[0:00] Thank you, choir. Thank you, Pat. Thank you, choir, Jim, for leading us through that time of praise and worship through song.! And as we turn our attention now to a time of worship through the study of God's Word, I want to open us up in a word of prayer.
[0:16] So let's pray together. Father God, thank you for the opportunity to set aside this time to study your truth. God, we pray that you would open our hearts, open our minds to understand your Word.
[0:30] God, we pray that we would look more like Christ Jesus, your Son, as we leave this place. Let your Word transform our hearts. We love you, and we praise you, and we thank you for all the things that you do.
[0:43] And it's in Jesus' holy and precious name that we pray. Amen. As I said, I'm going to read and we're going to study Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through 49, primarily.
[0:58] And we're going to be talking about some outcomes of the resurrection. Some things that we personally, individually, and corporately benefit from the fact that Jesus actually did rise again from the dead.
[1:12] And I'm going to read these verses, and I'll ask that you stand to honor the reading of God's Word. It says, As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst.
[1:27] He said to them, Peace to you. But they were startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost. Why are you troubled, he asked them, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
[1:39] Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see that I have. Having said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
[1:52] But while they were still amazed and in disbelief because of their joy, he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? So they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
[2:05] He told them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
[2:17] Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. He said to them, This is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem.
[2:39] You are witnesses of these things, and look, I am sending you what my Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high. Then he led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them, and while he was blessing them, he left them and was carried up into heaven.
[2:58] Then, after worshiping him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God. Thank you. You can be seated. As I said, today we're talking about yet another one of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
[3:17] And if you notice, Luke is really interested in proving the validity of the resurrection, the reality of the risen Lord Jesus. He recorded three events where Jesus encountered his disciples after he came back from the dead, after he was resurrected, raised to life.
[3:35] And each of those three encounters that he recorded, the ascension notwithstanding, because he really detailed that in the book of Acts. This is a mention of it here at the end of Luke. The three appearances that he mentioned all occurred on the same day that Jesus rose from the dead.
[3:51] And that's a pretty essential thing to understand, is that the disciples were convinced of the resurrection from the day it occurred.
[4:01] From the day it occurred. Of course, Thomas himself was one who was not there during this encounter, so Thomas wasn't convinced until he saw Jesus a week later.
[4:13] And remember, he gets the name Doubting Thomas. Just so you know, that's a little bit unfair to Thomas, because before Jesus went into Jerusalem for the final time, Thomas said, Lord, we're going to go with you and we'll die with you.
[4:25] And so there was some boldness there for Thomas, or with Thomas. And yet, he gets the title Doubting Thomas, because he didn't believe until he actually physically touched the resurrected Jesus himself.
[4:38] Nonetheless, his disciples were fully convinced that he truly had raised from the dead, that Jesus was dead and then came back to life, raised to life.
[4:49] And there have been attempts throughout history, literally since the day Jesus rose from the dead, to discredit the resurrection, to deny the resurrection of Christ. The first thing that we saw in Matthew chapter 28 was the Roman soldiers were bribed to lie and say that Jesus' disciples had stolen the body.
[5:09] Do you remember that? That's what the Jewish leaders told the Roman soldiers to do. Well, then you have some other theories, and then there's a book I'm reading actually with Chandler. It's called Basic Christianity. I figured it would be a good thing to know what basic Christianity was.
[5:23] That's right, by a guy named John Stott. John Stott, he's a really brilliant author. But Basic Christianity, Stott is outlining the resurrection, and basically the essential nature of the resurrection, and also the validity, the reality of the resurrection.
[5:37] And he points to a few theories that have come up over the ages and attempts to discredit the resurrection of Jesus. The first one is that the women in the early dark of the morning went to the wrong tomb.
[5:50] So they went to an empty tomb, and they came back, and hey, he's risen. But it was just the wrong tomb. And he kind of explains how that one doesn't have much merit, because, well, Peter and John went afterwards, and anyone could have gone to the tomb later and checked, and all of those things, the body was actually missing.
