to sing to our King. Our King who is victorious and who reigns on the throne even now, the work is accomplished. We don't have anything to offer that can add to the work that Christ has already done. So in coming here today as saints, we don't come to do our part or to in some way prove our worth for the gospel. The fact that it is a graceful gift means it is a gift that we do not deserve. And so we are happy to be recipients of that gift and to count it our greatest joy today as we've gathered together to worship. As the Bibles and note sheets are going out right now I just want to remind you since we have several guests here this morning that we consider this church family integrated in the way that we worship and that means that we are very happy to have little ones with us in the service. We counted a great stewardship that we are blessed by the Lord to be able to raise up little ones and to teach them the gospel. And we think the best way to do that is not to put them off with a bunch of other little kids and just do something special with their own, but to actually integrate them in what we're doing and to let them see the gospel alive in the adults around them and to see the example of faith that we're living out. And that's how kids learn. They model what they see. And so if you've got little ones in here, don't worry about it. If they're making a little bit of noise, that's not a big deal to us. We have learned to. actually love those little sounds because it's an indicator that the families here at this church are growing, that God is blessing us. And so it is a blessing to hear those little ones. If you feel a little bit awkward about that and you want a place that's a little easier, maybe for your kids to be loud and run around, then we do have an overflow room up in our fellowship hall with a live stream. But honestly, there's no need for you to take the kids out of here. It's not going to be distracting to us to the degree where we're not worshiping. In fact, it's going to help us to rejoice. So thank you for having here. Your family's in here with us as we think about Christ. This Resurrection Sunday, I think back on Sundays that came before and the traditions of Easter that have been established over the years. I sometimes hear the question asked, what does Easter mean to you? Have you ever been asked that question? What does Easter mean to you? And I think a lot of times, people really mean well by that question. They often mean, well, how has Easter impacted you over the years? What are some family traditions you have to recognize Easter? Or what memories does the holiday of Easter conjure? in your mind and in your heart, but I do think that too often this question, what does Easter mean to you? It's really an invitation to treat the saving work of Jesus as a metaphor, to interpret Easter in a personal way, to make Easter mean what you want it to mean. Now there are very pragmatic reasons why people often want to think about the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus, which Easter embodies. They want to think about it in metaphorical terms. They do so because a metaphor is, by its very nature, open to interpretation. A metaphor can be taken to mean different things from one person to another. And through the years, people have, in many ways, tried to see Easter through their own particular lens and from their perspective. They have wanted, they have desired to make Easter into what they want it to be instead of celebrating it for what it really is. They see Easter as a time of renewal. They see the spring flowers beginning to shoot up and the crops beginning to grow, and they think of the cycle of life coming full circle. And for them, Easter is just a time to celebrate new life and to celebrate the fact that death doesn't reign over all things, that there is life in the world. Other people think of Easter and they think, well, it's just about transformation in general. We all have things that we need to change, and we see that Jesus was able to come and bring change in the world, and so we too can be agents of change. And so to them, that's what they think Easter is really all about. For others, the cross is a symbol of whatever burden you happen to be carrying at the moment in your own life. And so you look to Jesus and you see how He was courageous in the face of the difficulty of the cross and He rose above those circumstances. He overcame His fears and so can you. And so to some people think that's what Easter is really all about. It's about triumph over your hardships and your heartache. However, Easter and the events that are commemorated by Easter are not symbolic metaphors that are open to our personal interpretation. The question that needs to be asked is not what does Easter mean to you, but simply what does Easter mean? What did Jesus do and what did his work accomplish when he went to the cross, when he suffered, when he was laid to rest, and when he rose triumphant on the third day? What did Jesus do and what did it accomplish? The cross and the empty tomb don't mean whatever we want them to mean. They mean something very specific. And if we misunderstand the meaning, we will completely miss their extraordinary power. This morning, we're going to consider exactly what the saving work of Jesus Christ means and what it produces in the lives of those who have, by the power of the Holy Spirit, come to see it for what it really is. So turn with me, if you will, in your Bibles to 1 Peter and the very first chapter of that book. It's near the end of your scriptures there, near to the book of Revelation. 1 Peter. Before you get there or as you're turning your pages, I want to just sum up a little bit of the context so we won't be going into this text completely raw. After Jesus was crucified, the disciples of Jesus proved to be unsure. They were a pessimistic bunch who feared that their personal safety was also in jeopardy. Their rabbi had just been tried unjustly. He had just been tortured and put to death as a public spectacle of shame. And they were worried for their own well-being. They didn't know what to do. They should have clung to the promises that Jesus made before He was crucified. What did He promise? He promised that if they tore down the temple of His body, that in three days He would raise it up again. They should have been expecting His death, but they also should have been expecting Him to display His power over death. But in the trauma of the moment, in the heartache of losing Christ the way that they did, in such a terrifying manner, instead they retreated, and they hid behind locked doors. They mourned the loss of their Lord. Now, some of these men had seen Jesus die. They had witnessed His suffering. They had watched His lifeless body be taken down from that wooden cross and put into a tomb. But just a few days later, all 11 of those remaining disciples with their very eyes saw this same Jesus, not dead and buried in a tomb, but alive and well, walking and speaking with them, risen and triumphant over death. The resurrection of Jesus meant so much to the disciples that every one of them set their fears to