I'm always glad for a large pulpit because there's so much stuff that you have to have up here and kind of spread out and, you know, be ready for all of this, but it's a real privilege for me to be up here again, serving you with the ministry of the word of God. So very, very thankful for that. Let's turn in our Bibles to Philippians chapter three, where we'll find our text for this evening. And I'm going to start, even though we're going to focus on verse 10, I'm going to start in verse one so that we have the context down through there and understand what Paul is getting at. I'm going to refer back to some of that as we go through this. So please attend carefully to the word of God. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs. Beware of the evil workers. Beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless. but whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Thus, God's word to us this evening. Now, as I explained the last time, I believe it's always been my habit, or at least I should say for many years now, it's been my habit to begin every sermon with something for the children. There aren't a lot of children out there this evening. You know, I can never gauge that or judge it, but there are a couple over there that I can see, and I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mind hearing something that's directed to them from this particular passage. Kids, if someone said to you, your parents love you, well, you know that. You know that, though, not just because someone said it to you, not just because someone said your parents love you, not just because you know the meaning of those words, but you know it because your parents give their love to you. And they do that in so many ways. They take care of you, they hug you, they doctor up your bumps and scrapes and bruises and all of those things, and all of those different ways that you know your parents love you because you have their love. They give it to you as their free gift to you. Well, in today's Bible passage, kids, the Apostle Paul says that he knows the power of Christ's resurrection in that same way. He's got the information. He knows the meaning of the words. He knows that Jesus was raised from the dead. He understands that. But there's more to it than that. He knows the power of Christ's resurrection because by God's free gift he has received the power of Christ's resurrection and everything that it does to save him. And he has that because God loved him. Now kids, some people call this day Easter. I know you've heard it called that. You might call it that yourself, but really it's better to call it Resurrection Sunday. Because today we especially praise God that Jesus was raised from the dead. We Christians know the power of Christ's resurrection because by God's free loving gift, we have received what it does to save us. And so kids, what I'm telling you this evening is trust in Jesus to receive salvation by the power of Christ's resurrection. In other words, you need to know the power of Christ's resurrection and through simply trusting him, receive everything that his resurrection does to save you. You may not understand all of the things that it does to save you, but trust in Jesus, the one who was raised from the dead. All right, adults, we turn to all of you at this point. Paul here in Philippians 3 expressed his great desire to know the power of Christ's resurrection within a very famous context. That famous context in which he counted everything as lost that he might gain Christ and be found in Christ and be justified on the ground of Christ's righteousness alone. All of those things of his Jewishness that he had once vainly relied upon in the flesh for his acceptance in the sight of God, Paul counted it now as no better than dung. I know this translation, the New American Standard says rubbish. The Greek word is literally dung. You know, Paul sometimes when he wrote, he was really straightforward about things. But everything he had relied upon for his acceptance in the sight of God, he counted it as no better than dung in comparison with the far surpassing value of knowing Christ and having all that comes with being united to Christ. For Paul to know the power of Christ's resurrection depended upon his being united to Christ and justified through faith alone. He revealed, therefore, the close link between Christ's resurrection, justification, and the various ways that resurrection power is manifest in the believer by being in union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Paul was mainly referring to the power of Christ's resurrection in his sanctification. We would have seen that even better if I had read a little bit farther in the passage. That is to say that he was referring to the power of Christ's resurrection in the living of the life of knowing Christ. But in the various links that we find in this context, it's easy to see that he understood the importance of Christ's resurrection for the other events in the order of a sinner's complete salvation consummated in receiving the fullness of resurrected eternal life in heaven at the last day. In other words, Paul was concerned here also with the fruits of the powerful resurrection of Christ. And so we find, that the Christian knows the benefit of Christ's resurrection for his justification, and he knows the power of his resurrection in his regeneration, his sanctification, and yes, even in his glorification. And so first tonight, we're gonna see the benefit