[6:07] But then there's other theories as well. The next one that he talks about is the coma theory, which I mentioned last week, that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, but that he simply slipped into a coma, and a few days later he woke up and he came out of the tomb.
[6:20] There's a few things that really are hard to, you know, gel with that one. The first of which is, with the beating and the crucifixion that Jesus had endured, he would have died.
[6:31] There's no question about it. The second is, the Roman soldiers themselves were experts in death. And if they let somebody survive a crucifixion, they would be crucified. So it's like, there's no doubt in the mind of the Romans that Jesus died, and he was taken off the cross the same day.
[6:48] And so the coma theory is out. But there's a few more that he talks about. There's some theories that thieves stole the body of Jesus. There's also the theory that the Romans actually took his body and put it in custody, because they expected that his disciples might believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
[7:05] But what we find as we read these post-resurrection appearances of Jesus is that the disciples really had no anticipation whatsoever of Jesus rising from the dead. They couldn't understand that the Messiah would suffer and die, and they certainly weren't looking forward, hopefully, to his return.
[7:21] They doubted. They were afraid. They were scared. And yet, they became convinced that Jesus truly had risen to life. So whatever theory may come, has come, will come, whatever it may be, they always prove to be invalid.
[7:38] They always prove to be lacking. They never satisfy the question of what then actually happened to the body of Jesus. And the reason is, because the only answer to that question is that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended, and his body and bones aren't here today.
[7:55] It's the only reason. When the Jews knew of this Christianity movement that was coming along in the Jewish circles, and when the Romans heard of these Christians who were starting to change the world in the book of Acts, they said that they were turning the world upside down.
[8:10] These men who were turning the world upside down have come here, and they want to change things here also. When all of these world powers were facing this reality of this movement, at any point in time they could have produced the body, and yet they didn't.
[8:24] No one ever did, because no one ever could. Jesus truly did rise again from the dead. Now the reason that these things come up constantly is because we know, and if we know, so does the enemy.
[8:37] The enemy, Satan, knows that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the linchpin of the faith. If Jesus didn't rise again from the dead, then all of this is useless.
[8:49] All of this, our time here is wasted. It's worthless. We have no hope in life. We have no hope in death if Jesus didn't truly rise from the dead.
[9:00] And the enemy knows that. And so any opportunity to undercut the most essential doctrine to faith in Jesus Christ is one that he'll take. But we can be sure, we can be confident that Jesus rose from the dead.
[9:13] We have the eyewitness accounts. We have these examples of people whose lives were completely changed and transformed after they encountered the resurrected Lord Jesus. And of course, we have our own personal testimonies of coming to know and believe without a doubt that Jesus Christ is risen and he saved you and me and people that we know.
[9:35] But there's a few things that we see as outcomes of the resurrection. And as we look through this text, the first one that I want to talk about is confidence. Confidence. Confidence is an outcome of the resurrection.
[9:48] You know, in order to place one's faith in Christ, one has to be pretty convinced that Jesus actually did rise again from the dead, right? We have to have a very strong amount of confidence in the resurrection.
[10:00] We have to be completely convinced. And he truly did. But the same thing that happened here for the disciples, where they had to be really convinced to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, the same thing is true for us.
[10:10] We have to be fully convinced. But because of these resurrection appearances, because Jesus took time to go and visit these people and share with these people, and we have their records, we can trust with the same confidence that they had that Jesus Christ is alive and he's on the throne right now.
[10:28] So we have confidence because Jesus rose from the dead. And here, look at the way that Jesus gives them this confidence too. It's really neat.
[10:38] Because he could come in and rebuke them for their unbelief. He could come in and strongly tell them how weak they are or anything like that, but he was soft and he introduced himself with an entrance of peace.
[10:52] He came in and he said, Peace be with you. It says, As they were saying these things. So you've got to think about this from the perspective of these guys from Emmaus. Okay? So they just encountered the resurrected Lord Jesus when they were walking home.
[11:06] And he broke the bread and he prayed and they saw their eyes were open and they could see this is him. And then he disappeared from their presence. Like, that's amazing. So they took off.
