Jesus Didn’t Stay Down

Good morning, Good News Church. Happy Easter, Good News Church.

My name is Mario. I am one of the pastors here. And one thing I used to say

in the early years of this church that I haven't said as much recently is,

I think it is good for Christians to be able to learn from multiple teachers.

And so that is one of the reasons I'm not the only preacher that preaches around here.

For those of you who come here regularly, which I think is most of you,

you know that I'm not the only person that preaches here.

And that's why, because we believe that. And in fact, last Easter,

I was not the preacher, okay?

One year ago today, on Easter Sunday, our associate pastor, Doug Davison,

preached the Easter message.

The title of the message was The Resurrection Movement, and I sat right there

and listened to it along with everybody else.

And at one point, he made a side comment, okay? It wasn't something that was

related to the main point of his sermon.

If I remember right, he just said it, and then he moved on, okay? And this is what he said.

He said, Jesus didn't stay down because no one knocked him down.

And I sat right there. And I mean, he just said it.

He said it like that wasn't like some, you know, thing that the whole sermon

ought to be about. He just was like, so did you stay down?

Because no one knocked him down. He moved on to his next thing.

And I sat right there and I went, oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.

I could do a whole sermon on just that. And I thought, next year,

next year I'm going to do a whole sermon on just that. So, here we are.

It's next year. And so I'm giving you my main idea up at the front here.

This is the main point today.

Jesus didn't stay down because no one knocked him down.

Now, the idea that Jesus didn't stay down is well known.

Okay, Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection, he is famous for that.

And there are different reactions that people have to the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. There's one category of people.

Some people believe in the resurrection. They believe that it happened.

Like in the sense that if you said, who rose again 2,000 years ago, they'd say Jesus.

Or if you said, did Jesus rise again? They would say, yes.

But they believe it in a way that does not involve them understanding the significance

of it. And so it doesn't change their life at all.

Okay, so they would just say like, oh yeah, I guess that happened.

But they believe it almost like what people believe when they go to like a Ripley's

Believe It or Not museum where they'd be like, hey, there one time was a lady

who was able to lift a thousand pounds with her teeth.

And oh, there's this guy that didn't cut his nails for years and years and they grew five feet long.

And there was a time where Jesus was alive and then he died and he came back to life, right?

And it's just like, that happened, but they just say it like it's just,

it's like a crazy thing that happened at some point.

And then they move on and just live their life the way that they were living it before.

This is the second category of people. There are some people who believe the

resurrection of Jesus happened, and they get how that is connected to other

things, like God and sin and eternal life.

And therefore, the believing in Jesus' death and resurrection,

it changes their whole life.

And those people are typically called Christians, okay? And many of you are

here today that are in that category.

Now, I realize there are some people who would say the people in category number

one are Christians, right? They believe Jesus rose again from the grave.

I would beg to differ, but we don't have time to get into that this morning.

The third category of people is that there are people who hear that the resurrection

of Jesus happened and they don't believe it at all.

They just say like, well, that couldn't have happened because that can't happen.

Like, I don't believe someone could die and then come back to life a few days

later. And so since I think it can't happen, I believe that it never happened.

Okay. So if I am going to claim that Jesus didn't stay down,

I want to address why belief in the resurrection is reasonable.

There are many scholars and many thinkers who have addressed this and who have

given pages and pages of reasons explaining this.

One of the big ones, well-respected, at least in the modern era,

that I think is a really big one, it's a book called The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T.

Wright. That is a scholastic and well-respected book on this topic.

And it's just, if I remember right, I think it's really thick.

And it says a lot of things arguing for the historical reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Tim Keller has a book named Reason for God. And this one I've actually read.

I really like it. It's one of my favorite books.

And in Reason for God, particularly chapter 13 of Reason for God in Tim Keller's

book, chapter 13, I think is my favorite argument, like my favorite set of arguments

for why the resurrection really, really happened.