of Christ's resurrection for justification. I know we all understand that the resurrection of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ is absolutely essential to the gospel. It's a non-negotiable doctrine. I think maybe a lot of us don't understand exactly why it is essential. That's what we're going after this evening. Paul wanted to be found in Christ, the famous in Christ theology of Paul. And what it really means is he wanted to be united to Christ, which also meant that through faith he would have Christ's righteousness as his own. For Paul then, union with Christ had given him the capacity to receive God's gift of saving faith, that ability to believe through which God had counted Christ's righteousness to Paul. Now, there's a matter here that we need to handle carefully in order to understand it properly and avoid confusion. So first of all, to know the benefit of Christ's resurrection for his justification is to have received that benefit by God's grace and the blessing of justification that depends on it. There are lots of Christians today, I'm sure that we reformed people are aware that there are lots of Christians today who do not intellectually know very much about justification. And yet by God's grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, they like all Christians have received God's pardon of their sins and his accepting them as righteous in his sight. And we all know the catechism answer only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received through faith alone, counted as their own righteousness. God accepts Christ's righteousness in place of our complete unrighteousness. All of us Christians, we need to understand, are third party beneficiaries of a saving transaction between the father and the son. This is something that took place completely outside of ourselves. Having been justified, owning that, and knowing all of its benefits, we know it. In addition to this, we're aware. We are aware, we know because we are aware that all of our sins are pardoned and we have free access into the presence of a holy God. Now in the second place, we put it this way because justification is something that happens completely outside of the Christian. It is not something that happens inside and it's not a personal experience of the power of Christ. We have to keep this in mind when we think about the connection between Christ's resurrection and justification. And the connection is this. Christ's bodily resurrection demonstrated and proved him to be the sinless one, according to scripture, whom death therefore could not hold. It proved his righteousness to be perfectly all-sufficient as the ground of the believer's imputed righteousness. Christ's resurrection declared him to be the sinless one, perfectly just and righteous because his righteousness was necessary for his resurrection. If he had had one sin, even one little peccadillo, his body would still be in the grave. on the grounds of his righteousness alone and not because of any supposed righteousness or merit in the believer, God's justification of the believer is a declaration, a verdict, if you will, from the judge of all the earth that the believer, even though he is a sinner, is perfectly righteous in God's sight by charging Christ's righteousness to his account. And so if Christ had not been raised bodily, it would mean that he had no righteousness to be accounted to us. Now I know that this is a little bit, you know, sort of tight reasoning. We have to follow it carefully, but the end product is this. Christ's resurrection is essential to our justification because of that link with Christ's righteousness. Christ's bodily resurrection was his victory over death and was the final linchpin of his dealing with the sin of his people completely, thoroughly, sufficiently. As we heard this morning, the sting of death is sin, but death is swallowed up in Christ's victory. He had removed his people's guilt. On these grounds, God could pardon all their sins in their justification. And so again, even with that link that we can see that Christ's resurrection is essential to our justification because our justification is the pardon of our sins and the accepting of us as righteous in the sight of God. Because Christ's righteousness proved by his resurrection has been credited to the account of those who have faith in him. The Christian can know the benefit of justification only if Christ was raised bodily from the dead, and he was. Now hopefully, if you're thinking this through, hopefully this gives you insight into the Bible's words that perhaps you didn't see before, raised for our justification. Christ's resurrection, dear brothers and sisters, is a great comfort to us because it assures us through the Spirit of God that for all who believe in Christ, God has declared that He counts us righteous in His sight, justified. Christian, consider this on this particular day, how wonderful it is that you the sinner are counted righteous by God, because Christ the righteous is risen." He is risen indeed. Next, the power of Christ's resurrection in regeneration. In Paul's theology, union with Christ had given him new life. and brought the many great changes in Paul that he catalogs here, at least in part in Philippians 3, so that he believed in Christ by the grace of God. He rejected his former false righteousness that he catalogs here in favor of and love of Christ's true righteousness, and he had a capacity and a desire for holiness of life. In other words, By uniting Paul with Christ, the Holy Spirit had implanted an entirely new principle of life in Paul. The Holy Spirit's act to give Paul new life in Christ and to every Christian is called the new birth. You're familiar with it, regeneration, born again. Paul wrote about it in Romans 6, picturing the work of the Spirit to unite us to Christ as a baptism into Christ. I'm going to go back to Romans chapter 6, and we'll spend a little bit of time there. And we're going to start with verses 3 through 5, where we want to see this. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." One of the things this tells us is that the new birth is absolutely dependent upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is his resurrection raising up a spiritually new person, a new self, in place of that old, sin-dominated, unbelieving, rebellious-toward-God self who was caused to die by being united to Christ in his death. And so Christ's resurrection provides both the pattern and the power for regeneration. It is the power of Christ's resurrection applied to the heart of a sinner to give him newness of life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead raises a sinner from his spiritually dead condition and trespasses and sins to new spiritual life. It's the power of God, and it is by the grace of God, not the effort of the sinner in any way. Now back in John 3, Jesus said that you must be born again from above by the cleansing of Christ and the power of the Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. No one can enter or even discern the kingdom of God apart from the new birth applied by the Spirit of God according to the resurrection of Christ. A sinner cannot be delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the beloved Son apart from the resurrection of Christ. This means that it is impossible to have saving faith in Christ apart from new birth by the Spirit. Since the new birth depends on Christ's resurrection, no one can have faith in Jesus Christ apart from His resurrection applied to their heart by the Spirit. Regeneration, the new birth, is absolutely essential to a sinner's salvation, and if it were not for the resurrection of Christ, the sinner could not and would not know regeneration. Would not receive it, would not have it. Christ's resurrection as both pattern and power is essential to the new birth. So the Christian knows. He has the effects and the benefits in his individual Christianity and personal experience. He knows the power of Christ's resurrection in his regeneration. Do you know that power? Have you been born again? Jesus said, you must be born again to see and enter the kingdom of God. Have you known the power of Christ's resurrection applied to you by the spirit of God? And as a result, have you believed in Christ for your justification? God will pardon and accept you in no other manner than through faith in Christ. God will grant faith in no other condition than the new birth. Do you know the effect of Christ's resurrection for your regeneration? Are you even aware of its evidences and effects? Ask yourself this, do you think like a Christian? Or do you think like a worldling still? Do you love the Christ a Christian loves? Or do you love the world? Do you trust Christ? or your works to save you? Have you been born again? If so, then realize this, Christian, how wonderful it is that you live in newness of life because Christ who died lives again. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Next, the power of Christ's resurrection in sanctification. Now, as we mentioned before, this is kind of the central point of what Paul has said in Philippians 3.10. He wanted to be found in Christ. He wanted to be found justified that he might know the power of Christ's resurrection in sanctification as another of those fruits of Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead. The Christian's progressive sanctification flows from the new birth and always follows justification. There is no such thing as a Christian whom God justifies that he will not also sanctify. It is so closely connected to and dependent upon regeneration, the new birth that is, that Paul addressed both of these matters in Romans 6 in a seamless logical flow. Our union with Christ by the Spirit in our new birth and faith is union with him in his death and resurrection. We thereby receive both newness of life and justification as we've already seen. Newness of life is the new heart with new capacities for faith in Christ according to God's gift, but a heart that also has new capacities for loving God, loving His law, and living accordingly. So after Paul spoke of newness of life in Romans 6, he also wrote, even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Sanctification can occur in the life of the Christian because it is grounded in Christ's resurrection to a life lived to God in which all the sins of all of his people had been dealt with. Paul exhorted us to strive for sanctification since Christ's death and resurrection has enabled us to sanctification, Romans 6, 12 through 13. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as what? Those alive from the dead. and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." Now, he went on to explain throughout the rest of Romans 6 that because of God's work of grace within us to unite us to Christ's death and resurrection, we have been released from sin's slavery and made slaves of righteousness and of obedience because we have been made slaves of God. And brothers and sisters, that is true freedom indeed. How then could we fail to pursue sanctification by doing away with our body of sin, that to which Christ died, and striving to live more to God and righteousness, that to which Christ was raised? It is the resurrection power of Christ that is at work in you, Christian, to cause you to die more and more to sin and live more and more to righteousness. Now listen carefully to this next sentence. It is therefore the resurrection power of Christ that you have available to you to strive to put sin to death and grow in true righteousness and holiness. Now, when I first realized that a whole lot of years ago, it was an amazing thing to me to realize that God, the Holy Spirit, is wielding the very same power he used to raise Christ from the dead to enable me to put sin to death and live more and more to righteousness. In the midst of your struggles with remaining indwelling sin in your Christian life, that has to be not only a true comfort, but an encouragement to realize that God will continue to wield this power. It is available to you. That is the power in which you strive when you strive, so strive. Turning over to Colossians chapter 3 for just a moment, we'll see this once again demonstrated to us in the scriptures. Beginning in verse 1, if then you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life You get that? You've died, and now you have life that is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, since you are raised with Christ, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. And it goes on through Colossians 3 telling us all about those put offs and put ons. In other words, dying more and more to sin and living more and more to righteousness. By the resurrection power, the spirit wields in you. It is the power of Christ's resurrection by which the Christian knows the possibility and the capacity for sanctification in the very first place. It is the resurrection power of Christ by which the Christian knows the work of God within him to sanctify him. What is sanctification? Question 35. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled, that's the resurrection power of Christ at work in you, are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. It is the resurrection power of Christ by which the Christian knows the desire and ability to pursue holiness. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will, that's the desire he gives you, and to work, that's the ability he gives you for his good pleasure. Because of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, sanctification will always issue forth from the new birth and saving faith. Because of Christ's resurrection, sanctification will always follow and accompany justification. By the same token, and here again is one of those matters we need to handle carefully and understand clearly. By the same token, the Christian sanctification and good works, Never contribute to his salvation. Never contribute to the new birth or faith. Never contribute to justification. They are by the grace of God alone. It is the resurrection power of Christ applied by the spirit of Christ that must give spiritual life first, And then these other benefits flow from it in their order. The heart must first have life unto God, unto trust in and love for Christ. Then God can make that objective declaration that the sinner is pardoned and accepted in his sight through faith alone in Christ alone. Then and only then will such a heart desire and be able to produce good works unto holiness. but it is the resurrection power of Christ that produces holiness in the Christian. Now, for an application, it's really, really easy for me to do. All I have to do is repeat a little piece of scripture known as Romans chapter six, verses 12 through 13. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. The Christian knows the fruit of Christ's resurrection power in his sanctification. And again, Christian, if this is you, if you're a Christian, how wonderful it is that you can be purified because Christ the pure is risen. He is risen indeed. And finally, the power of Christ's resurrection in glorification. Christ's righteousness, the proof of which is in his resurrection, is of course the ground of justification as we have seen. His righteousness is also that which merits eternal life for us. I think we miss that sometimes, that as Adam failed to keep the covenant of works, Christ was part of the covenant of grace is that Christ is our substitute to keep those requirements. To perfectly fulfill the covenant of works through perfect personal obedience to all of God's law, sinless obedience to receive the same thing that Adam lost for us, which is eternal life. by the merits of that sinless, perfect, personal obedience. That's what Paul was looking for. He even spoke of his own bodily resurrection from the dead on the last day, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. So shall the Christian know the power of Christ's resurrection in his own bodily resurrection from the dead on the last day. As we heard this morning, Christ is the first fruits. But brothers and sisters, we're the rest of the fruits. John Calvin wrote, quote, we are assured of our own resurrection by receiving a sort of guarantee substantiated by His resurrection." Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead provided the final purchase for our everlasting life because it confirmed His sinlessness and His fulfilling of all righteousness on our behalf. And that's what merited eternal life for us. And he is, again, both the pattern and the forerunner of our own resurrection, the first fruits from the dead. His resurrection led the way because it provided the virtue for our own resurrection and the pattern after which our resurrection would follow. Furthermore, The same power by which God raised Christ bodily from the dead is again that very power that He will use to raise us from the dead. And it's all grounded in the virtue of Christ's resurrection, ultimately in the virtue of Christ Himself. Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the very God and Savior and King and Head who will raise us up on the last day. You know, John 10.18 tells us that He raised Himself from the dead by His own almighty power and authority. Now, that doesn't mean that the Father and the Spirit weren't involved in it. They certainly were. We can point that out from other scriptures. But that same one who was able to raise himself from the dead has promised us that he will raise us up from the dead by that same power. Turn back to John 6 for a moment. It's one of my favorite chapters. Verses 39 and 40. where Jesus says, and this is the will of him who sent me that of all that he has given me I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my father that everyone who beholds the son and believes in him may have eternal life and I myself will raise him up at the last day. Now I hope you notice the difference there. In verse 39 he says I will raise it up at the last day. And the it he's talking about is the entire unified body of Christ of which he is the head. And so we have that corporate understanding of a resurrection on the last day. But then in verse 40, he says, I will raise him up. And so Christian, through faith in Christ, you can rest assured that by the power of his resurrection, the same power applied to you personally, he will raise you up at the last day. as a part of that unified body of Christ. In other words, not one of us will slip through the cracks. And brothers and sisters, what a glorious, encouraging, and comforting promise this is. What a reason to look on Christ and to believe in Him. It is his authority and his power that shall raise us from the dead, and as Philippians 3 says a little bit later on, will conform us to his own glorious body by the power he has to subject all things to himself. Through this promise and the certainty of Christ's resurrection, we have resources to maintain our certain hope of our own resurrection from the dead. And that is of great help in those times in our Christian life when things get difficult and when things sometimes seem hopeless. Through the power of Christ's resurrection, as it has now affected our lives in the new birth by the Spirit of Christ who indwells us, we have additional resources to maintain our hope of the resurrection in troubled times of persecution, affliction, and even approaching our death. Christian, how wonderful it is that you have this hope and this certainty that you shall be glorified because Christ the glorious is risen. He is risen indeed. The Christian knows the benefit of Christ's resurrection for his justification And the Christian knows the power of Christ's resurrection in the new birth, in sanctification and glorification. This is not just dry, abstract doctrine, brothers and sisters. In fact, there is no such thing from the Bible and in true Christianity. Doctrine is the content of our faith and it always applies to life. The doctrine of Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead is doctrine, yes, but it is a historical fact, too, that has the most profound implications and effects for our lives, eternal implications and effects. It is of the utmost importance to mankind, for only in Christ's resurrection can new life and eternal life be found. It is the very seal of all that the gospel promises. Do not disregard it. Never let it become old hat to you. Never drift from it. Remember that we ought not to wait for one day a year to contemplate it and remind ourselves of its importance. After all, we meet. to worship God every week on the day of the week that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. So as you contemplate the gospel along with the whole counsel of God each week, never leave out Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead as an essential element of your salvation. Avail yourself of the power of Christ's resurrection constantly in the living of your Christian life. You ain't gonna make it through without it. Glory in the hope of your own resurrection from the dead that Christ has provided for you in his resurrection. And one final thing. If you're not a Christian, but you find yourself wanting to know the power of Christ's resurrection after hearing this, then confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. And believe in your heart that he was raised from the dead. and you shall be saved. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, please do press the significance and the importance and the essential nature of Christ's resurrection upon us, but in such a way by the power of the Spirit that we will put it to work in our lives in all of these ways. Father, help us in this. We are weak, but You are not. You are the risen Christ, both Lord and Christ, the One who was crucified, the One who now lives, is at the right hand of God interceding for us. We pray this through Him and in His name, amen.