[11:17] They were joyful. They ran back to Jerusalem. They get there and they can't wait to burst down the door of this locked room. Remember, the doors are locked. The disciples are in there. They're scared because they figured the Jews are coming for them next.
[11:29] And they can't wait to tell everybody, Hey, the girls were right. Like, Jesus really is risen. We just met him. We saw him. And they get inside and they're greeted. And the people in the room say, Hey, guys, guess what? Jesus really did rise from the dead.
[11:40] He already visited Peter. They're like, Oh, man. Well, we actually have something to tell you too, you know? And so they go in. They get to tell their story. And as they're telling the story, maybe they're saying, And he broke the bread and he was there.
[11:51] And then, boom, Jesus is in the room. This is a locked door. They were scared. And so here's the thing. Look, I don't know about you guys. If you've ever had an experience where you were in a room, you know, with a group of people and then suddenly someone else was there, I'd be pretty scared too.
[12:06] Okay? They were terrified when Jesus entered the room because the doors are locked. There's no reason for anybody to be able to get inside. And yet, they did. He did. Jesus appeared in the room.
[12:16] And as they were saying these things, as they were testifying, as they were giving witness to the fact that Jesus had truly risen from the dead, he stood in their midst and he spoke to them, Peace to you.
[12:27] Peace be with you. Peace to you. But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. Is anybody here, let me ask you a question, is anybody here a I'll believe it when I see it type of person?
[12:39] Anybody? I'll believe it when I see it. You know what I mean? Raise your hand. You can do it. I know we're bad at this, but come on. You've done it in school, right? Okay. I'll believe you can raise your hand when I see it.
[12:52] Okay. Thank you, Derek. All right. There's another name for this person. It's a skeptic, right? A skeptic. I'll believe it when I see it. You know, I had an experience this weekend.
[13:03] I was blessed to be in a wedding of one of my best friends. And, you know, he's one of those guys that, until I saw that he proposed, I wasn't actually sure that he was going to get married, ever.
[13:15] You know what I mean? I'll believe it when I see it. And I saw it. He got married. It was cool. It's great. I'm excited for him. There's another example that I thought of, too. Is anybody here familiar with the Lion, the Witch, and the wardrobe?
[13:26] C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia? Yeah? Okay. Good. There's a movie. If you haven't read the book, it's cool. Anyways, there's this scene in the book and in the movie where Lucy, the youngest sister, has gone into the wardrobe.
[13:39] She's been through Narnia. Remember, she's met Mr. Tumnus. She's heard about the evil queen and all those things. And so she comes back in to the real world and, like, time hasn't really passed and her siblings can't believe that she ever went anywhere.
[13:53] You remember that Peter and Susan, Edmund, they had a hard time believing this. And then you get to that part of the book that makes everybody mad where Edmund actually goes into Narnia and then he comes back, but in front of Susan and Peter, he's like, no, it's just childish things.
[14:06] She's just making things up, you know? You just want to, like, hit Edmund in the face. I don't know if that's the right thing to say, but you know what I mean? It's like, what a jerk. What a bad older brother. Anyways, so Susan and Peter, they're really not convinced about what Lucy has seen.
[14:21] In fact, if you remember, they go to the professor and they ask him, hey, can you check on Lucy? We're a little bit concerned. She doesn't lie and they were concerned that Lucy had gone mad.
[14:32] Remember this? They were scared that their younger sister had lost it because she really believed that there was this fantastical world called Narnia somewhere through a wardrobe, but they couldn't see it.
[14:42] They were skeptical. It wasn't until Peter and Susan, and Edmund for that matter, stepped into Narnia that they believed, that they believed what Lucy had been telling them.
[14:53] And the same thing could be true here for these disciples. They had heard about the resurrection. They had heard the verifying witnesses of the resurrection. Peter himself came in. Remember, Peter wasn't with the group.
[15:05] He had run off and he was brokenhearted because he had betrayed Jesus. He had denied Jesus three times. And so Peter wasn't there, but Jesus appeared to him.
