Good evening. I'd like to welcome the handful of folks who are social distancing here. And for those of you who are watching live streaming, if you're a part of the church, hopefully you received your email today with the attachments. One was a copy of what we had passed out a couple of weeks ago when we looked at the factuality of the death of Jesus Christ. And then there was another handout for today. And Lord willing, if we meet again like this next Wednesday, there'll be another handout for next week. The message of a couple of weeks ago was on the factuality, the historicity, the reality, the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And we went to a lot of trouble, and there was a lot of detail, and I gave you a hard copy handout so that you could look up all those verses, which we didn't have time to look up together, but showing you that there's ample evidence to show that Jesus Christ really was risen from the dead. You'll notice if your handout for tonight, it says, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, so what? Now, this isn't just the comment of a cynic. It's really the comment of an unthinking believer, perhaps, someone who says, OK, I understand the Christian position. I understand the Christian message. God visited this planet in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life, was crucified on Calvary, was raised from the dead, went back to heaven, OK? And so, What else do I need to know about the resurrection? But there's a lot to know about the resurrection, and in Christianity and in life, ignorance is not bliss, and what we don't know can hurt us. The verse that's listed below the title, John 11, 25, Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. He was not only claiming to be able to empower a resurrection or he was not claiming simply that he would be raised from the dead, but he was in his person the firstborn from the dead. He was the one who was to be resurrected from the dead. Anyone who's ever resurrected from the dead is because they're in Christ. So it's not inappropriate to say I am the resurrection and the life. Look at the first paragraph of your handout. You'll see what I'm getting at to begin with tonight. Christianity proclaims that God visited this planet in space and time history, meaning he really visited here. He lived a perfect life as a man. He was crucified on a Roman cross, found to be dead by the executioners, was buried, and was raised from the dead three days later. Biblical religion is historical. What it records really happened. This isn't make-believe stuff. This isn't fairytale. This doesn't begin with, now I lay me down to sleep. It really happened. Christianity holds to what's called the correspondence theory of truth. And you go, it's Wednesday night and I don't drink coffee at night and I have no idea what the correspondence theory of truth is. And the correspondence theory of truth basically says, for something to be true, it has to correspond to reality. And I wrote down, so what does that mean? Whatever makes a claim to be true must correspond to reality, and reality is never determined by a single person's testimony. Two or more corroborating witnesses must testify to the truth. Biblical truth is never a subjective experience inside one's own head. I really came from the planet Neptune, but I just appear to be a human being, okay? That's something that I may be hearing inside my head. Is there any objective outside of me verification of that? Well, anything that's only inside my head is not open to verification. Biblical truth, whether in a court of law or an evaluating reality, must be based upon two or more witnesses. And I give you ample evidence in the New Testament that it was always a big deal. Do we have witnesses to these events? When Judas was replaced in Acts chapter 1, one of the prerequisites for someone to take Judas' place as an apostle is that he had to have been an eyewitness of Christ's earthly life and resurrection. And so it goes on in other passages in the book of Acts. And then in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul makes that a big point. Many people have witnessed these things. This wasn't something that happened between my ears, but it happened in reality. So, okay, we're talking about the factuality, the truth, the veracity of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and fulfillment of the promises of God's Word and verified by many witnesses, it really happened. But the next questions we should logically ask ourselves is, first of all, what does that mean, or what are the consequences of the resurrection of Christ? So what, what does it do, does it accomplish anything? The Bible reveals that Christ's resurrection is of vast importance to at least five different groups of beings, five different ways, and has meaning for God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, for believers, for the devil, and for unbelievers. So you're in one of these categories, I'm guessing you're in one of the last three, and if you're a believer, if you're the devil, or if you're an unbeliever, then there's ramifications for you because Christ was raised from the dead. So the first major point we're gonna look at is the resurrection of Christ has impact, it has meaning for God the Father. And if you're like me or like some of us much of the time, that's disappointing to you. Why? Well, because the triune God determines everything and because God existed before his creation, ultimate reality begins with God. It doesn't begin with your life. It doesn't begin the day you were born. It doesn't begin what happened this morning. Ultimate reality began in eternity past with God. So the meaning and impact of the resurrection of Christ should begin where reality begins with God himself. We need to start here because, and look at this next sentence, sin has made us all self-focused, but only saving grace changes that over time. What do I mean? Let us not fall back into the old habit of thinking about ourselves first and foremost. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has implications and special meaning for God the Father himself. What sin has done to every human being on this planet besides alienating us from God It makes us self-focused. We're no longer God-focused, we're self-focused. We think about ourselves. We can even hear Christian preaching, Christian messages. We can read our Bible and we can have the attitude, what's in it for me? Even people who have seen and have come to understand the doctrines of grace, so to speak, about the sovereignty, the grace of God in saving sinners, and having gotten used to that shock over time, they still may have the attitude, that's fine, God is sovereign, God chooses the people, God sends His Son, God the Son purchases these people, God the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son, that's really wonderful. And it's all about me. It's all for me. And the black hole of our sinful hearts can even drag in the greatness of God and make the Christian narrative, the Christian story, about me. And years ago when I was going through a particularly hard time in my life, I was reading a great little book, you can find it on the Internet, Martin Lloyd-Jones' From Fear to Faith. It's a brief exposition of the book of Habakkuk. And I'm reading this and getting good from my soul. And Martin Lloyd-Jones says he frequently does this, a good diagnostician and an honest doctor. He says, God has an eternal plan. And thank God you're included in that plan if you're a believer. But it's not about you. And I was, you know, I was maybe having a pity party and reading my Bible and reading Christian books trying to get good for my soul. Because really life boiled down to me and how I was doing. And everything about reality, everything about the eternal God and His work in the universe was about me. And Lloyd-Jones Frankly and graciously said, it's not about you, Steve. It's about God. Things begin with who God is. And one of the things that most helps us get out of ourselves and look at reality is to look at the Lord, not at ourselves. Number one. and if you're taking notes and if you, by the way, if you're live streaming this and you didn't get a set of the notes, if you contact the church and the church secretary, I'm sure she'd be glad to send you a set of the notes and you can follow along. The first point I have down here for you is the Father's character, His attributes and His perfections, that is His glory, all that makes God glorious in God, all came together in the resurrection of God the Son. It was a pre-planned event, the culmination of Christ's earthly mission. God was not overtaken by events. Things did not just get out of control. God shows Himself true and faithful to His covenant promises and eternal plans. The Bible reveals that before there was a cosmos, before there was anything outside of God, God the Father, God the Son, foreseeing the creation of the world and the fall of our first parents, the ruination of the planet, entered into a covenant, a solemn agreement. The Father agrees to send the Son. The Son agrees to come. The Father gives the Son a people. The Son agrees to come and purchase those people by His life and death. This is the eternal plan of God. It's a promise. Does God welsh on His promises? Does He renege on them? Does He forget them? Does He say, well, I really meant to, but I just couldn't pull it off? He finishes what He starts. God can be trusted and worshipped for His faithful and true character. And that's the first thing that we want to look at. Look in your Bibles to Romans 6-4 or look in your notes to where I quote the pertinent part of Romans 6-4. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. All that's great and good about God, His perfections, His being, who God the Father is, brought about the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection of Christ is a testimony to God the Father. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father in the fulfillment of the Father's plan and faithfulness to the Father and the Father's faithfulness to Him. In Philippians chapter 2, there's a great passage where the Apostle Paul exhorts the Philippian Christians that, you know, part of the problems you have in Philippi, and you don't have many, but one of the problems that you could probably work on is the attitude of having a Christ-like humility, having this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. And I think that that's an interesting phrase there, the idea that Christ didn't demand, he didn't grasp, he didn't cling to, he didn't say, I will be treated as God, I will have the worship of angels, I will have glory all around me, and I will not give any of this up. He didn't cling to his rights or prerogatives as God. But what? He emptied himself, became a man, found in the form of a servant. And because He humbled Himself even to the point of death on the cross, God the Father highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, that every knee should bow and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ, to the glory of Jesus Christ. Anyway, I did mangle that a bit, but I think you got the drift. Anyway, the point is that it's to the glory of God the Father. These things happened, Christ was raised from the dead, now every knee will bow to Him, to the glory of God the Father. It brings glory to the Father because of Christ's completed work. If Christ had not completed His work, If the Father and the Son's eternal covenant had not come to pass perfectly, if Christ hadn't purchased the people, if the Father hadn't raised Him from the dead, there would be no glory emanating to the Father, flowing to the Father, to the glory of God the Father. In chapter 26 of the book of Acts, in your notes, you'll notice Paul's preaching there and he says, he's speaking