Jesus Rose on the Third Day

He is risen. It's getting a little better. This morning we are coming and we're coming to the end of Mark. We're in chapter 16 and we've been walking through Mark for some time, not quite a year. But it's important to highlight here that we're focusing on the resurrection this morning because it's in our text. Really, we gather on the first day of the week, Sunday, to remember He's risen. That is the confident accomplishment of Christ that changed an entire people's day of worship. Right? The sacred day for the Jewish Christians moved from Saturday to Sunday. It's one of the clearest evidences that Christ rose. It changed an entire people's practice. Not only that, they stopped sacrificing. They stopped looking at the Sabbath. They're gathering on the first day of the week to worship Yahweh, but now Yahweh has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. This morning we're concluding, Mark. I'll give a brief overview of where we've been so far, but I want us to see, if you're new with us, we've been walking through the Gospel of Mark, and Mark has this interesting writing technique that's called a sandwich, right? So we all know what a sandwich is. It's at least two pieces of bread with something in the middle, right? There's three parts to a sandwich, and the two things, the outside are supposed to be similar. Well I believe, and I've been convinced as I've read some other folks and heard some sermons on this text, that we actually are dealing with a sandwich here. And the sandwich is just focused on the role of these women. You've got them standing there faithful in contrast to the disciples who go to deny Jesus in chapter 15, 40 through 41. And then you have the burial. So you, you end with the women witnessing the cross. Then you have the burial where, where Joseph and Mary, I think, is kind of the primary man, the primary character. But there the women are, witnessing. And then finally, in God's sovereignty, he has these women, the two Marys, as the first witnesses of the resurrection. D.A. Carson says Christianity can be summed up in three days. Death, burial, and resurrection. Everything falls apart if those are true. And here we're focusing on the last two parts here, really the women being witnesses of the cross, then the burial, then the resurrection. And it's remarkable how Christ has brought this together in His sovereignty. If you're new to this, we're simply walking through Mark. We're coming to an end. We're on Friday still, in chapter 15. So, so what we call Good Friday. Christ has died. Now, leading up to that, he had the, the last supper with his disciples, and he, he warned them, one of you is going to betray me. Then he warned the rest, all of you will deny me. They say never, it'll never be so. Peter especially says, I will not ever deny you, even though these other guys might. He says, no, you'll deny me three times before the cockroach. It becomes true. Judas betrays Jesus. He's put before the Sanhedrin, the religious council. False testimony after false testimony. They have a hard time actually making a case because the false testimonies are contradicting one another. But they end up scourging him and beating him and mocking him. They hand him over to Pilate. They accuse him again. He is beaten, scourged, mocked, the crown of thorns. He then is nailed to a cross, berated all the more by those all around. And then Friday ends up being the darkest day. The sun stops shining. Christ declares, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In that moment is the son being separated from the father because he is being treated as a sinner like us. In that moment he feels the separation we deserve so that he can reconcile us back to the Father, so that our sins are punished fully in Christ, and now we can be forgiven if we confess our sins in the name of Christ. He gives up his spirit. He himself gives up his life. The God of life cannot be murdered, but he lets himself be treated in this way. He gives up his life. And then, as we just heard, kind of before the account, we're looking at the temple curtains torn in two, symbolizing there's no more sacrifices. The perfect sacrifice has been made, Jesus Christ. And then of all people, a Roman centurion, the one who's overseeing all the activity on the cross, he makes the declaration. Surely this man was a son of God. We then have this interesting observation. And here we're going to get into how we really see how eyewitness historical the resurrection account is. All right, so Mark, we believe, is writing with Peter, Peter being the apostle, Peter in jail, we believe they're in Rome, and Mark is writing the first gospel account with Peter, Peter being the primary author, Mark being the penman. And I want our first point to be this, because I wanted to just do an overview here. Our first point is looking at the women in the ministry of Jesus. That is intentionally highlighted here by Mark. Look at verse 40 and 41. There are also women looking on from a distance. The disciples have all fled. They've all denied Christ. Judas has committed suicide because he's betrayed Jesus, and he's overwhelmed with guilt, we assume. But Mark then decides then there were women. Mary Magdalene. and Mary, the mother of James the Younger and Joseph and Salome. When he was in Galilee, many women ministered to him. Here, the cross is over there. In a distance, they're witnessing their Messiah, their leader, die. Then we have them following Joseph of Ariathea to see where he's laid. Then they go to the tomb. very clearly, knowing he's dead, to, to embalm him, to anoint him. And there