[15:16] You can only assume rebuked him for his denial, but also forgave him and sent him back to comfort the brothers and the sisters. And so Peter's there. He's telling them Jesus is alive.
[15:29] And then these Emmaus disciples are there and they're saying Jesus is alive. But when they actually saw him, they were terrified. They were terrified. It's one thing to believe the witness's account, but it's another thing to see with your own eyes, to believe in your own heart that Jesus has truly risen from the dead.
[15:49] And the reason is because our experience drives our expectations. When people experience death on earth, we have an expectation that they're not coming back here on earth.
[16:00] Right? It's a reasonable expectation. If somebody dies, we can expect that we won't see them again here on earth. That's a sad thing. It's a heartbreaking thing. It's a consequence of sin, reality of the fallen world that we live in.
[16:12] But that's our expectation, nonetheless, that people won't come back from the dead. And yet, here stood Jesus. Here stood Jesus. He blew away all their expectations, but He's patient with them.
[16:26] He was kind with them. He said, peace to you. They were startled and they were terrified. He wasn't mad. He just asked them, why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? And then He proved to them that it was truly Him.
[16:40] He said, look at my hands and my feet. Touch me and see because a ghost doesn't have flesh and bones like you see that I have. Jesus was really there. His resurrected body was different than His body before in some sense.
[16:51] Remember, like, Jesus wasn't walking through walls prior to that scene? Although His disciples did mistake Him for a ghost another time. When Jesus walked on the water, they were terrified and they thought they saw a ghost. So, that's not entirely different.
[17:04] But, nonetheless, His body was somehow different and yet, He still had flesh and bones. And not only that, He also had an appetite. He asked if there was any food. And when they said broiled fish, He didn't do what I did and go, are you sure?
[17:18] He ate it. He ate it in their presence. He showed them. He gave them confidence that it was truly Him, that He had truly risen from the dead.
[17:29] Jesus is alive. When they saw this, remember, they were still amazed and they were in disbelief because of their joy. They were marveling at the fact that He was standing there. Have you ever been so overcome with joy, so happy about something, you walk away from the event or, you know, meeting the person, you ever meet a celebrity or something, and you're walking away, I can't believe that happened.
[17:49] You know what I mean? Like, I can't believe it. I can't, still, I know it happened, but I can't believe it. That's kind of where they're at here. They're overcome with joy. They were marveling at the resurrected Christ standing in their midst.
[18:02] And He continued to prove Himself to really be there. He ate in their presence. The simple fact is that Jesus has risen. He visited those disciples so that they could have confidence in His resurrection.
[18:15] and He called them His witnesses to His resurrection. These eyewitnesses give us confidence that Christ truly did rise again from the dead. For as skeptical as many people are about the resurrection of Christ, it is essential to understand the reality of the resurrection because this is our confidence.
[18:37] This is our hope. Jesus rose from the dead and He visited them to give them confidence. But He rose from the dead to give us confidence, a confident hope in salvation, a confident hope in resurrection that we'll be brought back from the dead to live with Him for eternity.
[18:54] You can explain away some things, you know, you can explain some grammatical errors in the gospel account, but what you can't account for, what you can't explain away is the simple fact that when these men and women saw the resurrected Jesus, everything in their life was entirely different from that point on.
[19:11] Peter goes from this feeble, fearful, denier of Christ to 50 days later powerfully preaching God's Word at Pentecost.
[19:22] I didn't mean to say that many Ps back to back to back, but he did. Peter was completely transformed. It was by the resurrection. It was by the fact that Jesus actually came back to life.
[19:34] So Jesus' resurrection is our confidence. The second outcome of the resurrection is that He clarified some things for us. Jesus clarified some things for us.
[19:44] Not only does He give us resurrection confidence, but He gives us clarity as we look at the rest of Scripture and we can see how everything pointed to Him the entire way.
[19:55] If you look at verses 44 and 45, it says, He told them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
[20:07] And then verse 45, it says, Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. That opened their minds is the same divine passive, the same tense in Greek that is expressed when the Emmaus disciples, their eyes were closed, they couldn't recognize Jesus, they were prevented from recognizing Him.
