April 20, 2025 The Victorious King Jesus: Breaking the Grave and Reigning in Glory

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So we have been, the last several weeks, looking at the war of the ages and

how God, through his mercy and love,

made a way, made a plan for man to be redeemed and restored.

So this morning, we're going to go through quickly the story of redemption, how King Jesus,

who is our victorious lamb, tore the veil, broke the grave, and stands at the right hand of God.

Jesus, I pray this morning, as we read your word, it's not our thoughts, it's your truth.

And Jesus, you are the way, the truth, and the life.

It has been shared earlier that you broke the grave.

You conquered death so we could have life.

So, Jesus, I pray today that you would make your word through your Holy Spirit come alive.

God, I pray that you would do the work.

And if there is a friend here who is just searching, still trying to understand what is this all about?

Why do Christians get so excited about Easter?

So Jesus, as we study and look at why we're so excited about Easter and why

we rejoice, I pray that you would just make your word come alive.

And that we pray for your Holy Spirit to turn lights on and that we all may

rejoice in what you did for us on the cross and rising again in Christ. And we pray. Amen.

So as we look here, remember a few weeks or a week ago, we talked about Christ declaring who he was.

He said that he was the king. So he's standing here before Pilate and Pilate says, who are you?

And Christ says back to him, my kingdom is not of this world.

He said, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I

wouldn't be handed over to the Jews.

But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.

So Jesus is declaring here that he is not from here.

His kingdom is not from here. He's not from this world.

Then we talk about the lamb. We use this word a lot.

And within churches and Christians, they talk about the lamb,

the lamb, the lamb, the lamb.

Where is the significance there? What's the importance?

And so in order to understand that you have to go back to the beginning of the story of the Bible.

You have God creating the world. Jesus there creating the world,

made it perfect without error.

Sin comes to the world. Adam and Eve are tempted and they give in and they sin.

God doesn't destroy the world, but instead he makes a way.

He makes a way to restore the relationship that he originally had intended.

And that's the story of the Bible.

As you study out the Bible, as you study out the Bible, which is God's written word.

So God wanted us, wanted you to have access to his truth.

And that's what we have in the Bible, whether you read it on your phone,

on your actual Bible book.

That's what we have. And so when we look back, excuse me,

and we understand this story, what God laid out in the Old Testament was something

innocent, and it was a lamb,

a spotless lamb, no blemish, had to die in order to take away temporarily man's sin.

So for Jeremy, Jeremy would have to bring a lamb, and they would sacrifice that

lamb for the forgiveness of the sins for that time.

But that was something that had to go all over and over and over again.

Jesus also used another time of land. This is when the children of Israel were trapped inside Egypt.

And they were slaves. They were stuck there.

And God was trying to get a hold of the leader of Egypt, right? The Pharaoh.

And he finally said in the last plague, I'm going to send the death angel.

I'm going to send the death angel and women will be weeping and there will be lots of tears.

But if you take that lamb and you put it above the doorpost of your house and

around your doorpost, the blood of that innocent lamb, when the death angel passes by,

he will not come in that house and you will pass over.

And then we have in Isaiah 53, long before Jesus comes to earth,

he prophesies, he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

Like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her shearers,

he did not open his mouth.

And that's Jesus. foretold by Isaiah.

Then we have John again declaring, look, this is the gospel of John.

In the beginning was the Word. The Word already existed, and the Word was with

God, and the Word was God.

He existed in the beginning with God.

God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.

And the word being Jesus gave life to everything that was created and his life

brought light to everyone and the light shines in the darkness and darkness

can never extinguish it.

John begins his gospel telling you about what Jesus did in all of his earthly

ministry or a snapshot of it that was recorded. Thank you.

Then John talks about John the Baptist. And he quotes.

The next day Jesus was coming and said, John the Baptist cries out,

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So God is laying out here, Jesus our Lamb.

He is our sacrifice. He takes on himself the sin for all mankind. kind.

He wasn't just a lamb, but this lamb now tore the veil.

You see, in the Old Testament, as you study, you had the Holy of Holies,

and only the high priest could go in there with fear and trepidation.

