Christ Is Risen

The word became flesh.

He covenanted with us. He came to be with us in the most impactful way. He walked among us. He dwelled with us. He came to be our substitute, to die in our place. Well, why? Because back in Genesis 2, after God created everything good, he gave a simple command and a warning. I've given you everything, he said to Adam. I've given you all the trees, but this one tree you're not supposed to eat of. And here's the significance of you obeying this command. If you eat of the tree, you will die. Adam, as we know, ate of that tree. And because he sinned, we are all born in sin. Because he died, we are all going to die. As we've lost a member of the church, as our church members have grieved parents' deaths this year, as some are still worried about their parents, they need to remember something very important. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. God created us for life. God gave us his own life, but we sinned. He promised death. Now we must die because he warned us this was gonna happen. He promised this was gonna happen. But then he also promised to help us. He promised that someone would come born of the woman who would crush the serpent, who would crush death, who would crush sin. Christ had to come and die. Fully, truly die. Be buried, fully participating in death. as we'll confess, descended into Haiti, Sheol. He was truly human. He suffered a real death. He was buried. Important because throughout the ages of the church, there's been those who have denied the real humanity of Jesus. They've focused on the transcendent God and they couldn't believe that God would become so involved and present in such a dirty world. They're missing the fact that God originally made this world good. He can come down to this world as he ordained. Jesus came to redeem by assuming our full humanity. As we think about another group that denies the full humanity of Jesus, it's the teachings of Islam. They teach that Jesus only appeared to die on the cross, that he couldn't really have died. They don't believe Jesus is the son of God, but they have this idea that he's such a great man, such a holy one of Allah, he couldn't really die, he couldn't suffer that way. There's a wrong view of who we are as humanity and what we need. There's a wrong view of God and what he can come to do. Most importantly this morning, we need to see something. Jesus and Muhammad teach two different Jesuses. Jesus and Muhammad teach two different kinds of Jesuses. Will we listen to the Jesus who said he would die and rise again? Will we listen to those who recorded these words so we could have certainty carried along by the Holy Spirit so we could believe? I say this to remind us we've got to stay near Jesus's words. I don't believe anyone here, Jefferson Park, is tempted to listen to Muhammad. But I'm using an example. We must believe he alone is our Savior. There is no other way. We must trust and obey him alone as our Lord. We must share the gospel with everyone so that they might believe in the one true Jesus. Most of us are probably not tempted to believe in the false Jesus of Islam, but we are always tempted to make Jesus in our own image in some way. Probably tempted to bring Jesus down to our liking. to not reject his holiness, but want him to be the kind of Jesus we resonate with. I don't even know what that means, but I hear it a lot. Jesus came to be light in the darkness. That isn't resonating. That's illuminating and bringing truth to lives. He came to bring light into the darkness, to bring life into death, to bring salvation for sinners. Not so that we could feel like he agrees with us, no, so that we can repent and agree with him. Now let's wrestle with something. What does it mean when we would confess with a creed or the creed confesses that Jesus descended into hell? Now, this is challenging because we saw a few weeks ago, Jesus promised,

today you'll be with me in paradise.

How is it Jesus could be in that place of most intense suffering when he's promised he would be with that criminal in paradise? Most of the church historically would have believed Jesus was in that place of torment and hell. The creed would point to that, and there's texts in which they would try to say something about that. But I tell you this morning, the word hell, just like Hades or Sheol, it has a larger range. I want to confess that with the church, but with the understanding, hell there means he died. He really died. He entered into the depths of death. So we confess that. I want to give you the freedom. Some people pause on that, I know, because they don't understand how he could go into hell, as we think about torment. But when I read that, I'm understanding. He fully experienced death, burial, into the depths of Hades, not the punishment of God, as we think about with fire forever, but the real reality of a full death. I think it's important for us to recognize this. He came to be like us in every way, except sin. He died for us, who have sinned, to pay our penalty, to destroy the power of death so that we can live. He was buried. Second point, he is risen, risen. We see chapter 24. Notice the, we're gonna go back to verse 54, actually.

It was the day of preparation, the Sabbath's beginning. Women who had come from Galilee followed and saw the tomb, how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath day, they rested according to the commandment.

