As I was thinking about Easter, thinking about that first resurrection day, man, a lot of the story in scripture is so interesting. There's lots of facets to it. And I wondered if maybe a few of you could share what's your favorite story from the Bible that has to do with the resurrection? I'll start you off a little bit. One of my favorite ones is John and Peter doing a foot race. It says they ran to the tomb. And I would have expected Peter to win because he was always first off the bark. I mean, he was so fast, he probably would have foot fouled probably if they were actually running an official race. But John, the younger guy, beats him there. John, the disciple that the Lord loved. What a neat story, I always like that one. Anybody have one that you like? Yes. Okay, yeah, that would be a neat one to see when Mary finally realizes it's the Lord. Yeah, that's why I kind of think my one big error in theology is that I believe in time travel, okay? I just think it would be so cool and it would enhance our worship in heaven if we got to go back and actually see the resurrection story. You know, all the different little, anybody have another one of those stories about the resurrection that makes it, that you would like to see if you could time travel? Yeah. Yeah, those guys who hauled him there, yep. Yeah, so the ladies, I would have loved to hear the chit-chat on the way to the tomb, yes. Anybody else, another snapshot of the resurrection? Yes, George. Yeah, if they rolled it, or did they slide it, or they just pick it up and chunked it? Yeah, good, okay. Angel moving the stone away. Anybody else? Yes, Terry? Okay, so that picture of the anointing oil, yeah, perfume. Yep. I just think when Steve was sharing out there at Barnhart's house about The, how did you say it? Bunches of people saw him. Yeah. You know, over 500. And it's just like, I would have liked to see the faces of those people when, the first few especially, that it's like they, some of the 500 surely hadn't heard, you know? And all of a sudden it's like, well, wait a minute. Am I dreaming? You know, hit themselves on the head, you know, or do something to pinch me. Is that Jesus or what? Yeah, that's Jesus, right? Anybody else? Yes, Craig. Yeah. Good, good. Yeah, I told you so. Yeah. Anybody else? I really like the guys on the road to Emmaus when they're walking with the Lord. Don't even realize it's the Lord. And then at some point, the light goes on. Would have been cool to see. And I guess my all-time favorite, too, is when Jesus walked through the walls. The door's all locked, but you can't come in. Jesus can come wherever he wants to go. So pretty amazing. You know, sometimes in our life, we suffer so many trials and tragedies and difficulties that it could steal some of our joy if we let it. You know, Christmas time is difficult for a lot of us because we've lost loved ones. My mom died in December, and so it's always a little tough Christmas season. But here we are at Easter, and a lot of us have lost loved ones in the last several weeks. But it's really should help us to get more excited about Easter. It's about the life after this. What's next? You see, Our passage today is in 1 Peter. And 1 Peter is addressing that very thing, how the people were suffering. They were grieving some of them. Some of them were physically in pain. Others of those who were emotionally shot felt like they couldn't go on. And Peter writes to them and says, hey, don't forget about our hope. Don't forget that soon and very soon, the Lord's gonna come back and he's gonna take us to be with himself. Today, I don't want us to allow anything to get into the way of us celebrating Easter. This is a great day. This is the day that changed everything. May we really celebrate and worship the Lord for his greatness. We find in 1 Peter 1, if you want to turn there with me. almost a doctrinal treatise, but kind of a hit in one doctrine after another. For those of us who may start scratching our head and thinking, I'm not sure I know the answer to that doctrine. I'm not sure I got that straight. Well, Peter lays it on the line very clearly what our hope looks like. Would you look with me at 1 Peter 1 and verse 3, and it starts off there with the word blessed. And a lot of times we look at the blessed, it talks about blessed is a man who, but this one is who's being blessed. Look what it says, blessed be the God. God is being blessed. The blessing is on God. What is that? We bless him by our praise and worship because of what he has done. Look what it said, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Blessed be God. Why should he be blessed? Well, he's blessed because he has poured out abundant mercy. You see, abundant mercy is more than plenty. It's more than just enough. It's not like it was even close. God's mercy is flowing over us like a fountain or like a waterfall. It's just so much there. And if we can just see God's mercy today, looking back on the last 24 hours, 48 hours, the last week, the last month, the last year, God's mercy has been there all along, all there. Why would we say we have God's mercy? Well, very clearly we know that he has begotten us again. He has made us new. When Jesus was asked, you know, what a guy needed to do to be saved, he says, you must be born again. And this is what he's talking about, being born again. He's begotten us again. Not this time to die, but to live. You see, the first time we were born, we were born into the human race, and we were born sinners. And our destiny was hell. Our destiny was separation from God. Our destiny was death. But now that we have trusted Christ, those of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, that can say not only is He the Savior of the world, but He's my