If there was any sin, they would drop dead.

And so there's lots of fear there. And the veil, or this curtain which separated

the Holy of Holies, was about four inches thick.

So you think about that, what God did now here during what Christ is on the cross.

You have them mocking him, saying, oh, hail king of the Jews.

And they mocked him. They said, oh, if you are this great prophet,

why don't you save yourself?

Why don't you just come down from the cross? Just save yourself.

Why are you hanging there? I thought you were God. And they mock him.

Yet he says not a word.

And finally, Jesus shouted again, and he released his spirit.

He said, Father, and into thy hands I commit. We have another gospel of writing

where Jesus says, I commit my spirit.

And that word there is the idea of I actually entrust you. I am submitting myself to you, Father.

And he released his spirit. He gave up his life.

And at that moment, the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two.

Again, this is a four-inch thick curtain.

And from top to bottom, the earth shook, rocks split apart, and the tombs opened,

and the bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the

dead, and they left the cemetery after Jesus' resurrection,

and went into the holy city of Jerusalem and appeared to many people.

This curtain is now torn in two from the top to the bottom, showing that it's

from God that he's doing this.

And so now James, when he goes to God, when he prays to God,

he can go directly to God.

He doesn't have to go through a priest. He doesn't have to do any of these Old

Testament laws Because he now has direct access to God.

Because we haven't recorded in Hebrews that Jesus is our high priest.

And we can go to him. Jesus broke the grave.

Matthew 28, 1-6. Now after Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day,

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And 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.

And his appearance was like lightning, his clothing white as snow.

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

But the angel said to the women, Don't be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who is crucified.

He is not here, for he is risen. As he said, Come, see the place where he lay.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb And she wept And she stooped to look

into the tomb And she saw two angels in white Sitting where the body of Jesus had lain.

One at the head and one at the feet They said to her, Woman Why are you weeping?

And she said to them They have taken away my Lord They have taken away my King

I do not know where they have taken Him Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing.

But she did not know that it was Jesus.

And Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

Supposing her to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried

him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

And Jesus said to her, Mary.

And she turned to him in Aramaic and said, Ravani, which means teacher.

She obviously was excited to see that Christ was alive.

He tells her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your

Father, my God and your God.

And Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord.

And then he had said these things to her. As Dent was talking about earlier,

the disciples came to look for themselves.

And you think about this here, where Mary is literally coming.

You have the disciples hiding, fulfilling prophecy, right?

And then now you have Mary coming and Jesus speaking to her, revealing himself.

We see the side of Jesus where he shows Mary his love for her.

And then immediately she says, Rabbi, teacher.

And now they go and they tell him that they come back later.

And Jesus spends time with them.

And then Jesus ascends back into heaven.

And he says, wait here in Jerusalem.

Because the Holy Spirit is going to come. The Holy Spirit is going to come,

and he is going to enlighten you, and he is going to come, and he's going to

come on all the believers. So stay there.

So they're there, and the Holy Spirit comes and shakes, and the church begins to grow.

And the church begins to grow crazy. It was growing like crazy,

and more people are added to it, So much that the disciples got overwhelmed

with all of the care that they had for the people, for the believers.

And they decided that they need to bring on some, what they call deacons to

serve, to serve the church.

And so Stephen was one of those deacons.

And they would take care of just the everyday of making sure that the widows

were fed and that all these things that as the church began to grow,

these body of believers began to grow by the thousands.

And so there's a day now that the Jewish leadership, the same Jewish leadership

that was there that tried to kill Jesus, right? They thought they were done with him.

But now they're realizing that they're not done with Jesus.

He had broken the grave. He had ascended into heaven, and now this rebel group,

they called it The Way, was growing like crazy.

And they wanted to stop it. They were losing control of religion.

And then we have our brother, Stephen, who just lets him have it.

Acts 7, 51 through 58. So think about this in your mind.

Go back there and see Stephen now.

He is fired up. He didn't care if he had to die.

He did not care if he had to die. Remember, he is talking to this Jewish leadership.

He is talking to all these people, the same ones who crucified Jesus and tried to stop the way.

He said, you stubborn people, you are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth.

Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit?