There's lots of detail here about days. Remember, Luke is doing research. He himself was not a disciple with Jesus, but he walked with Paul. He's walked around and interviewed those who were part of the church, and he's gathered different stories, and he's put them together, and this is history. It's not a myth. It's not an idle tale. He shows how the disciples were faithful Jewish worshipers of Yahweh. They're observing the Sabbath. These are not irreverent Jews looking for some kind of new religion. No, no, they go out of their way. Remember, the accusation against Jesus was that he wouldn't keep the Sabbath. He didn't keep the Pharisees' rules. No, even these disciples, they're observing the Sabbath, Saturday, a day of rest. Notice we are reintroduced to an important character for Luke, women. Jesus had female disciples, that was pretty unusual for rabbis in that day. He was unique. And Luke especially, he highlights the role of women throughout Jesus' life. The role of Elizabeth, Mary, Anna, the prophetess and his birth. Women were highlighted a little while ago in the crucifixion, they were grieving and weeping. And here at the resurrection, women once again are highlighted in their role as disciples. Now Luke is elevating those that the culture would have despised, and I want us to see something really interesting as Luke the historian is telling us what happened. Because if you're making up a story, this is not what you would say. Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection. Women, their testimony wasn't heard in a court. They were not considered reliable witnesses, and in God's wisdom, power, what actually happened was that he made women the first witnesses to what he would bring about as a great gospel, the good news that needs to be heralded. Someone's making up a story, this is not what you write, but he is writing so we'd have certainty on what has happened. Notice they, wait for the day of the Sabbath, they've prepared spices, they've prepared to anoint the body. And now it's Sunday, the first day of the week. They go to the tomb, they know where it is, they followed Joseph. There's no confusing, fusion here. They wanna honor the body of their teacher. Verse two of chapter four,

they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

Another gospel tells us that actually while they're walking there, they're pondering, how are we gonna move this tomb? How are we gonna actually apply what we've prepared? They get there and they're surprised. They found the stone rolled away. And then, verse three,

they went in and they didn't find the body of Jesus.

A significant question, if you're a skeptic this morning, Who rolled away the stone? Who would roll away the stone? They come, the stone's rolled away, they go in, they do not find the body of Jesus. And notice their reaction. Verse four, they were perplexed. And that's the natural reaction, isn't it? Wouldn't we all be a little perplexed that we've come to anoint what we understand to be a dead body of our rabbi, someone we've loved and adored? The stone's rolled away, that's surprising, but then you go in and the body's gone. Well, what do you start thinking at this point? I would think, who took it? Why would they take it? We don't know what they're thinking, but we know they're not thinking well yet. Because Luke gives us one of the most important words we constantly see in Luke. If you wanna read through the gospel of Luke, you're always looking for the word behold. Here we see a significant change in the story. They've come, the rocks moved away, they've gone in, the body's not there, they're perplexed. Behold, this is the turning point of the story.

Two men stood by them in dazzling apparel

, angels. And as the women were responding, as they should respond to these angels, they're frightened, they're bowing their faces to the ground, they said to them, these words are really interesting for us to wrestle with. The angels tell these women who are perplexed,

why do you seek the living among the dead?

What kind of message is that? Pretty confrontational. There seems to be a rebuke in their words. Why would you come here perplexed? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? This is clearly confrontational. We need to wrestle with why. Why would the angels confront the women who love Jesus, who are seeking to honor him, why would they confront him? Well, because I think it's fun, we're gonna hold that up for a moment in attention. Verse six. Why are you seeking the living among the dead? Then the declaration. The question upon her, why would you be looking for the living among the dead? Then the declaration.

He is not here, but is risen.

This is it. All of Christianity hinges upon this being true. To be clear, if we find the bones of Jesus, we're all wasting our time right now. Because everything we believe and everything we do is dependent upon him being risen. because that proves his death was sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God. That means he was God who became flesh, who was born of a virgin. He's the promised savior from of old. Everything hinges right now upon the resurrection. Not a spiritual resurrection, a real resurrection. Paul tells in Romans, he's descended by David by being born of the Virgin Mary. He's the son of God by the declaration of the resurrection. But this is the good news. Jesus has come to die and he has defeated death. He is risen. We're going to keep doing this. You're going to say he is risen indeed. We're going to go ahead and start practicing for Easter. So let's do that again. Jesus came to die and with his death he has defeated death. He is risen. He has come to give life because he is risen and he gives us his own eternal life. He is risen. If we consider what he's done, he came and cleaned the sick. He touched dead bodies and made them alive. He did not become unclean. He made clean because he is almighty God. He has come to reverse the curse. He is risen. Let's go back to why the rebuke of the women? But the good news is Christ has come to be among us, without sin, to die for sin, to be buried, to rise again. Why the rebuke? It comes in this next declaration.

He is not here, but has risen. Remember.

