And Lord, as we now come to your word, we thank you for your word. And we come, Lord, as beggars who ask to be fed by your word. And so we ask that by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we would have understanding. And not only understanding, but conviction to act and to live on what we understand from your word. Father, we remember that your Word never returns void to you. We remember that the grass withers, but your Word endures. So teach us, O Lord, to stand upon the promises of your Word. Teach us, O Lord, to stand upon the truth of your Word, and teach us, O Lord, to live by the truth of your Word, for the glory of Christ our Lord. In his name we pray, amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, please turn to John Chapter 19. We're actually going to be finishing John Chapter 19 today. Much faster than John Chapter 17 was. So we're going to be looking at John chapter 19 verses 38 to 42. As we conclude this chapter that has told us about the events that John saw as he was near to the cross. The one disciple out of all the disciples who came near to the cross and gave us eyewitness testimony of what he saw. So we'll be continuing in our study of things that happened after the death of Christ at the cross. A chicken and a pig were walking down the street one day when they approached a church with a sign in front that said, what can we do to help the hungry? And as you can surely imagine, the chicken and the pig were just smitten with conviction, as chickens and pigs often are. And so they started to talk about this problem that was advertised on this sign. What can we do? to help the hungry. It weighed on their consciences. Finally, the chicken, after much deliberation, it was a hen, she finally resolved, you know, we should feed them bacon and eggs. The pig pondered deeply for a moment, like pigs do, before finally objecting, saying, that sounds great, but it only costs a contribution from you. It requires a total commitment from me. This past week, I was talking to a Christian on social media about my understanding of what is known as the Great Tribulation. And I noted that for the view that I lean toward, the events described in the book of Revelation describe the entire church age. And thus, from at least one school of thought, the Great Tribulation is something that describes the entire age of the church. the era which started, the age which started on Pentecost and will continue until Christ returns. Now bear with me. Think about what that means. Because the fact is that for us, in our cultural context, it's very easy for us to think that it couldn't be happening now because we don't see Christians being fiercely persecuted. how wrong we would be to think that. If we don't see that Christians are being fiercely persecuted, it's because we're not paying attention to what's going on in most of the rest of the world. It's because we don't understand what it's like to be a Christian in most places outside of our country's borders. We're just that sheltered. We are that cut off from the places around the world where Christians are being beheaded. or are unable to get a job, maybe they're not even able to provide for themselves and so they are without a home because their family and the people who used to be their friends and their entire communities want nothing to do with them because of their faith in Christ and they don't want to face the same consequences from the government that those people, the Christians, face. Think about the Reformers and what they faced as a consequence of being all in with Jesus, of having a total and full commitment to Jesus. The Reformers were burned at the stake for their faith. These are the things that are historically normal for Christians to face. They face tribulation that, to be frank, could not be worse. They face these types of consequences. Why? because of their total commitment to Jesus. It was Paul who said to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3.12, he said, all who desire, all, not most, not some, not a few, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So if you're not being persecuted, what does that verse tell us? It tells us that you're not desiring or you're not trying to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, if we're being honest with the text. So has that thought that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, the fact that they will be persecuted, has that thought really sunk into and penetrated our minds? I mean, I wonder if it has. I mean, for me, I've never felt like my life was on the line for my faith. How about you? The closest I think I've probably come was three years ago when our government exceeded the limits of their authority by trying to impose limits on what the church can and cannot do. We, for example, just one example out of many, we were not supposed to sing if we even dared to gather. We weren't supposed to sing according to our governor. Well, okay, that's what the governor says. What does God instruct us to do? God instructs us to sing. So it became a question of whom we obey. To whom are we most loyal? Who gets to determine how we worship God? And the truth is, our governor put his nose in somebody else's business. He put it