[20:27] And then when their eyes were opened and they could see Jesus, Jesus opened the minds of the disciples to understand all of the Scriptures. open their minds to understand. This is where we get this doctrine, it's called illumination.
[20:40] Illumination. God opens our hearts, opens our minds to understand Scripture. There's a beautiful reality here because you and I don't have to go to church to understand what Scripture says.
[20:54] It's pretty cool. You don't have to come here to hear me to know what the Bible says. You don't have to read in your Sunday school book or a commentary or anything like that to know what the Bible says.
[21:04] You, as a follower of Jesus, a believer in Christ, who has the Holy Spirit living within you, can open God's Word and can come to understand the truth of Scripture.
[21:17] It's a powerful reality. You are an individual believer who has every ability possible to understand Scripture because Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
[21:27] It's like when you're in a dark room. You know, another thing that happened this weekend, let me tell you a little story. At my parents' house, they have a basement and there's a bedroom downstairs. I don't know if it can technically be considered a bedroom.
[21:38] Rebecca, your realtor, you can tell me. It doesn't have a window. Is that illegal? Anyways, it's really dark, okay? When the lights are off in their basement, I'm telling you, you can't see your hand in front of your face.
[21:49] It's like a cave, okay? It's like one of those, I didn't know it could get this dark, you know what I mean? And so we drove out to my parents' house and Jack had fallen asleep in the car. And if you're a parent, you understand this.
[22:00] Do I let him nap? How do we do this? So I tried to carry him inside and I was like, I'm going to get him into this dark room because then he won't be able to see you even if he opens his eyes and he'll stay asleep.
[22:12] And I thought he did. I thought he did. But he fooled me. I pulled my phone up to text Audrey. I was like, hey, it worked. He's asleep. And he went, what are you doing, Daddy? Oh, dang. Dang.
[22:24] You know, like, the light, the light from that phone lit up that entire room. It illuminated that entire room. It's amazing. And in the same way, when Jesus rose from the dead, the resurrection gives us illumination to understand Scripture, to understand God's Word.
[22:40] There's these moments, actually, throughout the Gospels where his disciples, the Gospel writers, will record, they didn't understand these things, right? They didn't understand these things yet. Jesus said he would do this, but they didn't know what that meant yet.
[22:51] In John chapter 2, verses 21 and 22, Jesus is speaking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. He said, destroy this, well, they thought he was, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up again.
[23:05] And it says in verse 21, he was speaking about the temple of his body. Verse 22, so when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus made.
[23:19] It was the power of the resurrection transformed even the things that Jesus spoke while he was with his disciples. Jesus' resurrection has massive impacts on you and me.
[23:30] And everything that was written in the Old Testament points to the reality of a suffering, dying, resurrected Savior whose message must be preached around the world.
[23:41] everything in the Old Testament points to this reality. And he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And in the same way, when we believe in Christ, the resurrected Lord Jesus opens our minds to understand the Scriptures.
[23:55] We have some other things that we gain from the resurrection. We're cleansed because of the resurrection. We're cleansed because of the resurrection. Verses 46-48 says, He also said this to them, What is written, The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day.
[24:13] And repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in His name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. The Old Testament picture of the Messiah was true, but they couldn't understand that until they actually encountered personally the resurrected Lord Jesus when He opened their minds and showed them the truth of Scripture.
[24:37] And they look back over and they recollect and they think over what was written. Like, what does He mean? Everything that was written in the Psalms and the prophets and all those things. What does it mean? How could that all point to Him?
[24:48] And it came to their mind. Right? Like, He supernaturally gave them understanding of everything that pointed to Him. And the thing, the message itself is that cleansing is possible.
[25:01] Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can be cleansed. And here's how. Okay? People like to say it's really simple to become a Christian. And it is in the sense that Jesus is the one that bought our salvation. It's a free gift, no question about it.