the side, and refocused their lives on spreading the good news, the gospel message of what they had seen, the message that Christ had died, but he had risen again, having defeated both sin and death. They began first in Jerusalem. But when hostilities towards Christians began to rise there, quickly their efforts expanded to surrounding regions. Many churches were planted in the region of Asia Minor, which is to the north and to the west of Israel. But before long, the believers there in Asia Minor began to experience persecution, too. So the apostle Peter, one of the 12 disciples, wanting to be an encouragement to them, writes a letter to these churches to communicate why they should not despair of the challenges that they're facing, why they should not grow hopeless due to the hardships that they're encountering, primarily because of their faith in Jesus. And so we are in 1 Peter. We are in chapter 1. We're just going to read a handful of verses today, beginning with verse 3. Peter writes, According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Please bow your heads with me as we have a word of prayer and thank God for these verses and ask that he would illuminate their understanding to our hearts and minds. Let's pray together. Jesus, we are so very thankful to be gathered here today in honor of the one who deserves all honor. And we pray, Lord, that this passage of Scripture would shine light into our hearts and minds on the great work that Jesus did, and on his perfect character that made him worthy to do these works. Lord God, help us to recognize that this is not just an ooh-ahh moment where we look upon the great feats of someone else, and we witness that, and then we just go and tell other people what we've seen. This is the kind of thing that changes those who see it, has the power to transform hearts. And so I pray, God, that that power be on display even today. For those who have been transformed by this message, may they remember the full impact of it. May they remember how it has transformed them and how their hope is firmly rooted, not in their obedience or any gift they have to give to you, but in the offering of his perfect life that Jesus gave on behalf of them, that their sin might be washed away, that we might stand before you as redeemed sons and daughters of the King. And so we praise you, Lord God, for that power. But for those who do not yet know that power, I pray that the preaching of this word, not just in this pulpit this morning, but in pulpits around the world, would result in new life in those who are currently dead in their sins, seeing their need for repentance and asking for forgiveness from the only God who can give it. You, Lord, alone, have the power to wash us clean. And so we pray, Lord God, that you would use this scripture to your glory and to our good this morning. We pray it in Jesus' perfect name. Amen. Peter begins by drawing attention not to the churches in Asia Minor themselves, though that's who he's writing to, but he begins by drawing their attention to God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As I mentioned earlier, those whom Peter was writing to were beginning to experience this trial, this type of pressure and tribulation as a direct result of their faith in Jesus. They were standing out from the rest of the people in the societies in which they lived, and the attention that they were getting was not all positive attention. Wherever the gospel message is preached, friends, the gospel message, the message we're going to be speaking about this morning, will offend people. I think for two primary reasons. These aren't the only ones, but I think primarily because the gospel message is meant to, by its very nature, expose what is wrong with us. So when you hear the gospel message, it's not targeted at some other wicked person, somebody who's very much different than you. The crosshairs of the gospel is on your heart as well. The gospel offends because there is nowhere to run and hide from it. It shows that all human beings are sinful and have fallen short of the glory of God. The second reason that the gospel is offensive is because this gospel shows us a problem. It shows that there is a divide between man and God because we have all broken His law, because we've all disrespected His authority, and we've all, in a sense, rebelled against His kingdom. But it also deflates all of our dreams of solving that problem on our own. It says you are lost and you need to be found. You are broken and you need to be made whole and there is nothing you can do to solve that problem. Nothing. And so it is a humbling message. It takes away our sense of pride or it infuriates it. It is a message that all who have broken God's law are in deep trouble unless they embrace the one means of salvation that God himself has provided, that being the work of Christ. So this message was offending the people in Asia Minor. They were beginning to respond to God's church with persecution. But in order to truly encourage his brothers and sisters there, Peter must establish the foundation. upon which their hope and joy and peace are built. It's a great book to read in its entirety, but just looking here at these few verses this morning, we're going to watch as Peter lays carefully that foundation for their hope. And so, in order to truly encourage these brothers and sisters, He encourages them first to bless the good and holy name of God. May He be blessed, for He has blessed us so abundantly through the saving work of Jesus. Is your family healthy? Are you financially stable? Are your needs taken care of? Then bless the name of the Lord for He is a great provider and He supplied you with an able body that can fight off disease, that can go and earn an honest living, that's capable of healing itself when it is injured. Bless the name of the Lord. But in the same turn, are you sick? Are you hurting today? Are you disabled? Are you lonely? Are you feeling depressed? Are you broken? then I would say the same thing to you. Bless the name of the Lord. For the fact that you know that there is something better that you could experience means that you've seen the goodness of God, you've tasted of it, you've recognized that this God has given you something, even if it is not what exactly you are hoping for right now, there is still reason for you to give praise to this God, for you are drawing breath in the universe that He has made. You are alive. and He is continuing to be good to you, even though your life has challenges. We are all to bless the name of the Lord. Often when I'm counseling someone who's experiencing great heartache and trial, I like to direct them to a specific book in their reading time. I encourage them to seek the Lord in prayer. I encourage them to think about the love of God poured out on His people, that it is an undeserved love, and that that love can come to even the afflicted and the brokenhearted, especially to them. But I often encourage them to go to the Psalms and to read in God's Word and to hear from His very mouth, for the words of Scripture are not just the ideas of men. They're not just a collection of