where it does not belong. God tells us to sing. So who was I going to obey? Of course, we were going to obey God, right? And I realized that that might mean that I, as the pastor here, might be arrested. I might be thrown in jail. And if I am, it would mean maybe being publicly mocked and scorned in the media, in social media, everywhere. It was possible. And I think it's very easy for us in our society and in Western culture to have this idea that being a Christian is just such an easy thing. It's such a costless thing. It never requires a total commitment from us. But Jesus said in Luke chapter 14, verses 26 and 27, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. What does it mean to carry a cross? It means you expect to die. He wanted us to know that being a Christian is very costly. He actually seems to have been scorning or scolding the multitudes who were following Him, instead of saying, you know, it's so great that you all are here today, and I just hope that this is a blessing to you, and stick around after for some refreshments and fellowship. Instead of saying that, He urges them to consider and to count the cost of following Him, saying, none of you can be My disciples who does not give up all His own possessions, in verse 33. Now, that doesn't mean that you just go homeless and have no possessions. Rather, what it means is that you see that everything that you own, including your own life, including your next breath, these are all things with which God has entrusted to your stewardship. What will move a man? What will persuade a woman to count the cost and to view their life and their faith in this way? If nothing else will, the cross should. The cross should. And in the text that we come to today as we continue our study of John's Gospel, we'll see that that's exactly the effect. that it had on two men who had a lot to lose. because they had only been secret disciples. They were what you might refer to as, what I refer to as, closet Christians. So John had introduced us to the reality of these types of people back in chapter 12, verses 42 and 43, where he wrote this. He said, nevertheless, many, even of the rulers, believed in him, in Jesus, But because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. And in our text today, John's going to introduce us to two examples of these people. Two of them who, after seeing the love of God displayed in the death of Christ, finally decide that they will come out of the closet and live for Him who died for them. So the point of our text today is that an open and outward display of faith in Christ can be costly. but that it has a way of preserving us from worldly temptations and from worldly defilements. Now John has shown us that two prophecies, two specific prophecies, were immediately fulfilled after Jesus gave up his spirit and died. The first one being that his bones were not broken as the Roman executioners saw that Jesus was dead and thus they did not feel the need to break his legs in order to expedite his death. And then we saw that a fountain of blood and water, things that throughout the scriptures represent means of cleansing and forgiveness, that a fountain of blood and water was opened in Christ's side as one of the guards pierced his deceased body. So now we're introduced to two of the men whose sins were cleansed and washed away in this fountain. Let's start with verses 38 and 39. John writes, After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus, who had first come to him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. So two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. We know very, very, very little about these two men, although some things can be learned about them when we examine the testimony of all four Gospels, specifically Joseph, especially Joseph. In Luke 23, verses 50 and 51, we learn that Joseph was from Arimathea, which was a Jewish city. We learn that he was waiting for the kingdom of God. What does that mean? It means that he was living in anticipation of Jesus coming, of the Messiah coming. We learn that he was a member of the council known as the Sanhedrin, and we learn that he was a good and righteous man. In Matthew 27.57, we learn that he was wealthy, that he was rich, and that he was a disciple of Jesus. Mark 15.43 tells us that Joseph was a prominent council member. So we're talking about somebody who was wealthy, somebody who had a lot of political influence, somebody who had clout, which means he was somebody who had a lot to lose. Now at some point during Jesus' ministry on earth, Joseph had become convinced that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. He was indeed the Christ that he had been waiting for. And yet, despite his conviction, despite his belief that Jesus was this Messiah, he did not openly act on what he believed, on what his conviction was. Instead, he remained, in John's words, a secret disciple. choosing to surround himself with men who hated Jesus so much that they would conspire to murder Jesus. Luke does, however, tell us that Joseph had not consented to their plan and action. Was Joseph there on the previous night when Jesus was arrested and illegally put up on trial in the middle of the night? Maybe he was there. We're not