Remain standing and take your Bibles in hand and turn to Luke chapter 7, 11 for the scripture reading. Following the scripture reading, we'll remain standing for the glory of pottery. And it's my privilege to welcome to the pulpit Pastor Mark Wheat. Luke 7, 11 through 15. Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain. And his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. And as he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out, the only son of his mother. She was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, don't cry. Then he went up and touched the coffin and those carrying it stood still. He said, young man, I say to you, get up. The dead man sat up and began to talk and Jesus gave him back to his mother. This is the reading of God's word. If you would go ahead and turn in your Bibles one more time to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. I'm going to try to save talking about, well, I do love you. And I have had a wonderful opportunity to serve you going on these five years with John, with our pastor. And I want to say this for him, but God only knows how much I love this God down here. So let's begin. Three times in the New Testament, Jesus raises someone from the dead. Three times. We just read one, Luke 7. He raised the only son of the widow of Nain from the dead by the power of his own word. And then we see these beautiful words that Luke gives us, he says, and Jesus gave the young man back to his mother. Now, in John chapter 11, you're holding your finger there at John 11, verse 43. Let me just give you just a little context. Mary and Martha have sent a message to Jesus that his beloved friend, Lazarus, is dying. with the idea of, please come. Well, Jesus tarries, and he doesn't show up on time. He shows up four days late. But Jesus knows what he's doing. He's ever and always operating according to the will of his Father, and he knows that this death is not the end of the story. He knows that what he's about to do is going to bring strength and strength to their faith, and so he tarries. Once he shows up, there's a little consolation, and there's a little weeping. And then in verse 43, we read, Lazarus, he says this in a loud voice, Lazarus come out. Verse 44, the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, take off the grave clothes and let him go. Now turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 5 verse 41. So here in John 11, Jesus by the word of his power raises up Lazarus, and he says, take off the grave clothes and let him go. Now, if you hold your finger at verse 41, this is a rather long, I can give you a little thumbnail sketch of this passage, but hold your finger at verse 41 in chapter 5. Jairus, a synagogue official, is coming to Jesus. He's requested that Jesus come to his house. His daughter is lying on a bed and she is too is dying. So Jesus agrees to go, and they're on their way. And there's a big crowd, and there's lots of pressure, and people are pressing against him. And there's a woman in the crowd who's been sick with an issue of blood for 12 years. She's gone to all kinds of doctors. She's only gotten worse. She believes that if she just touches his clothing that she'll be made well. Well, she's made well. And in the midst of all of that, everything kind of slowed down. Took a little bit of extra time. There was a hold up. And so immediately after this issue with this woman is dealt with, men came to Jairus and said, your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore? Well, Jesus heard these words, and he said, don't worry. Don't be afraid. Just believe. And now we come to verse 41. Jesus drives all the mourners out. He puts them all out, and he took the little girl by the hand, and he said to her, Talitha, Which means, little girl, I say to you, rise or get up. Immediately, the girl stood up and walked around. She was 12 years old. At this, they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this. And he told them to give her something to eat. So he raised her by the word of his power, Talitha Kuhm, and then he said, give her something to eat. So what I want to do this morning is from these three texts, we can draw four points. The first point is this, just as each one of these people had to be raised from physical death to physical life again, you and I, we must be raised from the dead by the word of the gospel, which is the power of God. The second point we want to look at this morning is, just as the only son of the will of name was raised from the dead, from death to life, you who are raised from death to life are placed, are given into the family of God, just as he was placed back into his family with his mother. Also, number three, just as Lazarus was raised from the dead by the power of the Word of Christ. You who have been raised from the dead by the power of the Word of Christ, just as they told those around him, take off those gray clothes. Gray clothes are not for people who are alive. You can't run around and do what you want to do when you've got gray clothes on. You and I, we are commanded as those who have been raised from the dead spiritually to put off the old man and put on the new. And finally, just as the little girl was giving something to eat at Jesus' command, Jesus commands