[25:13] But there is a pretty challenging aspect of salvation that we need to address. And that is, you and I are called to repent. Repentance means turning away. Turning away from the old life of sin, the old life of rejecting God, the old life of rejecting Christ and His Word, and instead turning a new way, turning to follow Him.
[25:35] It's not a 360. Sometimes we fall into this 360 idea, right? I turned away from my sin and I'm back. You know what I mean? Like, that's not repentance. That's not a true repentant heart.
[25:45] We're called to repentance and there's a promise when we turn from our sin, when we repent from our sin and believe in Him, there's a promise of forgiveness. There's a promise of cleansing. He's faithful and just to cleanse us of all unrighteousness, to forgive our sins, that's the promise that we have because Jesus rose from the dead.
[26:06] And the last thing is we get some new clothes. We get some new clothes. Anybody here like to shop for clothes? Cool. All right. I didn't expect a guy's hand to go up so quick. All right. I love it. Yeah. I do too, man.
[26:17] I do too. It's great. But because of the resurrection, you and I are clothed. It says in verse 49, and look, I'm sending you what my Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high.
[26:31] That word empowered literally means clothed with power. Until you are clothed with power from on high. This is the promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus talked about the coming Holy Spirit multiple times in His ministry, but most clearly, most directly, in John chapter 14, 15, and 16.
[26:49] After the Last Supper, as He's walking with His disciples to the garden, He explained how good it is that He's going away. And they can't understand that. And sometimes we fall into the same trap, like, man, if Jesus hadn't gone away, it'd be way easier for us.
[27:03] It'd be way better for us. But that's not what Jesus said at all. It's to our benefit that He went away, that He ascended to be with the Father, because when He did, He sent us the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God.
[27:16] When you are saved, there's two things that take place right away. Number one, you're justified in the eyes of Christ. You are made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ. When the Father sees you, He doesn't see your sin.
[27:28] He sees the forgiveness that is made available through the blood of His Son. And number two, you are empowered, you are filled with the Holy Spirit, indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
[27:39] God actually lives within you. The Holy Spirit is alive within you. This is the reality of salvation. And this is possible because Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
[27:52] Our sins are forgiven and we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And, you know, the series, we're looking forward to the day of Pentecost. This promise is fulfilled most clearly on that day.
[28:04] Remember this? Jesus ascends through the Father. They spend ten days in the upper room in prayer. And then that tenth day, the day of Pentecost, like tongues of flames of fire resting upon them, the Holy Spirit fills them.
[28:17] And then from there, the message that Jesus commissioned them here to go and preach is proclaimed. The book of Acts points to the reality consistently, over and over and over, the reality of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
[28:32] The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is where the difference is made. Right? The difference in your life and in my life is made when the Holy Spirit actually lives within us. Again, look at the difference in Peter's life.
[28:43] But another example, because you and I didn't physically see Jesus here on earth, look at the example of the Apostle Paul. Remember this? In Acts chapter 7, he was standing there and approving of the murder of Stephen.
[28:58] You remember that? He was like, yeah, that's good. Everybody laid their coats at his feet. He was taking role, making sure everybody was there so they could get gold stars. He was excited about this, that Stephen was being killed because he was a heretic in his mind.
[29:11] And then two chapters later, on the way to Damascus, the bright light surrounds him. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? When Saul was saved, his life was completely transformed by the indwelling Holy Spirit and instead of going around with his letters to go into the houses of worship and arrest people for following the way, he became a follower of the way and one of the leading members of the church.
[29:38] The transformation that takes place when we actually encounter the resurrected Lord is second to none. Second to none. And it's because the Holy Spirit of God comes in and dwells in the lives of every single believer.
[29:50] And so real quick, just a side note to this, listen, if you believe in Jesus Christ, if you're a Christ follower, please don't ever look at me or anybody else for that matter and say, well, I don't have a spiritual gift.
[30:02] I know some people are gifted, but I don't have one. No, no, listen. You are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and you are gifted by the Holy Spirit of God. We're clothed with power, empowered to live faithfully and obediently to God's Word and also to be a blessing to the church, to share the gospel with other people, to be a witness, just like these eyewitnesses of Christ's resurrection.