So that's one of my favorites. So those are places you could go if you really

wanted to have like lists of reasons and pages and pages of why would we believe

this actually happened. That has been done before by many people.

For today, I'm just going to give you one reason, okay? I'm just going to give

you one of my favorite reasons to believe in the resurrection, okay?

Are you ready for it? Okay. Here it is.

Our world is the way it is because Jesus rose from the dead.

If he did not rise from the dead, different things would have happened than

what has happened these last 2,000 years.

So before I give you examples of what I mean, let me establish one of the principles

that I'm reasoning by, okay? Here's the principle.

I'm reasoning by the principle that history is connected, okay?

That everything that has ever happened is a domino that was affected by what

came before it and affects what comes after it.

Every situation that's ever happened, every decade of culture that has ever

existed, every century of progress that has ever happened, it went down the

way it did because of what happened before it.

Okay, does that make sense? All right, so let me give you an illustration of

this. A few years ago, I was listening to a history podcast, okay?

And don't make fun of me afterwards. Sometimes history podcasts are cool.

And this particular one, I really liked it. It was an American history podcast,

and it talked about different things that were accomplished during various presidential administrations.

And it's had things that I had already heard and known about,

like the one of the episodes was on Abraham Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln,

it said, was the 16th president and that he presided over the Civil War.

But then there were other things in this podcast that I learned that I didn't know before.

One of the things I didn't know is like, so the Civil War breaks out during

Abraham Lincoln's presidency, the 16th presidency.

The seeds that sort of led to the Civil War go back at least to the Martin Van

Buren administration, okay? Martin Van Buren was the eighth president, okay?

Now, nobody wooed for Martin Van Buren, and I think there's a reason for that.

He's sort of a president that nobody knows about. Like, unless you're really

into history, nobody knows who Martin Van Buren is.

It's just, you know, I mean, if I asked you to list presidents,

you could probably list 10 or 20 of them, and you still wouldn't list Martin

Van Buren, because who knows who he is? Nobody does.

He was a real president and he, in fact, you might recognize him. Here's one thing.

If you are a visual person and you had a history teacher, like in middle school

or high school, that put up all the portraits of all the presidents on the wall,

okay, then you might remember this guy's portrait.

So he's early on. He's the eighth president and he's the guy,

he's bald on top and then he has these wings like shooting out the side of his head.

It's sideburns and like side hair that was all mangled together and then I guess

it was a windy day that the guy painted it. And so it was like shooting out like this.

So no hair on top and big, big, huge wings on the side.

Do you guys remember him? Yes. Okay. That's Martin Van Buren.

He looks like somebody's crazy grandpa.

So there were decisions that were made during the time of Martin Van Buren and

his administration that ended up leading to the Civil War eight presidencies later. Okay.

And so my point here is that nothing just happens.

Everything happens because of the things that happened before those things happened.

And if you already knew that before you walked in today, thank a history teacher. Okay?

So, here is what happened historically because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

First of all, when Jesus rose again, there were people in the first century who,

who claimed to have witnessed it. Like they said, I saw that happen.

I saw him alive after he was dead.

Okay. People in the first century claimed to have witnessed the resurrection.

Historically, this is undeniable. Okay. Someone could say he didn't rise from

the dead if they want, but it's, but, but I think everybody has to admit people

at the time said that that's what happened.

They said that's what they saw. Okay. We have documents that prove that that's

what they said at the time. Not only do we have Matthew, Mark,

Luke, and John, but we have 1 Corinthians.

This was probably the most important one in this case. 1 Corinthians is actually

the oldest document that we have that says Jesus died and he rose again.

He died and came back to life. And it was written by someone who said that he

saw him alive after he was dead.

And that book is dated to the middle of the first century, okay,

during the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

So people were making these claims at the time.

And the news spread like wildfire, leading to the establishment of many Christian

churches in the Roman Empire at that time.

So something happened, and then all these people said, we saw him come back

to life. And then they started talking to people who started talking to people,

and the news went around.