his under shepherds to what? Feed my sheep. So let's look at these four points this morning. First, just as each one of these, just as the only son of the widow of Nain and Jairus' 12-year-old daughter and Lazarus were physically raised from the dead to life, you need to be raised spiritually from death to life. What happens when people die? There's no more conversation. There's no more communication. There's no more love that can be shared reciprocally because the relationship is broken by death. And spiritually, when we come into the world, our relationship to God has been broken by spiritual death. We're spiritually dead. We're dead to the things of God. We're dead to the reading of God's Word. We're dead to the preaching of God's Word. The little girl was lying on her bed. When Jesus got there and she was dead, the young man was in a coffin. He was being taken out to be buried. Lazarus was behind a rock, laying in there with other bodies. They were dead. And no matter how loudly you cried out to them, they would never have returned a word back to them, back to you. No matter how loudly. And you see, when you come into the house of God, when you come up against the Word of God, when you come and you hear the preaching of the Word of God, if you're spiritually dead, you hear it with your ears, but you do not love it. You do not desire it. In fact, you seek to push it away from you. It's telling you to do things you do not want to do. Because you see, as those who are spiritually dead, you are dead to God's means of conversation. God's means of conversation come through the Word of God read and through the Word of God preached. But we don't want to have anything to do with it. But just as Jesus spoke to this man who's in this coffin, young man, I say to you, get up. He got up. When he said to the little girl, Talitha, come, she rose up. And when he said, Lazarus, come forth, he came out. These human words that Jesus spoke, they were words that were accompanied by infinite power, the infinite power of God that was within him. His words raised up the son, the daughter, and Mary and Martha's brother. And when this word that is preached, when this word that is preached, when it's declared by ordinary ministers, and God forbid it is to the world a laughing stock. I've had people tell me, why in the world do you want to do this? Why do you do this? Why don't you just go become somebody who helps people by telling them good things to do in their life, like Tony Robbins or the guys on TV? Why preach this stuff? Because it's the power of God unto salvation. When the Spirit of God accompanies the Word of God read and preached, it becomes that which God breathes life into people's hearts and lives. They're given ears now to hear. They're given hearts to believe. Paul writes to the Christians in Thessalonica. He says, For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you. I know that you're the elect of God. And then he says, Here's how I know. Because our gospel, this message, this good news came to you not simply with words hitting into the eardrum and bouncing back off. but also came to you with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. So the gospel is the power of God into salvation, and it raises you from spiritual death to spiritual life. It takes you out of sin and places you into righteousness, out of misery, and it gives you into God's family. That's the next point. The next point, you see, just as the only son of the widow of Nain was raised up and given back to her. Once you've been raised from the dead by the power of Christ's gospel, you're given into the family of God. Now, think about this woman. This woman had a son. Life before Jesus came on the scene, her life was terribly bad. Total despair. All the weeping and all the crying. There's more to it than just somebody dying at this particular issue in Luke 7, because this woman not only is losing a son, she's already lost a husband. And now, after he dies, she thinks, well, I have a son. He can still take care of me. But then her son dies. And now she's destitute. And when Jesus saw her and saw this son and knew this situation, it says that his heart went out to her. And so he said, told him to get up. So he got up. And then he gave her, as Luke tells us, Jesus gave her back to his mother. Once you've been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, what does God do? He places you in the family of God. He puts you in a church where people can love you and take care of you. When the Word of God comes to you and brings new life to you and pardons all your sins, that's justification. And justification is a judicial act where you are made right before the judge of all the earth. Yet there's another judicial act that takes place. We talked about this a few weeks ago on Wednesday nights. And it's the judicial act of adoption. Now, you know there are two ways for a person to become a member of a human family. The first way to become a member of a human family is the ordinary way. You have a woman and a man who love each other, they're married, and they have a child. And the second way that a person becomes a member of a human family is by adoption. Now the second way, when a person is adopted, that person, it must be done in a court. It