for your goodness in sending Christ. We ask, Lord, that this morning you would give us understanding as we seek to look at your word and consider the benefits that we receive from the resurrection of Jesus. We ask, Lord, that you would Help us, Lord, not only better to understand our justification, but to grow in sanctification that you would give us hope of eternal glory and of life that would sustain, strengthen, and establish our hearts in the fear of you. Lord, we pray that you would do all these things for Christ's sake in his name. Amen. All right, so we're going to be looking this morning at question number 44, but before we look at that, turn with me briefly to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and then we're going to go back to Acts chapter 2 in just a moment. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is a chapter which deals with the resurrection Specifically the resurrection of Christ and then of course the resurrection of believers as Connected to Christ Paul gives us great insight into what that will look like how we would understand the resurrection of the body From that chapter, but just read with me if you will from beginning in verse 12 As he starts the chapter he He reminds them of the gospel which he preached, which he says was of first importance. And part of that gospel which he preached was not only that Christ was delivered over and died for our trespasses, but also that he was raised on the third day. We saw this also in Romans, but in chapter or in verse four twelve there he begins to to speak about the claim of some that about the resurrection he says if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead but if there is no resurrection from the dead then even Christ has been raised has not if then Let me reread that. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Knew there was a not somewhere, but it was out of order. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised for if the dead are not raised. Not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then also. Those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So the argument goes like this. Those who claim that there is no resurrection, he said, if there is no resurrection, then Christ is not even raised. And if Christ is not even raised, then we've testified falsely about God and If this is all there is to the Christian life, then of all men, we're the most to be pitied. We're the most pitiful lot in all of humanity if all we have is hope in this life in Christ, which is what would be essentially the reality if Christ had not been raised, if there was no resurrection. Now I say all this not because this is new information, it's just because so often when we think about the gospel we don't think about the importance of the resurrection or what the resurrection itself means to us as believers. Why is it so essential that in our preaching of the gospel we have an understanding of the fact that he was crucified, buried, and raised on the third day? We speak much about the atoning work of Christ. We speak much about the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, about his crucifixion and suffering of the wrath of God on behalf of sinners, his what we would call passive obedience, right? He was put to death and thus absorbed God's wrath as part of our justification. He removed the penalty by his death, his active obedience, his holy life is what is credited to us. But what role does the resurrection have? Paul says without the resurrection, there is nothing. In fact, we are of all men most to be pitied. We would be false prophets testifying falsely about God. If Christ has not been raised, then you are still in your sins. Your sins have not even been forgiven, even though he was crucified and died and buried. If he was not raised, then that means you're still in your sins. But in fact, verse 20, Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep for as by a man came death by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ, the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of God to the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death. So the resurrection is a very important part of the gospel. And our question, question number 44 today is really just considering why is this so? The question very simply is what does the resurrection of Christ profit us? In one of the commentaries I was reading, and I would struggle to remember which one it was. One of the lines that I read is that there are, I think, 260 chapters in the New Testament, and there are over 100 references to the resurrection of Christ in the New Testament, which means there is essentially one reference to the resurrection for every two chapters of the New Testament. This is a very, very prominent theme throughout our Bibles. And yet we seem to have so little emphasis on it and so little understanding of it other than, you know, an Easter sermon or something of that sort. So just for this morning, we're going to consider what are the benefits of the resurrection of Christ. Now, as I said, let's look back at Acts chapter two. This will be our text that we're going to kind of consider as we're looking at this. Acts chapter two, you remember, was. When Peter had the Holy Spirit had come, the Pentecost had arrived, the church was baptized with this great power, they began to speak in in their own language, and all the people were hearing in various tongues, whatever