And so then there were these things called Christian churches that started showing

up all around the Mediterranean Sea.

And these are things that did not exist before this moment. I don't know if

you've noticed. in the history of the world, there was no churches, okay?

Like no First Baptist, no First Presbyterian, there's no churches,

no churches for a long, long, long, long time.

And then suddenly there's one century where something happened,

and then there were a whole bunch of them that just started existing.

And this happened during a time period when Christianity was persecuted.

So there wasn't really like good reason to go around and start talking about

this to everybody and forming these little clubs of people that all believe

Jesus rose again and Jesus is Lord, because this was a time where Christianity was being persecuted.

So there's no reason to actually spread the message at that point unless something

very convincing took place.

It would have to be something a lot more than just a nice man who went around

and said, love one another.

Something miraculous happened that kicked off this huge thing.

So something caused the birth of the Christian church. If Jesus' resurrection

didn't cause it, then what did?

Because something crazy happened in that century that made it unlike that which had come before.

I guess what I'm saying is like history was sort of moving in a particular direction,

like things were happening, and then something happened in that century,

and then things went, and like

the world just started doing something different than it was before that.

The world went in a different direction than it had been going.

And so from there, you have the next domino, and the next domino,

and you have what happened in the second century, and you have what happened

in the third century, and we have writings from the early like Christians and

church fathers from that period of time.

And you have the formation of the Roman Catholic Church, and eventually you

have the Protestant Reformation.

And then there comes this point where there are a bunch of people in England

who claim to believe in Jesus.

And some of them are called Puritans, and some of them are called Separatists.

And some of them get on boats, like the Mayflower, and they come over here.

And they settle this land, and they sort of found the country that we know of as the United States.

People came here, essentially, I think the initial people came here,

a lot of them came here for like religious freedom, that we want to be able

to worship Jesus the way that we want to worship Jesus.

They came over here and formed what we know of as the United States.

There was a document that was drafted at that time known as the Declaration of Independence.

And if you've ever read it, you will know. It's not an atheist document.

It's not a particularly Buddhist document or a Hindu document.

The Declaration of Independence says, among other things, that men are endowed

by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

Apparently, that was a widespread belief at that point, right?

That humans had rights that came from somewhere, and they were rights that were

such a big deal, they trumped even what the king said.

And these rights came from their creator. Like there was a God who created them

that gives them these rights.

That idea, that worldview came from somewhere.

You get that? It came from something that was before it. And the place that

it came from before it, that place came from somewhere that came from somewhere

that came from somewhere.

And so here we are now, like as the dominoes have fallen, we are now living

in a society that is so much more Christian influenced than many of us realize.

I mean, I bet you everybody in this room believes in equal protection under the law.

Okay. If you don't know what that means, I bet you, you still believe in it.

Equal protection under the law

is this belief that it seems almost every American I've ever met believes.

And that is if a poor person is accused of a crime, they shouldn't get any less

justice than if a rich, powerful person is accused of a crime.

Right? We all just seem to believe that.

But why? Where did we get that from? Is that what most humans were into for most of history?

Yeah, poor people should be treated like everyone else. Is that what humanity was into? No.

But for some reason, we all are. it's like something happened that caused this,

there are people in our country that go around and not even necessarily Christian

people but they think people ought to be nice to each other and sometimes if

you have to have like a standard of how much niceness they will say well I think

you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you well where do we get that?

That like that's the standard Jesus popularized that sometimes you'll hear people

say things like this they'll go like oh the prodigal son has returned or they

will say oh she is such a good Samaritan I can't believe she helped those people

that she had just met earlier that day.

Where does that come from? I mean, that comes from the teachings of Jesus,

but people say it without even knowing that those terms come from the teachings of Jesus, right?

So my question is, how many other Jewish carpenters do you know that you quote from 2,000 years ago?

Okay, a Jewish carpenter from 2,000 years ago, how many other ones do you quote?

