like, Patty, that was in the bed next to him.

I'm like, what is he thinking?

Or like the dogs are gonna look at each other because he said her name.

Oh, Patty.

And he lets this off of these dogs.

But anyway, these dogs always bark.

Anyhow, my parents went away on a weekend.

I was about 16, and my dad puts me in charge of his dogs, right?

He loves these dogs, and so he goes through his little process.

And my my dad is like MacGyver, okay?

So there's locks and things to get into the dogs, and anyhow, so I fed the dogs one day.

I don't know if I fed them the next day, but I came back a third day, and when I came back, I'm looking around.

I'm like, there's no dogs, and I'm like, oh no.

My dad is going to kill me.

He loves these things like as much as life.

And so I'm like, what am I gonna do?

Anyway, uh, in the urgent manner that I have, I took one day to really think it over and not care.

But then they were coming back soon, and I'm like, what do I do?

As a 16-year-old with lost, there's no chasing the neighborhood to find lost beagles.

That's not how they work.

They found rabbits, they took off, and they're gone.

I understand that.

So I'm like, what do I do before my dad gets home?

So, great idea.

I called the SPCA, and I'm like, I tell them the situation, they're like, we have three dogs here, but you gotta come down here and you gotta identify them.

And here's a great.

So I go there, I get my car, and I go there, and they're like, Okay, we have these.

Do you recognize these dogs?

And I'm like, absolutely, those are the dogs.

And they're like, Okay, well, what are their names?

I have no idea.

My dad has had a hundred of these things since I'm you have to tell me a name.

And so I did know one.

I'm like, that's slim.

And then they're like, Well, give me two other names.

I said, uh, Pluto and Scooby.

It was a high cost.

They charged me$200 at 16.

And by the way, I had it because I was rolling at 16.

Some of y'all teenagers, get a job.

I paid them the$200, and I thought that's a high cost for a stray.

But it was not as high a cost as it would be for my dad to come home and his beloved beagles to be missing.

I thought about that high cost.

It was a high cost that Jesus had to pay to chase down strays.

But it wasn't too high a cost to please his father.

The burden of sorrows, church, was due to our proclivity to stray.

I want you to understand that this morning.

Do you ever stray?

Paul said this.

The good that I would, that I don't do.

You ever feel like that?

The good that I say that I would do, that I don't do.

And then he said, and what I should not do, that is what I do.

Oh, wretched man that I am.

It's Paul, the greatest missionary that ever lived.

That's what he said.

Robert Robinson wrote a lyric.

There's a song I love called Come Thou Fount.

And in the lyric it says, Jesus sought me when I was a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.

Oh, to rescue me from danger, interposed me with precious blood.

Church, aren't you thankful today that Jesus sought after you a stranger that strayed?

When is the last time that you surprised yourself by how much you could stray?

Being more stray than you thought you would be at that point.

I've got good news today.

Jesus loves sheep that have strayed.

He wants you.

God wants you back in the fold.

And today, if it's been six months since you've been in church, or if it's been a year since you've been in church, I've got good news.

He loves you with a love that continues to seek for all of our lives.

Jesus loves you.

And can I say from my heart, this church body will love you.

Come back next week.

Come back and be a part of a church family.

But it's more than just straying in a sense of being lost.

You can be here today and be stray in your heart.

You can be sitting right here and have a face that looks familiar to this crowd, this body, but be a million miles away from God at heart.

Church family.

Why would you do that to yourself and distance yourself from somebody who loves you?

You've got on a rant, you've strayed, and and and your mind has gone somewhere and you've got bitter, you've got angry, and you've stuck to something when Jesus says, I want to love you.

Why would you run from a love like that?

Don't be stray.

Because I'm going to tell you in just a moment all the things that he did to prove to you and me, the stray, that he loves you.

Well, how much does he love you?

I want you to look at verse 10 again.

Not again.

But verse 10 it says, all that I just read about what he would go through, and it says, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

He has put him to grief when you make his soul an offering for sin.

That seems like a conflict.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

How many of you grew up getting spankins?

Oh, amen.

Look, y'all, from age 8 to 11, I see that.

