Standing Face to Face with Jesus (4/5/26)

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That's CHVRCHNS q.org, and now let's listen in to today's

teaching. First, let's take a look at

these women who were standing face to face before Jesus.

In verses one through 10, we see that after the Sabbath, towards

the dawn of the first day of the week, which was a Sunday.

So it's Jesus was, you know, taken from his disciples.

Thursday evening they were having supper together and next

thing they know he's in Gethsemane praying.

And all of a sudden Judas comes and leads soldiers and they take

Jesus away. The disciples scatter like

cockroaches and Jesus is taking into a court and overnight he's

in justly declared a blasphemer. And by the time he gets to

Friday morning, he has already been convicted and sent by Pilot

to be crucified. He's been beaten, he's been

mocked. And so it happens very quickly.

So Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and all the other

disciples, they wake up and they find Jesus hanging on a cross.

The Sabbath has occurred. The Passover meal is going on

and on the dawn of the first day of the week after Jesus has been

crucified, he's dead, he's been buried.

They head to the tomb. Mary Magdalene if you remember

she was the one whom multiple demons were driven out by Jesus

and the other Mary who was either the the sister of Martha

was they were eager to see the truth.

The tomb verse one they head to the tomb and behold Matthew puts

a point here that behold there was a great earthquake for an

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 was white as snow and for fear of

him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

This all happened so quickly. And they find themselves here at

a scene where Matthew pretty much stitches together

economically. All the accounts.

If you were to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all of the

Gospels, they have different focuses.

Matthew uses his words economically because he's like

speeding to the end. He's like, yeah, this happened.

And then they came upon the tomb.

If you look at the other accounts, it seems like they

they get there after these men have fainted.

There's a reason for that because women would not have

been able to approach the tomb at all at that time.

If there was a guard there. They would never have gone there

with the guard. The guards would never have let

them in. And there's also this rock

there. So, you know, if they had not

gotten there and the men had fainted and the tomb was rolled

away, they would not have been able to see Jesus.

But they're not there to see Jesus, Matthew says.

They're there to actually see the evidence of Jesus's

resurrection, the point of this miraculous removal, because

there's no record of that. You will never find in history

something like, yeah, I was in the garden and Jesus kind of

like busted through the stone. It was incredible.

There was a crack and then rocks through.

It was like dynamite. And Jesus came out all muscular

and just like, yeah, there's no account of that.

The only account we have is like, yeah, we showed up and

there was no great. There was no body in the grave.

The women are there to see an empty tomb.

Look at verse 5. They're afraid.

They're like, they don't know what to do.

The Angel that's there. So the angels still hanging

around. Angels are scary.

They're scary. Every time you see in Scripture

somebody coming on an Angel, they're they're like, this is

not good. It's not good for me.

Then they're always like, what? Do not be afraid.

Gabriel comes up every week like do not be afraid.

I've got multiple announcements. Be not afraid.

I've got 7 announcements. No, he says do not be afraid.

I know. Look, look, I know.

What are they there? I know that you're seeking Jesus

who was crucified and the best news in all of history.

Verse 6 here it is. He is not here.

He's not here. Why?

Well, he's risen as he said. That's what Matthew was.

He said he's like Jesus said it would happen and it happened.

That's what Jesus does. Jesus tells you, here's what I'm

going to do and then he does it. Some people we know don't do

that, right? They're like, I'm going to, I'll

text you back. You know, you have the friends

that text you. You're like, you see the

bubbles, you know they, you know, they're reading your text

and you're like, why can't you just text me back?

And then a few days later they're like, oh, hey, sorry I

didn't get back to you. It's like, it's like 5 days from

now #latex I, you, you did not text me back.

Some of you are should be ridden with guilt right now.

No, he did what he said. And then the angel's like, hey,

come see where he's laying, Like check this out.

And in one account, Peter's there too.

He catches up to him all out of breath and he's like, he goes

into the tomb. He looks around, it's not he's

not there. But then the Angel says, verse

7, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from

the dead. And behold, he's going before

you. He's going to Galilee.

There you will see him. And then it's funny, Matthew's

like, see, I've told you, it's like, alright there, I've done

my job. I'm going back to heaven.

He disappears. The Angel reminds them of what

Jesus said. Jesus already said if you have a

Bible you can turn. Just make a left hand turn.