about looking in the Old Testament. He says, the prophets and Moses said would come that Christ would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead. God promised in the Old Testament, hundreds of years before Christ, for example, Isaiah 53 was written at least 700 years before Christ, that God would send his servant and this servant would purchase a people by his suffering, by his substitution in their place. And Paul's saying, well, look, if you think about it, this was promised in the Old Testament. This is what the servant would be like. Moses and the prophets said this would come, that the Christ would suffer and that he would be the first to rise from the dead. This is a fulfillment of God's covenant. This is a fulfillment of God's promises. The God that we worship, the God who raised Christ from the dead is worthy of our trust. Let's reason from the greater to the lesser. If he would raise his son from the dead, if he would give all this to do this for his son, isn't he able to handle lesser things in our lives which we entrust to him? Number two, God the Father raising his son from the dead proves that history is linear It is moving surely and inexorably toward God's predetermined climax of history." And you go, I really wasn't probably needing a history lesson tonight, and that's fine because I'm not going to give you a history lesson. But what I do want to tell you is that you live in a world that's heading toward a purpose, it's heading toward a climax. Things just don't happen as the Brits say, willy-nilly. The superintending providence of the sovereign God determines that history is moving toward end appointed by God. History is not meaningless. It is not cyclical, endlessly repeating itself. Nor is history governed by caprice, or some people use the phrase serendipity, or blind faith, but by the infinitely wise. infinitely holy, infinitely sovereign, and infinitely loving providence of Almighty God. I use those four adjectives purposefully. The one who is governing all that happens in history is infinitely wise. Wisdom is greater than knowledge. There are people who are very smart and can't find their way out of an old-fashioned phone booth or can't find their way out of the bathroom. God is not just smart, God is just not just infinitely smart, He is omniscient, but He's infinitely wise. If there would have been a better plan, God would have done it. God's plan, His purposes are infinitely wise, but they're also infinitely holy. The Bible says that God is not just holy. He's not holy, holy. He's holy to the superlative degree. He's holy, holy, holy. It's very difficult to define holiness. It's something that we are absolutely not. God is the standard of all that would be righteous and good, He's never tempted to sin, He's never had a sinful thought toward you, never had a sinful thought toward anyone. Not only is He infinitely wise, He's infinitely holy in His dealings with His people and all of this planet. He's sovereign, nothing happens beyond God's control. This coronavirus was not just something that got out of hand, He meant to contain it over here, but it leaked its way around the world. God is infinitely sovereign. He never runs out of energy. He never says, oh, this is really hard. I'm tired of this, and lets things go. He's wise. He's holy. He's sovereign. And he's loving. His providence is loving. If you've never read the book and you're a professing Christian, you've missed a real treat for yourself. My church, when I pastored years ago, used to call it the Great Sanity Saver. It was called Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. And Jerry Bridges wrote about the providence of God, the goodness of God, Romans 828, so to speak, and the circumstances of all of life. And if you've never read it, you need to read it, and then you need to read it out loud as a couple and talk about it. Because things will happen on this fallen planet, and if you're not prepared to deal with that, then life is going to be very rocky. History, I wrote down here, is His story. I could have made it hyphenated, but history is God's story. He's working out His plan. He's working out His purposes. God has a plan, focused on His Son, and it will be completed. Look at John's Gospel, Chapter 17. We're gonna flip through some Bible passages now, so get your finger wet and on your Bible. John Chapter 17, Jesus' prayer the night He was betrayed, a long prayer, the Apostle John wrote down. John chapter 17, we're gonna look at verses one, then four to five and verse 24. John 17, one. When Jesus had spoken these words, that's John 13 through 16, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you. Then we'll drop it down and pick it up at verse four. I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." Christ was given a job to do. Did he do it? Christ said he did. I accomplished the work that you gave me to do. He didn't do what his family asked him to do. He didn't do what his disciples asked him to do. He certainly didn't do what the Pharisees and Sadducees asked him to do. He didn't do what the crowds asked him to do. But his focus was on doing exactly all that the Father had given him to do. And he says here, I accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. We'll then go down to verse 24. Jesus prays here and he says, Father, I desire that they also, future believers, whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you love me before the foundation of the world. Do you see a pattern here of history going someplace, of Christ saying, this is what was established and I finished the work that you gave me to do, now bring me back to yourself? Years ago, 1991, we had Dr. Roger Nicole, long-time professor at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Boston and later Professor Emeritus at Reform Theological Seminary in Orlando, speak in our church on the atonement. That was one of his specialties. And he had just completed