told that he was there. We're not told that he wasn't there, so we don't know, but perhaps. It's possible that he chose not to show up, but it's also possible that he did show up, but remained silent through the Inquisition and the trial of Jesus. But the main thing that we need to understand about Joseph of Arimathea is that he was not open. He was not outward with his faith in Jesus. He was a disciple. John tells us and Matthew tells us that word disciple always. It's never used of an unbeliever in Scripture, and so we can be sure that he was a true believer. He was a Christian. But he was a secret one. Why? John told us back in Chapter 12 for fear of the Jews. So Joseph had a lot to lose if he came out with his faith. If he came out of the closet with his faith. If he had chosen to be open and outward with his faith in Jesus. His peers, for starters, just for starters, his peers would have absolutely been revolted at his faith. They would have mocked him. They would have scorned him. They probably would have seen to it that he was promptly removed from his position. And he knew that it was entirely possible that if he came out of the closet and professed faith in Christ, that he could be completely excommunicated from the Jewish temple and community. Because if he had been open and outward about his faith in Christ, like the blind man who was healed back in chapter 9, that's what the blind man was facing, the formerly blind man was facing. John 9.22 says, the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Well, Joseph's whole life revolved around the synagogue. So he was going to lose everything if he came out of the closet. Further, he knew that there had been a plot put into motion that involved murdering Jesus and maybe even Jesus' most loyal followers as well. Lazarus, for example. When Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus, Their plot was not only to kill Jesus, but hey, Lazarus needed to go too. Joseph had everything to lose if he had been open and outward with his faith in Jesus. And thus he remained, at least until this point, a closet Christian. But this is the problem with not seeing our possessions as things that we steward, rather than things that we just outright own. See, if we see all the things that we have as being ours, as belonging to me and nobody else, if we see that our jobs and our cars and our homes, indeed even our very lives, if we don't see these things as things with which God has entrusted us, that he's given us stewardship over, then the more things you have, the more things you have to lose. And that's as true in our day as it was in Joseph's day. How many of you have heard about the airline stewardess who was fired because she would not celebrate abortion? There's a lawsuit about it right now. How many of you heard about the cake owner who was blacklisted and sued because he refused to bake a cake for a wedding because that wedding defied God's definition of marriage? We've all heard about that one. How many of you heard about the football coach here in our own state who was fired for praying on the field? This stuff's real. This type of persecution where a person can lose everything for their faith in Christ is very real. Being open and being outward with our faith can be extremely costly, yes. And the more that a person possesses, the more they can lose. It's only when you see yourself as a steward of those things, rather than as the outright owner of those things, that you are freed from the fear of losing all the stuff you've got. That's what will set you free. Not fearing man, but fearing God. It's so ironic that there's, in our day, there's this huge emphasis on everybody just coming out of the closet and being honest about who they are because we don't see anyone celebrating anyone coming out as Christians. You can come out of the closet and proclaim every type of sexual perversion known to man, and the world will hail you as being, oh, you're so brave! You're so bold! But if you come out of the closet as a Christian, if you come out and proclaim that Christ is Lord, and that you believe that He really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that nobody comes to the Father except through Him, All you'll meet is the scorn and rejection and mockery of people. An open and outward faith in Jesus will cost you. It will cost you. And I fear that the result is that we have many in our churches today who are just like Joseph of Arimathea, staying silent and being a closet Christian, a secret disciple for fear of what they might lose because they love their stuff so much. And John told us back in chapter 12, verse 43, that people chose this secret and silent faith because they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. like every so-called secret disciple or secret Christian or closet Christian, Joseph feared loss. He feared losing material things undoubtedly, but he also feared losing the approval of men. Wow! What slaves are they whose actions are dictated by what will earn them the praise of people? which changes from one day to the next, and which comes and goes. They might love you today and applaud you today, but tomorrow, oh, if you're not checking all the boxes that they have, you're scorned. and