In verse 26, chapter 26, verse 32, Jesus told them that's what

he was going to do. In chapter 2632, Jesus tells

them ahead of time. He says they sung A hymn that

Jesus said to them, You will all fall away because it's written,

I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be

scattered. But after I am raised up, this

is in Gethsemane, He's like, guys, you're all going to run

like cockroaches. I'm going to be raised up and

then I'm going to meet you in Galilee.

No doubt some of them were like, oh, OK, all right.

But but now it's going to make sense to them.

Now it's going to make absolute sense.

Jesus said that this was going to happen.

So the Angel says, go back. He's going to meet you.

And this is the hope. Imagine Mary, they're there,

they're grieving. Jesus is dead, their friend is

dead, and they see no Jesus and an Angel that says go back to

Galilee. So now there's a spark of hope.

That's what Jesus does. Jesus gives us the promise of

hope. He tells us, don't despair.

The promise of seeing Jesus again ignites them.

And so they run. Look at look at verse 8.

They departed quickly. They weren't like, man, this is

awkward. You know, they didn't like

slowly go back. They ran when you want to see

someone you love, you run, especially of the news that he

was dead, but now he's alive. They ran quickly from the tomb

with fear and great joy and they ran to tell the disciples.

They ran with fear and great joy.

No wonder they were afraid. There's there's a fear like what

are we going to see and look verse 9, Jesus meets them and

says greetings. There is a phrase called absence

makes the heart fonder, right? And there is joy at being

reconciled with family. If you ever been apart from

family that you love. I know there's some family like

you can stay where you are, but that's not this situation.

They they have seen their friend dead and we can experience like

when we're with long lost friends, there's joy.

When family members are home, there's joy.

Or I don't know, when a dead friend who's been dead and

buried comes from the grave and is excited to see you.

Joy. I don't know.

More like fear. Like what?

I mean, seriously, imagine the initial shock of that.

Just put yourself in their shoes.

Just imagine the shock of a scene.

Has anybody seen a family member come back from the grave?

Do you know how shocked you would be if you went home and

your grandmother died 100 years from now?

Met you in the kitchen cooking ham.

It was like, hey, I just thought I'd come back from the dead.

I'm so glad to see you. You'd probably all be like, what

was in the coffee at church? What?

Seriously, there's fear and there's joy.

Look what they do. How do they respond to this?

They came up and they took hold of his feet.

They, they, they fell at his feet and they worshipped him.

And Jesus said don't be afraid. The only reason why we say don't

be afraid is because there's great fear.

I mean, there's fear in their hearts.

Like this is unbelievable, but yet there he is.

He says don't be afraid. Go back to Galilee, tell my

brothers, tell the disciples, I'm going to meet them there.

And so Jesus has always addressed his fears.

He knows we're afraid about things that we can't understand.

He knows that they're afraid. They they should be filled with

fear and awe, but he commands them not to be afraid.

And he does the same for you and I.

There's things that we're afraid of.

There's things that we don't understand.

But Jesus meets us. He says, don't be afraid, I'm in

control. I mean, if you can beat death,

Jesus, then I'll trust you. I'll trust you.

You can. That's one of the things that

the resurrection does. The resurrection says, well,

what's the worst that can happen?

I often say that all the time. Like, what's the worst that can

happen? This could fall apart.

I could, I don't know, Like, you know, I could be, you know,

absolutely poor and hungry. But what's the worst that can

happen? Most of us say, well, the worst

that can happen is we could die. But even then, Jesus, like,

yeah, I don't know. I've defeated that.

I I, I see what's on the other side.

You don't even have to be afraid of death, OK?

We need not be afraid when we are with Jesus.

And so standing face to face with Jesus here in the pages of

Scriptures, we see that he is risen from the dead.

He is, He is out of the tomb. Look at verses 11 through 15.

One of the things that's important to understand is that

not everybody believed that Jesus was who he said he was.

We not only stand face to face with Jesus, but we we stand face

to face with God himself. Look, while they were going,

verse 11 while they were going. Now, the reason why he says that

is because if you know anything about Galilee, that's the north

of Israel. Jerusalem is in the South of

Israel. It's about 60 to 80 miles north

of, of, of Jerusalem. Sometimes when I read the

scriptures, I don't know about you, but I'm like, oh, this

happened and this happened and then that happened.

You're not like in the movies, you see clips, but you don't

really think about the fact that there's time that is in between

there. Life happens between certain

chapters of a movie, but you just see a story and it goes

from here to here to here. But then you don't you stop

thinking like, oh man, well, how long would it have taken them to

travel 80 miles? How long would it take you to

travel 80 miles? It'd be like starting to walk to

Harrisburg after church. Guys, I'll meet you in

Harrisburg, right? TJ?