How many other ones do you see people, how many Jewish carpenters from 2,000

years ago other than Jesus do people quote on accident?

I bet there's not anybody in this

room that even could name another Jewish carpenter from 2,000 years ago.

We just know about the one because something very significant happened, right?

Here's one. How about this? In movies, sometimes you'll see this,

especially in action movies. There'll be a character. Sometimes it's a good

guy. Sometimes it's the bad guy.

But it's somebody who's about to like blow someone else away,

okay? This is like action adventure movies.

And so they'll say something to the person that they, you know,

the whole movie has been like building up to this, okay?

And they're there and volcanoes erupting in the background. and then there's

like someone that comes up and the guy pulls out two guns, okay?

And he'll say something and the other guy will say something snarky back and

then he'll go, go to hell. And then he'll go.

Which is a very inefficient way to shoot. Like that is absolutely not how,

if you're gonna kill people, that is not even the way to do it.

But in the movies, they think that looks cool.

Okay, now here's the thing. That little phrase that the guy says,

and this is in a lot of movies, okay, go to hell.

And there's a sense in which you would say, well, that's not a very Christian

phrase in the sense that it's not a very nice thing to say.

But there sort of is a sense in which it's a Christian phrase, right?

This person that's saying this just before he starts shooting is when he says

go to hell, it is a wish that the person he's blowing away will receive wrath

upon him after death. Okay, so here's the question.

Why do they say that? Did every culture throughout history believe in a place called hell?

No. Oh, but it's been pretty popular these last 2,000 years. Why?

What I'm saying is our world right now is the way it is because of what came

before it, which is the way it is because of what came before that and what

came before that and what came before that.

And a lot of things would have no explanation unless something significant slash

miraculous happened to Jesus of Nazareth 2,000 years ago that set all of this into motion.

However, my big point today is not simply that something significant happened

to Jesus of Nazareth. I mean, I do believe that, but I believe more than that.

Because if you just believe something significant happened to Jesus,

you could believe like a crazy thing happened, like sort of that he's not even

responsible for. No, it was just like this thing that happened to him.

No, rather, the thing I'm saying today is that it was God the Father and Jesus

Christ's plan ahead of time that this would happen.

Remember, the point is Jesus didn't stay down because no one knocked him down.

Jesus' death and resurrection happened and did not happen on accident.

Like when I say no one knocked him down, I'm saying Jesus did not die against his will.

Jesus did not die in contradiction to God's plan.

It's not as if the day that Jesus was crucified, God looked down and he went, uh-oh.

I did not see this coming. how are we going to make lemonade out of these lemons this is not good.

Oh i've got an idea the resurrection okay that is not how it went down no it was always the plan,

so i want to quickly share five passages with you this morning okay we won't

spend any of them too long in each one but i want to briefly touch on five different

passages that show you that jesus didn't stay down because he wasn't knocked

down and the first one i want to show you is in Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

So if you have your Bible, go to Matthew chapter 16, verse 21.

Matthew 16:21

And Jesus had been traveling and talking with his disciples.

And then at some point he got them, he started talking to them about something

different, and he was preparing them for the future.

And so he says this, this is Matthew 16, verse 21.

Matthew 16:21

From then on, Jesus began to point out to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem

and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes,

be killed, and be raised the third day.

So I want you to notice Jesus is talking to his disciples and he's saying,

like he is predicting ahead of time what's going to happen, right?

He's saying, I'm going to be killed and I'm going to be raised on the third day.

Not only does he predict that it's going to happen ahead of time,

he points out that he's, like notice it says, he began to point out to his disciples

that he must go to Jerusalem.

Like he's saying, if I go to Jerusalem, I'm going to get killed and then come

back to life. And he said, so we must go there.

So in other words, not only is Jesus saying this is going to happen.

Jesus is saying like, I'm part of making this happen.

I'm purposely going to go there so that it will happen.

