As many of you know, our pastor Harrison is away on this Sunday. He's preaching in Queens, and we'd like to welcome Pastor Newton. Pastor Newton accepted the call to serve as pastor teacher of Newtown Bible Church in August 2008. He received both a Bachelor of Arts from Masters College and a Master of Divinity from Masters Seminary in 2008. Pastor Newton also received a PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in May 2017. We began attending Grace Community Church, Sled Valley, California in 1996 as a new believer, and was a member for 11 years before coming to Connecticut. At Grace Community Church, we served as a pastoral intern in children's ministry, and then as an intern with development at Master Seminary. Pastor Newton is married to Trish, and they have been blessed with three girls. Thank you, Pastor Newton, for having an open door to God for us. Well, it's a joy to be with you. It's a joy to know that Jim we met many years ago at the Reformation Society. He would drive down to Newtown Bible Church. And that's when I met him. And he would teach. And that was always such a blessing to hear him teach. So I want to apologize right up front for not meeting the standard of your pastor. But it is to make you love him all the more when you meet him. That's my goal up to this point. That's why he asked me, I think. Well, before we begin, why don't you take a few moments to pray silently in your hearts. We always like to do this where I serve, and I'd like to begin that way with you. Just ask God to open your heart to listen to his word, to hear the voice of Christ, that we might remove distractions for the next few moments we have together, and hear our Lord speak to us. So, just take a few moments, and then I'll open it up for a word of prayer. Father, we've sung some wonderful hymns and we've heard your Word read to us. And to hear your Word read is to hear the voice of God contained for us on the page of Scripture. We thank you for giving us your Word, for preserving your Word for us even in this day, and for your people all the way until our Christ, you, return. And now, as we spend some time together looking at your Word, I do pray for the grace to serve your people that all of us might, by the truths that we'll consider, be encouraged and be encouraged to live lives of worship, to be encouraged to live lives of faithfulness and obedience and hope because of your resurrection, our Lord Jesus, from the dead. So bless us this morning, we pray in your most precious and noble name. Amen. Amen. Well, it is a privilege to be here. That's at least a list of, I think, what I've done in terms of where I came from and how long we've been here in Newtown. We did come from Southern California. If y'all aren't familiar, that's where Grace Community Church is. I was speaking to Joe earlier this morning. There he is. And it was an adjustment for us to come to the winter and to the seasons, but this is home now, and Newtown is home for us, and so we love it. Our murals are 14, 12, and 10. L.A., Bethany, and Brooks. Some of you all may have met them. They came for the Pilgrim's Progress, the Bingham J. Ditton musical, and so they enjoyed that. So we're just privileged, or I'm privileged, to be here again. Now, he knew a bulletin because Pastor Harrison asked me several weeks ago, you know, what I would preach on. And so I knew he was going to put that in the bulletin, but I never can figure those things out very far ahead of time. So I told him that it was going to be the results of Christ's death in Matthew 27. verses 51 through 54, because we are, in our church, coming to the end of the book of Matthew. We were there several weeks ago, but I have changed things up. I hope that doesn't discourage you too much. Actually, we'll be looking this morning at the significance of Christ's resurrection. The significance of Christ's resurrection, and of course, that is a result, one of the results of His death, and that would have been one of the things we covered, but we're going to spend just a little bit of extra time on it this morning. And speaking of time, I want to go ahead and shift all the blame to David, who told me that he who preaches the Spirit leads, and don't worry about the clock, but I see you never mind. So, any complaints I would direct at him is, uh, you never know. But we will try to keep it within, uh, the allotted time, which is around 12 o'clock. So, the significance of Christ's resurrection from the dead. And there are approximately 7.5 billion people on the Earth. I don't know exactly how they count that so exactly, but that is what the official statistics are, 7.5 billion people on the face of the Earth. And of those 7.5 billion people on the face of the Earth, there is a 100% chance that everybody is going to die, right? When I came in, I had a few extra moments this morning So I walked through the graveyard and looked at some of the tombstones and thought of bodies lying there. And then, of course, I had the thought, why don't we be standing here when Christ returns and they're resurrected, we might get bumped out of the way. But it was a reminder that, and you have it each Sunday, that death is reality for all of us. As a matter of fact, one person broke it down in this way, that there are three people who die every second. 180 people who die every minute, and nearly 11,000 people every hour, 250,000 people every day, every day will enter into either heaven and eternal bliss with Christ who is their Savior, or they'll enter into a place of eternal torment and misery. That's a sobering thought. And the Bible reminds us, as you're well familiar, that the reason that death exists, and the reason that there's 100% certainty that everybody is going to die, unless the Lord returns first, is because sin has entered into the world. Paul put it this way in Romans 5.12, that sin has, justice through one man's sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Now, when we consider death by itself, it's a rather grim reality, isn't it? It's kind of sobering. There's not much joyful about it, to think that we live and we die. And that's considered on its own what the writer of Ecclesiastes was getting at when he said, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Right, if that's all there is, is what we do in this world, knowing that it's going to end, and our life is going to end, and ultimately there isn't a lot of purpose for existence. There's nothing much to warm the heart for living