Savior. Those of us who can profess Jesus Christ as our Savior and possess Him, those who have the Son, they have life and they've been born again. Meaning that this born again is in the spirit realm, meaning that I am saved. Not I hope I'm saved, not I think I'm saved, not some days I'm saved, but I am saved, why? Because I've been born again. And once you're born again, then you are born to life, not to death. And he says we're born into a lively hope. That word there about lively is the idea of invigorated. That which is not only invigorated and lively as common understanding, but it's a lively hope that is fixed. It's permanent. It's there forever. We'll see in this passage several places where it keeps coming back to us that truly, once someone is saved, they will be forever saved. So grab a hold of this, make sure you do it because our hope would not be a true hope if we didn't know for sure that we're going to heaven. You see, what we call eternal security or forever saved, is so important to the Christian life. Otherwise, joy can't really be there, only anxiety. We're born again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, our hope is not built on wishful thinking or with a savior that is still in the grave. No, our hope is in a risen savior. Our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. the new life that he offers is a lively hope. And what is it? It's a hope that is living and coming back from the dead, it says, from the dead. You see, some people think Jesus didn't really die, that Jesus kind of got sick on the cross, that he was swooning and he was in such bad shape that they had mercy on him and they took him down. Now, if you read the story very clear, Jesus literally, physically died on the cross for you and for me. They buried him because he was dead. But on the third day, he rose again. You see, he never ceased to exist. As some people say, when you die, you cease to exist. Nope, he died. but he was resurrected. Just like those of us when we pass away, there is not this thing where we cease to exist. The Bible is very clear. It's appointed to man once to die, and then comes what? Judgment. Verse four moves on, and we'll keep moving. It says, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and fades not away. There's three words here in the Greek, boom, boom, boom. He's trying to help us understand about what? Our inheritance, right? Our inheritance is what our father leaves for us, what he gives to us. When you see inheritance in scripture, when it's talking about the believer, it's talking about heaven and all that goes with it. Our inheritance. What about our inheritance? It's incorruptible. The word in King James, incorruptible. It means it will not diminish. It means it will not vanish. It means it will always be there. It has been obtained permanently. It means it can't be pilfered or plundered. What a wonderful testimony about our inheritance, our salvation. It cannot be Pilfered or plundered. And then it goes on to undefiled. Undefiled means there is no defect or flaw in it. It will not be in any way, the rust can't get to it, right? The bugs can't, we don't have bugs here, but nothing can get to that inheritance. Nothing will attack it and make it less valuable. Nothing will damage our inheritance. Third word there, it talks about not fading away. And what you can think of when you see the word fading away is the idea of a flower. It's the same word used in James. When James talks about life, how it's, you know, there's a flower and then it fades away. That happens with the body, but it's not gonna happen with our soul. Not with our inheritance. It's permanent. It's there. It's going to not be damaged or stolen. It's not going to be wilted like a rose that fades. The idea is there that it's going to be protected and preserved. It has a special quality to it. And then it says it's reserved in heaven. Reserved could easily be replaced with the word preserved. preserved in heaven. My salvation is preserved, meaning guarded. It's the word tereo in the Greek. It means to be guarded. It means to keep bandits out. People who would come and try to ruin it, break in and steal it away. And he says here that our inheritance is for you. All those things are for you. Talking about the believer, For you, who does it belong to? It belongs to every believer in Jesus Christ. This inheritance that God promises to us. I'm so glad that our inheritance is guarded. But what about those guards? What if they fall asleep like the ones at the tomb of Jesus? What if they're not very good guards? Well, hold on a second. Let's look and see what we can find out about the guards for our inheritance. Because it goes on in verse five, it says, it's kept by. The kept by is the guards. It's actually military terminology. It means that you're being protected, something that's being protected by a military guard. Either to prevent a hostile invader or even to protect against someone who is going to take flight and hoping to get out from danger. I find it interesting because it talks about our inheritance that's kept. It's kept from us messing up, and it's kept from those who would come in and steal us away. There are a lot of people with bad doctrine, but if they know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, they're going to heaven. There's a lot of people who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior and then have fallen away from going to church and reading the Bible and believing in God as they should. But if they've trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior, they're going to heaven because they're kept by a guard. What's the guard? Who is that that would protect against them leaving or against someone stealing their salvation? Look