must be done in a judicial manner. There's a judicial act that takes place. In justification, the judge stands up and basically says, you are not guilty based on the righteousness of Christ which has been imputed to you. It's a judicial act. In justification, you are at peace with the judge, because your sins have been punished on another for you. In adoption, it is, too, a judicial act. It takes place outside of you, and in the case of adoption, the judge must rule, he must make a statement and confer upon you a new status, a new name. He must say, you are the son of Mr. and Mrs. Where's Don at? Is he here today? You know, son of Mr. and Mrs. who? Smith. You always have to use Smith or Johnson. They're the most common names in the human language. You're the son of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson now. You have this new status. And you see, in justification, you're at peace with the God of the universe. But in adoption, the judge who's declared you righteous in his sight, now, by judicial act, he says that you're my child. John said this on that Wednesday night a few weeks ago. He said, the judge basically says, you're no longer guilty before the law of God, but now I'm going to take my robe off after I've declared that you're my son. I'm going to take my robe off, and I'm going to take you home. I'm taking you back home with me. You're my child, and you may call me father. Robert Raymond says that adoption is the apex of God's grace. Now, it's so interesting to me. It's the apex of God's grace, but our confession has one little bitty paragraph about it. But it's a great paragraph. Being a member of the household of God is the greatest of all privileges. Justification is dealing with me and my relation to the lawgiver and his law, but adoption deals with my relation to God himself. I'm no longer guilty before the law, but now the judge says I'm his child. Now the judge calls me a child of God. You have conferred upon you that you are now a member, Ephesians 2, of the household of God. Nothing's better than that. Folks, listen. Nothing's better than this. I don't think sometimes we really get it. But what's going on today? What's going on right now? It doesn't get better than this in the world until we go home to be with Christ. It doesn't get better than this. You have access to the Father through the Son and by the Spirit you have joy as a member of his very household. in his household, you have this habit where we do what we're doing, we meet together and we worship the one true and living God and we have this habit where we spur one another on to love and good deeds. It's your habit to encourage each other and to confess your sins to one another. It's your habit as the brothers and sisters and mothers of Christ to do His will until Jesus returns. Well, that's number two. Let's look at number three. So we become part of a family of God. Well, what do we do in this family? And we saw just a little bit of that, what we're doing in the family here. That comes out of Hebrews 10, 24, and you can look at that if you want to. But the third point this morning is this is something that's going on even in the service today. Just as Lazarus was coming out of that tomb and Jesus said to those standing around, take off those grave clothes and let him go, you and I, we are exhorted to put off the old man. and put on the new. Lazarus was bound up. Hand and foot had a cloth around his face. He had been buried. He was in a tomb, folks. Jesus speaks this word and the power of death is broken and the man's alive and people who are living don't need to have cloths wrapped around their bodies and little things wrapped around their face where they can't see. So Jesus tells them to take all this off. And you and I, spiritually, we are made alive. And Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 says that there's a mighty break with death that has gone on as we've been raised from the dead. We were in a state of death. We were in a state of sin. 1 Corinthians says, and such were some of you. You were dead, spiritually speaking, but now you're a new man in Christ. You're in grace. You're completely new. You're not perfectly new. That's for later. That's for glory. But you are completely new. And as a completely new man in Christ, you are to put off the old man and you're to put on the new man. Put off the grave clothes. What does that mean? Put off the thinking of the old man. Put off the ways of the old man and you put on the Lord Jesus Christ and you renew your mind. as you hear the Word of God preached, as you read it and meditate upon it. You must live out the implications of this great break with sin to new life. So the reality of this putting off the old man and putting on the new man is a discipline. It's a discipline. Putting off the old and putting on the new is a discipline. It's the desire we have because we are new in Christ. Now, this discipline has so many times of putting off and putting on, has so many times been thought of as a personal and a private discipline that the Christian must do on his own. Now, is that important? It is. It's private. It's personal. I'm over here, and I'm meditating, and I'm reading my word, and I'm praying, and I'm putting and mortifying sin to death. I'm to do