their natural tongue was. Peter was hearing the apostles preaching in their own language, and they were astonished by this. This is what the biblical gift of tongues was. It was not gibberish. It was not some angelic talk. It was the apostles preaching in their tongue and the people hearing in their own. But Peter stood up, And he preached this this sermon after which he had preached 3000 were converted. But this is essentially what the sermon was. Verse 14 Peter standing with the 11 lifted up his voice and addressed the men of Judah. And all who dwell in Jerusalem let it be known to you and give ear to my words For these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But it is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit and they should prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs in the earth below blood and fire and vapor and smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes the great and magnificent day. And it should come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, it's pretty common today to read these words and think that that's talking about some future time in some miraculous dispensation of a week of years when God is pouring out these cataclysmic judgments on the earth. But Peter said this is what was taking place on the day of Pentecost. So we have to understand the words of the prophecy, interpret the words of that prophecy in light of what Peter has said. The last days were the period of time that began when Christ came. They're the period between his first and second coming. And God had prophesied in the Old Testament that in those last days he would pour out his spirit on all flesh. And so what was taking place there the day of Pentecost at if you want to call it the birth of the New Testament church, when this baptism of power came to the church and the Holy Spirit came in this mighty rushing wind, this was the fulfillment of what had been long expected and long prophesied. This is what Jesus had meant when he said, wait in Jerusalem until you are endued with power. Peter begins to explain the text and he says, men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be healed by it. I heard a statement this week from a preacher that I greatly respect and so I don't want it to sound like I'm criticizing his words. But it's something that probably I would have said in years past. But I don't think it's exactly accurate. The question was posed to this man about expository preaching why expository preaching was such a good way to preach the word of God and he said it's not a good way to preach is the only way to preach. The trouble with that is that the apostles and our Lord himself were not expositors in the way that we think of verse by verse chapter by chapter. through the Bible. Now I am very much committed to the concept of expository preaching. There are lots of reason and rationale and benefits for preaching through the Bible that way. But we have to be careful as we make such statements because you look here at Peter's even his sermon and he doesn't go verse by verse through this prophecy of Joel. He reads it but then he begins to make application. He's not doing what we would normally think of as an exposition. And then he will quote from the Psalms after that. That's just a side note, just a thought. I just want to throw that out there. But notice the central theme of his message. Is not some. Eschatological prophetic. Concept of the future, but it is the centrality of the gospel. Jesus of Nazareth. The man attested back to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst this Jesus foreknowledge by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God that is by the predestinating work of God. He was delivered over not because you're more powerful than God because you are more powerful than Jesus. He was delivered over because God had predestined him to do so. God was the one Romans 3 remember that put him forward as a propitiation in his blood. God was the one Isaiah 53 who was pleased to crush him. So it was God who delivered Christ over to be executed at the hands of lawless men. The greatest travesty of justice the world has ever known is the thing which God used to work the greatest good, which is the redemption of all of his people throughout all ages. And God determined to use the lawlessness of men to accomplish his good, and yet he is unstained by their lawlessness, and he didn't make them lawless. But yet their lawlessness, it was not outside of his will. Again, sometimes we look at circumstances of life and it seems like, you know, we even refer to things as being out of the will of God. What we mean by that is there is a prescriptive will of God. This is what God prescribes. If you violate that, you have violated his will. But then we also speak of the decreative will of God. The decreative will of God is what God has determined to happen. What God determines to happen is going to happen and he uses. Whatever he wants to make it so. I think it was. I think it was Brother Paul, maybe at G3 this I saw a clip of his message and he said if all the nations of the world were gathered together. And they were. You know. Throughout all the ages even every nation all their powers and they gathered together and they came against the Lord It would be like a gnat attacking Mount Everest You know, I mean, it's just nothing less than nothing Absolutely less than nothing God sits in the heavens and he laughs So It