how freed from this slavery is the man who sees that everything he owns has been given to him by God, and he is just a steward before he is a part-time owner. As John the Baptist said back in chapter 3, verse 27, a man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. So everything you have, including your breath, including your life, including the clothes you're wearing today, where does it all come from? It comes from heaven. It's all given to you by God's hand. It's not yours. The earth is the Lord's and all who dwell therein. Right? If everything is His, then ultimately, in the truest sense, Nothing is ours, not even our lives. Joseph didn't believe that to be true, at least not enough to act on it, until now. Now the custom of the Romans was to leave the corpse of somebody who had been crucified just rotting on the cross as a way to warn the public about what happens to people who break the rules a few too many times or a little bit too badly. But because the following day was the Sabbath, And because it was the day of preparation for the Passover feast, making it what's called a high Sabbath, and because the law of Moses required a body that was hung on a tree to be buried before the next day, Joseph resolved to go to Pilate and to request permission to take the body of Jesus. Now, what they normally did with the bodies of criminals in cases like this is they would dump the bodies with all of the garbage in a burning dump outside of Jerusalem in a place called Gehenna. Trash was burned there day and night and the bodies of criminals were just thrown in with the rest of the trash. We can understand then why Gehenna became the primary metaphor for hell, where the flames of God's holy and just and divine wrath burn night and day forever. This is why Joseph finally decides that he's got to do something. He's got to come out of the closet and act. He was a disciple and the idea of Jesus' corpse being thrown into Gehenna with all the other trash of the city, apparently didn't sit very well with him. Jesus' family probably could not afford a tomb, so they couldn't do anything with the body. But Joseph, who was wealthy, just happened to have an extra tomb that he owned. And so he requested permission from Pilate to take the body. had been a closet Christian until now, but this is where he decided that he had to come out of the closet and identify himself with Jesus Christ openly and outwardly, regardless of what the cost may be. Praise the Lord that he did. Praise the Lord. In verse 39 we learn about another one. Another closet Christian who decides to come out. Somebody who has just opened the closet door a crack a couple times to peek out. His name is Nicodemus. We saw Nicodemus both in chapter 3 And in chapter seven, in chapter three, he came to Jesus when? At night, at nighttime. So the darkness would kind of give him cover. It would prevent others from seeing him talking to Jesus. And he acknowledged to Jesus immediately when he came to him at night. He said, we know that you have come from God as a teacher for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Notice that he said, we know. Notice that he didn't say, I know. He said, we know. Meaning the religious leaders all knew what Nicodemus knew. But it was only Nicodemus who we know of who actually acknowledged this before Jesus. The others suppressed the truth in their own unrighteousness. We saw Nicodemus again in chapter seven, where he sort of half-heartedly defended Jesus as the religious leaders wanted to have him arrested and nobody could grab him, where he kind of, again, half-heartedly defends Jesus by saying in verse 51, our law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it? Okay, so that was kind of defending Jesus, but not trying to be too obvious about it. But this is all we know about these two men. That's it. They aren't mentioned in the scriptures anywhere else. They're not mentioned again after this point here in John. Both were wealthy. Both had prominent positions among the religious leaders. And both were closet Christians, secret disciples, who upon seeing Jesus die, and perhaps even understanding the significance of his death, were forced to finally come out of the closet and be open and outward about who they identified with. Nicodemus and Joseph both serve as warnings to all of us about the danger of loving the stuff that we have and loving the approval and the applause of men far, far too much. As others have said, and you may have read this elsewhere or heard this elsewhere, but if you please God, it doesn't matter who you anger. If you anger God, it doesn't matter who you please. And the reason that the desire to seek the approval, applause, and praise of men is so dangerous is that it makes you a slave to them rather than a slave to Christ. It makes you a slave to the whims and desires of fallen people and those whims and those desires. They're almost always out of alignment with what Scripture teaches. Almost always. Because that's fallen man's nature. Spurgeon puts it this way. He says that when a professing Christian, quote, may begin to question, rather, what will people say instead of what will God say, at the moment he falls into that mood, he has introduced a weakening element