what it says, kept. It says, by what? Who are kept by the, read it for me, by the power of what? Power of God. By the very power of God. Can you think of anybody who can whip God? Anybody can penetrate if God is guarding something. There's no one. We are kept, it says, we are protected by a guard, and that guard is by the name of God. By the power, by his power. That word power there, as you've heard many times, it's the word dunamis, it's the word that is used for dynamite, but it also can be used as in the ability to perform. So, is God, does God have the ability to perform your protection over your salvation? And the answer is yes. There is no greater one that is more competent to guard over our inheritance, our salvation, than the power of God. Talks about how he is wanting to keep us through the power and his skill through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ready to be revealed, that's the idea, unveiled. Someday we'll be able to see the spirit realm. We'll be able to see our salvation in much clearer terms. Right now, we don't know if someone's saved or not. I mean, you tell me you're saved, I'll take your word for it. We can't see inside somebody. But I think in heaven, we'll know. Everyone will know as they ought to be known. No more hiding behind images and thoughts and behavior, but everyone there knowing the Lord. And he says, our salvation is kept by God, ready to be revealed in the appointed time. When it talks about salvation in scripture, it can talk about several things, but here we find salvation very clearly brought up an idea that our salvation is going to take a little different look on each time period. What I mean by that is simply this. Salvation is something that takes place in a moment in time. In a moment in time, you decide, yes, Lord, yes, to your will and to your way, I trust Jesus as my Savior. Have you done that? When you do that, then you have possession of salvation. You have salvation that's kept by the power of God. But dear believer, if you know Jesus as Savior, we know that you're not perfect. I hate to break it to you. At least your pastor's not. Right? And so what happens is God is also not only has he saved me, but he's saving me. from myself, from my sin nature, from this horrible world, right? There's only the possession where we have justification, but also I need sanctification. So this old flesh keeps wanting to do things that are against God, but the Holy Spirit keeps wanting me to do what is for God. So you have justification, and then you have progressive salvation, which we call sanctification. And then thirdly, we have what we call perspective salvation. That's what we call glorification. It's when we see Christ and we trade this body in for a new one, one that's perfectly holy, that not only am I right before God, righteous before God, but I'm also right in everything that I do. Wouldn't that be great? I hate to break it to some of you, but you're not. You're not right in everything you do. I know you have the opinion you might be right, because I know I have that opinion at times. But if you disagree with me, we know you're wrong. But see, salvation is guarded. We have it secured, our justification. Romans 8 talks about the ones he justifies, the ones he saves, then he sanctifies. The one he sanctifies, someday he's gonna glorify. In fact, in Romans 8, when you read that whole string, it's as though they've already happened. In God's mind, it's like we are already, he's already calling us saints. Why did he call us saints, holy ones? I'm not behaving like a holy one all the time. Because God's saying, hey, I see you already what you're gonna be in Christ. Do you know him? Have you been justified? Have you trusted Christ? If not, why not? We'll keep moving. Verse six, it says that we greatly rejoice. Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if it be you are in heaviness through manifold temptations. There's a whole lot of good stuff in there, but basically simply this, it's saying we need to rejoice now. Rejoice. in this Resurrection Sunday. Don't let anything get in the way because I know it hurts. I know there's pain, but be exceedingly glad. Know that this sorrow, this grief that we have right now will be replaced with glory, will be replaced with greatness of God. It says we might be in some difficult times, This heaviness he talks about is to grieve or to sorrow. Manifold means many different ways that you can get hurt. Temptations. Parasmos is the Greek word. It has the idea of testing of your character, enticement to sin. And then in verse seven, it says, the trial that you may be going through. This word trial is talking about what we've talked about before, which is back in that day, people would take, there was no paper money, there was just coins. And they would, when they would have the coins, sometimes they'd heat them up and they would shave off some of the coins and make them lighter than they should be. So they were cheats. They were doing awful things so bad that in one period of time, about 100 years long, they passed 80 laws about how you should handle your money and quit cheating people and shaving the edges off. You see, this word for the testing and trial of it, the word trial there has the idea of approved. Approved. That the approval of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Praise, honor, and glory. Didn't that sound like worship to you? I mean, it sounds like elements of worship. What we bring to Jesus in our worship. Praise is appreciation, honor is showing value, and glory is majesty or exaltation. What a big day will be at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Verse eight. Verse eight goes on and says, whom having not seen you love, in whom though now