they get to hear the first testimony. They, they themselves are the first eyewitnesses. He is not here. It's interesting, as we look at this account, the women are the ones who seem to be found most faithful. The, the women are the faithful eyewitnesses of the crucifixion. They're their standing faithfully, watching. They're the first eyewitness of the resurrection. And now, this may not be real shocking to us, but if you're Mark writing to a Roman culture, it's going to stand out as odd. The culture was very anti-woman. The women could not be citizens. Women did not have a right to give any kind of vote. Most interesting here, very important, Women could not bear testimony in court. Women did not have the privilege or the right to be witnesses. And in God's sovereignty, that's who he made the first witnesses. The primary witnesses of the most significant events of Jesus' crime. We really can't tell the Gospel of Jesus Christ without women. You have Mary the Virgin, the one who gave birth to God, and her faithfulness in responding to that revelation clearly. You actually literally have in Mark 14, Jesus says, you cannot tell my story without talking of this woman who anointed me for my death and burial. Even interesting, you see in Mark 5, the Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, he comes to Jesus desperate, please heal my child. And as they're walking, the woman who would be unclean and unapproachable, untouchable for everybody else, she comes and she touches Jesus' garment. She says, who touched me? Because he doesn't know. Because he's, he's making a point. He wants everyone to see this woman in the simplicity and the focus of her faith. She's been healed. And then we see that sandwich. She's a model. Jairus is supposed to look to her and see what faith is. These two women really dominate the ending of Mark. These two women are, are very clearly present and, and mourning the loss of Jesus. And as we look at it, we really could ask, where are the men? But all I want to see here is, in God's sovereignty, these women are been, they've been given the grace to be faithful. Jesus' ministry is marked by women having confidence from Him and knowing that they are valued. and have worth, and there's nothing new here. All right, we go to Genesis 1. You know how to, when you read Scripture, what is put in the end, and what is given the certain words, is how you know how to value or emphasize certain parts of Scripture. If you look at Genesis 1, what's supposed to be the end emphasis is the creation of humans, the last creation. And then if you actually look at the heightened language, it's Genesis 1.27. If you look at Genesis 1, the six days of creation, so God created man in His own image. In His image, He created him. Male and female, He created them. They're beginning. There's an equal dignity, an equal worth. Highlighted by this poetry that emphasizes so powerfully, there's something special about every human being. Every human being being a male and a female. You can even go to Genesis 2, and if you follow along, there's a problem in Genesis 2. The dude ain't got no friends. It's not good for Adam to be alone. That's the problem. And then God creates this climactic demonstration to make Adam feel as alone as he possibly could. There was no helper fit. So Adam has to take a nap. When he wakes up, God brings him the woman. And again, in emphasis, and in poetic language, at last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Genesis 2, at the end of it, it's a celebration of women. Well, history has been everything but what God declared women to be equal in dignity and honor, and to be celebrated on Genesis 2. Why? Well, we get a little picture in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve sin, God approaches them, and when God says to Adam, what have you done? He does not answer the question directly. He doesn't say, I did this. He said, that woman you gave me. We see the twistedness of our own sin in that we stop praising God and thanking God for His good gifts, and we start blaming Him, and we become abusive. I want to be very clear here that, that women in, in the ministry of Jesus had, had value, had dignity, had, had worth, had, had confidence. They were the ones confident enough to stand to the cross, to go to the grave, and to bless Jesus. If we're going to say we follow Jesus, we're supposed to follow him in this way as well. And that is a conversation we need to have, and I hope to in the Sunday school class we're doing now soon. First I want to highlight the text I believe just focuses, I'm just observing the text highlights women, The next thing we see here is in verse 40 through 41, they are there witnessing the crucifixion. Again, one of the key points we see in the crucifixion, we see how, how, what our sin looks like. We are the murderers of God. We see what judgment is like. God has to punish our sin. That's why Christ is punished, even though He has not sinned. He's punished for our sin. And we see the love of God, that He did not even spare His own Son. Our focus this morning now is on Jesus buried. Jesus is buried. If you're taking notes, that's our second point. The first is the women in Jesus' ministry. The second is Jesus is buried. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is still Friday. We're still in Friday and and it was a custom to take down criminals before the Passover Because it was a gross spectacle That is the day before the Sabbath Joseph of Arimathea a respected member of the council That is the very Sanhedrin that hated Jesus and worked hard to get false testimony to falsely accuse Jesus All right, he's not guilty by association. He himself is somebody seeking the kingdom of God. He himself stands out as one who seems to recognize Jesus as worthy of honor, who was himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage, and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Now, this took courage stands out. What's so courageous about asking for the body? Well, it could be he's taking courage in that he might get kicked out of the Sanhedrin for trying to honor the Jesus the Sanhedrin just murdered. I think it probably has more to do with the direct context in that he actually took courage and went to Pilate. Pilate is the most powerful man in Jerusalem. He has the Roman army behind him, and he's a very cruel man. When Rome would crucify a criminal, or crucifixion is reserved for the worst kind of criminal. When your body is crucified, your body now belongs to the state. Rome considered Jesus' body in their possession. And typically, when a body was crucified, they do with it whatever they want, and they do not ever want to bury a body, because that honors one. The whole point of the crucifixion is to bring shame and dishonor upon whoever that is. But here we see Joseph of Arimathea. I want to honor the one who was crucified. And so he took courage to go ask Pilate to do which was kind of unthinkable. Honor someone who was crucified with a proper burial. And when he asked him whether, and Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. Now, that's because oftentimes it would take people seven days, up to seven days, to die on the cross. Some didn't make it all the way to the cross, but some would actually take days to die on the cross. And so he seems surprised. And it's kind of interesting. Pilate always seems a little shocked by Jesus. You constantly see the response of people to Jesus. And here Pilate is, he's amazed. He doesn't believe it. He summons a centurion. We assume it's probably the same centurion who's overseen the crucifixion, the same centurion who said, surely this man is the son of God. He asked him whether he was dead. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. Pilate doesn't seem convinced. Remember earlier, last week, we saw he actually assumed that the Sanhedrin, they're only acting out of envy. He doesn't seem, he appears to be unconvinced that Jesus deserves the kind of shame and dishonor of the cross, and so here it gives the body to Joseph for honor. All according to God's plan. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, that is a cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. And here we have Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. One of the main points I think we need to just realize here is Jesus is dead. There's no swooning, right? There's those who have tried to answer the resurrection because it appears so clearly Jesus was alive after the crucifixion, They want to deny he died. They want to say, well, maybe he just fell asleep. Maybe he appeared to be dead. Seems very unlikely. It's amazing how far we'll go in our imagination to deny clear truth. The centurions are masters of murder. They're not going to be confused over if somebody's dead. He's wrapped in a shroud, put into a tomb. There's no question. Jesus, the creator of life, the creator of these men, the creator of all that exists that's good, he's dead. He's given up his life for his creation. It is a moment of reflection here before we move on. Put up your hands. Right? Some people want to participate. Some people don't. Don't worry. I'm not going to call on you. I'm not going to call if you raise your hand. Look at your hands. These are the hands God created. These are the hands that killed God. These are the hands that are washed by the blood of Jesus. Right? That is the whole Gospel there. We have been created by God for good. We've been given these hands to do good works, to maintain His good creation. And instead of following along with His good creation in His good way, we decided to murder Him when He came to save us. We all participated in that. And we, by faith, can be washed There is no way you can get the blood of Jesus off your hands. You can only be washed by the blood of Jesus. Let's look at the next section. Beginning in chapter 16. Jesus is not here. He is buried. It makes it very clear He's dead. And now we hear the good news. Jesus is not here. When the Sabbath was passed. So we've, we've gone an entire Saturday. Right? The, the, the oddest Saturday and the oddest Sabbath of all time. Disciples grieving. Disciples mourning. Disciples confused. What just happened to Jesus? The Sanhedrin either going through the motions of the religious practices in the most vain way, or maybe, just maybe, the sun stops shining and the temple torn in two has made them starting to, like, reflect. A difficult Saturday, a full day passes. And then Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome, they bought spices so they might go and anoint him. Now this is an embalming practice. They're, they're going to treat the body as if dead. It's important we recognize all the disciples believed he was dead. And they believed he was going to stay dead. The women now representing the disciples, they're going to treat him as a dead body who's going to remain dead. There is no expectation of the resurrection. And that's somewhat confusing because Jesus already told him three times he's going to suffer, die, and rise again. Mark 8.31, Mark 9.30, Mark 10.32. We know of those three. It's a great theme throughout that particular section. But, but here the disciples, they, they've seen part of what he's promised