into his life. I simply want to add, friends, that in our day, in our time, this inclination that we have to be people pleasers and to seek and become dependent upon the approval of men has maybe never, ever been more problematic in the church than it is today. Because social media is driven literally by an addiction to the praise and the approval of men. See, the way that social media is engineered, the way that social media is designed, the more time you spend on their site, the more money they make from advertisers. That's obvious. How are they going to get you to stay on the site as long as you possibly can, as long as they can possibly convince you to? and that is with dopamine addiction. You get likes, you get shares, and the more likes and shares you get, the more inclined you are to stay on their site longer. Why is that? It's because likes and shares trigger a shot of dopamine to be released into your brain, and dopamine is highly, highly addictive. I would even go so far as to say that dopamine addiction is actually the unspoken addiction of our age. Dopamine is very rewarding. And so it's easy to trigger a dose of its release. And the engineers who designed the social media platforms, they knew that. And they designed their sites accordingly. Do the research and see for yourself why the engineers and the people who built these social media platforms don't use those platforms themselves. In fact, they won't even let their kids use those platforms. Do the research and find out why. It's this, it's because of dopamine addiction. And once you are addicted to this phenomenon of likes and shares, boy, they can control things that you think. things that you do, who you are, and it all boils down to being a slave to the approval of men. It's a literal addiction. Those who seek God's approval over man's do have much to lose. And one of the things that will happen when a person changes, when a person decides that they're done seeking man's approval and they're going to pursue God's approval, is that the people they thought were their most trustworthy friends will abandon them. It may cost you friendships. It may cost you your job. It may cost you job promotions. It could cost you everything. It could cost you your life. But what do you really own? Seriously, think about this. What do you really own that God has not given you? The answer is nothing. Nothing. And by the way, if you turn away from the approval of man, you may even literally experience dopamine withdrawal symptoms, which include anxiety and depression and insomnia and lack of motivation and lack of energy. It's no wonder that there have never been more narcotics prescribed for treating these things. It's a real problem in our time. Why do you think so many people are walking around glued to their screens all the time? There's a literal addiction there. It's almost always because of dopamine addiction. The fact that we never see Joseph or Nicodemus mentioned in Scripture again may very well indicate that they actually did lose everything. They lost their power. They lost their positions. They lost their influence. I'm positive. It's possible they even lost their lives. It's entirely likely that they were soundly rejected by the Jews as a result of coming out of the closet, that they were cut off from the synagogue. It's entirely likely that they were persecuted, but it's a virtual guarantee that they were also deeply, deeply grieved at how cowardly they had been up until this point to hide in the proverbial closet for so long before finally coming out. Now you need to know, friends, just as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus needed to know, you need to know that while you may have much to lose if you come out of the closet as a faithful follower of Christ, whatever you might lose, Whether it's your job, whether it's your home, whether it's friendships, whatever, you may lose. It's nothing in comparison to what spiritual riches you have to gain. You're going to lose everything when you die anyway. But you won't lose those spiritual blessings. So we not only need to count the cost of being faithful followers of Christ, we do need to do that, but we also need to consider the cost of being closet Christians who just keep our faith to ourselves. The greatest consequence of being a closet Christian for Joseph and Nicodemus was undoubtedly the fact that they forfeited a closer fellowship, a closer walk with the Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry. Can you imagine passing that up for the approval of man? That's how tempting living for the approval of man is. Nothing else even comes close to this in terms of what they lost. They forfeited, what, two years? Maybe three years of walking right beside Jesus, of opportunities to hear Him speak, to watch Him perform miracles, to see the glory of one ruined sinner after another being transformed into saints right before their very eyes. Now while you and I don't have that same opportunity to walk physically with Jesus. Well, we don't have the opportunity to walk with Jesus in the physical sense that they did. The same principle applies to us nevertheless. You cannot be a closet Christian and have a close walk with Jesus. You just can't. He won't let you. He won't let you walk closely with Him and stay in the closet. The person who walks closely and openly with Jesus will hear His words echo in their ears over and over again. Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10.33. And so with that much said, One of the other consequences of being a closet Christian is that you literally have zero assurance of salvation. Nada. Zip. Zilch. You have no assurance of salvation. Why? Because of that verse. Jesus said if you deny me before men, which Joseph and Nicodemus have up until this point, I will also deny him before my father who's in heaven. Praise the Lord that he showed grace to give them time to repent of their sin. Not only does the closet Christian have to ignore that verse, but they have to ignore all the verses in the New Testament which instruct us with the words, one another. One another. How many one another commands are there in the New Testament? Tons. Let's start with the command that Jesus has given us multiple times in John's Gospel. Love one another. That's not just talking about loving your neighbor, that's talking about loving fellow Christians. How are you going to do that if you're in the closet? You're not. I'll just be honest, you're not. Romans 12.10 has two of the one another commands. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor. How are you gonna do that if you're in the closet? Exactly, you're not gonna do that if you're a closet Christian. Romans 14.19, pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Accept one another just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. Romans 15, 7. Admonish one another. Verse 14. Care for one another. 1 Corinthians 12, 25. Through love, serve one another. Galatians 5, 13. I mean, do you want me to keep going? Because I've got all day. There are all these one another commands, and how are you going to do it in the closet? How are you going to do any of them? Even one of them in the closet? You're not. So staying in the closet necessarily means being disobedient to the commands of scripture. Hopefully you get the point. The closet Christian is necessarily and without exception living in total and complete rebellion, willful, deliberate disobedience to the commands of God, which again means there is zero, literally zero assurance of salvation for you. but implied in their failure to obey the one another commands throughout the New Testament is a third consequence of being a closet Christian. They are missing out on the blessing, indeed, the beautiful gift of Christian fellowship. That is a blessing. I don't know about you guys, but I love meeting with you guys every week. I love gathering to worship the Lord with you guys every week. It's so encouraging to me. Especially the last three years as the world has just gone crazy around us. This is like our one hour and a half or so of sanity. That's how it feels to me. It's a gift. You guys are a gift to me. Gathering with you is a gift to me. You do realize that if you're a Christian, God designed you to belong to a body of fellow believers, right? As Paul explained God's organization of the local church in 1 Corinthians 12, he notes that everybody has a function. Everybody's been gifted with something that they can do to serve the local body. He says, but to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit." That's 1 Corinthians 12, verses 7 and 8. And he goes on and on to explain this and to unpack this. The fact that God gives each one of His children gifts with which they are to serve the common good that is there to be used for the good of the local church, the local assembly. And closet Christians Miss this. Not only are they taking their gift and burying it, not only are they not loving and serving their brothers and sisters in Christ, but they're also not giving their brothers and sisters in Christ the opportunity to love and serve and pray for and support them either. See, if they're not in Christian fellowship as a member of a local church, they're also not accountable to anyone. Accountability, you do know that's one of the roles of the local church, right? That's why church discipline exists. That's why we pray for one another. That's why we share our burdens with one another, because accountability is supposed to be one of the things that takes place within the context of the local assembly. I belong to you. Each one of you belongs to me. We're accountable to each other. That's the way that God designed it to work. And I suppose that this is a problem, that this problem is particularly a problem in our culture, where independence is like chief of all things. Americans, let's be honest, I love America, but we love independence, and it's very easy for people to turn independence into an idol, or at least an excuse to sin, an excuse to not be accountable to anyone. Now, for the person who has stayed away from church because they've been hurt, because they've been wounded, maybe they've even been spiritually abused in some sense, let me start out by saying, first of all, I know what that's like. I've been there, I've done that, I've got the t-shirt, I've got the emotional scars to prove it. But let me ask you this, if you were, If you were wounded or if you felt abused, emotionally