Christian philosophy over the ages. They are literally God's mechanism for revealing Himself to His creation. The Word of God is especially inspired by God that the things these people wrote down are His words to us. And so I encourage people, go to the Psalms and read this collection of godly worship hymns that have been preserved for the Church over the ages. And I direct them there because in the Psalms you see so much, a vivid picture, of the human condition. And when we are hurting and afflicted, and when we are raw in heart, we need to go and see that we are not the first ones to experience this. That God's people for ages have been contending with the fallout of sin in the lives that they lead. That they have been struggling to live in a broken and a fallen world. And when you go to the Psalms, you'll see that the Psalms are often illustrative of this principle that no matter where you're at in the continuum of blessedness, that you have reason to turn and bless the name of the Lord and be thankful for whatever it is He has decided to give to you. In the Psalms, we read example of real heartache, of real loss, of tremendous need. of real trial and hurt, all honestly confessed to God, along with the accompanying agony and fear and frustration that come with those struggles. And yet again, and again, we see repeated in the Psalms of supplication that the one who begins by crying out to God, the one who feels hopeless, In the process of handling their fears and worries to the Lord over to Him, they cannot help but remember that they're handing them over to a God who truly loves them. They are crying out to a generous and a holy God who is good and righteous and who will not ignore. They cannot help but remember the promises of the covenants that God has made with His people over the ages. They cannot help but consider the many mercies that God has already shown in inviting us to be a part of His people. And their song of hurt and desperation gradually transform into a song of adoration and thanksgiving. Let's just look to one of these Psalms just briefly. This is a quick one in Psalm 56. Psalm 56 gives us a brief picture of this principle at work. The psalmist begins by crying out to the Lord and pleading for God. Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me all day long. An attacker oppresses me. My enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly when I am afraid. And so this individual is confessing their weakness here, they're confessing their fears, they're being honest to the Lord God, but look where this psalm quickly starts to drift to. When I am afraid I put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? You see, the person who wrote this psalm in one moment is terrified about what man can do to them. They're concerned about being trampled, but then they remember the power of God, and if they are in God's hands, really, what can man do to one who belongs to the God to whom all resources belong, to whom all power is available? All day long they injure my cause. All their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife. They lurk. They watch my steps as they have waited for my life, for their crime. Will they escape? and wrath cast down the peoples, O God. You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Think about the ways that describes God's precious love for us and how he cares for our needs, that he bottles our tears in a sense, that he knows every longing of our heart. Are they not in your book? And then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? I must perform my vows to you, O God. I will render thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. Do you see the progress there? That as the psalmist, and this is truly framed as a prayer to God, did you notice that? As the psalmist sings out, he's not singing to the fellow congregants, he's singing to God. And he's pleading for God's help. But as he pleads and as his affliction is heavy upon him, that burden becomes lighter and lighter through the course of even the song, this prayer, as he remembers that God does not ignore those who belong to him. So when we pray, and when we praise our God, prayer has two distinct effects. It has a practical effect. Just as we read in Psalm 5, verse 16, The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So we pray knowing that God can hear that prayer and that if He wills, He can practically change things. He can respond to our prayers in ways that our afflictions can shift and can be healed. We pray to ask God to intervene, to defend, to restore. So there's a practical impact that prayer can have on us, but prayer also has what I call a therapeutic effect. And this can be even more beneficial to us. Therapeutic because prayer ministers to our heart by turning our hearts back to the God who loves us so. Reminding us that he has not left us. He has not forsaken us. And that he has not treated us unjustly either. Not now or in the past. He has more than proven his loving kindness and mercy to his people. And so despite whatever we're going through, we can take comfort in knowing that the God we serve is a good God. who has already blessed us and has blessed us well beyond what we deserve. And so Peter begins his letter to these persecuted churches by reminding them that the God they need help from is a faithful God who has already granted them everything pertaining to life and godliness through the grace of salvation they've received. Blessed be this God and blessed be Jesus Christ, his Son, whom he has sent. In fact, those who live today and sing praises to God today, I believe we have a distinct advantage in worship over even those whose praises are recorded in the book of the Psalms. Thanks to our perspective in history, we have been shown so much more of God's plan for redemption than He established even before time began. We can praise God for His attributes, for His calling a people to Himself, for His covenants. And we can also bless His name for sending His Son to be the fulfillment of those covenants. His Son is the propitiation of our sin. It washes away everything that is wicked in our lives. And so we can praise Him seeing the fruit of those prophecies fulfilled in the life of Christ. Peter refers to this redefining event in the last half of verse 3. He says, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Now, this statement needs to be unpacked if we're going to zero in on the true meaning of Christmas. And that's what we're trying to establish this morning. Remember that, that we are Christmas? I need to hear the message too, right? There's confusion in this little heart. The true meaning of Easter, right? It's what we're here to establish. You're paying attention, that was a test. Passed with flying colors, brilliantly. There is hope that every Christian should have. It is a special kind of hope. It is a hope that will fortify our hearts when life gets difficult. We will spend a good amount of time thinking specifically about that hope in a moment, but that hope comes to us by the process of being born again. It's not everybody's hope. It's the hope for those who have trusted in Christ and who have been born again into this living hope. So now in order to be born again, you have to have already been born once, right? To be born again means you were born once, and now you need a different kind of birth. So let's all start by raising our hand if you've been born, right? Anybody in here? Good. That's most of you. Those of you who did not raise your hands, you can fill me in later on how you got here. I'm very interested to hear that story. So if you were already born once, why do you need to be born again? Why do you need this second birth that the scripture talks about? You need it because there is something that was wrong with your initial birth. And that's a universal truth. I'm not talking about a birth defect, I'm not talking about sickness or a disorder or anything like that. There was something even deeper wrong with your first birth. Now if you still have your Bible open to 1 Peter 1, where we're really studying this morning, I want you to just scan down and I want you to look at verse 23 for just a moment because Peter is going to bounce back to this issue in a moment and I want us to look at this. 1 Peter 21 verse 23 through 25 says, So he's talking to believers now, those believers in Asia Minor. but of imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower fails, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is good news that was preached to you." So here we have the answer to why the first birth that we've all experienced here is not good enough. We need another one. That's because the first birth was a perishable birth. The second birth is necessary because the first birth that you experience does not last, friends. You were physically born into this world, but you were born of perishable seed. That means that the moment your physical body started living, it also started dying. It started marching towards the inevitable end of death. Now after the winter, the hills around Antioch, if you live in this area and you're familiar with it, they're a vivid green. And it is one of my favorite times of year just simply because of the splash of amazing color that God paints the hills with in this area. They're full of life. But as the weather begins to heat up, you know what's bound to happen in this area. Like clockwork, that green grass will start to dry up. It will start to die. The water goes away, and it fades from a vibrant green to a bleached out yellow. And that's what Peter's talking about in this illustration that he shares with us. The same is true of our flesh. Though our time here on Earth is quite a bit longer than the one year cycle of the grass is. or the flowers that adorn the fields. Nevertheless, our lives do not last forever. And some of you are currently in a stage of life where you're beginning to feel the creak of that decline, where you wake up each day reminded of the fact that you were born of imperishable seed, and for some it's a great burden. There is tremendous pain as our bodies begin to remind us regularly, you are mortal, you are mortal, you are mortal. And that inevitable physical death is a side effect of an even more serious spiritual death that man has to contend with. Every man since the first man, has sinned and broken God's law. And the consequence of that failure is, you guessed it, it is death. The wages of our sin against God is that we as humanity are faced with this inevitable end of death. But death of a spiritual nature, not just of a physical one. A death that doesn't come eventually and gradually, but we are literally cursed with death from the moment we are born in that our spirits are dead to God. Let's hear it from the pen of the Apostle Paul this time, speaking about our life prior to being saved by God's grace. He writes in Ephesians 2, one through three, he says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. And he's speaking about people who are walking around living, they have a pulse, they have a perfectly good blood pressure, but apart from the grace of Jesus, spiritually, inside of us, there is something that is dead. and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, that's Satan, that's not God. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. That is the default. situation that every man, woman, and child enters into this world with and has to contend with. The body that your spirit calls home right now is made of perishable seed, but apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ, your spirit is also dead as a doornail and is inclined only to carry out the desires of the flesh and not the will of God. To be spiritually dead means that we, without Christ, are powerless John 15 5 Jesus says I am the vine you are the branches he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit But he shows the opposite of this coin. He says for without me you can do nothing So as a spiritual dead person, we might do things that seem good, but they do not have any connection to the God of goodness. They might be practically helpful for us in the moment, but there is no spiritual merit to them if we are at the same time rebels to the kingdom of God and insulting the God who gave us life and who stands for truth itself. So we are powerless apart from Christ. We are powerless to return to God in our spiritual deadness. John 6, 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up at the last day. We don't even want salvation. And that's why earlier I prayed that the Holy Spirit would be doing inside the hearts of those who perhaps have even heard the gospel a hundred times and have remained cold-hearted to it and blocked off from it, that the Holy Spirit would change that heart this morning. Because unless God does a work in you, you will never do a work for God. We are powerless to return to Him. And thirdly, we're powerless to obey God. We're powerless to please Him if we are dead in our sins and we are not in Christ. Romans 8, 7-8. Because the carnal mind is at enmity against God. That means there is mutual conflict. God and the lost person are enemies. Whether they profess it or not, people who do not love the Lord God and trust in Jesus Christ are battling against His kingdom. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So there is much we cannot do with a dead spirit. If you think the decline of your body is serious, the death of your spirit is even more so. The fact that our bodies have a shelf life is a problem. No one's excited to face death, but the greater problem is that until the grace of God brings about a regeneration in us, our spiritual deadness means that we are at perpetual war with God. We all sin by way of our nature, and that sin is a great offense to the God who's responsible for bringing about justice and righteousness. That's why the gospel is offensive to the lost mind, because of the spiritual war that is currently raging around us. So we need a way to conquer death, physical and spiritual, but that can only happen by the means of being born again. Not only in a physical sense, but also in a spiritual sense. Peter tells us that the means by which this new birth is accomplished is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's how you and I can be born again, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, most of us are familiar with the story of Easter in general. That Easter is about Jesus, who lived a perfect life, being willing to offer His life as a sacrifice on the cross, that He might be a substitute for sinners, so that people who would trust in Him might have their sin placed upon Him. that the cosmic burden of our sin might be felt by Christ and not us, that he died, was crucified, a brutal death, did he die by the hands of Roman soldiers, that he was buried, and then after three days, he proved his divinity. He proved that he was more than just a great example of manhood, but that he was in fact God in flesh, and he did so by rising from the grave. He triumphed over death. We know that. We're familiar with that. But why does Peter, count the resurrection as the means by which our new birth is accomplished. He specifically says that. He doesn't talk about the death right there particularly, he doesn't talk about his burial. Why does specifically Peter link our hope with the resurrection of Jesus? Surely the death of Jesus accomplished much. There was no doubt power in his death. Simply reading the gospel accounts, we can see that when Jesus was crucified, darkness overcame the earth for several hours. And when he breathed his last breath, there was a tremendous earthquake. And the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, heaven to earth. that place where the Ark of the Covenant and the very presence of God was believed by the Jews to dwell, that separation was destroyed in a moment. And with that earthquake, the tombs of many saints broke open and the dead rose and walked around alive after who knows how long of being in those tombs. So there was great power in the death of Jesus, but Peter points not to the death of Jesus, but to his resurrection. on the third day as the means through which we can be born again and have a living hope. And there are a couple reasons why the resurrection plays this critical role. Resurrection is indicative of the type of change that salvation really accomplishes. Salvation is not just getting you off the hook from hell. Salvation is God coming in and changing you. It is not transformation of degree. It is not God making you a better person. It is a transformation of kind. You are no longer an enemy and a rebel to the kingdom once Christ gives you the new birth. You are now a child of the living God. You're not outside of the gates. You are in. You belong to Him now. You are born into a new form of life. You were once spiritually dead, and now you are distinctly spiritually alive if you are a Christian. 2 Corinthians 5, 16 through 17 says, From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Do you see this distinct change? Not just a change of degree or quality, but a change of kind. The old has died, it has passed away, the new has come. Romans 6, 4. We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Not in a better life, in newness of life. God's church is sometimes described as a spiritual hospital, a place where those who are spiritually sick come to be healed. And while there is some truth to that, healing does happen among the people of God, that metaphor really doesn't carry enough weight, I don't think. We are not spiritually sick apart from Christ. We are spiritually dead apart from Him. We need more than healing. We need the Holy Spirit to wake up our dead hearts and to give us the kind of conviction that used to be just proud indignation. We need a transformation. So that is one of the main reasons why Peter emphasizes the resurrection specifically as a means by which we get this living hope. Resurrection communicates the need to die to our old way of life and walk in a completely new way of life, which is something that only the Lord Jesus can enact in us. But there is more to it and we will be better, we'll be better able to see the critical role that resurrection plays when we really consider what Easter is all about. Not Christmas, Easter. God is a God of love, is he not? But part and parcel with that love, inseparable from that love. God is also a God of justice. He's a God of truth. There is no love without truth. Our culture has largely forgotten that fact, but it doesn't make it any less true. Truth isn't true because it gets the majority vote among the popular sentiments of our day. Love without truth is nothing more than a charade. God cannot be a God of love if he does not also secure what is good and punish what is evil. That is an expression, a necessary expression, of His loving character. So when we learn that the consequence of sin is death, that the just punishment for breaking God's law is that our life should be taken away from us, that we should die for this insurrection against our Creator, we begin to realize why the death of Jesus Christ was necessary In order for people like you and me to be set free from the debt of sin that we owe to God, someone has to pay that debt for us. Our debt cannot be simply forgotten, it cannot be overlooked. You might argue, well, why is that the case? If God is all-powerful, and we confess here today that He is, if God is all-powerful, Why can't he just do whatever he wants to do? He doesn't have to send Jesus to die in our place. In fact, that sounds kind of cruel to me. Why would Jesus be sent to earth to suffer if God could just expunge your record? Can't he just erase our debt and move on? It's a fair question, but it fails to recognize that yes, God is all powerful, but he is also, by his very nature, good and righteous. If God overlooks our sin and treats it as if it is nothing, then God has failed to be a loving God. For God has fallen short of His responsibility to judge sin justly. That is His loving responsibility to us. It is impossible for God to violate His own nature in that way because His nature is perfect and must remain consistent. So friends, we all have sin. And if that sin cannot be simply forgotten or ignored, if God cannot just pretend that it never happened, then that leaves only one way for us to be released from the debt of sin. That leaves only one way for us to move from spiritual deadness to spiritual vitality. We must find a way for someone else to pay that debt on our behalf. Who can accomplish this? Who can pay that debt of sin and satisfy the good and holy wrath of God? Who is worthy to do that? Who qualifies to stand in our place? If you searched the whole world over, you wouldn't be able to find a single soul who qualifies for that today. Because every soul on this world has broken the law of God. And every soul on this world was born into the curse that we inherited from Adam, which is the curse of sin itself. As Romans 6.23 reminds us, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So we are all in the same boat, friends. We are all suffering from the same spiritual deadness because every man and woman who has been born since the first man and woman have inherited this debt of sin and have partaken the sin nature by which we are naturally inclined to break God's law. It's just normal for us to do that. So