in this world. And it's not only human life. But actually scripture tells us that all of creation groans under the weight of sin, and is waiting for its release from its corruption into the freedom of the sons of God. So it's not only us as but all of creation is waiting for release from the burden that sin has brought into it. And so that's the conditions that we live under. And of course the end of all things God has told us is that that release will come for all of creation because he's going to destroy this present creation and he's going to create a new one. But just with a little more bad news, It's not only that life is vain and death is all that there is, it's not only that this creation labors under a certain vanity that it even itself, the personified, longs to be released from, but even worse, that if we die, if a person dies apart from a saving knowledge of Christ, then there's only the promise and certain expectation of judgment. In fact, because of these realities, is essentially man's attempt, without a correct knowledge of God, to provide some kind of release, some kind of answer, some kind of assurance, some kind of confidence that there is something beyond this world and that what we do in this world somehow matters and affects our life afterward. Ecclesiastes also says that he has set eternity in the heart of man. So there is something innate to us as human beings to know that this is not all that there is. more beyond this life. And so man, dead, and sin creates religion to try to somehow answer that question, somehow atone for the wrong that we know is done in our own lives and somehow provide comfort. But again, left like that, it's just a bleak picture. And it's fairly easy to paint a bleak picture, because that's the reality of that sin is introduced into this world. But then that's also the contrast of what God has done. and who God is, and what God has provided for us, and what God has revealed for us in all of Scripture, but particularly in His Son, Jesus Christ. There's no more wonderful truth to the ears of a sinner than that God has, in fulfillment of His promise, come in the person of the Son, the eternal Son of God, and taken on humanity. It was mentioned earlier this morning. It was sung about in some of the hymns that He entered into our condition fully, accepting sin, that He lived a perfectly righteous life, that with that perfect righteous life He offered Himself up as a sacrifice on the cross, that He might bear in His own body and in His own soul the full weight of our sin, that He might experience death to its fullness, and that He might rise from the dead so that all who trusted Him could be forgiven. And not just forgiven of sin, but being reconciled to God brought into that broken relationship with our Father, our God, and our Creator. That is the glory and the wonder of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ died as an atonement, in other words, a penalty and a payment for our sin, and then He rose again for our life. That's the glory of the Resurrection, ultimately, is that in Christ, death is no longer A means of fear. That death is no longer a means of holding us enslaved. It's no longer, as Hebrews 2 says, a tool of Satan to work fear into the hearts of men. It is, really, when we're walking in the fullness of faith that a believer can say, even with the Apostle Paul, it's better to depart than to be with the Lord, right? I mean, that's very much better than anything this world can offer us here. And so a Christian, when walking in the fullness of faith, can have with full confidence that help that's better to depart from this world and to be with our Christ, whom we love. Now in the resurrection, or the resurrection I should say, to an Old Testament saint was certainly understood. There was a strong sense of the individual resurrection. that the Old Testament saint had. Hebrews 11 tells us that, right beginning all the way with Enoch and walking on through the Old Testament saints. Essentially they understood that they were living here only temporarily and they were hoping in a kingdom that was yet to come, a life that was yet to come with God. And so there was an understanding of the resurrection and even the general resurrection that increased in its clarity as they that God would unfold many of those mysteries for us. I'm going to read this to you. In 2 Timothy 1, verse 8, he says this. Actually, verses 9-10. Speaking of Christ, he says, He saved us and He called us to the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who abolished death, brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. So essentially, what he's saying here is that with the appearing of Christ, with the appearing of Christ in the flesh, his death and his resurrection, that the whole idea of eternity, the whole idea of immortality, the whole idea of salvation and what lies beyond the grave was brought with an incredible clarity, an incredible caliber. In other words, it was like living in shadows and all of a sudden the light is turned on, the sun comes out, and we see with a much greater clarity God's purposes and his intents for his people through what he's done in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was the resurrection then of the dead, of Jesus Christ from the dead, he says in verse 11, Paul does in 2 Timothy, that he was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. It was at the very center of his ministry, the resurrection, the proclamation of the resurrection of the dead. And as you know, the Book of Acts, that was essentially an accounting of the spread of the reality that Christ has come, died, and risen from the dead. And that was the part that really got them. And that was the part that brought on conflict very often as that message spread out. But it was also the truth believed in that the church grew and formed and began to mature. So the Resurrection, though, my point simply is, was central to the preaching of the Gospel. It was central to God's work of redemption, and it's central to our hope. Now, all that being said, is just to introduce this fact, that for us, the Resurrection is the foundation of our hope and of our lives. And so what I want to do this morning is rather than walking through one text particularly, which was originally my intention and usually, of course, what we do in the church where I serve, I wanted this morning to take sort of a broad look and look at the significance of the resurrection. If you