And so it says he began to point this out to his disciples because he started

saying it over and over again at this point.

There's at least three times, I think, in Matthew where it says that he said

something like this. Let me show you one of the other ones. Matthew chapter

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

20. It's a few pages over.

Matthew 20, verses 17 through 19 says this.

Matthew 20:17–19

While going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the 12 disciples aside privately and said to them on the way.

Listen, we are going up to Jerusalem. Don't you notice?

He's not a voice. He says, this is where we're going. I'm choosing to go here.

This is where we're going next. We are going up to Jerusalem.

The son of man, that was a term he used to refer to himself lots of times.

The son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes,

and they will condemn him to death.

Then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged,

and crucified, and he will be resurrected on the third day again he predicts

what happens he says where it's

gonna happen and he even says now let's go there so that it can happen,

Look at John chapter 10. John chapter 10, starting in verse 17.

John 10 · chapter mention John 10 · chapter mention

It says, this is why the Father loves me, because I am laying down my life, so I may take it up again.

Interesting, laying down my life is a phrase you use. It's like,

well, no, it's not that someone's taking it, it's I'm giving it.

And then he not only says I'm laying down my life, but he says,

so I may take it up again, right? That's a reference to the resurrection.

I'm laying down my life so that I may take it up again. And then look at the

next verse. He says, no one takes it from me.

That's what I mean by no one knocked him down. No one takes it from me,

but I lay it down on my own.

I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again.

I have received this command from my Father.".

The next story I want to show you is in Matthew chapter 26. This is a pretty famous one.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

This is the story where Judas betrays Jesus. And I want you to notice what happens

in the midst of this story.

So I'll just read it. Matthew 26, verse 47.

Matthew 26:47

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the 12, suddenly arrived.

A large mob with swords and clubs was with him from the chief priests and elders of the people.

His betrayer had given them a sign. The one I kiss, he's the one. Arrest him.

So he went right up to Jesus and said, greetings, rabbi, and kissed him.

So this is in a culture where men kissed other men. I assume it's on the cheek.

That was how it was back then. I think it's still how it is in like Italy and places like that.

So he goes to do what would be a sign that would be in that culture.

But I think the reason he picks it as the sign for the people to know who to

arrest is you have to remember at this point, Jesus is in a group with like 11 other guys.

He's a Jewish man with 11 other Jewish men. I can't imagine they all looked

like, you know, radically different, okay?

This is, you know, nobody dyed their hair back then or anything,

okay? So you've got like 11 guys, 12 guys all look the same, and they're in the dark.

And remember, this is before Instagram, before Facebook. Like nobody's got a photo of Jesus, okay?

So we don't have a photo of Jesus, and we walk in, and there's a garden,

and there's these people, and they all look the same.

And so Judas is pointing out with this kiss which specific one of them is the

one to be arrested, Jesus.

Verse 50, friend, Jesus asked him, why have you come?

Then they came up, took a hold of Jesus, and arrested him. And at that moment,

one of those with Jesus reached out his hand and drew his sword.

He struck the high priest slave and cut off his ear. Now, this is important.

That means as Jesus was being arrested, there was at least one of Jesus' disciples

who was ready to fight to the death to stop them from arresting him.

When there's a mob of people and you whip out a sword and start attacking them,

you realize, well, I might not make it through this.

He is ready to fight to the death to protect Jesus from being arrested.

The story says, it says there is a guy.

So I said there's a guy because the story says one of those with Jesus reached

out his hand and drew his sword. Okay.

Another one of the Gospels, John, actually says who it is. Who is it?

Yes, Peter. So Matthew doesn't say that. Matthew's very, very polite,

very kind. He's like, well, one of us. One of us pulled out a sword.

And then John comes along later and is like, it was Peter. Peter's the one who did it.

So anyway, one of them pulls out a sword and starts attacking the people that

are arresting him because he wants to prevent it from happening.

Now, look what Jesus says in response to this. Verse 52.