Remember. Angels aren't supposed to come and give new revelation. Angels come and remind us of what God has said. Notice the angels aren't introducing anything new. They're simply saying, remember what Jesus, who you've come to honor, what he said to you while you were in Galilee. Remember, remember Jesus himself said, He told you, verse seven,

that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified when the third day arrives.

Remember, if you wanna go back and look at where Jesus said this, Luke 9, verses 21 and 22. Luke 9, verses 21 and 22. Luke 9, 43, 45. Luke 9, 43 and 45. And then Luke 18, 31, The last two, Luke actually gives a little bit of explanation. He says the disciples didn't understand it because it was hidden from them. They were not yet given the grace to understand these things. There was a hiddenness while Jesus was making this prediction. I mean, you see this for our good. God has acted in our earth that he created. God has acted by making promises and fulfilling those promises. God has become with us and God is his own interpreter. It isn't actually just enough that God would do this. He then tells us what he was gonna do. He tells us that he did it. He explains the significance of it. Christ dying on the cross and rising again is only helpful for you as we see in scripture, not only that he did it, but why? To forgive you, to give you new life. It's important to see for our good. These events are necessary. He must have done these things. We also must see he is his own interpreter. He tells us what they mean. So what do we need to do today? The same thing these women needed. Remember. Remember what Jesus told us. What good news this morning? We get to listen to God. All this assumes he's spoken. And he's spoken with great clarity. He's spoken with great power. We get to listen to God. the Savior who's conquered sin and death. We get to know Him who came down to give us life. We get to receive Him and worship Him as God and Savior. God speaks so we can listen. But isn't listening really hard? How good of a listener are you? That's not an invitation to look at the person next to you and think, how good of a listener are they? But how good of a listener are you? A key question, who do you really commit to listening to? Who have you given yourself over that you might listen to them and you trust them, you hear their words with great weight? It seems like listening is becoming more and more difficult as our society has been described as one where everyone's talking and no one is listening. Christian, there's no way to be a disciple of Christ if we don't listen, because we're a people of faith. And faith means we hear and receive by listening. We receive the good news, we receive the truth, we receive the commandments, and we believe. Christian, there's no way to grow as a Christian if we're not listening. I want to separate something here. Hearing and listening are two different things. James tells us that we could look at the law and we could easily forget it. We're just hearing it. That's like a man who looks in the mirror, sees who he is, and then walks away and ignores it. Listening is hanging on the words. Listening is seeking to remember and keep in our minds the constant memory of what Christ has said, because he has the words of life. Listening is also not something else. It's not arguing. There's a head and a heart aspect here. Listening means we look to Jesus, who is the wisdom and the power of God, who has come to give us new life and life abundantly. It's our call to listen to him, to want to remember everything he says. Here's the beauty of what happens when we listen to Jesus. We get to deny ourselves of all the silly things we believe. We get to deny ourselves of the things that do not align with God's will. He helps us out of our own self-deception. He cuts through the darkness that we've threaded ourselves with. He gets us out of our self-righteousness, our self-pity, our selfishness. This is a funny phrase from Francis Schaeffer, but I think it's helpful. He tells us true truth. We've all adopted something we think is truth, but Jesus comes and he gives us actually true truth. Jesus tells us who he is, who we are, what he's done for us, what he expects of us. Here's the catch, if we want to listen, if we want to hear the word of God, if we want to listen to the wisdom of God incarnate, What is the beginning of wisdom? Fear. A reverence for him who speaks. Disciples of Jesus, listening to Jesus is required. There's no way to be a Christian if we do not listen to Jesus. As we consider the text, I also want us to see something that's important. It's on the first day of the week. If you wanna call today the Sabbath, that's fine, I don't. The disciples, they rested on the Sabbath as Moses' law commands. Here, they're on the first day of the week, what we call the Lord's Day, Revelation 110. My concern is that too many believers treat Sunday as an American day of rest. It's not supposed to be family day, fun day, a day to catch up on work. It's a day to gather for what we're doing right now. Remembering the words of Jesus, reminding each other of the words of Jesus, being reminded of the words of Jesus. It's so important for us to grasp this because we're forgetful. We can become very easily hard-headed, stiff-necked. Christians for 2,000 years have prioritized the coming together to hear the word of God, the apostles' teaching, and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. I get frustrated because I constantly see folks who, they want to do Christianity their own way, so they stay away from the church. Then they fall into sin and the shame keeps them away from the church. The one thing you need to be able to receive is the word of Christ. And you get that from other Christians. A recipe for frustration and failure is to continue to do things your own way. Jesus has given us his word. We get to sing it to each other. We get to pray it with each other. We get to hear it with each other. We get to talk about it over fellowship and prayer afterwards. We must repent so that we might listen. Finally, last point, received, received. Notice we see the women. Verse eight, we see a moment of faith for them.