wanted a title for this section, it would be Six Reasons You Should Find Hope and Joy in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, six reasons is pretty striking. I originally, when we covered this message several weeks ago in the church where I serve, had intended to do 20 reasons for the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thinking, well, that might be a little much, I cut it down to 13. When we did 13, that was a lot much, and so now I've cut it down to 6, and hopefully in the next few minutes we'll get through them. In fact, we won't get through all of them, so I'll do a little editing as we go along. But let me just mention these, we won't cover them in depth, we simply don't have the time for that, and there's so much that could be said about each one. But my goal here really this morning is just to encourage you. It's really just to encourage you and to remind you of the glory and of the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is to encourage you in your own salvation, It is to encourage you as you live in this fallen world, it is to encourage you that your obedience and your sacrifices for Christ and for the Gospel are not in vain in this world. That it has ultimate purpose and it has ultimate meaning because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. So that is my vote this morning. Let me begin with number one. So this would be the first reason for the significance of the Resurrection. It's this. That the Resurrection confirmed God's acceptance of Christ's sin-bearing sacrifice. You could put it and make that a little bit more personal and say the Resurrection confirms that He in whom we hope really did turn for our sins. That He really did remove from us the sting of death, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15. That your sins really can be forgiven, and in fact are forgiven, if you have trusted in Christ. The key verse on that is Romans 4.25. We'll try not to bounce around too much, but by the nature of the message, we'll do that in a little bit this morning. Romans 4.25 says this. That He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, That is the death of Christ. Delivered over on the cross. Delivered over to be crucified in a sin-bearing sacrifice. And was raised because of our justification. Was raised because of our justification. Which is just a fancy word. Justification is to say He was raised and because of His resurrection we stand righteous in Christ before God. It's a declaration that God makes based on Christ. person and of His Word. It is a reality that God credits, that He gives, He counts towards everyone who exercises faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a righteousness that is, as you're probably well familiar, outside of us. It's not an internal righteousness, it is a righteousness outside of us that is completely bound in the person of Jesus Christ. And that is something that is accomplished because of his resurrection from the dead. Now you might be thinking, or I'll remind you if you aren't thinking, that when Christ was crucified on the cross, after he had given his sayings on the cross, the darkness had covered the land for three hours, and all of those events surrounding his death had happened, he said, at the end, he said, it is finished. It is finished. In other words, What He's saying and implying in those words is that everything that I have been sent to do to be a sacrifice for the sin of His people, as Matthew 1.21 says, had been accomplished. There was nothing else to be paid. There was no more wrath to be poured out from the Father, no more displeasure against sin that the Son could bear. There was nothing else He could do. And it's after those words He bowed His head and He gave up His spirit. And so the atonement on the cross. There was nothing else for Him to do in order to satisfy what our sin requires from God. But it says here that He was raised for our justification. So though His atonement was complete on the cross, it wasn't until He was raised from the dead that we have the assurance of our justification, our being made right in Him before God. Now, what does he mean by that? Well, most simply, I think the best way to understand that is, in its most essential form, is to say that in His resurrection from the dead, God affirmed, He set His seal upon, He declared publicly before all the watching world that the sacrifice that Christ gave was in fact a sacrifice that was accepted by the Father. In other words, there was nothing else to give, everything he did satisfied, that's the fancy word, propitiation when he talks about that, it satisfied everything that God required for our salvation. And when he was raised from the dead, it was proof positive before all of the watching world that in him there is justification. One can be made right with God, that he was the final and the righteous sacrifice. given to us from the Father for our salvation. It also means that because Jesus Christ was raised, He then becomes the object of our faith. In other words, we're trusting in a person. We're not trusting in a set of beliefs. We're not simply trusting in a doctrine. All of those things are simply ways to explain and understand the reality of a person. And that person is the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, and everything that God had declared about him, we have affirmation and confirmation what's in fact true. It was true. World religions have leaders, although Christ is in no way comparable to them, but they are in no way comparable to Christ. They're all dead, right? They're in the grave, but Christ is risen from the grave and it authenticates everything that he said. So we have confidence then in our Salvation, because Christ was raised from the dead. Now let me make just one more comment on that point. We actually read this. I've actually read right before this morning. I think it said 1 John 2.2 in the bulletin, right? Maybe I missed it. But he says this in 1 John 2.2. He says, well let me begin in the middle of verse 1. He says, if any kind of sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation, that big word, just simply means that He is the satisfaction of everything God requires for our sins. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sin only, but for those of the whole world. And by that, I simply would draw your attention to this fact, that your righteousness, if you are a believer, if you have trust in Christ, your righteousness that is the sum total of your justification, you're being counted right before God. is not simply because of something that happened a long time ago. You get that? Like, sometimes we think of salvation and our righteousness almost like just this past event. It certainly involves a past event. But if you are a Christian, your righteousness is always, every moment, completely bound up in the living Christ. Right? Because He lives, And because He is the Righteous One who rose from the dead and was raised from the dead, your righteousness is forever secure in Christ before God. You are always in Him, you are always in union with Him, you are always bound to Him, and your righteousness could never be lost, any more than the righteousness of Christ could be lost. That is incredible confidence. It's incredible encouragement. It is a living righteousness, in fact, that we have because we have a living Christ, and that is all bound up in the fact that He was raised from the dead for our justification. And so why is it significant to us that Christ was raised from the dead? Because it means if you know Christ and you have truly experienced the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, you have trusted in Him, You know Him. The Holy Spirit dwells in you. You are safe and nothing can change that. Nothing. You have assurance. You have confidence. You have, in those times of the accusing conscience, the accusing thoughts that come from the accuser of the brethren, our adversary, you have a confidence to say, when you sin and your conscience is wrecked, as it should be, That when you confess your sin, He's faithful and righteous to forgive that sin because your righteousness is bound up with Him who lives. That's the point of it. We can have great assurance in our salvation because Christ was raised from the dead. Now, there's no way I'm going to get through all five of them, so let me mention some just very quickly, and then I want to get to the end, the last two. But let me mention this briefly. Secondly, then, We should have great confidence and hope and joy in the resurrection of Christ, and it is significant because it enables Christ's present intercession on our behalf. It means that Christ is currently our mediator, our go-between, the one through whom we have access to God. I don't remember where I read it, but Spurgeon somewhere said, Spurgeon's always horrible, Something along the lines that he never goes to prayer without taking Christ with him. That's a great imagery, I thought. In other words, because Christ lives always to be our intercessor, we are reminded in one sense that we never approach God, we never bow our head in prayer, we never go off into our inner room and commune with God. Because somehow, by being made in the image of God, we have a right to approach God. We have the right to approach God, and he has no reason to accept us. Everybody's into rejectors. But in Christ, that's all changed. In Christ, we boldly approach the throne of grace because He is, and always is, our intercessor. He always lives to make intercession for us. You might know what verse I'm thinking of. I'm not going to praise you. It's Hebrews 7. Let me remind you of this verse. Hebrews 7. Speaking of Christ, it says, He is able, actually I'm going to back up to verse 23. He says, The former priests, on the one hand, existed in great numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing. But Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore, He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. That is glorious. Now by saying intercession, let me just make at least one comment on that. That doesn't mean that the Father is always angry and Jesus is up there always pleading with the Father, please don't be angry with them, look at my sacrifice. We would do well to remember that it was God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That Christ was among us and died and lived and was raised because the Father sent him to be our eternal sacrifice. It is the love of the Father that sent the Son. It was the love of the Son for the Father and those given to Him by the Father that caused Him to come and to be that atoning sacrifice for us. So that certainly is not the picture. The picture is rather this, that by making intercession to us, and of course this is drawn up in the whole imagery of Hebrews and the idea of the priesthood, that He is both, in one person, our sacrifice and our mediator. that everything that relates to our approach to God is bound up in the person of Christ. And so that we now come to the Father through Christ. And it means then, as he'll say later in the book of Hebrews, that we can do that with confidence. To say that he is our intercessor, our mediator, is to say that every blessing that God has intended for his people, everyone who trusts in him, is wrapped up and bound in the person of Christ. of Jesus Christ, and that is because He was raised from the dead. If His body were still laying in the grave, He would not be the Savior who went to the right hand of the Father, and He would not be our intercessor. But because He was raised from the dead, we have confidence that when you approach God in prayer, you're approaching Him not only as a Father, bound up, sharing the life of His own Son, who is our intercessor, who is always before Him, and in Him, you have complete acceptance with God. In other words, you have the ear of the Father because of the Son, because He was raised from the dead, and because He always lives to make intercession for us. Let me read to you quickly one other verse, and that's in Romans 8.33. He says this. It's really coming at the same idea, but from a different angle. He says in Romans 8.33, who will bring a charge against God's elect. God is the one who justifies who is the one who condemns. Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather he who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. And after that glorious truth that he affirms, he ends the chapter with that wonderful section that says, what will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? What will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? In everything that we endure in this world, he says in verse 37, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. Through Him who loved us. I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, or any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why? Because He was raised from the dead. The love of the Father that He set on His womb before the foundation of the world is ever secure. in his son, whom he raised from the dead. That was the point that he's making. Nothing can separate you from God's love for you, that he sovereignly and by his own good will, for his own good pleasure, set on you before the foundation of the world, if you know him, and is forever secured in the death and the resurrection of his son. The resurrection says that Christ the one before the Father who loves us, and the one through whom we approach the Father, interceding for us, and that's guaranteed, that's proven, because of his resurrection in the dead. That's wonderful hope. Wonderful hope. So he enables our presence, it's because his resurrection then reminds us of his present intercession. His present intercession. I think one point I just want to kind of be in our minds and our hearts over this is, is that these things we think so often of these events of salvation, or these things that God did as events, like these things that He did, like He did this, like Jesus died and rose again for my sin, like that's the sum total of it. Or that salvation is because Jesus did this thing over here, and then when I die I go to heaven. And these events, of course, are significant, they're essential. But these events are always just part of a bigger thing that God has done for His people, and that is He has reconciled us to Himself. That it is a living God, it is His living Word, and living Spirit, and living Christ that we have a relationship with. Now there's many implications of that, but all of those are bound up and guaranteed in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now third significant reality, is this too much? I'll give you two more, we'll do two more. Okay. Is this, that he earned the promise of the Holy Spirit. Let me give just, you know my congregation does not speak back to me, I love it. You can make as much noise as you want to make. I tell them, you know, we need a little charisma. Not charismatic, but you know, a little bit of nerve. Anyway, that's great. A third one is this, that He earned for us the promise of the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Holy Spirit. Now, we don't maybe often think of this, but it is because Jesus Christ rose and because He died and because He was raised from the dead, that He actually earned the right to send the Holy Spirit to us, the Church. He earned the right to send to us. Now when we say earned the right, we're of course emphasizing the aspect of this person that is related to his humanity. As the eternal Son of God, he doesn't earn the right, he is one with the Father and the Spirit. But as our mediator, as the God-man of human flesh, as the one who was faithful to the mission on which the Father sent him, he earned the right to send to us the Holy Spirit. and every benefit then that comes through the Holy Spirit to His people. You'll remember when Christ was baptized by John the Baptist. John the Baptist says, I baptize you with the baptism of repentance, but one who comes, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, right. One who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. This is really of the essence of the New Covenant. is the appearance of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit. That is what marks off most significantly, or essentially, the New Covenant from the Old Covenant. Christ and the Spirit, they are inseparable in terms of their relationship to the New Covenant. In other words, this new relationship that we have established by God and how His people connect with Him and how they relate to Him. They have the Old Covenant, in which there was the law and the temple and so on and so forth, but what they did not have as a people of God, in terms of them as a whole nation, they did not have the fullness of the Spirit. They were regenerated in the Old Testament, but there was a difference in the way that the Holy Spirit worked in the New Testament and as He does in the Old Testament. Let me just give you a couple of texts there. And just briefly, I'll do a little more than mention these, unfortunately, but let me at least do that. Well, we'll start in verse 37. Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and he cried out, saying, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Using, speaking spiritually then, of course. And then he says, he who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. But he spoke this of the Spirit, who those who believed in him were to receive in the future. for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. In other words, the promise of the Spirit could not come until Christ was raised from the dead and had returned back to the Father in His full resurrection glory. Let me remind you of this verse. Maybe you've read over in English this. Maybe not. I don't remember when it really hit me. He says in Acts 2, verse 33, you can just listen. He says this, remember Acts chapter 2 is where Peter was giving his great New Covenant sermon, the very first New Covenant sermon. And when 3,000 people were saved on that day, the church was formed. This is after the promise of the Spirit that God gave His disciples to come. And he says this, Peter does, near the end of his sermon, after he was talking about the resurrection of the dead. He says, therefore, having exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured forth this, which you both see and hear. All of that, in Peter's own sermon, is wrapped up in the fact that Christ was raised from the dead. What happened is that when he completed his work at the atonement, He gave the disciples a promise in verses 5 and 8 of Acts chapter 1 that you will receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now you will receive power. The Holy Spirit came and the cheater says this is because after Christ ascended back to the Father, he received from the Father as our mediator a promise. that He would then pour out on His people at Pentecost. So it is because Christ completed His work, because He was raised from the dead, and because He went back to the right hand of the Father, He received the promise of the Holy Spirit. And that is what we have today, the reception of that promise. And it's because of that promise that you can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's because of that promise that you are united to Him. It is because of that promise that you trust in Him. Let me give the last two here, just