was by the definite plan of God, by the foreknowledge of God, that he was delivered over, that you should crucify him and kill him at the hands of lawless men. But, verse 24, not only did God deliver him over to be executed, this is kind of the point, God raised him up, loosing the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Now, there's a couple things that you should notice here. First of all, God is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. When we say God raised him from the dead, what do we mean by that? Well, I would suggest that the whole Trinity was involved in the resurrection of Christ. sometimes we get kind of tunnel vision when we think about these things but just like when we speak of the creation the whole of the Trinity was involved in creation we're told that God said let there be light we're told in first John or in John 1 1 that it was the Word who made all things that are being the Son and And we're told in Genesis 1-1 that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. So we have the Father, we have the Son, and we have the Holy Spirit. All three actively involved in the creation of the world. We think about the redemption of mankind. We have the Father's electing and predestinating work. We have the Son's work of redemption on the cross. And we have the Holy Spirit who applies redemption to men. And so we have the whole of the Trinity involved in not only the creation, but also the recreation. But here we have even in the resurrection in the crucifixion resurrection. In the crucifixion, it was God by his definite plan in his foreknowledge that delivered Christ up. It was the spirit who sustained him. He was given the spirit without measure. And Christ himself, who bore the wrath of God in the resurrection, it was God, the father who raised him. It was the son who took his life back up. Jesus said, no man is able to take my life. I give it freely. And if I lay it down, I will take it up again. And of course, the spirit we're told was involved in the resurrection of Christ in Romans chapter one. He was raised by the. By the spirit, so. When we see the words, God has raised him up, obviously the emphasis is on the Father's work, but we should keep in our mind that the whole Trinity was involved in the resurrection of Christ. Secondly, we should note that it was absolutely essential that Christ be raised. God raised him up, loosing the pains of death. Why? Because it was not possible for him to be held by it. is the reality that it wasn't. First of all, he could not be conquered by death. The God of life could not be held into the chamber of death. I was reading Donald Gray Barnhouse. He noted that ancient pagans believed that cemeteries, graveyards, were Basically chambers where the dead were kept Okay, and so I mean you can even see this in our society a lot of this superstition about you know zombies And you know spirits and graveyards and things of that sort But they had a word for Graveyards that kind of I can't I couldn't spit I couldn't pronounce the word to begin with but the word kind of I encompass that idea and then some of them would begin to they begin to cremate you know of course there were lots of different societies and they would burn the bodies or whatever they would but there were some society began to cremate the bodies and they would put them in urns and they would save the ashes it was still that same kind of mindset but the early Christians used a term for graveyards that's the sound it was a Greek word that sounds like cemetery but it was a word for barracks in in the army and so the idea was that here their bodies are laid in the grave like a like a soldier sleeps in his barracks but when the bugle is played in the morning he rises and believers are laid in their graves their bodies are laid in their graves waiting for the trumpet of God when they will arise and be called home to be with him the reality is the resurrection of Christ happened because it was not possible that he could be held in the chamber of death couldn't be kept there in his barracks as though he were perpetually asleep but he also he was raised not only because it was impossible but because it was necessary had Christ not been raised We just read in 1 Corinthians 15, our hope would be in vain. We would still be in our sins. We would be of all men most to be pitied. And so that just causes, we should look at that and say, why? Why is the resurrection so important? The resurrection was not the part of the work of Christ which actually brought atonement, right? It wasn't where he was suffering the wrath of God. Why was the resurrection so important? Well, the resurrection served a couple of purposes, but chiefly what the resurrection served was it was the affirmation of God's receiving of the work of Christ. And the resurrection brings to us a number of benefits. Now, our question that we began with was what What does the resurrection of Christ profit us what benefit do we have from Christ's resurrection and the catechism itself gives us three benefits the answers the says first by his resurrection he vanquished death that he might make us partakers of that righteousness which he had gotten us by his death second We are now also stirred up by his power to a new life. Lastly, the resurrection of our head, Christ, is a pledge to us of our glorious resurrection. You can kind of see this pretty easily outlined. There are three benefits here. The first is our justification. The resurrection of Christ brings to us the benefit of justification. When we first hear that, it seems so strange. Whoa. Thought our justification was tied with the death of Christ. Remember, we read this not too long ago in Romans. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised up for our justification. The death of Christ was a death which was for our trespasses. He was delivered up on the account of our trespasses and he was raised up for our justification. Does it mean that he was You may remember this, you probably don't, but when we went through that verse, I said, there's a number of ways that you could translate that. And we have to be careful that we don't translate it in such a way, because the words are the same, to think that, you know, like we might translate this way. He was delivered up because of our trespasses. That seems reasonable when we understand delivered for our trespasses. We were trespassers, we were sinners, therefore he was delivered over. But if we say that, then we also have to say he was raised because we were justified. Well, that doesn't make sense either. And so that's not the right thing. But essentially what he's saying is he was raised for the purpose of bringing about our justification. He was delivered over for the purpose of dealing with our trespasses. He was raised for the purpose of making us to be justified. That's the idea of that verse. So the resurrection is connected to the justification of Christ. How? Or excuse me, the justification of the believer. What it does is it gives to us the righteousness which Christ had actually accomplished. We talk about the obedience of Christ. We speak about his obedience in two forms. Active obedience, that's his life, his holy life. Passive obedience, that's his sacrificial death. His obedience and death wiped away the penalty of our sin. His obedience and life is given to us as a credit. It's credited to us. The resurrection is the thing which affirms our right to have that. It is necessary in order that God give us the righteousness which Christ had accrued. He accrued righteousness in his life and in his death, but the resurrection is the way in which he has given it to us. So without the resurrection, his life and his death, we would have no guarantee that it was accepted by God. We would have no guarantee that his righteousness was sufficient. Maybe the easiest way to understand the resurrection is like the Amen of God. So Jesus on the cross said it is finished and the father said amen on the third day by raising him from the dead. It really is finished. There really is nothing else to pay. There really is no other need of any righteousness. So as a believer we don't have to keep adding righteousness to Christ. We don't have to do penance in order to make up for our sins as though Christ and us have made atonement for our sins. Sometimes in the South you hear people talk about you know such things and else they'll use phrases like this me and God have our own thing worked out well no that's not true that's not the way that's not the way it works you and God don't have the anything worked out it's either worked out by the death barrel and resurrection of Christ or it's not worked out at all your sins are either dealt with or they're not and the resurrection of Christ is essential to that So the resurrection enables us to be partakers of the righteousness which Christ had gotten for us. That's our justification. The first benefit that we receive from the resurrection is the benefit of justification. To be declared right, to be credited with righteousness, that Christ had acquired and accumulated in his life and in his death on our behalf. The second benefit that the catechism tells us we receive from the resurrection of Christ, which Peter said was absolutely essential, is our sanctification. Now this ties very much into what we've been studying in Romans 6, though Romans 6 is not a chapter which is specifically about sanctification. It does have implications and instructions about sanctification in it. The resurrection of Christ is the thing that brings us the benefit of sanctification. We read this verse, I believe it was last week or week before last. We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death. In order that, remember there's your purpose clause, 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. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. If we have been planted, if we have been grafted in Christ, Notice specifically in the likeness of his death, a death like his, that in the same way we shall certainly be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection. So the The resurrection of Christ the our union with Christ and his death guarantees that we will be resurrected with him his resurrection guarantees our resurrection if we were united with him in a death like he is which is what baptism says right we have been initiated into the kingdom of God we have become identified with Christ it is a public statement that we have been joined to him in a death like he has we've been united to him every way the person of Christ the whole cross the whole God the work of Christ we have union with God through Christ if that's the case then there is an absolute certain guarantee that we will also be raised because Christ was raised if he was raised we will be raised if we have been united with him in his death we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection but don't miss this before the resurrection comes in order that verse 4 Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might what? Walk in newness of life. Remember the argument that Paul had made there? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? No, that could never be. It's not possible that a believer just continue living the same life that he used to live when he was an unbeliever. That's not a possibility. No Christian would think that way. If you preach the gospel of free grace as Paul does, that the law came to increase the trespass and when sin increased, grace increased all the more, there is the accusation that if you preach that way, people are going to think, well, why don't we just continue to sin so that we can live any way we want and that grace would be increased and so it's an excuse to allow for lawlessness but Paul said that's not possible the reason it's not possible is because someone who has come to faith in Christ has actually been united to him if he's been united to him he's been given a new life a new head a new kingdom he can't live the same way he used to live And just as surely as Christ, whom we have been united with, was raised from the dead, our newness of life is also guaranteed." Now, that doesn't mean it's just going to happen, right? And we're going to see a lot of the exhortations and things as we get on into Romans. Sanctification is not an automatic thing that just happens, okay? You just go along and you wait for all your sins to be vanquished. I was reading a book recently by Henry Scogle. called The Life of God and the Soul of Man. It's a little tiny book. I recommended it a few weeks ago, but it was a book that was given by Charles Wesley to George Whitefield, and God used it to convert Whitefield. He said he never really understood true religion until he read that book. But I could not find this quote, but I remember reading it, and it just stood out to me. He was talking about how as a believer, we are to battle our sin. And he said, we can't just wait until all of our sinful passions go away and wait until we feel like being holy. We must pursue holiness. We are commanded in scripture to pursue holiness. So there's effort on our part. But he said, a man who's just waiting for all of his sinful passions to go away is like a fool that stands by a river waiting for all the water to run by so he can walk across. It's never going to happen. There's this constant fountain at the top, and so the water keeps running by. And he's just standing there thinking, well, it's eventually going to run out. Well, the reality is, sanctification is not something that's just guaranteed. But we don't produce our sanctification either. This is why I mentioned the farming thing on Wednesday. Farmers labor. They work hard. They can't make seeds grow. They can't produce a crop. They're out there plowing the field, they're out there pulling up the weeds, they're out there doing all of this soil testing and fertilizing and adding minerals to the ground and they're turning the ground and breaking the ground up and they're putting seeds in the dirt and they go home and they sleep and hope it rains on it and pray that it rains on it and pray that God makes it to grow, but they cannot make that seed to grow. All of their labors are not producing fruit, but no one would be foolish enough to say that their labors are Meaningless, right? We know that their labors have meaning. Without that labor, the crop will not be there, yet their labor is not what produces the crop. This is very similar to the way we should understand sanctification. We have labor to do, but we're not producing our sanctification. That is a fruit of God's work in the lives of his children. But it's not going to happen automatically any more than you're just going to drive down the road and find a a field full of corn and think that it just grew up on its own like sage grass. No it there has to be work that is done but it was the resurrection that brings to us this benefit of sanctification and that's that's what Paul is saying here. Just as we were buried with him by baptism into death, we were buried with him in order that, just as he was raised from the dead, we might walk in newness of life. We now, as believers, have been freed to walk in newness of life. We have now been put into a state of, what Augustine would say, passe non peccare, able not to sin. The third benefit that we are given here in the catechism by the resurrection of Christ is not only our justification not only our sanctification but also our glorification it's worded to us this way lastly the resurrection of our head Christ is pledged to us of our glorious resurrection we saw that also there in Romans if we've been united with him in the death like he is we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like he is Paul's argument in first Corinthians 15 if Christ is not raised he said if there are people who saying there is no resurrection not really going to be raised but if we're saying we're not going to be raised then that means Christ wasn't raised if Christ wasn't raised that means we're false prophets that means that Our sins have not been dealt with, our justification has not happened. This is the only place we have hope, therefore we are of all men most to be pitied. Because if Christ is not raised, we not only aren't justified, we're also not sanctified, because sanctification