We're kindred spirits.

That hand, triple.

8 to 11.

I told my kids it was say your prayers, take your bath, and get your spanking.

That's how I grew up.

I mean, that was just every night for me for a long time.

Bless my parents.

They went through it.

And I don't know how many times, but my brother back here who did the triple, I'm sure you felt this.

At some point, your parent looked at you and said something that was ludicrous like this.

Now, son, this is gonna hurt me more than it's gonna hurt you.

Did you ever?

I said one time, look, I looked at my dad straight in his eyes and I said, Well, why don't you turn over and let me get some hurting in?

Okay, I really didn't say that, but I thought it a lot.

I thought it a lot.

I don't want no more.

There's a scripture in Proverbs chapter 20, verse 30, that says this.

Proverbs 20:30

The blueness of a wound brings forth something.

The blueness of a wound is cleansing.

See, when you see a stripe, a bruise, a welt, or a wound, you're not looking at something that's dying.

The blueness is sending life to the point of the injury.

It's important that you note today that the blueness of a wound brings cleansing.

How could God the Father say there that it pleased him to bruise Jesus?

Well, I want you to go to Matthew 27.

Hold your place there in Isaiah.

We'll come back.

In Matthew chapter 27, verse 26.

Matthew 27:26

Through 31, we see as Jesus had been through some trials, faced Pilate.

He gets to this point, and the crowd is calling out for Jesus' blood and crucifixion.

It says, then he released Barabbas, verse 26, to them.

And when he had scourged Jesus, I would highlight that word scourge, we'll come back to it.

He delivered him to be crucified.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus in the praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around him.

They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

And when they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews.

Then they spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head.

And when they had mocked him, they took off or took the robe off him, put his own clothes on him, led him away to be crucified.

So what the prophet foresaw of Jesus has now come to fruition in the Gospel of Matthew.

And I don't want you to miss some things.

None of the gospel writers gives a clear description of scourging, and I think because it was such a difficult thing, and people understood it, that they didn't feel the leading to write about it.

But the scourging was something specifically, this blueness of a wound.

They would take what was called a cat of nine tails, and it would be uh in those nine tails, there would be things like rock, bone, glass shards, and they would take that whip and they would crash it around skin, lacerating and opening up the ribs, the back, the legs, and this would go on and on, and they would say to do this, 40 lashes save one.

And they would say 40 lashes would kill a man.

And the reason, and it's interesting, we don't have time today, but that this crucifixion took less time than others is because the scourging, the blood that was shed and the scourging, as they whipped my Jesus and your Jesus, they pulled blood and lacerated him over and over and over, and he would have had a great loss of blood.

And so he managed to live through that beating, and as it continued, they spat on him.

They took our Jesus and they mocked him and they took his beard and manhandled and ripped it from his face.

And they took a crown full of thorns and they shoved it down on his head in an act of mockery, saying, Hail King of the Jews.

They continued to strike him.

They took a robe and put it on those open wounds, mocking him.

They sent him up Golgotha's hill, and they took that cross and they laid the cross down and they took his hands and they took large spikes, and they took a hammer and began to ram it through his wrists and his other wrists, fastening him to an old cross.

They did the same through his feet, and then they threw the cross down into a hole in the ground, and when it crashed, his body would tear and rip.

And they say all of these things that were so awful, the pain of all of those things, but someone on the cross is dying of asphyxiation.

They cannot catch their breath.

And so all of these things are happening.

Jesus is trying to lift himself up for another breath, tearing and ripping, whether up or down.

And all the while he's being mocked, ridiculed.

Churches.

Half a second.

And Jesus could have changed all of that.

A half a blink of your eye.

But what the prophet saw and the way that he tried to share that vision of bruising, stripes, griefs, wounds, sorrows, chastisement, affliction, oppression.

In verse 10 it says, But it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

How can that be true?

How when we look at Calvary's cross and people wear it and they tattoo it, how can the place of torture?

Because it was God the Father through the blueness of the wound and the bruise that showed up, it was a picture of his mercy falling to every man.

The blueness of a wound, his bruise was the beginning of our restoration.