you see him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. You don't see Christ today, but do you love him? How could that be? Only by the power of God, only by the Holy Spirit working in us, right? We only can love God because he loved us first. Once we have trusted Christ as Savior, one of the natural things that should take place or supernatural things is that you fall in love with God. You see, I believe it's impossible for me to determine whether someone's saved or not. So don't come and ask me, pastor, you think this person's saved? I'll say the same thing, which is I'm not in charge of that. God's in charge of that. But one of the symptoms, one of the things you can see on the outside is when someone goes from fighting against God to loving God. When someone doesn't really want to hear what the Bible has to say, falls in love with the word of God. When someone who can't stand Christians all of a sudden is one. That's a sign that something has changed. That God has been working in their life. That they have fallen in love with Jesus, even though they haven't seen Him. Look what it says. Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, in verse 9. The salvation of your souls. The end of your faith. This is not a possibility. It's 100% assurance because we're kept by the power of God. Look what it says in verse 10 about prophets. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. It's one of the things that Steve Boyer was talking about this morning at the early service was, hey, they should have known Jesus was prophesied to go and to die as he did and to be buried and to rise again the third day. You see, we can know that the Bible is true because we've been told what would happen long before it did. Jesus met every prophecy. It says prophets inquired, means they investigated, means they scrutinized, they tried to understand, and they did it diligently. They inquired and searched diligently. The word for diligently is the idea that they were like a dog sniffing a trail, trying to get to the end of, where is that person? Where is that food? Where is that whatever? Prophets tried to understand, but by grace, we can understand. We have the word of God. Some of us don't read it, therefore we don't know it. Verse 11, we should be searching what or what manner of time the spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify. When it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ. You see, everything that happened to Christ was predicted. He met those prophecies. And in doing so now, the glory that should follow. He should be glorified. There were a lot of messengers. You think about all the messengers that the people before Christ died that they had. They had the prophets. Here it seems to be that the Spirit of Christ was teaching. There was testimonies, 500 people. There were reports. It even says to some degree, look what it says here about the angels in verse 12. It says, unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, which things the angel desired to look into. So you see, angels want to know more about this. Angels can't understand. why God would do what he's done. Angels don't have a savior. We do. Why would that be true? Because God loves humans. Because Jesus loved human beings. And therefore he died for us. The term here talks about angels desire to look into, is the idea that they're, it's almost like a little kid presses face against the window. And you know, it's fogging up the window trying to see inside what you're doing, what are you doing in there? And the angels are pressing up against the glass of heaven, trying to figure out what is God up to? Those smelly, stinky, sinful humans, and he's going down there and he's dying for them. Wait a minute. He's the boss. He's the Lord. He's in charge. He created everything. And now he's letting them do this to him. Why would Jesus let them do this? Angels can't get it. They can't wrap their brain around it. Because you see, Jesus became one of us so he could be our substitute on the cross. So we don't have to suffer eternity in hell because of our sin. No, Jesus took the hell on himself. He took our sins and God poured out that wrath on him. Angels desire to look into this to stretch forward. It says though they're stretching their neck. They're pushing their face against a glass the Lord of heaven Dying the way he died being buried the way he was buried and rose again What a wonderful truth To the resurrection of Jesus Christ We find that in this so many reasons for us to worship Him and to celebrate Easter. And that's the title of my message today. And my time is gone, so we'll just fill in your blanks if you like. Easter or Resurrection Sunday is glorious. It's glorious because it's our salvation. It's our Lord and Savior dying for us, paying for our sins, but more than this, doing exactly what he said, he had the power to raise himself up from the dead, to give us new life. Why should we celebrate Easter? I think we best enjoy Easter through the rebirth, meaning being born again. We enjoy Easter through the rejoicing. If you don't rejoice today a little, then you've wasted the day. Rejoice in the Lord. What does that look like? You could do it privately. You can do it without even making a noise. But if you're like some people, you make lots of noise. And that's fine too. But to spend some time today just saying to God, you are so good to me. You are so awesome that you prepared for me heaven and inheritance. You've done all this for me simply because you love me. You don't get anything out of it, Lord, but you did this for me. And then you set a guard and the guard wasn't any old guard, but you kept me by your power so that I can not be anxious about the future. Easter is enjoyed best