That's what your ancestors did, and so do you.

Name one prophet your ancestors didn't persecute.

They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the righteous one Talking about Jesus,

the Messiah Whom you betrayed and

you murdered You deliberately disobeyed God's law Even though you received it

from the hands of angels And the Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen's

accusation And they shook their fist at him in rage But Stephen,

he ain't stopping So Stephen says, full of the Holy Spirit, gaze steadily into

heaven and saw, now God is showing this to him,

saw the glory of God and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God's right hand.

Can you imagine what Stephen is seeing right now as he's looking up?

These Jewish leaders are trying to stop the way. They're trying to kill the church.

He's standing there in front of them all with boldness.

And God shows him Jesus standing at his right hand.

And Stephen doesn't keep it to himself, but instead he says, look,

I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing in the place of honor at God's right hand.

And this is how tipped off these people were, these same people that crucified Jesus.

And they put their hands over their ears and began shouting.

And they rushed him. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

And his accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

The significance that Jesus now, they did not want to hear this,

that Jesus is now standing at the right hand of God, the place of honor.

He is ruling his kingdom.

Again, he has declared that he is king.

King Jesus spent his time here on earth rejecting what these priests and the

Jewish leadership were all about, all about religion and,

Instead, he desired to build relationships with his adopted children.

You see, last week we looked at the kingship of Jesus.

Jesus declared himself king, but not the king that we would think where he's

going to come and rule and not take on any pain.

But instead, King Jesus takes on all of our sin.

He took on Patty's sin. he took on Paul's sin he took on Autumn's sin he took on all of our debt,

you see our lives are filled with debt but not the debt of money neither debt of sin that we have,

and that there's no way that we can remove this debt and this debt damns us

to eternity away from God but now our king King Jesus now he declares himself before,

Pilate says yes I am king and then as a lamb he goes and he doesn't open his

mouth and he begins to take on all the punishment and his blood flows.

And that blood flows and as he commits his spirit and releases his spirit and

he says God I commit or I entrust you I'm submitting to you, Father.

And he gives up his spirit. And all of a sudden, the ground begins to shake.

Graves open up. People who are dead come back to life.

And Jesus' blood has been poured out for us. Our debt is...

Paid, paid in full. And he doesn't stay dead. He comes back and he reigns over death.

He breaks the grave. And now he stands at the right hand of God.

And that's who he talked to God through.

But you see, King Jesus has an enemy.

His enemy is the evil one. The idea behind Satan is the word there is that he

is the chief adversary, the chief person going against everything God is trying to do.

That's who Satan is. But Jesus now is our king, and he's offering to anyone,

but it's full allegiance to the king Jesus, to King Jesus,

or full allegiance to the chief enemy of God's plans.

When we make Jesus Lord of our life, King of our life, we are submitting to

his kingship, his rule, and we get those eternal benefits.

In the same way, if you rejects God, you're with the enemy for eternity.

So when King Jesus calls and draws you in and begins to show and uses the Holy

Spirit to turn on the lights.

The Holy Spirit.

To show you truth. So you may ask the question, okay,

where should I start reading or studying to understand this relationship of

Jesus' death that made this possible? Where should I start?

We probably recommend to start the Gospel of John.

If you want to understand fully what Jesus did for you, that's a great place to start, the Gospels.

And as a believer, as someone who has made Christ king of their life,

Jesus wants full control over us.

Not a little, but full control.

What does that mean? It means that we have to do exactly what God says. He's our king.

How do we know what Jesus, how do we know what God expects from us? We go to his word.

His word tells us exactly what that's all about.

Jesus I pray today I pray today Jesus in your name that you would cause your

Holy please use your Holy Spirit to turn on the lights,

Jesus you tell us that when you talk to,

Nicodemus you said unless you be born again you cannot enter my kingdom so Jesus

if there's one here that's just still searching, struggling,

and you are doing a work in them, God, I pray that you wouldn't stop and that

your work would come alive.

And Jesus, I pray that you would do the work.

And for the believer, for the one who's already made for my brother or sister

in Christ, we're joint heirs with him.

Jesus, I pray that our lives would match up with full allegiance to you.