for time's sake. Well, actually, one here. The resurrection, fourthly, does this. It demonstrates the power that is at work in God's people. It demonstrates the power that is at work in God's people. In Ephesians chapter 1, he says this. You're familiar with it. At the end of that great chapter, in chapter 1, he says this. that there is a surpassing, verse 19, there is a surpassing greatness of His power toward us, working toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him over all things, gave Him His head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all and is in all. Because He was raised from the dead, The power of God was put on display. The power of God. Now, the power of God is revealed in creation, the power of God is revealed in many, many ways in scripture, but one of the primary ways that God has put his power on display is raising Christ from the dead. Now, if you're like me, sometimes that makes you ask a question. Well, if God created the whole universe out of nothing, And that did not exhaust His power. If God, as we read, or as David reminded us this morning, created humanity out of nothing, well, in fact, the dust of the ground, and then the rib of Adam. How in the world can just raising Christ from the dead be such a great display of His power? Isn't the very bringing of man into existence itself an act of great power? Isn't the fact that he raised Lazarus from the dead an act of his great power? And indeed they are. But it is Jesus Christ raising from the dead, or being raised from the dead specifically, that is a unique demonstration of the power of God. And you ask, why? What is it about of the power of God. And it is this, primarily, that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, death was defeated. It is to understand the great enemy of God's righteousness, the very nature of God that death is a picture of. Death is rebellion against God, the infinite, eternally and holy God. Death is the destruction of all of the good things that God has created. Death is the destruction of the work of God in creation and ultimately what His own Son had to endure in order to remove its stain. So it's not simply the fact that the body of Jesus was raised from the dead, but that the body of Jesus is the eternal God-man and whose resurrection means that death was abolished. There is no greater display of the power of God, if we understand the reality of His nature and what death is and what Christ suffered, than to say He defeated death on our behalf. That is, in all of the universe, the single greatest display of the power of God, and it's bound up into the resurrection of His Son from the dead. Death is defeated. Do you remember what Jesus said to Martha when he was going there before he raised Lazarus from the dead? Remember? If you believe in me, he said what? You will never die. You will never die. Well obviously he doesn't mean you will never physically die. What he means then is if you believe in me, then in me you share in what? Eternal life. That's what he came to give. And that even death itself cannot be a threat to that life. Even physical death itself cannot threaten your life, and the fellowship, and the relationship that you have to the Father in me. Whatever man can do in this world, and whatever we may suffer, It is no threat to the promise that we have been given in Christ, namely eternal life and reunion with Christ and a relationship with the Father and the Son which will never be broken. The fellowship that you and I, you know Him, enjoy with God now, the sweetness of communion that we enjoy with God now, the blessed glory of being forgiven of our sin that we enjoy now, is a blessed relationship that will never end. Death actually is not the end of something, it is the entrance into the fullest reality of what He has accomplished for us. And that is because of the resurrection of the dead. And that is why the resurrection of the dead is such a unique and glorious demonstration of the power of God. Now, there are many other aspects of that. Let me move to the next one. The resurrection guarantees our physical resurrection. It guarantees our physical resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, 20, Christ is called the first fruits, the first fruits. The first fruits are, of course, what was gathered in from the harvest when it came time to harvest, everything that they had planted. And that was a time of celebration. It was a time of celebration. And Christ's resurrection from the dead is called the first fruits because he undid what Adam did. That's the point he's making in 1 Corinthians 15. And the first instance, the first reality, the first evidence done for us in Christ was actually shown and brought forth when Christ was raised from the dead. So that we could look at Christ and we could say, that is what God is going to do for us. That is the power that is working toward us, and will work toward us, and raise us from the dead. He is the first fruits, the first of its kind, and the grounds of our resurrection. Now, in saying that, let me make a few clarifications. Christ's resurrection is the first fruits, but it also has some aspects to it that are distinct. You can probably think of some of them on your own. If you'll remember when Thomas doubted in John chapter 20, what did Jesus say? Come and stick your finger in my hands and in my side, right? And do not be unbelieving, but be believing. In other words, he bore the marks in his resurrected body of his crucifixion. If you or someone you love are marred, destroyed in an accident, you won't go into heaven with scars all over your face and mutilated members of your body. Then, in other words, you will receive a body that will be free from the marks of the suffering and the pain of this world. But Jesus Christ was not in his resurrected body. Why? Because his death was unique and his resurrection was unique. And so while he has a glorified body, it is unique in this way. He always bears the marks of him painted for our sin and what our resurrection required from him. In that way, his body is different. And if you'll remember that John, when he was on the island of Patmos, saw a vision of the risen Christ, hair white like wool, belt of gold, feet shining like burnished bronze, like this glowing bronze, eyes like flames of fire, and that will not be you, and that will not be me. That is a unique glory that He shares as the God-man. We will not share in that resurrection glory. That is a