through the rebirth and the rejoicing and the remembering. Reading back through the Easter story, read back through the resurrection story, read about those funny things as well as the not-so-funny things. Easter is enjoyed through the rebirth by understanding that the rebirth delivers hope. Hope. I'm fully convinced that Human beings can live without a lot of things, but they can't live without food and water and hope. Without hope, we can't go on. The day seems like it lasts forever. The bad things overwhelm us, but God gives us hope, and our hope is in Jesus Christ. The rebirth delivers not only hope, but a home. a home. I know that hope it's okay. I'll share something that Greg Lehman said to me. I was visiting with him. He said it to actually to Karen. He was so overwhelmed with his heart beating so fast, 170 beats a minute. And he was just tired. And he said, I want to go home. You see, he knew he had a home in glory. Thankful Lord spared him, he's still with us. But we had that rebirth. We are guaranteed of a home on high. Secondly, it delivers also heroics. Heroics. I mean, isn't it amazing that God would keep us by his power? Because he knows what? Because we would try to run from him even after we've been given so much. We're not bright like that. We're kind of slow. And there are many people that would try to steal our hope. They try to steal our joy by telling us all these works that we have to do. When the Bible is very clear that salvation is 100% by grace. And when you add one little iota of works in there, you've ruined grace. Grace is only grace if it's 100% pure grace. And that's the heroics of God. He gave us the grace to be not only born again, but to be kept by his power. Secondly, Easter's enjoyed through the rejoicing. We have rejoicing only when it's good, right? Only when times are good we rejoice. Oh, well, if you've had a bad day the last 30 days, you don't have to rejoice. No, God's still calling on us to rejoice, even in difficult times, despite the difficulties. Because how does heaven compare to the difficulties you have? Pretty amazing, right? Despite the difficulties, despite the distractions, distractions, boy, how many times in this world do we get distracted? Right now it's tax season, so there's a lot of distraction, right? And it can also be one of those difficulties. Despite the difficulties, distractions, and the discipling, the trial of your faith, God is gonna be teaching us more and more. And you know, the longer you're saved, the more sin you can see. Not just in somebody else's life, but in your own life. It's like, you know, I thought I was pretty good when I got saved, but then it seems like every year goes by, I see more that God needs to fix. More that's gonna be fixed when I see the Savior face to face. Can you imagine even fathom being in heaven and no sin? Not one person is gonna sin in heaven. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine it because he's gonna let me there and I'm not gonna sin. That's mind boggling. I'll never have a bad thought. I'll never ever have a bad deed. I will simply do what I'm supposed to do and glorify God in doing it. Thirdly, Easter is enjoyed not only through the rejoicing, but also by the remembering. You might have noticed we have the communion plates up here. In just a moment, we'll observe the Lord's Supper. What do we do that for? Well, it says it pretty clearly on the front there, doesn't it? We do this remembrance. We want to remember. We want to remember the details of what God has done. Remember the details of the promise, the promise. If we simply trust in Jesus Christ, he promises us eternal life. We know John 3.16, don't we? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him. You see, that's a promise. Whosoever, there's a promise there. Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You see, God's promise, that promise should be enough for us to rejoice, us to be able to celebrate Easter But it's not only that details of the promise, but also of the prophecies. Can you believe that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, like, perfectly? We're not like, kind of, like, well, he kind of looks like he could have been, no. Every prophecy exactly on the head, he nailed it. Every last one. The prophecies, the details of them, and the details of the preaching. The preaching of the gospel. Wow, do you know how to share the gospel? Do you know what the gospel is? Where it's simply that Jesus died according to the scriptures, that he was buried according to the scriptures, and he rose again according to the scriptures. That's the gospel. When you see the word preach in the Bible, it's a different word normally than the word teach. teaches the Daskalos, but the preaching has the idea of evangelism or sharing the gospel, right? It's Caruso, it's passionately proclaiming Christ. That's the preaching in the New Testament, teaching in the New Testament of the Daskalos, which has to do with Christians learning more about Jesus by studying his word. And we see the preaching even in this text. Are you ready to celebrate Easter? I know we've been doing it since early this morning, but to continue to do that, and not so much in a big arena like this, but more in your heart, giving God the due that he's due, the glory that he's due. As it started off in our text today, it says in verse three, blessed be the God. and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Bless him. Well, Easter, sentence sermon for today, Easter is a glorious celebration. Amen? That's pretty weak. Easter is a glorious celebration. Yeah, it is the big one, right? And it's only limited by the strength of our faith. It tests our faith. Do we really believe in a risen Christ? And I hope the answer is yes.