that. I think that's important. But let me ask you a question. Who did Paul write the book of Ephesians 2. And who did Paul write the book of Colossians 2? He wrote it to a what? A church. Absolutely fascinating. I think that what I'm about to tell you right now is just so absolutely wonderful. Of course, I think all this stuff that we preach is wonderful. But you must remember Paul spoke of this discipline in the context of the church. This discipline takes place in private, yes, but most importantly, this putting off of the old man and putting on of the new man takes place in the church. So what goes on in the church? What's discipline in the church look like? Now, the obvious thing when we talk about discipline in the church, it takes place in what we would call in Presbyterian church, the courts of the church. Now, when a person joins Presbyterian church, they take a vow. to submit to the rule of the elders. Oh, man, I tell you what, try to explain that to people outside this building. Oh, that's scary. It's for your good. I'm going to withhold, keep from, I'm trying to stay on task here. But what does discipline at home really spell? L-O-V-E. So you submit to the discipline of the elders. And if you're found delinquent in faith or life, you want those men to come to you and show you where you have sinned or show you where you are not believing something correctly or accurately. It's for your good and it's done in love. And so in humility you hear what they may say to you and you turn from your sin and you turn from maybe a wrong thinking pattern. These are the obvious things we think about when we think about discipline in the church. But what's not so obvious when we think about discipline in the church or putting off sin and putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is what's taking place behind the scenes and here even now. Let's think about what's going on behind the scenes. Yes, you become a member of our church and you submit to the discipline of the session if you're found deficient in faith or life. But the minister and the elders are already under the discipline. Now this is the part maybe you don't see and you don't think about as much, but let's look at it. You as a church, you elect someone to be an elder. We put someone forward and that man is first set with a pastor and he's trained that man to believe and to work through the confession of faith before he can be presented as someone that we vote into eldership. And after his training and after he is taught and after he submits to the confession, there is a solemn installation service. The minister is also under this discipline. He must meet certain educational requirements. He must sit before the exams at the level of the presbytery. He must demonstrate competency and write theological papers. I'm going somewhere with this, so just listen. He must demonstrate theological competency. He must write papers, theological papers. He must do exegetical papers. He must demonstrate ability in Hebrew and Greek. Here it is. At times, this man who is desiring to be a minister will be corrected concerning his views. At times, he is told to rewrite papers. At times, he is told he must retake tests. Oh, here's the crushing one. At times, he may even be confronted about how he's doing family life, his finances. You think that's easy? Here's a man who wants to preach, and these men are getting in his business. But they do it in love. It's humbling. And this is where this man's learning to put off sin and put off wrong thinking patterns. And he's learning how to put on the confession of faith. He's learning how to put the scriptures in his brain. He's learning how to speak clearly and articulately about the faith that he's supposed to preach to the people. He's under a discipline. It's taking place. And before he can be ordained and installed and take the solemn vows, this is what he has to do. Before a man can stand in a pulpit and preach, he must pass through the church's courts. He must be under this discipline of putting off the old man and putting on the new. You know, sometimes people have come to me and said, you know, that guy, he can't preach worth a lick. And I've said to them, well, okay, if you don't think he can preach worth a lick, let me tell you what, he didn't get that pulpit because it wasn't just given to him. He had passed through a lot of work, and he probably has something to say if you'll learn to listen. You can't just go into the pulpit and preach apart from the discipline and putting off and putting on. The preaching of the Word, moving now into the preaching of the Word, what we're doing right now. Not so obvious, but that's what's taking place right now. when you gather in God's presence, when you gather before God and Jesus Christ who are here with us. And the minister, he has been given through the preaching of the gospel the power to open up the kingdom of God to you. He's been given the keys to the kingdom to open the kingdom of God up to you, to those who repent and those who believe. But he also has the power to shut you off from the kingdom if you will not repent and you will not believe. The Heidelberg Catechism states in answer to question 84, the kingdom of heaven is opened by proclaiming and publicly declaring