resurrection glory prepared and earned rightfully only by Christ. But, there are ways in which we will reflect His resurrection body. There are ways in which we will reflect it. One is this. This might be a shock. Our resurrection body will be physical. It will be visible. I say a shock only because that's obvious. But that is a glorious and a wonderful truth. It will be physical because Christ has the power to raise our body as our resurrected Word. Listen to what Paul says. Our citizenship in Philippians 3 is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble estate into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. That's pretty awesome. That's pretty awesome. that our resurrected Christ has the power and will, in fact, raise our bodies to reflect His glory and His resurrection glory, reflect His glory for all of eternity. That is a wonderful and glorious truth. There's another way that His resurrection was distinct, the resurrection body, from ours, and that is this. Well, let me just clear this up. Jesus did not walk through walls. He did not walk through walls, or at least let's put it this way. There's nothing in scripture that tells us that he walked through walls. What it says in John chapter 20 is that the door was shut. Sometimes we have the idea that he's kind of floating around almost like this, you know, resurrection ghost. He can kind of just float in through a wall. He can float out through a wall. And so sometimes people may think, I wonder if in heaven if I can go through walls. You know, I don't know what it will be like, but I'm going to suggest don't try it. It may not work as well. But Jesus, all the text says is that the door was shut and that Jesus appeared. The door was shut, and the emphasis of making that comment by the Apostle John is simply to emphasize the fear of the disciples who were hiding in the room. And Jesus appeared, in very much the same way that if you remember Philip in Acts 8.20, I think, was snatched by the Spirit and taken somewhere else. Jesus very well may have done that, but he didn't walk through walls. And there's no reason to believe that we will walk through walls either. But listen to this statement by C.S. Lewis. He says this, It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would surely be tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption as you might only now meet in a nightmare. Now, the negative side of that, of course, is judgment, but the positive side is really what I would emphasize. It will be a resurrection body of glory. It will be a resurrection body of magnificence that, as in the words of C.S. Lewis, if we were to see it now, we might be tempted to worship it, even as John fell down at the feet of the angel who showed him around in Revelation. Paul gives this description. He says this new resurrection body, and in this way we share with Christ's resurrection body, it will be in perishable. Right now you are subject to weakness. Joe said I was a young fellow. I'm 45 in a month, so that's probably young. I don't know where on the scale that fits, but it's young to some. But already at 45, I can feel the weakness of my body. I can't do things I did at 25, and at 28, and so on and so forth. And that's only going to increase and get worse and worse as the years go by. The bodies that we now have are perishable. They have an expiration date. They're subject to decay and to death. But the resurrection body will be unable to die. no longer subject to decay, disease, or destruction. If you suffer with something like that now, I don't know, that is a tremendous hope. The suffering now, to know that it's only a little while, is not to minimize it, and we have great compassion, but the encouragement is to know it will one day end. It will one day end, and one day you will receive a body that will never perish, that will never be subject to the pain that you now experience. It will be a body of glory. And he contrasts this in 1 Corinthians 15 with dishonor. In other words, with all of the dishonor that sin brings, it will be raised in glory. In other words, it will be fit to perfectly reveal the glory of Christ forever. Forever. Can you imagine that? It is a body that will be raised in power. Again, never experiencing any kind of weaknesses or the effects of sin. And it is a body that will be spiritual. What does he mean by that? He contrasts it with the natural body. It simply means this, that it is a body that will forever be completely filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit. What we experience now in part, not only in dwelling, but the filling of the Spirit, he is saying that it will be a spiritual body always defined by the ultimate spiritual realities. that now we experience only in part this side of heaven. If you long for heaven, what is it that you long for? Do you long to run and not get tired? Do you long to, I don't know, be able to be stronger than you are now? Well, if you're a Christian, of course you're saying, you know, I don't long for any of those things. Those things are nice, and if you're sick, you're reminded that it's a particular blessing. Or if you're suffering with some kind of disease. But what do you long for more than anything now as a Christian? If you are a Christian, you long to love Christ more than you love Him now, don't you? You long to worship Him more than you do now. Are you frustrated with your sin? Are you frustrated with how easily your mind gets distracted with worthless things, and it breaks your fellowship with God? Have you had those moments in prayer, in this time of communion you wish we had all the time, where you are so ravished with the reality of His presence and His glory, and the forgiveness of your sin, you want to weep and never move? Have you ever had that? If you're a Christian, I'm going to guess you've had those in moments. Unfortunately, they're short and fleeting, but they come, and they are reminders to us of the glories of what it is to know Christ. What Paul is saying here is that you will have a body fit to be in the presence of God, no longer subject to weakness, conformed to the image of the body of His glory who was raised for us, and so filled with the Spirit that that joy will never be something that you lose. That worship in your heart and adoration of Christ that fills you with such wonder and glory now will never be gone. In fact, there's even indication it will be something that increases and increases throughout our existence in