being one of the two senior editors of what was then called the New Geneva Study Bible, which is an excellent study Bible, geared to the New King James Version. It's been redone, geared to the ESV and with a different theological editor, R.C. Sproul. But Dr. Nicole talked about a unique experience he had in being the editor of the study Bible. He said before the Bible was to be finally given over to the printers, his job was to sit down and read through the entire Bible. And all he did for 12 hours a day for two weeks solid was read his Bible. That's all he did all day long. He said, I would get up, go to the bathroom, take a bite of lunch, go back and read my Bible. And he said, you know what happens when you read the Bible like that with just so much of the Bible's coming at you? Individuals and individual stories start fading in the background. And what he said, the sense I got from reading the Bible from cover to cover literally in two weeks was God. and God's purposes beginning in Genesis 1-1 going to the Revelation. God is the hero of the Bible. God is the one who's planning all this out. Jesus Christ is the thread running through the Bible, the first hint of the gospel in Genesis 3-15 going on to the coming of Christ and the return of Christ and the consummation at the end of the book of Revelation. History is God's story worked through the person of Jesus Christ. And the resurrection shows that he is going to accomplish his history. Nothing's going to thwart him. Has anybody ever come back from the grave except Jesus Christ? No. But it was prophesied that he would and he did. God is fulfilling his plan. So in just a couple of ways, which I'm touching on here, the resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the Father. It gives glory to the Father. It shows that He's faithful to His purposes, that you can count on Him, certainly the Son could count on Him, and it shows that He has a history and He's fulfilling that history. You can look up these verses, I'm not gonna take the time to look up all of them, but move on to the second point tonight. The resurrection of Christ and how it has impact and meaning for Jesus Himself. Now, this is not a real tough one. You'd think, well, I would imagine the resurrection had major implications for Christ. Jesus made certain claims that were amazing and actually criminal if they were not true. If I told you that if you believed in me and followed me, you'd be safe on judgment day and you find yourself condemned on judgment day because I played you for a fool, you would have every right to be angry and it would be criminal what I've done. The Bible makes the point though, several times, and you can look it up, when the Bible talks about those who trust in him shall never be put to shame. What does that mean? You trusted in Christ and you thought that was gonna get you off on judgment day? You fool, you utter fool, you're an idiot. Why did you trust this man? The Bible says that will never happen. Your and my only hope of salvation is Jesus Christ. Those who put their trust in Him will never be ashamed. On Judgment Day, when we stand before Him, what do I have to say? I only plead Christ. I have nothing else. I don't plead my citizenship. I don't plead what denomination or church I go to. I don't plead the fact that I was a pastor or I did this or I did that. I have nothing to plead but Jesus Christ. and it is the perfect right thing to plead, and we'll never be ashamed of pleading Christ. There is nothing else that we can plead with the Father, and the Son says that's exactly right. He said He had left Heaven to come to Earth and to do His Father's will and would return back to Heaven. He said He was God the Son. He said He came to redeem a people that the Father had given Him. How did His resurrection impact all that? Again, because God is prior to and the creator of all that exists outside of himself, we must make ourselves stop and not rush ahead to think only about how Christ being raised from the dead singularly impacts us. Now good news, next week we're going to look at the resurrection of Christ and how it applies to believers, and how it applies to the devil, and how it applies to unbelievers. But the second half of our time tonight is going to be looking at how does the resurrection of Christ, what does it have, what kind of meaning does it have for Christ? There's eight ways the resurrection impacted Christ, and we're going to look at each of those in the remaining half of our time. First of all, the resurrection was the near fulfillment, which is ascension finalized, of the mission given to Christ by his Father in heaven. John's gospel is a fascinating gospel to read because more than the other gospels, John, who was Jesus's earthly cousin and knew him quite well, was leaning on his breast at the Last Supper. John takes the curtain and pulls it back and says, would you like some peeks into what was going on in eternity past? John, more than all the other gospel authors combined, talks about the father and the son's relationship and records Jesus talking about that father-son relationship. Going back to John's Gospel, we look in chapter 6, John 6, verses 38-40. Let's see what is recorded for us here. Jesus is speaking, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me." Okay, it's obvious he's on a mission. Someone sent him, and this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing or no one of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. And we'll see as the rest of the New Testament goes on to say, that He will raise these others up on the first day because He's been raised, the firstborn from the dead. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day because Christ Himself has already been raised. But going on back to chapter 17, we've already read this. But again, repetition aids learning. And I've read my Bible many times, as I'm sure many of you have. But sometimes things just pop out you hadn't really recognized before. John 17, 4 and 5, Jesus is praying. He says, Father, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me. Give me back the glory that I had before I set it aside when I came to earth. Glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Christ had finished his mission. The resurrection shows that the Father accepted it. In the ascension, he goes back to the right hand of the Father and receives back the glory and honor due to him. It's the near fulfillment of the mission. It shows that Christ had fulfilled the mission. He was returning back to glory. Second, the resurrection was the divine answer to Christ's agonized prayer for deliverance out of the realm of death, but not from death itself. Pastor Jared has done a good job explaining as we've been going through Luke's gospel about the idea of the realm of death, not simply the fact of death, not simply the fact that your body dies, but sinners live in the whole realm of death. They live in a world that's in darkness, the Bible says. It's a world that's estranged from God. In John's Gospel, chapter 12, Jesus is praying, and he has an agonized prayer. So let's go back to John 12 in our Bibles, and this is, after all, a Christian church. Our authority is the word of God. John 12, verses 27 and 28. Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. There is a mystery attached to how much Jesus as the God-man understood all the details of what was coming when he's judged in the place of guilty sinners. But I suspect he had a far more nuanced, deep understanding of it than any of us could have. And he knew that he was going to be facing the judgment due others. And he knew he had come to die. And he didn't get out, he didn't ask to get out of death, the actual fact of dying, But he did want to, so to speak, finally leave the realm of death when he would be resurrected. And we see that he is taken out of the realm of death. And he did die, he didn't escape death, but he did escape the realm of death. He's no longer being held. In fact, the scriptures make a wonderful point about the fact that death could not hold him. And some of our better hymn writers bring about the fact that death could not hold him. Low in the grave he lay, but death could not hold him because God's power was working to raise him from the dead. And when he prayed, Father, I'm not asking not to die, but I'm asking that you would deliver me from this whole thing. And I believe truly that the Father raised him from the dead as an answer to that prayer. Moving on to number three. Through the resurrection, Christ was acknowledged and proclaimed as both Lord and Christ. If you turn to the book of Acts, right after the Gospel of John is the book of Acts, Acts 2, verses 22-24. Let's read out loud what Peter is preaching at the first Christian sermon in Jerusalem. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst. As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. But let's go on to verse 32 and 36. Verse 32, Peter goes on to say, this Jesus God raised up, and of all this we are witnesses. Verse 36, let the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him Christ, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. This was the triumphal exclamation mark on the person of Christ and his public declaration that he is the one who the Old Testament prophesied. He is the servant of the book of Isaiah. He is the prophet greater than any other prophet. He is God come to earth and the resurrection proves with a mighty exclamation mark that Christ is he. It's interesting as you go through the rest of the New Testament that every New Testament author, every book talks about the greatness of Christ and how he is being raised from the dead proves that he is Lord and Christ. Number four dovetails with that, as the first to be raised from the dead, the firstfruits, as it were, of the new order of reality, the Father has made Christ head of the church and king of the whole creation, the Father's vice-regent. In Colossians 1, the apostle Paul writes about how God became a man. He writes about how God incarnate, Jesus Christ, was fully God, and yet he was to be bearing our sins, Colossians 1, verse 15. He, Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. Charles Spurgeon, interestingly, said that resurrection is something that's virtually unknown in history except for the resurrection of Christ. And so partly because it's so novel and so different, it's a hard thing to accept. But when you get to heaven, you'll only meet a few people who weren't resurrected. Everybody else in heaven will be resurrected except for the handful of believers, however many there are, who are alive when Christ returns. But the point is, to get to heaven, you're going to have to be resurrected from the dead, which is all believers in history. It's a novelty for us. It'll be very commonplace in heaven. He's the firstborn from the dead. He's the one who God has established to be his king. He's managing the kingdom of God. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 19 through 23 says the same thing. I'm not going to simply belabor the point, but I am showing you there's more than one witness to these things. Christ now rules over all. Christ is sitting on his throne. When he moves his scepter, things happen. Number five. The resurrection proves Christ's claims to be God. While Christ's humanity was not in question in his earthly ministry, his deity certainly was. He was regularly addressed as son of David. He was of the kingly lineage of King David. Royalty for sure, but not divinity. The resurrection changed all that. So that the message, once Christ was raised from the dead was, here is the proof he's been raised from the dead. This is fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Do you know anybody else who's been raised from the dead? Romans 1.4 Paul says, he was declared, he was