Proclaiming the Risen Jesus

Good morning. Before we start, we just want to also just praise the Lord for a great women's conference yesterday.! Despite some of the logistical last-minute changes, women gathered, they heard the Word taught, they prayed, the Holy Spirit worked.

It was a great day for all that I heard. If you were not able to make it, think about making the next one, because I'm sure there will be one. And, Pamela, thank you and your team for putting that together.

And just wanted to recognize that that was part of our church life this weekend as well. You know, when I was growing up, we attended my father's family church, which was a Unitarian church outside of Boston.

And our attendance there ended one Easter Sunday when I was young. Because the pastor was preaching on Easter Sunday, and all he could say was about what Easter was about was, something wonderful happened.

But he could not and would not talk about the resurrection of Jesus. This is a church that did not believe that Jesus was risen from the dead.

They saw Jesus as a great teacher of ethics and morality, an example of humility, of humanity, of kindness. Jesus showed great mercy to many, and this is what they held to.

But they could not confirm that he rose from the dead. But only in some broad, numinous, metaphorical, non-real way that something hopeful happened on Sunday morning.

I wonder how many of you have asked the question about, did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Maybe you haven't thought about it very much recently. It just isn't something you're thinking about a lot. Maybe you have thought about it, but you're doubting. Because there are a lot of doctors in the room, and once someone is dead, they really stay dead.

That's our common experience. And so, how could resurrection really happen? Doesn't science disprove it? Some of you may have grown up in church and known from the very beginning, you know, Easter's about Jesus rising from the dead, but you've never really thought about why you believe that, or why it's true, or how significant it is.

And maybe some of you have believed it because it's what you've heard, but it's pretty much of a blind faith. You haven't really thought about it. Well, as we continue in our series in the book of Acts this morning, this is the topic, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

We're looking at Acts chapter 2. That's page 867 in the older printing and the 856 in the newer printing of our Bibles. Fortunately, we have two different printings in our pews now.

So, 850-something, and then look for Acts 2. And if you end up in John, keep going forward. If you end up in Romans, go backwards, and you'll find it. And so, we're going to be looking at Acts chapter 2 and Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost.

And if you've been here, you probably remember this, but if you're new here or if you have forgotten, this is after Jesus rose from the dead. He appeared to His disciples, and then He ascended into heaven, and He told His disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait.

And then, in the beginning of chapter 2, we see that as they were gathered and waiting, the Lord poured out His Holy Spirit upon them. And they spoke in tongues that they did not normally… in languages that they weren't not normally able to speak, so that they could proclaim the good news about Jesus.

And the people are amazed by this, and they think, how is it that these Galilean fishermen are speaking Cappadocian or whatever it was?

And so, Peter stands up, and he preaches a sermon. And we're going to look at that sermon today. We're going to read the whole thing. Pastor Nick talked about the first part, about how this was a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy in Joel.

So, we're not going to focus on verses 14 through 21. We're going to start in 22, and we're going to look at it together today. So, let's read the book of Acts, chapter 2, starting in verse 14, and we'll read to verse 41.

So, let's read God's Word together. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words.

For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in these last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

And your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams, even on my male servants and female servants. In those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

And I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, vapor and smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon to blood, and before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.

Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced, and my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.

You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter responded to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized, and they were added that day about 3,000 souls.

This is God's word. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for the way that you have, in various times, in various ways, Lord, equipped people to write so that we might know you through your word.

Lord, we pray this morning that as we sit under your word, that you would help us to not only understand it, but to treasure it. And Lord, not to treasure your word, but the thing that the word points to.

You, our greatest treasure, Christ, the risen Lord. Lord, help me speak as I ought this morning and be with us this morning, all this morning, that we would receive your word.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As Peter transitions from explaining the coming of the Holy Spirit to the significance, what he really wants to say, which is what the Holy Spirit is coming to reveal, he wants to tell us about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

This is the main theme, and we're going to look at it, we're going to see four different things that Peter wants us to know about the resurrection of Jesus. So the first thing we see in verses 22 through 24 is this, that the resurrection of Jesus actually really happened.