[30:25] We're called to be witnesses and by the power of the Holy Spirit, you and I are able to do that. And I want you to understand, it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit. So when you are using your gifts, whatever they may be, don't let your head get big and feel filled with pride when someone tells you you're doing great, you're doing great, you're doing...
[30:42] No, no, always point that to God, the reality of the Holy Spirit who's living within you, who's giving you the power and the ability to proclaim His name faithfully, to do His work well, because it's only Him.
[30:53] That's the empowering, the infilling, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God is present in our lives. So as we think about this, these outcomes of the resurrection as they pertain to us, one, live with confidence that Jesus really did rise from the dead.
[31:09] When someone tries to deny the resurrection, you can live confidently knowing that He did. Study it. Look into it. Research it. Prepare an answer when someone asks you, why do you believe what you believe?
[31:23] How can you believe in the resurrection? Prepare an answer. Live with confidence that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Number two, read Scripture very prayerfully, but also trusting that God, the Holy Spirit, lives within you and opens your heart and mind to understand His Word.
[31:40] Now I said earlier, you can do that without looking at commentaries or without fellowshipping in church. What I meant by that was you have the ability to interpret Scripture because God is alive within you, but always make sure, right?
[31:52] Like, always make sure because guess what? We're prone to mistakes. We're prone to interpreting things incorrectly. I'm prone to interpretation incorrectly, so I check what I study before I come here and I preach to you.
[32:03] I want to check what I study to make sure that what I've understood to be true is what I've understood to be true as other people who are more maybe mature in their faith than I am have come to understand it, right?
[32:15] So always check, but do so prayerfully, trusting that God will illumine your mind to open your mind to understand His Word. And then number three, trust in the forgiveness of Christ. Trust that you have been cleansed of your sin.
[32:27] And that's a hard one for us. It's like, I know that He forgave me, but I feel like maybe I've done so much bad since then that it's not enough.
[32:38] I don't know. Trust that He's forgiven you. Jesus saved you knowing exactly who you were. Jesus saved you knowing exactly what you would do after that. Jesus saved you and He forgave you, so trust His cleansing.
[32:51] Trust His forgiveness. Trust His grace. And then four, live with the assurance that you have the same power living within you that actually brought Jesus back to life.
[33:02] Romans chapter 8 verses 10 and 11 says, Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.
[33:23] The Holy Spirit of God who brought Jesus Christ back from the dead lives within you so we have the confidence that we'll also rise again with Him. And if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, if you don't believe that He really rose from the dead, look at His Word.
[33:42] Read how good He is. Trust in His promise. Trust in what He offers to you which is forgiveness and freedom and life. Trust in Christ today.
[33:54] And the way to do that, as Jesus Himself said, is by repentance. So, if you're living in sin and you don't know Christ, the way to faith in Him, the way to announce or profess your faith in Him is to repent, to turn from your sin that your life would look different because you've been transformed by His grace.
[34:13] So, repent of your sin and believe in Jesus Christ today for the forgiveness of your sins. Alright, I'm going to pray for us. We're going to have a closing song, a time of reflection, and then we'll share the Lord's Supper together.
[34:24] but let me pray. God, thank You for who You are. Lord Jesus, You rose from the dead. We profess it to be true.
[34:36] We believe it. And we know that because of Your resurrection, salvation is possible. Because You rose and You ascended and You're at the right hand of the Father in power, we know that the Holy Spirit, Your Holy Spirit, lives within us.
[34:49] God, let us live with the power of the Holy Spirit alive in us, knowing with confidence that we're saved, that we're transformed, that we're made new. Lord Jesus, for those in this room who don't know You, God, I pray that You would open their minds to understand the Scripture, open their hearts to believe in Your Son, Jesus.
[35:06] I pray right now, God, that there would be repentance and the forgiveness of sins would be known in this room. We love You, Jesus, and we praise You. And it's in Your name that we pray. Amen.
[35:16] Amen.