fulfilled. Suffer and die. But they do not have faith in a resurrection. And very, very early on in the first day of the week, that is Sunday, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. So they're, they've, they've seen where the body lied. Now they've planned. They've got spices. They're on their way. And, and, and Mark even gives us the conversation they're having. And they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? Now this is just like God. They're worrying about something He's already taken care of. Right? They're, they're on their way to do their religious duty to a, a dead friend, to someone who's passed away. And they're, they're worried about how they're gonna get the stone rolled away. And when they show up, verse 4, looking up, they saw the stone had already been rolled back. It was, it was very large. One pastor says, the stone is not rolled back so that Jesus can get out of the tomb. The stone's rolled back so that they can go in and see. This is all being played out so that they, they, they see and are mesmerized, God is in control here. They're worried about the soul being rolled back. They show up. It's already moved. And this is already starting to probably be a little eerie. What is going on? Verse five. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe. And they were alarmed. This has every ingredient, every characteristic of an angel encounter. He's in a white robe, they're alarmed, and to seal the deal, to make it clear this is an angel, the first thing the angel says is, do not be alarmed. It's a pattern. It's a simple equation. This is what happens when you engage an angel. You see him in something vibrant and pure. You're afraid. And then he says, do not be afraid, or do not be alarmed. Verse 6 is your memory verse. If you're going to memorize a verse from today's passage, verse 6 is it. It's, everything's right there. Listen to what the angel says. Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. Okay, we're dealing with a real man. We know his origin. He was born in Bethlehem, but he's from Nazareth. And then he highlights, to make it very clear, the one who was just crucified. I know who you're looking for. You're looking for the one who's been crucified and is dead. What Satan says next changes everything. He has risen. He is not here. He has risen. He is not here. It's very important to realize how concrete, historical this account is. Notice what this angel does not say. Look in your heart and there you'll find him. Meditate silently and he will appear to you. No. Look right there. It's where his body laid. He's not here. Death could not hold him. In vain, death says, do not rise. And he overcomes death. It's a historical fact. It's being written and recorded and declared by an angel. This is what happened. We love to try to spiritualize stuff. We love to try to add some kind of myth to this. No, it's historical. Let me just be very clear. There's, there's two basic truths we need to embrace here. If they find the bones of Jesus tomorrow, all believers are to be pitied above everyone else. All the martyrs, just wasted lives. A wasted death. If they find Jesus' bones tomorrow, this is all for nothing. We, we sing to no one. That's one truth that has to be very clear. The resurrection has to have happened historically, or we're all wasting our time. Second truth is this. If He has risen, and you don't believe in Him, you stand before a judge who is righteous, who sent His Son to pay for your sin, and if you don't believe in Him, you will pay for your sin. Those are the two truths that have to be wrestled with today. Is Jesus risen? Let me try to illustrate this a little bit more, more clearly. I was blessed. I went to a Christian school for my undergraduate. And I had a professor there who said his middle name was the Resurrection. He was a philosophy of history professor. He, if on a test you didn't know the answer, if you just wrote Resurrection, he would give you partial credit because that was his thing. All right? He's still nationally, internationally known as a great apologist. His name's Gary Habermas. He's a scholar on the resurrection and the history of it. And he's quite amazing the way he argues for it. And I happened to be in his class. It was an apologetics class years ago. And it was a blessing. He walks into the class. with a different kind of face. He was a hockey guy, so a pretty tough, big dude. But he had a different disposition this particular day. He said, I got a letter today from a dear friend. The friend was Anthony Flew. Those of you who are of the older generation might recognize him. He was the Christopher Hitchens before, in the previous generation. He was a world-renowned atheist whose goal was to debunk and disprove Christianity. And so Anthony Flew and Gary Habermas became friends because they would regularly do debates together. And Anthony Flew wrote this multiple page letter and he begins to explain, Gary, you got me. I cannot deny that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. You know, he's weeping, right? He's prayed for this man, he's shared with this man, he's been a friend of this man, and he's weeping as he's sharing that this friend who's been, his whole life has been committed to denying Christ, he's now professing, I am convinced Jesus rose from the dead. And then the letter went on. But Gary, I cannot accept that God would judge people and put them in hell forever. I found that to be very telling. You know, the class then wrestled over, what does this look like? You know, he was a very open professor. How do you respond to this? What does it mean? Is he a Christian now that he believed in Jesus' resurrection, but doesn't believe in God's judgments? As we've been walking through this last few sections, I've actually been trying to title it according to the Apostles' Creed. Jesus suffered in her Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, buried on the third day, rose again. There's another line in the Apostles' Creed that's very important. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. It's interesting. We think about Him accepting. Anyone. Just coming to the conclusion, historically, factually, intellectually, I'm going to agree, all right, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and then say, but I'm going to deny what He taught about God and His judgment in hell. That's frightening. We can have an intellectual assent to the most basic Christian beliefs, but yet deny the very core of what Christianity is, and that is Jesus Christ first coming to die for us as sinners, so that we can be forgiven, defeating death, defeating sin, so that we might live in the resurrection. As we wrestle with this, we realize there's only two, there's two truths we have to wrestle with. If Jesus is alive, there is a judgment. And those who believe in Jesus will be freed and forgiven. If Jesus is still in the tomb, we're to be pitied because we're investing our entire lives in him. Let's continue to look at the story. Here we see the, the, the declaration again. Let me just read it. Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He was risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. This is all focused on what just happened. Look and see. And then verse 7. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he's going before you to Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you. So there they go, be witnesses to the other disciples. Those disciples are then the public witnesses to the world 50 days later. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling in astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone. Now, many of your Bibles will have verses 9 to 20. I'm not going to preach those this morning. Those do not appear to be in the earliest manuscripts of Mark. Those appear to be later editions. If you have questions about how that works, you can ask me later, after the service. Happy to talk, even pull up a side room and discuss that. Somebody might say, well, if your Bible has these other verses that either are or are not in there, then how trustworthy are your Scriptures? Let me assure you, we have so many early copies of Scripture. We can find the errors. And that is how trustworthy it is. We don't have early or numerous copies of Plato, Aristotle, and other great minds. We don't have them. The church was so meticulous to make sure we had copies. We have numerous early copies so that we can find where a scribe added something or made an error. And let me just tell you, it is incredibly trustworthy because we can identify where errors were made and correct them. Here these women are told, verse seven, go tell his disciples. And notice there, and Peter. We mentioned this earlier. Peter, in his arrogance, told Jesus, I'll never deny you. Jesus said, oh, Peter, you're gonna deny me three times? I believe you see the tender, reconciling power of Jesus in naming Peter here. You see him specifically saying, go get the disciples and make sure Peter knows he's still one of them. The amazing grace of Jesus Christ is even going to reach out to the one who denied him, even when he was warned that he would deny him. We see this tender power. Just a brief moment here. If you really wrestle, if you think your sin is so bad, there's no way Christ could ever renew you, reconcile you with you, bring you back and use you. Here's Peter. An absolute denial of Jesus when it mattered most, and then an absolute reconciling of Jesus, and then he used him mightily. What a testimony of the grace and power of Jesus Christ. Tenderly. Make sure Peter knows he's invited too. I'm gonna name him. There you will see him. There will be an eyewitness account. Now what's interesting about Mark, all we see is an angel and hear Jesus risen and see the tomb is empty. The other Gospels give the account of Jesus being seen resurrected. And when they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. You can kind of understand why somebody would want to add an ending, wouldn't you? That's somewhat of an abrupt ending. We want a, we want a robust ending. We want a, they went out and, and God armed with the gospel and, and, and changed the world. And that's actually the ending that, that is somewhat added. Jesus at least commanding them to do so. I think this is actually where we see how trustworthy God's word is. If you wanna make up a story, you don't make women the primary witnesses in this day and age. They don't have any witnessing authority. You don't end it this way either, where everyone just looks weak and afraid and trembling. But if you go back through Mark, and if you've been with us for a while, you've seen the two basic questions is, that Mark's trying to present is, who is Jesus and how should we respond? There's something very real and raw at one level. These women just heard the great news the man they love, Jesus, the man they've heard God speak through because He is God Himself, the one they fear is dead, He's risen! Is there any other response than just pure astonishment? How can this be? They fled! trying to wrap their head around, trying to get themselves aligned with the truth of God that's just been revealed to them in such a direct, clear, concrete, historical way. They're