Jesus told him, Put your sword back in its place, because all who take up a

sword will perish by a sword.

Or do you think, Oh, this is big. I want you to pay attention to this next sentence.

Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and he will provide me at once

with more than 12 legions of angels?

How then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?

As peter is ready to

use violence in order to protect jesus

jesus says no no no no no peter stop we're gonna

let them arrest me okay if i wanted to stop this from happening i could call

down and this is crazy 12 legions of angels i looked it up a legion like a roman

legion in the time period of the roman empire was about 6 000 soldiers so 6

000 times 12 jesus was saying peter We're going to let them arrest me because

if I didn't want it to happen,

I could have 72,000 angels here stopping this right now.

But how would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?

In other words, nobody knocked Jesus down. He could have stopped it at any point he wanted to.

Verse 55, at that time, Jesus said to the crowds, have you come out with swords

and clubs as if I were a criminal to capture me?

Every day I used to sit teaching in the temple complex, and you didn't arrest me.

But all this has happened so that the prophetic scriptures would be fulfilled.

And then all the disciples deserted him and ran away.

The last story that I want to read you is from the book of Acts.

Chronologically, this one happens a little bit later.

So Jesus is arrested. Jesus is crucified. Jesus is buried.

Jesus comes back to life. Jesus hangs out with his followers for about 40 more

days, and then he ascends to heaven.

His followers remain in Jerusalem as they were instructed, and the Holy Spirit

comes upon them. There are miraculous things that happen with the early church.

Peter and John are two of his followers and there was a miraculous healing that

happens really early on. And people are going around and talking about Jesus.

And the Jesus rising from the dead thing had just happened like a few months earlier.

Jesus ascended to heaven probably just a few weeks earlier before the story

that I'm reading to you now. It's Acts chapter four, verse 15.

After they had ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they conferred amongst themselves.

And by the way, this is like very early on in Christianity, and you'll see that

persecution started very early on. People started persecuting Christians super early.

So Christianity has been a thing for like a few weeks. And now,

after they had ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they conferred amongst themselves,

saying, what should we do with these men?

For an obvious sign evident to all who live in Jerusalem has been done through

them, and we cannot deny it. This miraculous thing happened.

However, so this does not spread any further. It was already spreading.

People were already saying Jesus came back to life. He is Lord.

He is the Messiah. He's the person we're to obey. He's going to come back and

bring us all back to life.

We got to get, and so they're going, people are believing this. This is spreading.

So that this does not spread any further among the people, let's threaten them

against speaking to anyone in this name again.

So they called for them and ordered them not to preach or teach at all in the

name of Jesus. They said, hey, you guys can believe whatever you want in your

head, but stop talking about it.

And this is what they said back. Look at verse 19. But Peter and John answered them,

whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than God,

you decide, for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.

So when they say don't talk about Jesus anymore, Peter and John go,

well, the decision is do we obey God or you?

We're going to have to go with God. And then they say something that is so significant,

and I don't think I would have caught it on my own, but a pastor pointed this out to me like years ago.

He said, they said, we are unable to stop speaking about what we have, what does it say?

Seen and heard. In other words, they didn't say, hey, we can't help it.

We've got to tell people what we believe.

That's not what they said, right?

They didn't say, we are unable to stop talking about what we believe.

They said, we are unable to stop talking about what we saw.

Do you see the difference? They're not saying like, hey, we're these philosophers

and we have like these ideas and we got to spread our ideas.

They're not saying that. They're saying, we are eyewitnesses to a thing that

happened and we have to tell everybody what we saw.

So, they get released, they hook up with the rest of the Christians,

and the Christians have one of the first prayer meetings that there ever was.

This is Acts chapter 4, verse 24.

Acts 4:24

It says, when they heard this, and the they there is the other Christians,

they all raised their voices to God and said, Master.

So, this is the content of the prayer. They're praying, and they say,

Master, you are the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them.