You walk in Harrisburg. No, he's driving.

They didn't have cars back then, so they're going north.

So there's a few things that happened.

Galilee lays lies north and so the journey between them would

have taken several days. And This is why in the accounts,

Jesus can pop in and out. He can show himself to others.

He's taking his time. He's going to get there, but

it's going to take them time. This is also why it says that

look, here's what happened while they were going scene cut to

scene 2. What happens?

Look at verse 11. Some of the guard went into the

city after they after they woke up, after they changed their

pants, after they went back to the they went back and they and

they told the chief priests all that had taken place.

Would you have liked to have been a family on that wall?

You know, a bunch of grown men coming in to like, seriously,

here's what happened. Angels came.

There was an earthquake. Some of us fainted.

I didn't. I just kind of was pretending to

be asleep. These other guys did faint, you

know, and and something happened to Jesus.

And they're like, well, what happened to Jesus?

We sent you there. We paid you to guard the tomb.

Yeah, about that. He's not there anymore.

What? I mean, this ruins their whole

plan. Verse 12, When they had

assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave

sufficient sum of money to the soldiers.

And they said, hey, tell you what, this is what we're going

to do. We're going to solve this.

Take this money, right? And tell people what did they

tell them? Say this, Well, his disciples

came by night and stole him away while they were asleep.

OK, take the money and tell everybody that.

And if this comes to the governor's ears, we'll satisfy

and keep you out of trouble. It won't.

We'll we'll take this. It's like mafia.

That's like the mafia, right? It's like, hey, take this, we'll

take care of you. Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it. I don't know.

I don't know why I do that. I do that every few weeks.

I just. So they took the money and they

did as they were directed. And Matthew leaves a note and

this story, this is important. This story.

In other words, they're saying, hey, lie about this this lie,

because it is a lie. This lie has been spread among

the Jews to this day. Ask, ask a devout Jew whether or

not Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Ask them and they will tell you, no, that's a lie.

Words have power. Lies have power.

They're sustained Over and over again.

The Prince of lies spreads this lie and here's the exposure of

what's truly in their hearts. They're liars.

These men who are the religious leaders.

If you've been with us in Matthew, you know that these are

men that were pushing against Jesus.

They're trying, in fact, they're trying to set him up and crucify

him. And they did it.

It worked. They're like, let's get him

gone. Let's let's nail him to a cross.

Let's bury him. Let's convict him of blasphemy.

And then all of our problems will, will neutralize the

situation. As they say in the military.

Jesus has called them out. He's like, you know what?

You guys are the your father's a father of lies.

They're like, what are you talking about?

We're sons of Abraham. We're religious, devout

Abramites. We we, we obey Moses.

Like, yeah, no, no, no. You're a bunch of lying

hypocrites and you're in it for your own good.

And your father is a liar too. He's also a murderer, of which

you're going to murder me. Do you remember this

conversation Jesus had with them?

He's they're like, he's, he's like, you guys are trying to

murder me. They're like, you're nuts.

What do you think? What are you trying to murder

you? Yes, you are.

And here is the evidence. This is the exposure of what's

in men's hearts. Lying, murderous thieves.

They knew that if on the third day if they knew that if this

was true in the third day would pass away as Jesus said, destroy

this temple and in three days I will raise it again.

They knew that if this happens they're in trouble because if

he's found in the grave done deal.

We are all miserable wretches. You should do something

different with your morning. This morning, you could be doing

anything but here, singing about and hearing about Jesus.

Because if, as Paul says, Jesus didn't raise from the dead,

we're a bunch of idiots. We're to be pitied because we're

wasting our time. We're saying, you know what?

I'm going to die and raise from the dead.

And if that's not true, Jesus doesn't raise from the dead,

then that's not true. We ought to be hopeless,

heartless, we ought to be fearful of what's happened, or

we just ought to live the way that we want to live.

Live, live as you will live, because, you know, tomorrow we

die. But the tomb does not have a

dead body in it. He rose at the appointed time.

Romans 14 says he was declared to be the Son of God.

That's important because that is the knowledge that God has a son

and the first born son is every much equal to the Father and all

rights and privileges and inheritance.

He is the Son of God. He is God himself.

And Paul says that the Son of God rose with power from the

dead. And so because the the women and

the disciples and all the early Christians, CT Craig says this,

the early Christians did not believe in the resurrection of

Christ because they couldn't find his dead body.