the answer is not here with us. Left to his own devices, man is a doomed creature. He needs saving. He cannot save himself. He cannot overcome his debt with good works because a spiritually dead spirit cannot do good things for godly reasons. There is no one worthy to take our place and endure the punishment of sin because everyone carries his own debt. Man is powerless to please God. The answer is not here. So where does the answer come from? It comes not from earth, but from heaven. It comes from the judge himself, from the one who is responsible for making sure that every sin is properly punished. In love, God chose to enter into our physical, fallen, broken world in order to bring the solution for our sin problem. Christmas celebrates that taking on flesh. Christmas celebrates the taking on of flesh, right? See? It belongs in the message. It's part of the gospel. Jesus, who is God the Son, friends, came and was born in a manger. Born as a baby, a human baby, with a human nature that was in all ways just like ours with one exception. Jesus was not born of the line of Adam. He was born through a divine and spiritual conception. So he did not inherit what all of us have inherited. He did not inherit that sin nature. Would he be able to walk his whole life and keep the law of God? He proved every step of the way that he alone could do that. That apart from this sin nature, Jesus was continually focused on the Father. He was constantly obedient to the law of God. He was careful to keep every law, but he was also diligent to express the love that God calls his people to express, and to do the works that God had prepared him to do. Jesus did what we could not, and because He did what we could not in keeping the law, He was qualified to do what we could not, and offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins because of His perfect obedience to the law. He fulfilled it all in His life. And so every minute of His life was a battle for your salvation. Think about that. Every temptation that crossed Christ's path was a battle for your salvation. He did not allow the ways of this world to corrupt Him, because if He had, He couldn't go to the cross for you. He would not have been worthy to be the sacrificial lamb that you and I needed. So every moment of His life, He battled for your good. Leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus revealed to his disciples that he had been the plan of salvation all along. He had come to fulfill the law, but man needs more than an example. He needs a substitute. He needs a sacrifice to pay the penalty of sin. So Jesus, qualifying to be that sacrifice, would allow himself to be tried as a criminal and put to death. He would allow Himself to be treated as if He was sin itself. He would allow the full wrath of the Father to come justly upon Him. And in doing so, all of the sins of the faithful would, in that moment, be crushed by God. They would be rightly and legally punished the way they have to be. The debt of sin would be paid, and those who trust in Him would be forgiven and washed clean that they might be born again and drawn near to God. Now Jesus said something else, and I don't want us to miss this. Luke 9, verses 21 through 22. And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, the Son of Man, he's speaking to his disciples here, he's revealing his plan to them. He says, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes and be killed. And on the third day, be raised. There was more to the plan than just death. And that's why God the Father was no brutal child abuser when He sent the Son to the cross. God the Father knew full well that in His divine Son was the power and the capacity to take this punishment upon His shoulders and to not be diminished by it, to not be erased by it, that Jesus alone, being God and man, could go to the cross and suffer our death and yet not be extinguished. So he took that upon himself, and he took it upon himself with every intention on the third day after his death to display his power, not only over sin, but over the product, the consequence of sin, over death, the final enemy. If Jesus does not raise from the dead, having proclaimed that he would do so, if Jesus fails to walk out of that tomb on day three, then what does that make Jesus? That makes Jesus a false prophet because He Himself declared to many that He would raise on the third day. Now if Christ's sacrifice for us is contingent on His perfect obedience to the law, if He lies even one time, He's disqualified. He cannot be our propitiation. So in keeping his own promise to rise on the third day, he proved that he was not a false prophet, he was not a liar, and he secured for us the salvation of his substitutionary atonement. If Jesus does not raise from the dead, his prophecy is false, he's proved a liar, and he would therefore no longer be a suitable substitute for our sin. The hope of the Christian hinges entirely on the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians, which we studied just a short while ago, so this might be fresh in many of your minds. Verse 17 of chapter 15, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ, being those who have already died but were Christians, they have also perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So now, friends, we're about to almost understand the weight of this special hope that is ours now, thanks to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Christian has a living hope because Jesus Christ is not dead. He's not our hero who died and is gone now. He's our hero who conquered death and is alive. And if you are in Christ, you are alive in him. So too will the Christian, upon their physical death, be one day raised and given a new body that is suitable for the eternity that we will inherit as his newborn children. Now that we're in the family of God, those who are his sons and daughters have the legal right to an inheritance in his kingdom. So through this new birth, we get a special kind of hope, and it is this living hope which Peter uses to invigorate his brothers and sisters in Asia Minor who are going through terrible trauma and would experience even more persecution as time rolled on. Now why is this living hope different than the hope that exists in this world, the hope that all people try to grasp through, the hope that so often seems to be firmly in your hands but slips through so easily? My son has a pet hamster and her name is Carrie. And she's kind of big for a hamster, fuzzy, cute little thing. She is an escape artist. We don't know how it happens, but she finds a way to get out of the cage. The other night, my wife nudges me at 3.30 in the morning, and she's trembling. I can hear she's terrified. She's got the phone light on, and she's shining it to the edge. And there in the spotlight is Carrie. Frozen. Doesn't want to move, just hoping we'll not see it if it's still. She thought it was a rat, but thankfully it was just Carrie. And when you grab a hamster, if you've ever held one, they're so good at just finding what other crack exists in your hand. And they just squirt out. They find a way to get out of your