abused in a different context, let's say school. or work, or in the home, don't you agree that that's not an excuse to withdraw from that, whatever that is, where you were feeling emotionally wounded? I mean, it happens. I went to school, everybody who's been to school and been around other kids, we've all been wounded in one way or another, right? We've all been made fun of, we've all been mocked, we've all been teased. It happens. Do we just take our kids out of any context where they're talking to anybody who could possibly emotionally wound them? No. Siblings emotionally wound each other. Does that mean you send one kid off to just go find your own way? No. No, listen. There is emotional wounding that happens in every single marriage, but that is not an excuse for anybody to get a divorce. The church is not composed of perfect people. And that applies just as much to pastors and elders as it does to anyone else in the church. We're sinners. We need grace. We step on one another's toes, not because Christians are such awful people, but because Christians are people, period. It happens in every relationship, everyone. So if you've stayed away from church because you've been emotionally wounded, have you found other people who will never emotionally wound you? Good luck with that. Or maybe you think that you've found better people to meet with. Okay, great. But if they're unbelievers, don't fool yourself. If you're more comfortable hanging around with people who hate your master, what do you think they're going to think of you if you dare to peek out of the closet? So in light of the disobedience involved in being a closet Christian, and in light of Christ's warning of what will happen to those who deny Him before men, we can ultimately say that there is no such thing as a closet Christian. There's no such thing as a secret disciple, at least not until the end, at least not indefinitely. Because the Lord disciplines those whom He loves, and every son He receives He scourges, which is ultimately what forced Joseph and Nicodemus to come out of the closet and face the music. Now this doesn't only apply to people who don't come to church on Sunday, by the way. This applies also to people who only come out of the closet, so to speak, on Sunday mornings, but who spend the rest of the week in the closet. Listen, coming to church is great, and I encourage everybody to come to church. Of course I do. But if coming to church doesn't have an effect on your life from Monday to Saturday, something's wrong. Something's really wrong. Because we're not only transformed for an hour and a half on Sunday mornings, it's a permanent transformation that we're supposed to be undergoing. And one of the tools for that, toward that, is gathering. I mean, you do realize, don't you, that if people don't know you're a Christian, They're going to talk to you differently, and they're going to treat you differently than if they knew that you are a devoted Christian. They will lay out temptations for you. They will lay out expectations for the unbeliever that they will not lay out for the person that they know, that they see as being just a total Jesus freak. Trust me. Let me tell you about a garage sale I went to years ago. You guys know I used to be a casino dealer, right? So I'm in Las Vegas visiting my parents and we decide, okay, Saturday, let's get some time out garage sale shopping. So we go out garage sale shopping and I come to this garage sale and start talking to the woman who's there. Well, she's a dealer in the casino industry. And I tell her, oh, I used to be a dealer in the casino industry too. And she's just letting every word fly, right? And so finally she asked me, so what are you doing these days? I'm a pastor. And that was the end of all the talk about all the words. People will treat you differently. They will lay out different temptations for you and expectations for you if they don't see you as being a Jesus freak. If they don't see you as being somebody who is living in total commitment to Jesus. I've seen so many people slip into absolutely heinous, heinous sin. And just about every time it's been people who are very silent about their faith, both at work and around their friends and around coworkers. Maybe they were silent because they didn't want to lose their jobs or they didn't want to lose their friendships. But it's better to lose your income. It's better to lose friendships than it is to lose your soul. It's better, wiser even, to lose your income, to lose friendships, and to gain all the things, all the blessings that come with being very open and outward with our faith. If you're afraid of losing everything, let me ask you this. Are you confident that the Lord will take care of you? Does Jesus not tell us that the Lord takes care of the sparrows of the field? How much more will He care for us? Do you believe that? See, an open and outward display of faith in Jesus, yes, it can be costly. But it has a way of preserving us from worldly temptations and worldly defilements. And that's not even to mention the way that an open faith serves to give us assurance of salvation. And we haven't even touched on how desperately, how incredibly desperately the world needs Christians