afraid. I believe you see just a clear response. One of the little challenges with church. When we hear of, when we sing of, When we speak of Christ crucified, buried, and risen, are those mundane things that happened long ago? Have we lost a bit of that astonishment? That not only would Christ die for us, but then He rose, and let me just be very clear, by rising from the dead, He's defeated death, our greatest enemy? He's overcome sin? He's reconciled us to God? Do we have a, a kind of trembling and astonishment? Are those things we once believed and prayed a prayer from and now we've moved on with life? Our response should be trembling and astonishment. God himself came down to die for me. He was buried. And now He's alive. And He's risen. He's the right hand of the Father. He sent His Holy Spirit so that I can rejoice in astonishment. That I can put sin to death. That I can live in Christ. We can't let these truths of Scripture, these most basic truths of Christ, again, what happens in these three days, it all hinges upon them. Everything about Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is built upon these three days. The resurrection being the confirmation that Jesus is who he said he is, and did what he said he was going to do. Before we conclude, let's look at just some quick application. First, Jesus is risen, death has lost its sting. Jesus is risen, death has lost its sting. This is from 1 Corinthians 15, 58. The section of 1 Corinthians 15 we did not read earlier. We live without fear. Well, we live fully appreciating and affirming, what can man do to me? when I die, I'm going to live forever with a new body, with a new life. Death has lost its sting. Death is no longer something we fear. Death is something we recognize, enters us into Christ's presence. Now, I do want to address something here for us as Christians. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. When someone dies who we know, who we love, we're supposed to grieve. We grieve because of the love lost. We grieve because of the connection lost. We grieve because it's a reminder of what sin is and what it does. So I'm gonna get in a bit of a soapbox here Let's please stop having celebrations of life instead of funerals. We're supposed to grieve. We're supposed to mourn. We're supposed to really wrestle with life and how quick and how fragile it is and what our sin has done to our life. Let's make sure there's no sting. We grieve. Just as we cannot understand how great the Gospel is without understanding sin, we cannot understand how great the resurrection is until we truly grasp and wrestle with death, and how destructive it is. If you think about our culture, it's pretty amazing. We are always amused by death, but never really facing the consequences of it. Our culture has gotten us desensitized in a way that we're amused by death, We don't actually wrestle with the real issue of death and how painful it is. Jesus is risen. Death has lost its sting. We grieve with hope. Second, Jesus is risen. We're called to live a new life. Last week we concluded with Romans 6. That's a passage that's very important for us to know. There's three basic commands in Romans 6. Know that you've been crucified with Christ, and you've been raised to the dead with Him. Consider that you crucify yourself, that you're dead to sin in Christ and alive in Him. And you are to present yourselves to the new way of life. Again here, this is not a gospel that you just believe and pray a prayer and move on. No, it's, it's a constant recalculation. I am now alive anew in Christ. That activity is no longer acceptable. That sin that Jesus died for is no longer acceptable. I'm a new creation in Christ. He's given me a new heart, and a new mind, and a new expectation, and new hope. We're called to walk worthy of this new life and calling. And if we wrestle with how can we do that? I constantly feel like I'm failing. Look up. He was risen. He's in the right hand of the Father. He's given you His Holy Spirit. The same power that rose Christ from the dead lives in you. Yeah, you can't do it. But if you trust grace, And the Christ, who sent His Spirit, He can. Third and finally, Jesus is risen. We are called to be a people of hope. We're called to be a people of hope. Pessimism has no place in Jesus Christ. Now I know everyone who's a pessimist thinks they're a realist. But here's where there, there's always hope. Christ has conquered the grave. Christ has conquered sin. He is in complete control of every circumstance, and is seated high in the place of greatest authority. Church, we're supposed to be a people of hope. Stirring one another towards hope. Not meandering around in the mud, and realizing how difficult things are, and just feeling like you're trapped. Or somebody else is trapped. we're a people who are constantly hopeful. God changes stories. God changes lives. We must be a people of hope. Will you pray with me? Father we thank You Lord that we can have such clear accounts of of Christ, and His death, and His resurrection, and what it means. Lord, I pray for anyone here who does not believe You, that they would recognize that if Christ is risen, they will face a judgment. And I pray, Lord, You would lead them to have faith in You now. Lord, I pray for those of us who believe in Christ and profess Him. Help us consider. Are we living a life that's truly following Him as new creations, as hopeful, as not fearing death, as not submitting to sin, but rejoicing in the freedom He has given us with His new life? Again, we pray, Lord, help our unbelief. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.