Every area of our life, not just the ones that are easy, but in every area that

our lives would be backed up by full allegiance,

whether it's the way we talk to our wives, our co-workers, our kids,

the way we think, the way we behave, all of these, all our entirety of our life,

Jesus, may we be in submission to you.

Please, Jesus, help our lives to match full allegiance to you.

And for those people in our lives who are in darkness and they don't understand.

Jesus, I pray that we wouldn't be judgy.

We wouldn't look down on them, but instead that we would be burdened as you

were for the lost, for those who are searching.

And not throw stones, but instead go with truth, the truth of your word.

So Jesus, I pray you would equip my brothers and sisters this week to not keep

the gospel, that good news, quiet to themselves and expect somebody else to do it.

But Jesus, please put someone in our path that we can share your truth because

you tell us through John that that light cannot be extinguished.

The evil one who's the chief adversary of you desires to keep this world in darkness.

But you, on the other hand, Jesus, you are the light.

So Jesus, I pray that you would use us this week to bring the light to a dark,

hurty, and searching world.

We thank you for your kindness to us in christ name we pray amen let's stand and sing.

In the darkness we were weary, without hope, without light.

Till from heaven you came running, there was mercy in your eyes.

Truth within the law and prophets, to the virtue came the word.

From the throne of endless glory, to the idol in the door.

You Is Father Is that a song Freep is Speech We,

So you Can I Glory Majesty Trails Forever.

Music.

To reveal the kingdom coming, and to recuse out the lost,

to redeem the whole creation, You

do not despise the cross For even in your sight Be a sight to the other die

The wilderness will sound of salvation Jesus will save you down,

My name is the spirit.

Three, one, two,

three, three, three, two, forever to the king of kings.

Music.

And the Lord made that huge, all of earth unheld its breath,

till that stone was moved for good, for the Lamb had conquered death.

And the dead rose from their tubes, and the angels stood in awe,

for the souls of all who'd come to the Father I rest.

And that suffices.

And see it will never play Visit Gospot through the moult Scum by Muriel shall

not fade By heading to Barley,

if things lay It is rear my head,

Marie For the love of me, the throuse Who led the world of death And may Oh Oh Oh Oh,

Oh Oh Oh Oh.

Music.

Isn't that great truth?

If you haven't had a chance yet to meet Ethan and his bride,

Madison, this young couple up here, he is from Memphis. Did I say it wrong?

Hunter? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, okay.

100 real lamb you go by you go by medicine okay okay cats okay make sure we're

clarified but if you have not met and heard ethan's story it's pretty cool so

whether it's today or another time make sure to get to know ethan's story how

god worked and is a young like 13 or what,

god started working about what about 11 or 12 or so and he started searching

and he searched through and God just began to turn on the lights in his word.

And by about age 14 or 15, he came to know Christ and made Jesus Lord.

And it's a pretty cool story.

And just a young couple.

They're a bunch of love, right?

But he's got a new job down at the prison in Newberry. So please make sure to get to know them.

And they're a very sweet couple. We're excited about them being here.

And he found out when you were about 16 or 17 that his grandma told him that he was actually Jewish.

And God has gifted this guy with a desire to learn scripture and actually the original languages.

So he's been learning Hebrew. His grandpa taught him Greek.

Pretty cool how God's working in his life. So please get to know him and just welcome him.

Jesus, I pray today. I thank you that we get to celebrate you.

Our flesh wants to do more Because that's just how we're wired But the reality

is Jesus you already did it all So Jesus please help us to take joy in that

Help us to take comfort in that But not to hide our light,

But Jesus that we would take what you are doing in our lives And not keep it to ourselves,

Jesus I thank you That we get to worship you I thank you for your church We

confess you, Jesus, as Lord.

Yes, I pray for Kayla today as she comes home.

I pray that you would just make this first night a very enjoyable night as they

make adjustments to this new little bundle.

We thank you for Kinsley.

I pray that you would keep her safe.

May she come to know you and make you King and Lord.

So Jesus, we love you and we thank you for your kindness to us and your grace that you showed to us.

In Jesus' name, all God's children.

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