preached, he was presented, he was heralded to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. No one else has ever been raised from the dead. There have been resuscitations where people temporarily died and were resurrected a little bit, excuse me, or resuscitated a bit later. But no one's ever been dead three days and been raised from the dead in fulfillment of prophecy and according to the purposes of God. If you go through the book of Acts, what are they all preaching? Every one of the sermons in the book of Acts mentions that Christ was raised from the dead. He is the one appointed by God. He is the servant of God. He is the King. Go through the epistles. They all say the same thing. The book of Revelation, as I was rereading parts of it this afternoon, are full of the resurrection of Christ. This is the God-man who controls history. This is the God-man who controls your destiny. This is the God-man that you will stand before on Judgment Day. Number six, the resurrection was the Father's answer in John 17, 1 verses 4 and 5, where Jesus prayed, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was or before the world existed. Jesus prayed that the Father would give him back the glory that he had when he, as a member of the Trinity, the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Mutual indwelling love for eternity in the presence of myriads of angels, the luminosity, the effulgence of their glory is breathtaking. And Jesus said, I've set aside my glory, would you return it to me? And interestingly, Peter spent some time talking about that. So we have Peter in 1 Peter 1 giving us some application of how the resurrection of Christ applies to the glory of Christ and the Father honoring that prayer. 1 Peter 1, 10 and 11. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, meaning the Old Testament prophets, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and the subsequent glories. Christ is not a dead hero. You can go to parts of South America and in Cuba, and they still have pictures of Che Guevara, who was a cult figure among radicals in the 60s, but he died. Jesus Christ is not a dead hero. He's a living Savior, and the subsequent glories. And then go on to verses 18 through 21, where he picks up that same theme again and talks about it some more. knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, that of a lamb without blemish or spot, the literal sacrificial lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, referring to the eternal covenant between the father and the son, but was made manifest in these last time for your sake. who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God." I was an adult when the Lord saved me, and one of the things that I came to understand very quickly is what a great person Christ was and is. Anybody in America has heard the name Christ, even if it's only hearing someone else curse. But Christ's name is not a curse word. Christ is not even a great man. He is God, come to earth, who became a man. We cannot say, well, God doesn't know what it's like to live on this miserable planet. Yes, he does. And Jesus Christ is a glorious savior, and he's a glorious king. He is the best friend a sinner could ever have. And Peter says, if you would come to understand this and what the kind of lamb he is and how the fathers worked and established him, you would love him more. Number seven, the giving or pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that was a Jewish festival in Acts chapter two when Jesus was preached by Peter. The giving or pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was the sign that Jesus had been raised and enthroned by God the Father as His King. Pentecost is in a sense an enthronement of Christ on His throne because it says in the Old Testament that the King would be giving gifts and the King would be pouring out His Spirit. In Acts chapter 2 verses 29 to 36, I'll go back and we'll read that again and see what Peter says about the enthronement of Christ from the point of view of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2, 29-36. Brothers, this is Peter preaching, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. Meaning you could go to a place in Jerusalem where they had David's tomb. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, meaning he didn't stay in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of all that we are witnesses Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Jesus has the authority to give the Holy Spirit. What's the importance of that? God the Father sent the Son to save a people. God the Son accomplished that by His perfect life and atoning death. But how is anybody going to care? I mean, the really sad thing, if you know your heart at all, is you and I could have been one of those people standing in Jerusalem watching Christ being crucified and we wouldn't have gotten it, we wouldn't have cared. There had to have been a supernatural work by God the Holy Spirit to work in my heart or anyone's heart standing there watching that to care, to get it, to understand, believe. Only the Holy Spirit gives a new life. Sometimes people pray for friends or relatives or they hear about a situation, they say, well, maybe this tough time, maybe this suffering will cause this person to come to Christ. Well, you know, the greatest suffering in all the world will not make anybody a Christian. Why do I know that? Well, the Bible says two things. First of all, that only the Holy Spirit, only God the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, can work in a person's life to give them the new birth, the supernatural change. But number two, we know that nobody in hell repents. And wouldn't you think that hell would be the place of the most awful suffering? And wouldn't you think there'd be a widespread revival of people coming to Christ in hell? But there's no recorded people coming to Christ in hell. Suffering doesn't make you a Christian. Only God the Holy Spirit working supernaturally can make you into a Christian. Pouring out of the Holy Spirit, having the authority to do so by Christ, showed that he was the exalted king of the kingdom that he had been sent to institute. And every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Years ago, when the country was as radical as now but played out on the college campuses, there was a period in the late 60s when I could go to a campus demonstration every day. And in fact, for one stretch, I went to a demonstration 12 days in a row, which wasn't good for my grades, but it was an exciting time to be a Christian. And they had a free speech platform, and people would jump up on the platform, and they'd speak for five minutes on some subject, and a Christian would stand up and say, we're talking about what's wrong with our country. We're talking about we need to get radical, where the word radical means going back to the root, radix, the root. And the root of our problems is not this, it's not this, it's not this. The root of our problems is human sin. our fallen condition. And none of these remedies that have been discussed today can deal with the human heart. Only God, through Jesus Christ, can change the human heart. And He alone can give you a new life. And then they'd jump down and somebody else would step up. And we'd have a chance to talk to people around us. And this one particular girl was livid. She was very rebellious. She was so mad she was practically spitting out her words and she was cussing and calling the Lord Jesus Christ's names and everything. My friend said to her, his name is Jesus Christ and you better get it right because one day you're going to bow to that name. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. You don't want to despise him. It's been shown in scripture that he has all authority. I'll move on. Number eight, the resurrection of Christ confirms the truthfulness of all of his teachings. Jesus told his disciples and the surrounding crowds that he was going to Jerusalem to be put to death, and on the third day he would rise again. That all happened just as he said. It follows that everything else that he taught was also true. If the hardest and most difficult reality came true, Then it follows logically that the lesser truth claims were also true. Jesus said that his blood was shed for the remission of sins. I'm shedding my blood as a substitutionary lamb, as a sacrificial lamb, and God's accepting my payment for all those who will put their trust in me. He said he came down from heaven sent by God the Father. Is that true or not? Well, if he was raised from the dead, then he is who he said he was, and that's true too. He came down from heaven because the Father sent him. He said that the words he spoke were given to him by his father in heaven. That's true. He said he was one with God, making himself equal with God the father. Jesus is God the son. That's true. He said that whoever believed upon him would have everlasting life. That's true. He said that whoever refused to believe on him would have eternal condemnation. That's true too. He said they was returning to heaven to prepare a place for his people and later return and receive his people to himself. That's true. And finally, he said that the dead would hear his voice on judgment day and rise from the dead and that all judgment had been put in his hands. If you will not accept Jesus as your savior, if you stiff and harm him the rest of your life, then he will be your judge. The father has entrusted all judgment to the son. And that's true too. In believing in the resurrection, you have to believe in everything else Christ said or discount the whole thing. But God put his stamp of approval on his son. He raised his son from the dead. I accept the perfect work my son has accomplished. I accept his perfect life. I accept his perfect substitution on the cross. You know, one of the amazing things is that some people fear I kind of sort of get this, but I'm sure that God must be kind of ticked at some of my sins, because I still struggle with them and indulge them. You know, in the ashes at the cross where God the Father judged His Son, so to speak, there must be some warm coals, some hot coals in the ashes of all that Christ accomplished. When God judged His Son as a substitute, surely there must be some hot, live coals. I lived in Georgia for many years, and unlike Texas, it's covered with trees. And people, every fall, cut down trees and burn them. And I've had some serious fires on my property. And you could have a huge pile at the beginning of the day and set it on fire, and by sunset, it'd be reduced to literally nothing but white ashes on the ground. Now if a young child was foolish enough to think, I'm going to take off my shoes and socks and run across those ashes, you'd stop them because they don't understand that though there may be just a white pile of ashes, there are probably some hot coals in there and you don't want to step on those hot coals because you get a badly burned foot and a blister. That's not a representation of what's true of Christ. There are no warm coals. There are no coals of any temperature. God the Son perfectly did the Father's will. He perfectly substituted for guilty sinners. God the Father accepted what He did and proving His, authenticating His Son raised Him from the dead. We have every confidence to believe in Jesus Christ. He did come and glorify the Father and the Father glorified Him. Next week, by God's grace, we're going to look at what Jesus Christ did in being raised from the dead and how that impacts believers. All the things that are true for you as a believer, true for me if I'm a believer, because he was raised from the dead. What are the consequences for the devil because Christ was raised from the dead? And thirdly, what are the consequences for the unbeliever because Christ was raised from the dead?