It pleased the Lord to bruise him because by it there was a propitiation that could be accepted for you and me.

Let's look at that last part.

The healing blessing of salvation in verse 10 through 12.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

He has put him to grief when you make his soul an offering for sin.

Listen, highlight this.

He shall see his seed.

What does that mean?

We'll come back to it.

He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge.

My righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Letter A is this.

God the Father is eternal and immortal and cannot be touched by sin.

So, what do we do?

God, who cannot be touched by sin in this amalgamation of his wrath, mercy, justice, and grace, sends forth Jesus, his son, one part of his self.

And he is born and he has to bear the cross.

He has to be bruised by our sin in an act that brings God glory.

It says there that he shall prolong his days.

And the pleasure of the Lord, the Lord there is Jehovah, God, shall prosper.

The death, burial, and substitution at the cross were not final.

It says he will prolong his days.

God's wrath for sin had to be satisfied.

So, flesh by flesh, by one man, the Bible says, sin entered into the world, and death by sin.

And so therefore Jesus emptied himself.

We read that of Philippians.

He came as this tender root born, transported by mission, and it was flesh for flesh.

That's what Isaiah foresaw.

And then it says, but he prolongs his seed.

He lives to see his seed, his spiritual descendants.

It says, He shall prolong his days.

What did the prophet mean?

The tender root will die, but not be dead.

The wrath of God requires a substitute, church.

It required a payment.

And that's how the prophet could say, it pleased him to bruise him, because Romans 6.23 said, For the wages of sin is death.

And if we were left to ourselves, that death would be our death.

But praise God that he saw our plight and he sent an answer, a payment.

And here's how it looks at the jet uh at the judgment bench.

Guilty is our verdict.

And crucifixion is the sentence.

And as the judge pronounced our verdict, he turned and said, I've got an answer for the verdict of the sentence that I just gave.

He said, It is the propitiation of my sentence.

And Jesus died.

But friends, he didn't just die.

Because Isaiah said, His life shall be lived prospering.

I want you to turn to Luke twenty-four.

Luke twenty-four.

This is now on the first day, verse one, of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.

But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

And it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments.

Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

He is not here, he is risen.

Church.

Today, Jesus Christ is not in some empty grave.

Every other denominator or religion that is false has their prophet, has their king, and every single one of them went to a grave and they stayed, but not ours.

He rose from that grave, and letter be we see what verse 12 is talking about.

The sharing in the spoil.

Because Jesus, the prophet, saw that he would bear everyone's iniquities through death, but he would go on and be alive.

It says, Therefore I will divide him a portion, and he shall divide the spoil.

The language of spoil is something you've heard before, maybe seen in movies, but the language of spoil is the idea that after a great victory, after a battle, someone's going to get gold, somebody's going to get silver, they're going to get territory, they're going to get a remnant of what was won and fought for.

Now Jesus fought and gave everything.

And church, family, the spoil of victory is redeemed sinners.

You and I are the spoil of Jesus' fight on the cross.

Because the Bible says that the heavens rejoice over one lost sinner that comes to repentance and faith.

If you're here today and you don't know Jesus, there's a party waiting to erupt in heaven because Jesus wants that spoil.

He came to redeem that spoil.

Hebrews says Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him.

That sounds conflictual, right?

He endured punishment and torture for joy.

But verse 12 tells us why that Jesus can share in the spoil.

It says the plan that God the Father had.

And this is what it says.

It says, therefore, because of these things, because of what he went through, therefore.

Why is it therefore?

I will divide, I will give him the spoil.

And it goes down where it says, because it tells us what Jesus would gather because of this.

It says, because he poured out his soul, and he was numbered with sinners, and he bore the sin of everyone and made intercession for that sin.

Church, because he gave his soul unto death, because he gave his body, God has lifted him.

Friday, good Friday, the cross was not the conclusion of Jesus.

And Saturday, the grave, was not the confinement of Jesus, but Sunday, church.

Resurrection was his coronation party.

When Jesus stepped out, listen to what Philippians said, that God the Father said about Jesus and the spoil and what he would give to Jesus.