who are giving a total commitment. Not a half commitment, but a total commitment to being bold disciples who share the gospel openly and courageously. Let me ask you this, is the gospel good news? Yes. Is there better news to be found? No, there isn't. So how can we be silent about our faith then? And how will they believe if they don't hear the gospel? It's the love of God displayed in the death of Christ that should move you, that indeed should compel you to display your faith outwardly and openly, just as it was the love of God displayed in the death of Christ that moves Joseph and Nicodemus to action. Let's continue, verses 40 to 42. And this won't take nearly as long to unpack, don't worry. So he took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore, because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. Now Joseph and Nicodemus do deserve some credit for what they did. Let's not forget that Jesus' twelve disciples all hit the road. They all scattered. Only John, from what we can tell, was near the cross at this point. But grace moved and filled Joseph and Nicodemus with such courage that they promptly wrapped Jesus' body in linen and spices. By God's providence, there was a garden in the place where Jesus died, and Joseph just happened to own an empty tomb in this garden. And there wasn't a lot of time, so they had to get him someplace nearby. We think of this as being accident, No, this is all sovereign providence. We think of Jesus' exaltation coming at the resurrection of Christ, but it actually starts right here, immediately after his death. The fact that Jesus was buried is significant enough of a detail that it's actually enshrined in the Apostles' Creed, which says that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. There are no pointless details in there. But we can understand very easily why the other things are important. His trial under Pilate, his crucifixion, his death. We understand why those things are important. Why is his burial important? Maybe it's significant because it was prophesied. Listen to Isaiah 53 verses 7 to 9. It says this, it says, He was oppressed and he was afflicted, but he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. This is a description of the suffering servant, the Messiah, who was to make his bed with the rich, with the wealthy, because he had not sinned, nor had he done violence. Consider also that this takes place in a garden. Is that significant? What takes place in a garden in scripture? Of course, it was in a garden that God placed the first man, Adam. And it was in a garden that God had warned the man that if he disobeyed God's command to not eat from the tree of good and evil knowledge, the consequence would be death. And it was in a garden where Adam disobeyed God and ate from the tree. And it was in that garden that God first extended grace unto man. It's only because of God's grace and mercy that that garden, the Garden of Eden, was not also His grave, and ours by extension as His offspring as well. By Adam's sin, Adam and his offspring lost the close personal fellowship with God that they had had in the garden. By Adam's sin, you and I were driven out of the garden with Adam. But in the death of Christ, who is the last Adam, the true greater Adam, who was buried in the garden, All who believe on Him are invited back into fellowship with God and promised a place in paradise where we will be in His presence and in perfect fellowship with Him, just as it was in the beginning forever. We have been entrusted with the good news that the floodgates of God's grace have been opened and that all who believe on Christ are washed clean of sin's every stain. Have you forgotten that there are sinners all around you every day who are perishing, who are hellbound, who, if they lost their life tonight, would spend eternity in destruction, in hell? Have you forgotten or have you failed to believe that God uses the preaching of the gospel to call forth His sheep Lay down your silence. Pick up your voice. Use it for the glory of God in proclaiming the gospel. Oh may God grant us courage to live out our faith in an unmistakable way before the world. And to share this amazing news, this good news that even the vilest, even the most wretched of sinners can be reconciled unto God by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Jesus promises to richly bless and to sovereignly provide for those who will deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him. Will you? Will you? Let us therefore resolve to act upon our faith publicly, and visibly, all for the glory of Him who died, so that we may live. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You once again for Your Word. O Father, we pray that you would strike us with conviction if that's what you have to do to wake us up to the reality of the world perishing around us, to wake us up to the reality that nothing that we own is ours, everything is yours. Give us courage. Give us wisdom to use what you have given us wisely and for your glory. Teach us, O Lord, to be open and outward with our faith, not only so that we may be spared from temptations and worldly defilements, but so that Christ would be glorified in our lives. It's in His name we pray. Amen.