hand. And worldly hope, not the living hope we're speaking of today, but worldly hope is like that. It's like something you feel like you've got, but in a moment it just jumps out, it finds a way to escape. And then you've gotta find a different hope. You've gotta replace that first hope with another hope. And so some people say, well here's my hope, here's how my loneliness will be solved. I'll get me a spouse, and I'll find somebody who's gonna love me like no one else. And is that a blessing? Yeah, marriage is a blessing of the Lord. But is it a cure for our loneliness? Not absolutely. And many who find themselves in marriage find this, wow, I'm still experiencing some of this loneliness that I thought would be cured by my spouse. There are those who think, I know what the cure is. I'll work hard, and I'll get a great job, and then the bank account will be full, and I won't have to worry anymore, and I'll have the resources to do the things that put a smile on my face, and they think there's my hope. That's what I'm shooting for. And they get it. And it just doesn't seem to be enough for them. And they think, well, that's no problem. I've gotten this much. I'll get more. And they shoot a little further down the road. And the hamster squeezes right out from between the fingers. And that hope just keeps on going. And the hope never does anything real. It is an empty hope. It is nothing more than an optimism. The possibility that something good could happen in the future is the hope of a dying world. The living hope that the Christian has is not founded on our optimism. It is not founded on the promise of a God who says maybe. It's founded on the promise of a God who cannot lie. And so it is a hope that cannot fail. Listen to the way that Peter describes the inheritance that falls to us because of the surety of this living hope. It is imperishable. It is undefiled. It is unfading. It is kept in heaven for you. Before we close, let's just take a few moments to focus on each of these promises because there is power here, friends. There is encouragement here. There is life here. The first three terms say remarkably similar things. They speak of the durable and lasting character of this inheritance that we've been promised. It is an inheritance that is first imperishable, meaning that it will remain a living hope. It will not be rendered null and void. The last enemy that Christ defeated was death, and He defeated that enemy by showing His power over death when He rose from the tomb. Remember that 1 Corinthians 15 described the resurrection of Jesus, if you remember our study back then a few months ago, as the first fruits of the resurrection? What did that mean? That meant that like when a harvest, when a crop has been sowed or has been reaped, and then the first sowing starts to happen, and the first part of the harvest comes back and it's tasted, and oh, this is good. This is healthy, this is vibrant. The firstfruits of that crop means that there is much more to come. It is a guarantee of a good harvest. Christ's resurrection was the firstfruits of a great harvest, that all who trust in Him would one day surely rise alive with new bodies fit to worship Him eternally. Those lives will last forever. Those physical bodies will be like our physical bodies now, but devoid of every deficit. They will not have any of the weakness. They will not have any of the sickness or the brokenness. All believers who have been made new by the gospel will be made new physically as well as spiritually in the same manner in which Christ rose from the grave. And the new bodies that we will receive will not be touched by sin any longer. I can't think of a greater relief than to know that one day we will wake up in the kingdom of heaven and you will not be capable of sin. The temptation will have died. You will not be inclined to it. You will not be able to break the law of God anymore. You will only ever get joy from doing what God has called you to do, fulfilling your design that God has put into you, the design to bear the image of God well. This is an inheritance imperishable. It is also an inheritance undefiled. That means that this inheritance that God promises us cannot be corrupted by circumstances outside of itself. This inheritance will not go rotten over time. It doesn't have an expiration date on it. In many ways, salvation is meant to return us to the state of the things we were in when Adam and Eve first walked in the garden. They walked in a time when they had perfect fellowship with the Lord. Before they sinned against Him, they worked hard for the Lord and loved it. They had abundance all around them. God provided for their every need, and they just trusted Him perfectly. There was innocence. There was fellowship with God. They were fulfilling their design. But really, God is actually returning us to a better state than that. Because for all of its purity and goodness, Adam and Eve were obviously corruptible. Sin was able to make its way in and deceive them. The serpent proved it. The inheritance that we will experience, thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, will be incorruptible, undefiled, so that we do not have to worry about losing it again due to future sin. What a relief that is to the heart. And thirdly, it is an inheritance that is unfading. The nature of the gift is such that it is built to have a lasting impact. It is not a temporary fix that will need to be displaced by a better hope in the future. Every idol that man has ever made for himself has some power, the power to make us think that we are filled with joy for a moment. People wouldn't pursue sin if there wasn't a little thrill to it, right? And so we often find ourselves thinking that our God can be our job, or our community, or our popularity, or our beauty, or our health. And all of these may for a moment give us a sense of assurance. But eventually, it fades. It degrades. It becomes less and less. Your bodies are not the only things that are perpetually falling apart. So are the things of the world that shine and sparkle. The flower of the field fades and dies. But the treasure that we have, promised to us, that we store up in heaven, it lasts forever. Now the fourth characteristic of this living hope is different than the first four. It doesn't speak directly to one of the characteristics of the hope itself, but rather speaks to the role of the one who gave us this gift in the first place. Peter says that this inheritance, which brings about our living hope, is being kept in heaven for you, not by you. Being kept in heaven for you. Who's keeping it? The mighty hands of God are keeping it. The mighty hands of the one who never fails are keeping it. This prize will remain because of who is securing it, not because of your perfect church attendance, not because of the great offering you put in the bag a little while ago. It's going to remain secure because God is holding on to it. It is firmly rooted in His fist, and no circumstances can cause that to be lost. Romans 8, 35-39. We're almost finished, folks. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we, the apostles, are being killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And so it didn't slow them down. It didn't take their joy away. They knew that God was holding on to them, even if they were burned at the stake for what they preached and believed in. They had a living hope. Verse 37, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, kept for you, not by you. Not only is our inheritance being guarded, friends, we ourselves are being guarded. We talked about being a part of an army. We sang that before the sermon started today. And we have every reason to go into battle with confidence and assurance because God is keeping us too. He is keeping our soul. Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So we're being guarded by faith. And how can you be passively guarded by faith? It's clear in that passage that we're being guarded by something outside of ourselves, but also by faith. That means that the faith you're being guarded by doesn't start in you. It's not something you mustered up the strength to have. It's not something you intellectually came to. It is God's grace that you have faith in Him. And He will continue to supply that faith until the last day. This is a salvation ready to be revealed. And that's not to say that the Christian is not yet saved. It's not that salvation is only future tense. For everyone who is trusted in Jesus Christ is surely saved. Among the last words that Jesus spoke when he was on the cross was the declaration that it is accomplished. It is finished, right? Not that it has begun. We're almost there. That's not what he says. It is finished. Christ has accomplished the salvation for his people by giving his life upon that cross, but salvation is not simply a point in history either. It's not done. It is ongoing. It includes also the ongoing work of God keeping us as a covenant people to himself. And so Peter does not say that our salvation won't happen until the last days. He says it will be revealed to us in the last days, that we will experience it in a more vivid way, that we'll see it even more clearly than we do today. when Christ returns for his church? Do you see how our living hope hinges on the resurrection of Jesus Christ? All of this really begs two questions, church. Do you have this living hope? And that is the most important question that we asked, not just this morning on Easter, but any moment of your life. Do you have this living hope? Is your eternal security safe in the hands of God, or are you currently juggling the possibilities of what may be one day or may not be? If you've been fighting the battle of man-made religion for a long time, and you've been trying to impress God or convince yourself that you're worthy of heaven, drop that burden. Let the balls fall to the ground. Realize today that your only hope for salvation doesn't come from this world, it comes from above. Christ can be your living hope. Confess your sin to Him today. Tell Him that you need Him. Ask Him to give to you what you cannot give to yourself. And rest in assurance that He alone saves. So that is the most important question here this morning. And if you do not yet know Jesus as your Savior, if you've not been gripped by His love yet, maybe He is doing that today. Maybe today is the day of salvation for you. I would urge you, come and talk to myself, come to talk to Pastor Paul or Pastor Ross or one of your friends that brought you today. Tell them that you need this and that you desire it. Tell them that God is doing a work in you. But there's a second question here today, because I assume that many of you came because you know this living hope. And so let me ask you, if I were to look at your life, could I tell that you have a living hope in Jesus Christ? Are you living in such a way that the burdens of this world are just a small thing compared to the joy you have in your Savior? Do you understand the depth of the love that the Apostle Paul described in that passage in Romans we read just a minute ago? And does it give you hope? Does it give you joy and peace? Does it conquer whatever ailment you have currently before you today? Christian, let this Easter be a time where you reflect on the beautiful gift that has been given to you, and then may your gratitude for that gift swell to overflowing as you leave this place and rejoice in the fact that it is not even up to you to keep this salvation. It is such a generous gift that God is even preserving it for you. But having that salvation should you not be filled with the joy of God. should you not recognize your burdens and call them what they are, a light momentary affliction in comparison to the great promises that God has given to you and Jesus. Looking back at verse 3, God did all of this according to what? He did it all according to His great mercy. He did not do this to pay you back for what you had done for him. He did this simply because he wanted to show in a vivid way his graceful and loving heart. And so praise God for salvation. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Bow with me as we pray, please. God, we thank you for your grace. There is no end to your love for your children. I wish, God, that everyone in the world was a child to you, but we have read in your scriptures today the clear declaration that some are following after the prince of the air, they're following after the enemy, the deceiver, Satan himself, Lord God. And we don't even have to follow after Satan. We can just follow after our own wretched and sinful heart. If we are apart from Christ, we have no living hope. But I know, Lord God, that the gospel has the power to transform because I am standing here today as one who did not have an interest in you until you put an interest in me for you. And so I pray, God, that you would do that very work today. And I pray for those who have counted you as Father for years now, for some time, that you would awaken in them a renewed sense of awe and wonder for what you have given. It's not that the gospel lost its luster and you needed to replace it with something new. It's that they had turned their eyes away from the true joy they have currently in you. Every blessing is ours in the heavenly places if we call upon the name of Christ as our Lord and Savior. And so remind us, Lord God, and forgive us for not being as bold and as joyful as we should be, Lord. Help us to know that your love for us is not contingent on the right reaction, but we do trust, Lord, that the transformation you've brought in our lives is real and it will bring about obedience in time. And so we look forward to that change, God. If we need milk, we need just the simplest of gospel messages right now, then give us an abundance of milk and strengthen us so that we might one day begin to digest the more complex doctrines and realities that describe the truth that you have brought about in our lives. Help us to be ever-growing, edify our hearts, Lord God. Give us a heart for those who do not yet know you. And may we preach this gospel boldly and frequently liberally to the people around us that they might hear that you are good. We bless your name God and thank you for all this in Jesus name. Amen.