And they remembered Jesus's words.

We believe here they have a lightbulb moment. Oh yeah, you're right. He did say this over and over again. And so what do they do? They return to tell the others, the 11 disciples and all the rest. We have the names of these women. Again, Luke is telling us what happened because he wants to give us certainty with the details. Notice how the disciples respond. Verse 11,

but these words seemed to them an idle tell, and they did not believe them.

The women have a rebuke from the angels because they had not considered, oh, he's already said he would rise, why are we looking for the living among the dead? But then they receive that and they believe, well, Well here the disciples, I'm assuming these women are saying, we've seen the empty grave, we saw an angel, he told us to remember what Jesus said. The disciples have all the information they need to believe and they're not believing. They doubted. Now a temptation is to look at them and say, how could they doubt? I think we've gotta ask, how is it we have even more information and yet we still doubt? Verse 12,

but Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened.

Peter, old, good old instinctive Peter. I don't do the personality test, but I'm sure he's like crystally one of those personalities, A dynamic, I'm just gonna jump in head first no matter what kind of guy. He constantly had his foot in his mouth. He always spoke first and thought later. He was even rebuked by Jesus at one point. Like he was speaking of Satan. He denied Jesus after he was warned. But here, he gets up and he goes. and responds with marveling. We look at Peter and we can remember one thing. Oh, the sweet invitation to redemption. Peter, for three years, seemed to be a failure and a failure and ended with a great failure. He denied Jesus. But here we know later he's gonna preach the first Christian sermon. He gets up, he goes to see, and he marvels. He marvels. He's amazed. He doesn't see Jesus. He's amazed of what he's heard. He's amazed by the promises he remembers. He's amazed that the tomb is empty. Believer, as we think about the marveling, have you stopped marveling that Jesus is risen? ponder and wonder with all. That God would love us while we're sinners, that God would come down to us in this way and die a real death and give us new life was such clear declaration. Do we marvel at these things? The resurrection should change everything. All the Christian faith really depends on if Jesus was risen or not. And if he's risen, it changes everything about us. Right? It is just that clear. If he's not risen, if he's not alive, this is nothing. But if he is risen, remembering his word, seeking to listen to him, obey him, worship him, growing to marvel him more and more, it's everything. We only stop marveling when we stop looking at Jesus. If you're not a believer this morning, there's an empty tomb you can go see, but I'm not sure how convincing that is. My encouragement to you is two things. Read his word. Look to what Jesus has said. Read the word of God. Take up one of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and read it asking for wisdom, for eyes to see, to know who Jesus is, to know who you are, to know what God expects of you. If you want to see something, if you're the kind of guy who really wants some evidence, I have a challenge for you there. Look around the world. and see how the church continues to thrive. Yeah, the church has messed up in many places and many times in many ways, but it's amazing. 11 disciples who proved in every way in their own natural ability to be cowards, they then turn into courageous proclaimers of Christ who, when warned, refused to stop proclaiming them. They turned the world upside down. The church prospered over and over again against persecution, the wickedness of persecution. If you wanna see something and wrestle with it, how in the world does a church still exist? How in the world does a church come about? Unless he is risen. He's ascended. He sent down His Holy Spirit that brings power to proclaim Him. And as that gospel has been proclaimed, people have been changed. And that's how the church has grown. Yeah, the church has had some real issues. Every letter in the New Testament is correcting the church. But the power of the gospel has gone out. Because these men were transformed when they saw Jesus risen. The power of the gospel goes out when the gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed. This morning, the invitation. We get to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. He has defeated death. He has risen to give us new life. A verse I want to challenge you with, to ponder, is from Romans 6-11.

Consider yourself dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus.

Remembering. so that we can constantly recalculate. I don't have to sin. Christ conquered the power of sin. I'm alive because he's risen and he's overcome the grave. He's overcome my sin. Consider a constant remembering, a constant reminding each other, a constant reevaluating everything we think about ourselves because Christ came to save us. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you did not leave us alone in sin and death, under the curse, the deception of the evil one. Lord, you made promises, and now we can, coming out of the Christmas season, see how you fulfilled those promises, and your son becoming like us, with a virgin birth, your son, becoming like us, a human being, but a righteous one without sin, who died on the cross, who rose again, who ascended, and so now, Lord, we pray we would know the power of his death, the power of his resurrection. We would remember and remind one another of all the goodness of what you've said and what you've done for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.