It's not like they're like, Yep, there's nobody here confirmed

they believed because they saw a living Christ.

That's one of the evidences of the Scriptures.

Why would men perpetrate a lie if they knew that it was a lie?

Why would you give your lives? All of the disciples were

martyred. Theater would be crucified

upside down. James would be the first martyr.

John might have been dipped in hot oil or tar.

Most of the men were beaten brutally.

Paul persecuted Christians. Nobody dies.

They might die for a good cause, but nobody dies for a lie.

Nobody dies for a lie. And this is one of the evidences

of Scripture being one of the things where you can trust in.

Matthew is writing this Gospel account that we're reading.

And he's saying you can go ask these people.

They're within one lifetime. Like, you know, he names people

and all of the Gospels, like, you know, you know, it was

Malchus. That's the guy.

Peter cut his ear off. He can go see his ears.

It it was healed. Go ask Malchus.

Jesus put it back on. He was like, Malchus would be

like, yeah, that's actually true.

They saw a living Christ. And so when we stand before

Jesus, what we are standing before is God himself.

And there are two categories. You are either a liar that says

that God, what he says is not true.

These men who told these guards, hey, lie about it.

You're either in one camp where you say, no, God's lying.

This is not true, which means that you're an enemy of God.

God is very clear those who lie about what he says is true to

say it's not true. You're an enemy or your friend.

We're either called friends of God if we believe or enemies of

God if we don't. As friends, as believers, as

Christians, when we say, yeah, Christ rose from the dead, right

now, we are faced with the truth that's being proclaimed to us.

Back then, Mary and the disciples, they were able to see

the risen Christ. But we, we're seeing him right

now in the words we, we, we're, we're seeing Jesus because it's

recorded for us. God is speaking to us.

We, we're either believing that what Jesus is saying is true and

that these are trustworthy accounts, or they're not the

promises for friends of God. We're called friends of God if

we believe what He says about His Son.

The resurrection demonstrates that Christ has indeed been

raised for our justification. Romans 425 says that He is

raised for our justification. And so we look to Him and we are

justified not because of anything that we do.

We're raised with Him to walk in newness of life.

Romans 6 as we are born again. We read the chapter this

morning, first, Peter, 1/3 through five, that we've been

raised to a living hope, born again, that we have an

inheritance that is imperishable, undefined,

unfading, kept in heaven. We have an assurance of our

future resurrection. And in Romans 8, Christ who is

raised is at the right hand of God.

He is interceding for us. All of this are the promises of

those who are friends of God. You're a friend of God when you

believe. Now here's the sad news.

We all have to hear this. We all have to hear this.

You can also be an enemy of God. We are called enemies of God

when we do not believe. And here's the scary part, when

we do not believe, when we speak that God is you know what Jesus

might be one way, but not he's not the only way.

He's there's some other ways to get to God.

We what we do is John says we call God to be a liar and God

will have none of that. He's not a liar.

Those who outrightly reject Jesus as his Son, as Lord, they

reject the atonement that is sent by God.

Here's your one and only chance guys.

Christ and Christ alone. That's it, period.

God gives us no other chances. It is only through his Son or

nothing. Those who reject Christ

experience God's wrath. John says that the wrath of God

still remains as we're all born under wrath.

This is a rescue mission by Jesus.

This isn't we. We find Jesus and that we earn

life. Though He's like you guys are in

trouble. We're all in trouble.

This is a sinking ship. All of us are born under sin.

There's no escape. You cannot work your way out of

this hole. You can't pay the debt back.

It's a rescue mission. That's why it's called

redemption. Reconciliation.

We're brought back. We, we, we can't do it

ourselves. We need somebody to come and

rescue us because we're born under wrath.

We walk as enemies, Philippians 318 through 19.

We walk as enemies of the cross. And the end is our destruction.

The end is our destruction. We, we will not escape the

destruction if we continue to call God a liar.

And you can't be saved by being born into a Christian family.

My parents are Christians. I went to church.

That doesn't save you. You've got to come to your own

understanding of who Christ is. You have to confess him as Lord

because he's God. There's no doubt now.

Jesus can't be just said He's a good teacher.

He's God who has the power over sin and death.

And one day we will be asked to depart from him if we have not

become his friends. For the enemies of Christ, only

judgement awaits. Hebrews chapter 10 says there's

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

a fearful expectation of judgement.

The judgement that Christ receives on the cross is a

judgement that we can experience.