follows justification. And if Christ is not raised, then we have no hope of future glory. But since Christ is raised from the dead, we have the promise of all three benefits. Salvation past, our sins were dealt with. Salvation present, our sins are being conquered. Salvation future, our sins will finally be forever away. Justification is salvation from the penalty of sin. Sanctification is salvation from the power of sin. Glorification is a salvation from the presence of sin. The scripture uses the term saved in all three tenses. It speaks of the day of our salvation being nearer than when we believe. That speaks of future salvation which is glory. The Bible also speaks about those who are being saved in 1st Corinthians. That speaks of salvation present from the power of sin. And it also then speaks about those who have been saved, salvation passed, that's justification. But Paul says, just as surely as we were united with Christ in his death, we are certainly united with him in his resurrection. If Christ was raised then, then the believer logically must deduce that he also will be raised. I think I made mention of this in May made mention this last week in the sermon I don't know what exactly I said but I've also been trying to kind of supplement some of my reading by this old book on logic Isaac Watts said that logic is the is a tool that God gives us to use the intellect which he's given us rightly and so as we seek out and search out truth we should be able to do so in a logical fashion he said you know as man is above the animal he said civilized societies are are greatly advanced above those uncivilized societies because we have had our reasoning train our intellect train But he said, when you consider logic, there are a number of parts, right? You start out with some conception, some idea, and then you have a proposition that is made, or a series of propositions that are put together, we call an argument, and then the argument, after that you have a conclusion, or a form. But he gave this example. For instance, if you think of a judge, if I just mention a judge, you have an idea that pops in your head about what a judge is. You know, I mean, maybe it's a judge you've known, maybe it's a person, maybe it's a concept of law, of justice, maybe you've got the image of Lady Justice blindfolded holding the scales in her hand or whatever. You think of a judge, you have an idea in your head. And he said, a proposition that could be made is that a good judge does what is right. We would all agree with that. That's a reality. If we know that a judge is someone who weighs in the balance right and wrong, a good judge is one who does what is right. We also know that the Bible calls God the judge of all the earth. Therefore, we should logically deduce that the judge of all the earth would do what is right because that's what a good judge does and God is the best of all judges. This means There's another proposition. This means that God will make sure that every wrong is dealt with. Every injustice is made right. Every false accusation, every persecution, every mistreatment of his children will be dealt with, right? It will be made right. All hurts, all pains, all injustices that we may suffer in this life will be finally resolved. all evil will be judged and conquered but we look at the world we live in and we don't see that and sometimes this creates stress for us difficulty for us we see the wicked flourishing we see corrupt governments dominating the world imposing unjust laws making life difficult we see even in our world with Roe versus Wade being overturned, you know, I saw statistics and numbers that there are actually been more abortions in the past year than there were the year before. They're just in different parts of the country. So it's not like the battle was won. It was just started. Well, that's discouraging in a lot of ways. It's discouraging for us in a lot of ways. Here's this great victory in know our state thankfully you know it's gone but it's not gone from our world and we see children being mutilated now you know transgendered surgeries and all these kinds of things now if we know that a judge is one who measures the balances and a good judge does what is right and God is a judge of all the earth and therefore he will do what is right and he will Correct all of these things. Every idle word will be dealt with. Every thoughtless deed will be dealt with. God will judge the thoughts, the intentions of the heart, and He knows the heart. And we know all this. When we feel such anxieties, how do we deal with it? Logically, the only reasonable conclusion to come to is this. that there must be another age after this life, another world after this world where God will set all of these things right. Therefore, as a believer, we have no reasonable purpose for being anxious about such things. Logically, if we think through what the scripture says and what the truth is and what the world around us looks like, logically, we know that God is going to deal with these things in a judgment in another age. Even if we never see any fruit of our labor in this life, if we labor our whole life for the purpose of God and for his kingdom and we pursue righteousness and we sow the seeds of the gospel into our family and our loved ones and we, like Noah, watch the world perish, we can still have joy and we can still have hope because we know that God is just. And we know that since the