You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David,

your servant, why did the Gentiles rage and the people plot futile things?

The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers assembled together against

the Lord and against his Messiah.

They're quoting from Psalms there and then they keep praying.

So I'm going to keep reading, but now they're not quoting from Psalms anymore.

They're just praying. And this is what they say as they pray.

For in fact, in this city, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and

the people of Israel assembled together against your holy servant, Jesus.

Which if it stopped there, you might think, oh yeah, maybe something sort of

unfortunate happened to Jesus. But look at what the early church believed as they prayed.

They said, Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel assembled together

against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed to do whatever your hand

and your plan had predestined to take place.

God was not making the best of a bad situation. This was the plan the whole time.

Jesus didn't stay down because no one knocked him down.

And the resurrection of Jesus Christ is connected to everything else.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is connected to the history that came after it and before it.

I've already talked to you about how it's connected to the history that came

after it, right? because it happened, this happened, and this happened, and this happened.

It's also connected to what happened before it as all historical events are.

And in fact, some of the passages that I read to you, you can see that the death

of Jesus and the resurrection are actually fulfillments of prophetic scriptures that came beforehand.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ

is connected to the spiritual lives of everybody who believes in him.

Like, if Jesus rose again, then Jesus isn't someone who was.

Jesus is someone who is.

If you are here today and you are a follower of Jesus Christ,

like, you're not just believing in someone who was. Like, you believe in someone who exists right now.

Like, Jesus is not just a historical figure.

He's someone who's alive right

now, sitting at the right hand of God the Father, interceding for us.

Yes, we're living our lives right now and there are times where things are going,

like there is grace that is poured out on us because Jesus is right now,

present tense, doing things for us.

Because he didn't stay down. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is connected to

the eternity that his people will spend with him.

I think the Bible connects the first resurrection with the resurrection to come.

That Jesus Christ rose again because the idea is Jesus Christ is going to come

back and he's going to raise all of his people back to life where they will live with him forever.

So that news is not like a Ripley's believe it or not factoid, right?

All of this that I just described for you was pre-planned by God so that our

sins would be paid for, so that death would be defeated,

so that we would turn from sin and we would turn to him and we would trust in

him because everything he ever said was validated by this moment.

And so that we would look forward to our own resurrection one day,

knowing that this is what God does.

This is what he's able to do for those who believe in him.

And all of that is true because Jesus didn't stay down.

Happy Easter, Good News Church.

Let me close with some prayer.

Father, thank you so much that you would intervene in history,

and come and be among us, that you would send your son,

the divine in a body, to live for us and die for us and rise again.

And we do believe his rising again shows, like it does validate,

it does prove that everything he ever said was true and we can trust him.

And so I would imagine maybe there are some people here today who are,

maybe there's some people who would say, yeah, I don't have a resurrection. That's not possible.

And I pray maybe today would be the day that they would even question that and

consider the alternative.

The world wouldn't be the way it is right now if that hadn't happened.

So now what? So I pray that there would be people even today who would begin to believe in you.

And I imagine there may be people in this room who are in the category of like,

well, no, I don't think that's true. Grandma told me that.

But haven't like realized that that means our lives are to be changed and to

be pointed at you forever.

And so I pray if anybody is in that category that they would begin to like truly

believe in you in like a trusting in you kind of way. I pray that that would begin today.

I pray that you would work in their hearts and I pray that they would do their part.

And like trusting in you and turning away from the things that are not of you and turning to you.

And I pray for those of us who do know you. I think this is a good reminder for us.

It's good for us to realize like you didn't stay down because you didn't get

knocked down and you were worthy of all our worship and all the songs we sang

earlier. We're not a waste of our time. And in fact, they're not even enough.

But we worship you in the ways that we can. and you are worthy of everything and more.

And so thank you for the gospel. Thank you, Jesus. That's in whose name we pray. Amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is from John chapter 11.

John 11 · chapter mention

It says, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. That is good news.