The first words Jesus says we look at Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why have you forsaken me? What he experienced was the

turning of God's face away from Him to be separated from the one

whom he loved and who loved him. But yet what he does is he

promises he's like that face has turned back to his Son because

Jesus lived the perfect life that we could not.

And as our representative, what Jesus does, it says, Father, if

you love me, then apply my righteousness.

Apply your love that I'm representing all of mankind

because I'm the second Adam. I'll do what Adam the first time

could not do. Look to me and I will get you in

with the Father. Don't look to him, don't look to

her, Don't look to this. Look to me and I will get you

into the graces of my Father because my Father will love to

forgive you because you love me. Because what you're doing,

you're saying he's not a liar. The Father says this is my son.

Look to him. And Jesus says look to me, my

Father, my Father will save you. He will give you mercy.

And when we looked at Jesus, Jesus like, yes, you're mine.

This is why it's called the good news, because you don't have to

do anything. You don't have to go home and do

anything. You just look to Christ and you

say that's my salvation. He's my salvation.

I want him to pay my penalty. He paid my debt.

He did the work. Does that mean we don't have a

responsibility in living in obedience to him?

No, but as far as our salvation comes, it is Christ and Christ

alone. What's the guarantee that the

payment's been paid? It is Resurrection Sunday.

There is no body in the grave, which gives me great confidence

that my body won't stay in the grave.

Right? And this is the good news of the

Gospel. Notice, though, what Jesus

doesn't do. Notice what Jesus does not do.

He does not come out of the grave and go after his enemies.

He does not come out. That's that's good news for us

because what Jesus doesn't do is like, Hey, Mary Magdalene, Mary

Magdalene and Mary go back and tell my disciples is get the

weapons together. It's go time, baby, right.

Unlike the mob where they come and kill their enemies.

I think the reason why I'm thinking about the mob is

because it's the 40th anniversary of the Godfather and

I just watched one and two, we're going to go to the

mattresses. Jesus does not say we're going

to go to the mattresses. He's not Don Corleone wiping out

all of his enemies, right? Right.

No, no. What does he do?

What does Jesus do? He says go back and tell them,

don't be afraid. He doesn't kick down the door of

all of his enemies. He has no thoughts of revenge.

He gives time for his enemies to repent.

Peter says that the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises of

coming back and bringing justice to the world and judgement to

the world. It will be a good thing when the

wicked and evil and sin and death is all wiped out.

There will be justice. There will be justice for the

millions of Christians who are slaughtered at the hands of

Muslims and of atheists in Soviet Russia and in Africa and

in South America. There will be justice for all of

those who've been oppressed. Trust me, the enemies of God

will be judged, but it's not now, and all of us are born

under that judgement unless we trust the son.

Spurgeon says this. He might have told the disciples

to ignore the Jewish people when they preached.

He gives them a mission. We'll look at that in just a

moment. But he gives them a mission.

But no, He expressly instructs them to start at Jerusalem, thus

commanding his disciples to preach the gospel first to those

who murdered him. Preach the gospel.

The good news you, Father, forgive them for what they know,

not what they do. God is such a compassionate God

that he looks under sin and he doesn't what we think we don't

think. He's a say you're nasty.

No, he says, I am so sorry that you you are burdened under the

sin. It's it is nasty.

Can I rescue you from it? That cancer that's in your

heart. I want to heal you.

That that cancer of sin and death, I want to take that away.

He's a compassionate God. He looks at her sin and he does.

He says it's it's not the way that it should be.

Even Jesus's own family did not believe him during his ministry.

And in First Corinthians 15-7, his brother James, he actually

shows up to his his brothers. If you remember, they're like,

dude, why don't you do an ad campaign?

Isn't it your time to like raise?

And, and even it says in the gospels, even his family

rejected him. And yet after they see the

living Christ, they're like, oh, I guess we were wrong.

Kind of what happens when you see someone who's up from the

grave, right? We can stand friends, either

face to face with Jesus as friends, or we can stand face to

face with Jesus as enemies. Which one are you?

Which one are you? There is no in between.

There's no neutral ground. You can't stand in the center

here. Friends or enemies, friends or

enemies. I switched that up just so just

in case that's the question that I am faced with.

That's the question that you are faced with.

That's the question that every human being, man, woman and

child that hears the proclamation of the gospel is

faced with. And that leads me to my last

point is that we must be face to face with others.

Look at verse 16. It says now the 11 disciples

went to Galilee. Some time has passed.