scripture tells us His word never goes forward without returning to him, accomplishing the thing which he has purposed to send it forth to do. Logically, we can trust him and we should rejoice knowing that God will set all things right. It's only the most reasonable conclusion. As a Christian, you don't have to check your brains at the door and just walk in on blind faith and just hope for the best. So many people think that that's what faith is. We're just hoping for the best. You know, the name it and claim it, blab it and grab it theology that says you create with your words. So don't say that bad things are happening because if you say, oh, I feel bad, then you're creating bad things. Or you say, oh, I'm trying to get sick, then you're creating some sickness. And so you have to speak positivity in order to create good. That's foolishness. It's superstition. It's not reasonable. The reasonable thing to do is not to wish for the best. It's not to hope for the best. It's not to check your brain out. It's to back up and look at who is God. Remember when we went through Habakkuk and we said your Habakkuk was. And he's looking at Israel and they're wicked and they're corrupt and all this stuff's going on and he's saying, God, why will you not do something? How long are you going to just sit by and let this happen? How long am I going to have to cry injustice and you're not going to hear and you don't care? And if we're honest, at times we all feel that. I mean, surely we all feel that at times. But the Lord said, I am doing something. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what it was. And he begins to tell him, and then he has to back up, and he says something different. He said, why would you do that? I would rather you just do nothing than to do that. Why are you sending the Chaldeans to judge your people? Yeah, we're wicked, but they're worse than we are. That makes no sense. But if you follow that prophecy what you say is about it gets to the point where he has to back away from the circumstances in and he begins to focus on who God is and what he knows about God and then he uses that to evaluate the circumstances of his people. because that's the logical thing to do. That's the reasonable thing to do. As Christians, it's so important that we know the truth about who our God is, what kind of God we serve. That's why it's so important we read the Bible. We're not just looking for directions for how to live and how to walk, but we're looking for who is God. Not so we can build up our intellect, but because that's the thing which anchors our soul. If we know who God is, then we can trust him in such circumstances. A few years ago when the world fell apart and nobody knew what was happening and everywhere you start to go, things are canceled. See, I don't like that. It's not the way I'm wired. I like to have a plan, and I like to have a backup plan for when my plan fails, and I like to have a contingency plan for my backup plan. I just, I wanna have an idea of how these things work out. And I like to have a short-term plan and a long-term plan. And I like to have these things all neat and tidy so that I know what's going on and I know what happens if something goes wrong, plan for the worst case scenario and so forth. It's just the way I like for life to be, to be in my control and in my knowledge. And three years ago, everywhere you went, anything you were gonna do, at the drop of a hat, it could just be changed. And that created a lot of stress. But for the Christian, it really wasn't reasonable to be stressed. Because, you know, all that stress is, is that's just pride working its way out. It says, I've got to be in control of my life. But for the Christian, if we know who our God is, that we can trust him in those circumstances and just be faithful and trust that he will make it. to be right now I don't know why I've got off on this but the point is is that the resurrection brings us these benefits justification sanctification and glorification. Acts chapter 2 we read that it was essential. God not only delivered him up, but God also raised him up because it was necessary. It was essential that Christ be raised because he could not be held in the pangs of death. It was not possible for him to be held by it. For the scripture says, David said, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades. or let your Holy One see corruption. That would be inconsistent with who God is and what God has promised. You will not abandon me to Hades or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. It was not possible for Christ to be healed by the pains of death. And the reality is, as he was raised, he brought to us great benefits. The first benefit is he applied to us, he made accessible to us the righteousness that Christ had already accrued. He guarantees our ability to be sanctified because he moved us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. He gave us a new head and a new position. And he gave us certainty that we will also be raised. That's where I went off on that. The logical certainty of our resurrection is connected with the fact that we have been united with Christ. If Christ was raised, then we have to be raised. So it's absolutely a certainty. It's not something we hope will happen. It is a certainty. And that's what gives us stability. So these are the benefits that we receive from the resurrection of Christ. All right. Thoughts, questions, comments?