to each and every member that as often as he accepts the gospel promise in true faith, God, because of what Christ has done, truly forgives his sin. As the minister declares the word of God, real discipline is taking place even right now in this place. This Word, which is proclaimed in the presence of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, is able to make you wise unto salvation. This Word that is proclaimed, listen to these words from 2 Timothy, is able to teach us, correct us, and rebuke us, and train us in righteousness. The ministry of the Word is a ministry of constant putting off of sin, putting off the old man, and putting on the new man. It's a constant discipline of submission to God's Word together as a people. You and I are to be trained here, week by week, Sunday by Sunday, such that our lives more and more reflect the Lord Jesus Christ. One more thing before we move to the next point. When we take the Lord's Supper, we don't talk about it all the time, it's being done. When the minister moves into the point where he serves the Lord's Supper, there's also this putting off of the old man and putting on of the new man going on. The minister explains the nature of the Lord's Supper and then he is charged to fence the table. He puts a fence in front of the table. What does that mean? Well, it means that he declares who may partake of the supper and who may not partake of the supper. You should not partake of the Lord's Supper if you're not instructed and you don't know what we're doing. Observe, learn, ask questions later. You should not partake of the Lord's Supper if you're a sinner and you've never turned from your sin. But you also may not partake of the Lord's Supper if you've made a profession of faith and you're simply unwilling, secretly unwilling to confess your sin that day and put off the old man and put on the new man. You should not partake of the Lord's Supper if you're unwilling to confess your sin. You may partake of the Lord's Supper if you have received the gospel by faith and you are turning away from your sin and seeking to put to death that old man and put on the new man. If it's your desire to be like Christ and you humble yourself and you desire to take this table as a person who needs forgiveness, than fresh grace is provided in this supper. In the very worship of God, the grave clothes of the old man are being taken off. and the clothes of the new man are being put on. So we see by the power of God's word, we're raised from death to life. We see that we are placed into the family of God. We see that we are to put off the old man and put on the new man. And finally, we see that just as Jesus commanded Jairus and his wife to feed their little girl after her resurrection, Jesus commands his other shepherds to feed the family of God. Now in John 21, Jesus appeared to the disciples for the third time by the sea. The guys were out there in the boat fishing. And in this appearance, Jesus said to Peter, feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep. What is it that Peter's supposed to feed the sheep? How is it that Peter's supposed to take care of the sheep? I'll tell you, I've got to think about seven commentaries just to see if they said anything. They all say spiritual nourishment, and they give a whole bunch of verses about eating the Word, and chewing the Word, and meditating on the Word. But none of them said what's on the face of the text there in John 21, what Jesus is doing in that very passage for Peter. So what is it that Jesus is doing for Peter? And if we can figure out what is it that Jesus is doing for Peter, we will know what Peter is supposed to preach and teach the sheep and how he is to tend the sheep. Well, Jesus is feeding Peter, surprise, in this passage in John 21, the Gospel. The Gospel. Now in the Gospel, Jesus keeps coming to Peter. The gospel that created faith in Peter is the very gospel that it took him from death to life, is the very gospel that Peter needs to sustain his faith and keep him spiritually alive. Now, Peter was a believer. Jesus said he had faith. I prayed for you that your faith may not fail, he said. Peter was a man of faith. He was a man of glorious confessions of Jesus Christ. Jesus told him that Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. And you are going to deny three times that you know me before a cock crows. Peter, hearing that, says, you don't know me. I will never disown you, even if I have to die with you. And he said it over and over and over. He said it. But just as Jesus prophesied, Peter denied him three times. Peter went out and he wept bitterly. But the story is not over. Because you see, the Jesus who had come to him early on, and the Jesus who had called him to be his disciple early on, and the Jesus who had preached the gospel to him early on, continued to come back to him. That's what he needed to know. That's what he needs to preach. That's how he needs to tend the flock. He came to Peter again. This ought to make your heart jump. He came to Peter when he was a massive failure. You know what people do when you fail around in the world, don't you? You know what they do, don't you? They kick you when you're down. There's a song, one of those songs. Kick him when he's up, kick him when he's