They went to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

Some theologians believe that this is actually the mount of

Transfiguration. They go back to the mountain

where Jesus was revealed as the Son of God, where God said, this

is my son, and whom I am well pleased.

And when they saw him, what did they do?

They worshipped Him. No one.

No good Jew worships anything. We read it this morning.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

So another evidence to the resurrected Lord being God is

that no Jew would have worshiped him.

They would have been counted as blasphemous.

But they worshiped him. Mary worshiped him.

All the early Christians worshiped him as God.

We worship him this morning. We worship him every day of

every week of every month of every year, because He is God.

They worship him. But some doubted, some doubted,

some were like this is I can't Thomas doubted and that's in

Jesus is patient with us. Jesus comes to them and says all

authority, all authority in heaven and earth has been given

to me go Therefore, because all authorities I'm going to

exercise that authority. Jesus is like I'm back guys, and

I've proven everything that I've said.

So therefore, if we're all in agreement, I'm going to I'm

going to play this this card, I'm going to use my authority.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go into Jerusalem,

wipe them out, establish my Kingdom, and I'll come back,

right? No, he doesn't say that is I

want you to go back and I want you to lay burdens on people

like now I'm going to have my revenge.

No, he doesn't say that. He says, go, make disciples,

command them, teach them to obey everything that I've commanded

you, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and

the Holy Spirit, the Trinity. You are now in relationship with

me. Teach them to observe all that

I've commanded you, and behold, I am with you to the very end of

the age. 3 times. Matthew repeats, Do not be

afraid, but go and tell. Do not be afraid, but go and

tell. Do not be afraid but go and

tell. No longer is their mission now

restricted to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, as it was

in his Galilean ministry. It's not restricted to just

Israel now. All limitations have been

removed. Jesus says don't just go to the

lost sheep, start there, but then go to the nations.

What is the scope of Jesus's ministry?

Well, this this week, did you see those pictures of the space

shuttle? Not space shuttle anymore.

Artemis 2. Did you see those pictures?

They were overwhelmed by the beauty of the sphere of the

globe, of the earth. For many of you flat earthers,

it's over. It's done.

My gosh, if there's any conspiracy, I mean, good Lord,

it's just right there. That's that's the span of God's

mission. It's Upper Darby.

It's Broomall. It's New Jersey.

Dare say it even Dallas, TX, South America, China, all 7

continents, Jesus, go make disciples.

And for 2000 years the disciples have been doing that faithfully

so that you and I sit this morning and we're able to hear

the gospel preserved for us in the Word of God so that we might

have good news and hope for the future.

Our mission as a church and as a local church.

So there's the larger church, but our church is to continue

engaging as many of those who are currently sinners.

You and I were sinners. Sinners await your words.

You and I were enemies of God. It's not a, it's not a, it's not

a fun term. Our kids are enemies of God.

We are enemies of God until we're no longer enemies but

friends. Paul says that because of

Christ, we now have peace with God.

The war is over. The white flag.

We waved the white flag. When we confess Jesus as Lord,

we waved the white flag and there's peace with God.

And the promise is that you will never suffer the judgment of

vengeance of God because of Christ, and you will enter into

life eternal. And it won't be floating around

in harps. They won't be singing Matt

Redman songs eternally or hymns eternally.

We are going to be physical human beings raised from the

dead with glorious bodies like Christ.

And the new heavens and the new earth will be our story.

The 1st chapter starts. After that all comes in and we

have a long ways to live forever.

That's the good news of the gospel.

This is not the end. The beginning starts when we

die. Or He comes back and changes

everything. Until that day, our mission is

to get as many people around the table.

We talked about his church being rooted in God's Word and

gathering as many people around God's table.

Where there's peace, we take communion because there's peace

with God. We're led by the Spirit.

That's our mission. And we're not driven by duty,

although we have duty. We're driven by the same thing

that drove Christ to the cross, which was, we said it, Good

Friday, Joy. He went to the grave because of

joy. He rose from the dead because of

joy. For the joy set before him, He

endured the cross. Therefore, let us also run with

endurance the same walk that Christ did for the joy that is

set before us. That's why we sing with great

joy as Christians for the glory of Jesus Christ and for our love

for Him, our God and our Savior. The sermon you've just listened

to is a presentation of Church Newtown Square.

To find out more about our church, check out Church

nsq.org. That's CHVRCHNS q.org.

You are welcome to copy and distribute this sermon to others

as long as you do not do it for commercial purposes or alter,

transform, or build upon this talk in any way.