Jesus Christ rose and is the victor.

And this is what Philippians 2, verse 10 and 11 says about that.

Philippians 2:10

That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven, in earth, and under earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

It said, at that name, hear this church.

At the name of Jesus, that name is above the name of Caesar.

That name is above the name of every crown, every council.

It is above every courtroom.

It is above the conspirators that came against him.

It is above the crowd that said, crucify him.

It is above every condemnation, every charge and every corruption, every change.

At that name, it is above every crown of thorns.

It is above every cat of nine-tails.

It is above every cup of wrath.

It is above the criminal's cross.

At that name, it is a name that is above every century, civilization, all of creation, that name.

Not may bow, every knee would bow.

Every knee, every throne, every tribe, every tongue would confess this.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Do you believe it, Church?

Jesus, who died and rose and ascended, is coming one day again.

And he's going to share the spoil with redeemed sinners.

One day when he comes to set up his kingdom, there will be a forever reign of Jesus on the throne.

And let me tell you this: this is the greatest news.

He is still gathering the spoil today.

He is still redeeming sinners today.

I wanted to close and share an illustration that I had heard, a story that I had heard in that vein.

There's a man named John Harper.

And John Harper had a fantastic revival at Moody Church in the early 1900s.

And that revival went so well that it wasn't long before Moody Church called on him to return to their church.

They wanted to have him come back.

And so John Harper and some of his family boarded a ship and set sail to come back to Moody Church.

And the name of that ship was the RMS Titanic.

John Harper preached a service on that ship.

And they had gotten news that they had struck on that fateful night an iceberg.

And this is what testimonies shared about John Harper on that night.

That John Harper took his daughter and placed her on a lifeboat and began running from deck to deck.

And he ran with this message, Acts 16, 31.

He said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Deck by deck he went from person to person, seeing that souls were coming to an icy Atlantic.

Well, John Harper fell off that ship, but that wasn't the end of his story quite yet.

He fell into the icy Atlantic, and a man who lived, survived the wreckage, later recounted this.

This man's name was Aquila Webb.

Aquila Webb fastened himself to some wreckage in the ocean, and John Harper came near him and said, Sir, have you been saved?

Acts 16, 31.

He said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And Aquila Webb recounts that in that moment he said, No, I've not been saved.

He said, as time went by, just a little bit later, a wave sent John Harper back to him again.

And John Harper said, Have you believed on Jesus?

And Aquila Webb said, No, I did not.

John Harper took his life vest off his head and placed it on Aquila Webb.

And he said, Acts 16.31, sir, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Aquilawebb never seen John Harper again.

John Harper, as far as anyone knew, drowned in that body of water.

But a few years later, there was a group of people, survivors of the wreck of the Titanic that came together.

Aquilawebb stood up in that group and he shared this testimony.

He said, I was in the waters, and a man gave me his life best.

And he quoted Acts 16, 31.

He said, Ladies and gentlemen, I am the last convert of John Harper.

I gave my life to Jesus in the Atlantic that day.

I was saved.

And I want to tell you this morning, this church, that over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ came and he faced a colder sentence than the Atlantic.

He faced the coldest judgment that's ever been faced at the criminal's cross.

He gave everything for everyone, for all of time.

And here's the thing: not only did Jesus Christ give his life, but he didn't drown.

He didn't go down and lose his life.

He rose again.

This is what I want you to understand.

You see, Harper was not trying to save the sinking ship Titanic.

He was only trying to gather the spoil.

And Jesus Christ today, church, still seeks drowning people that are lost without any hope that he can give them saving grace.

Harper asked one question.

He said, Are you saved?

Isaiah said, Who hath believed on our report?

Paul said, One day every knee will bow.

And church, God's given me this life preserver.

And if I knew that you were drowning today, as fast as I could get it to you, I'd want you to grab a hold of something that would preserve your life.

If I knew that you had cancer and I had the cure, I'd want to get it to you as fast as I possibly could get it to you.

And as we come to a time of invitation here, church, Jesus gave everything, every drop of blood.

And he said, Here is the preserver.

Would you be saved?

Today, would you be saved?

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

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Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

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