down. They kick you when you're down. He came to Peter and he forgave his sins, and that's the gospel. He came to him to restore him, to challenge him. He says to him, do you love me more than these? Why did he ask him that? Because he was provoking him to confess his sins. He was provoking him to confess his love. He was provoking him to say, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. This time, when he confesses his love, he does not compare himself to others. This time, when he confesses his love to Jesus, he does not say that he does it more than others. This time, he says that he loves him, and he relies on Jesus' sovereign omniscience. Yes, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. He asks him the third time, and the Bible tells us that Peter literally hurt You know that I love you, but you know I don't love you the way I should all the time, you know? But there's no doubt that he loved Jesus. This time Peter humbly declares his love for Jesus. Jesus commands Peter to what? Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep. And that is what Peter is to preach. And that is what you as his sheep need to hear. You need to be fed what God has done for you. the cross. You need to be fed that your sins are forgiven by the work of Christ, that the work of Christ on the cross has purchased and secured the forgiveness of all of your sins, and that his judicial wrath can never fall on you ever. You have eternal life and you're right with God by faith. You also need to hear that when you fail as his sheep, you need to hear when you fail as miserably as his sheep. You need to hear when you deny Christ in the presence of others. You need to hear when you are ashamed of yourself privately. You need to hear when you're ashamed of yourself publicly for how you've acted. You need to hear when you think false towards other people for mistreating you terribly. and you're angry with them, you need to hear that Christ keeps coming. And you need to be fed that Christ keeps coming to forgive you for your sins. He keeps seeking you out. If you're his, he keeps seeking you out. He's going to bring you back. He's going to ask you that question. Do you love me? And why? Because he's provoking you to confess your sins. And he's going to provoke within you desire to repent of your sins because forgiveness of your sin is purchased and secured by his death. He's totally committed to coming back to you over and over again to restore that union and that oneness. He's provoking you. And you should be saying, yes, Lord, I love you. He comes to restore the pleasure that was removed. You know, your children are always your children, right? Man, your children are always your children. But you know, you're sitting here, and your child goes over, and he does something to his sister, and you go and correct him, and maybe he blows up. Or maybe sometimes we correct our children wrong. We don't do it right all the time. I certainly don't. And so we have to go to our child and there's no pleasure there anymore. We have to go to our child and we have to say we're sorry. Or we provoke them to say they're sorry so that the relationship is restored. John Popper writes this, God is totally committed to bring us back to confession and repentance as often as necessary so that we may receive and enjoy that forgiveness in the removal of his fatherly displeasure. It is our Father's pleasure to restore us to his pleasure. Listen to that. It is his fatherly pleasure to restore us to his pleasure until such restorings are needed no more. This is the food that you need. You need to be fed the gospel that the one who came to you in the beginning continues to come to you today. provoke you and give you the forgiveness of sins. Let's pray together. Father, we do humble ourselves in your presence, and we praise you that you, as we bow our heads, that you have brought us to life by the power of your gospel, from death to life. We also praise you and thank you that as you bring us to life, that you do not leave us alone, but you give us brothers and sisters and mothers in the family of God with whom we may worship, with whom we may love and have many things to do, encouraging each other. We praise you for this family that you've given us here. that even as we go about this daily schedule of worship that is laid out before us every Sunday, that we are putting off the old man and putting on the new man, putting off wrong thinking patterns, putting off wrong actions, and we are seeking, by your grace, to put on the new things and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might think His thoughts after Him. Father, we also thank you, especially for the fact that because our sins have been purchased and secured on the cross of Jesus Christ, that our Lord Jesus Christ, who's seated at your right hand, keeps coming to us by the power of his spirit, delivering to us that message of forgiveness and bringing us to repent and confess our sins. and restoring that pleasure that we know, even as David said in Psalm 51, restore to me the joy of my salvation. We praise you and thank you for that. We pray that as we leave this place today, that we might be satisfied with the blessing of this meal. And we praise you for your word again in Jesus name.