eternity. That is the glory of Christ's resurrection. He's purchased that body for us. He's purchased that reality for us. And as a matter of fact, if we want to take that all the way, it's as it's said in Ephesians chapter 2, that He is, or has designed for eternity, in that resurrection body, only this, imagine this, to lavish the riches of His kindness on us in Christ Jesus. That is amazing. I don't have time for this whole last point, but I almost should have mentioned it. And that is this, what does the resurrection do? What is the significance of it? Number six is this. It affirms the goodness of God's creation and the physical nature of heaven. This goes with the last one. It affirms the goodness of God in creation. God created all things to reflect His glory. He said everything was very good. The physical world that He made, it was very good. The resurrection actually affirms to us in reality, and if you're into systematics, theologically, the reality that the physical creation is good. It's not bad, it's good. Sin has corrupted it, and all creation groans, I mentioned that earlier, but it is good. And the fact that Christ rose in a physical body reminds us that heaven is a physical reality. And that is really something that we should think about even more. And I say that for this reason, that because sometimes we don't connect it to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and our future resurrection then sometimes we think of heaven just in very nebulous, kind of cloudy, vague terms. Like, what are we gonna do up there? What's it gonna be like? Are we just gonna, you know, bow down at all eternity before Jesus? Are we gonna just float around in this sort of ethereal kind of state? What in the world is it going to be like? And unless we connect it to the physical creation of God, we won't have anything solid to compare it with. But because the new heavens and the new earth is a physical reality, we have something real to connect it with. What is that? This creation. And what do I mean by that? I mean this. Because it is a physical reality, when we think of heaven, we should think of heaven with physical delights and joys under the glory of Christ. So in other words, will there be discovery? Will there be animals? Will there be learning? Will there be travel? Will there be food? Will there be all of these things? And the answer is, I expect so. Why wouldn't there be? God created those things to be very good. And when He created those things very good, He delighted in them and He created them for us to delight in them. And if heaven is a physical reality, then we should very much expect that it's going to be a physical world filled with life very similar to this one, only better, only more glorious, only unaffected by sin. Now, what is the purpose of that, practically? That's a neat thought, but practically what that does is this. In essence, is one, it reminds us of how connected the nature of our worship is now to the worship that will be. Our ability to delight in God and to give Him glory and His good gifts now is a reflection of what we will be doing for eternity. Secondly, what it does is it brings the reality of Heaven then with that connection more real to our hearts. It brings it home. It makes it more real to our hearts and it brings it home. And it helps us even more to think of the reality of being in His presence and being with Him forever. Paul, I'm not going to read it just for time's sake, but he makes that point in 2 Corinthians 5. He says he doesn't want to be found naked. What does he mean? He doesn't want to be found with his own resurrected body. What Paul was saying is what I'm really longing for is not just to be in the presence of Christ, that's of course the foundation, but the presence of Christ with my new body. With my new body, with my resurrection body, with my body that's fit uniquely to enjoy. Right now, where people are, is not the ultimate end of salvation. It's a waiting spot. It's like the waiting room for glory. We're still waiting for that to happen. Even the saints who have gone before us are still waiting for that to happen. The ultimate end, when we speak of heaven, in its essence, it is the new heavens and the new earth with a resurrected body. That's the end of our salvation. That's what we were created for. And that's what we should hope. And that's what was accomplished and purchased for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And so I will close with these words and then pray. Paul, after he ends his great section on the resurrection, says this, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. What does the resurrection do? It encourages us and it reminds us that whatever you sacrifice, whatever you give, whether it be your life, whether it be your family, whether it be your job, whether it be comforts that you might have had in this world that you give up for the sake of the kingdom, that is not without a purpose. and that the end is that God will reward you. God will give you the inheritance that He has promised to you. And every sacrifice that you have made in this world will abound to His glory and your joy forever. It puts it into perspective. And all of this is because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Are you going to pray for us, or should I pray? I'll pray. Father, thank you for your gift of salvation. Thank you for the gift of your Son. Thank you for the promises that you have given to us, purchased for us, authenticated and verified and affirmed for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Help us please, Holy Spirit, to the glory of Christ, to meditate much on these things, warm our hearts. And I don't know how that might come from some here, Maybe there is loss experienced. Help them to see it in the light of the resurrection and of eternity. Maybe there's some here who are loving this world more than they want to become. And they need to realize that the resurrection guarantees that there is a better world in Christ and in the righteousness he offers. But they also need to know the reality that they can be excluded from that. I pray that you would convict them and draw their hearts by your grace to Christ even this morning. But in all of us, Lord, help us to live lives that are more clearly, more clearly living for that reward that You have for those who know Your Son, who by faith live for His glory in this world. Give us that enablement, give us that joy, we pray in the name of Christ.