Peter begins by asserting that Jesus' life and death and resurrection was an actual historical fact, not a dream, not an ideal, not a wistful aspiration, not a mass hallucination, but in fact, it is historical that if we could have gone, if we could go back in time and be there, we could see Jesus physically walk out of the tomb.

We could meet him and talk with him as we talk to one another face to face. This is the first thing he asserts, and he does so by just referring to the things that the audience already knows.

You know this Jesus, he was attested by God that he was a special person because he came with signs and wonders that you all know about because everyone in Jerusalem at this point had heard of Jesus because he, through his three years of ministry, had caused quite a stir.

He had healed the lame and the sick. He had made the blind see. He fed 5,000. He raised Lazarus from the dead, brought him out of the tomb, and he walked around and lived the rest of his life.

Peter says, this God did in your midst. That is, all of you have seen this, right? He was delivered and you crucify him. He's reminding them, you knew of these events.

This didn't happen in some hidden hidey hole that they didn't know about. And then Peter goes on, he says, and not only do you know about his life and his death, but his resurrection as well.

God raised him, and we are all witnesses of this fact, right? That's what he says in verse 32 explicitly. And you think about this, right?

The gospel accounts talk about Jesus resurrected from the dead encountering different disciples, right? They got to see him. They ate with him.

They talked with him. Remember what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verses 3 through 8 about this well-known eyewitness account.

He said, for I delivered to you as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve, and then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he also appeared to me. By any historical standard, there are multiple eyewitness accounts that said there is a good basis for the historical fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

Now, we live in an age of skepticism, of mistrust of authority, and of confusion about truth. There are people today who say the Holocaust didn't happen.

There are people who say that Neil Armstrong did not walk on the moon. There are people who say Elvis is still alive. There are all sorts of things that we, and you guys know this, in the last five or ten years, there has been an increasing culture of skepticism, of doubt, where we are prone to believe nothing unless we have seen it with our own very eyes, that we have to be eyewitnesses.

We need to recognize that this is going to undermine our ability to believe any history at all. Right? Eyewitness account is the basis of historical fact.

And there's good reasons to believe that the biblical record about the historical fact of Jesus Christ rising from the dead actually happened.

And if you're wondering about that, I tell you, explore it. Go read Tom Schmidt's book, Josephus and Jesus, or go to his website and get the summary because his book is great, but it's super technical, and it's wonderful.

But it's saying that Josephus, the non-Christian Jewish historian, had access to eyewitnesses when he wrote about who Jesus was. If you want another technical book, if you're in div school or something like that, read Richard Baucom's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

It's a great resource. If these feel overwhelming, pick up a copy of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel was an atheistic legal reporter.

He's actually a Yalie. He went to Yale Law School and then became an editor at the Chicago Tribune. And his wife became a Christian. And he reports this about his own life.

He said, I was an atheist, a Yale-educated legal editor for the Chicago Tribune when my wife's conversion to Christianity prompted me to investigate the faith for nearly two years.

And his desire was to disprove it so he could go on with his life knowing that his wife was wrong. But he said, ultimately, I decided the evidence was too strong to ignore.

And I put my trust in Christ. You may know the story of Chuck Colson. He was called the hatchet man for Richard Nixon.

That is, he was in government during Nixon's presidency and was one of the ones who was executing some of his nefarious plans to silence his enemies. He went to jail and when he was in jail, he became convinced of the resurrection of Jesus and came to faith in Christ.

One of the things that he wrote afterwards was this. Many people think that the resurrection of Jesus was something made up by the disciples to try to exalt Jesus to a place that he wasn't there, that wasn't really true.

And they knew it. And he said, I was there with a small group of men who knew that we were promoting a lie and we couldn't keep it.

Human beings can't do it. And when you look at the disciples, they died for this truth. They died. Men do not die for something they know is a lie.

So, Peter is establishing for us something that has been a cornerstone of the Christian church and the Christian faith from the very beginning, which is that Jesus rose from the dead.

And if you're here this morning and you're exploring is this true, this is the question you need to answer. Because on it hangs everything else. Right?

And if you're here this morning and you are a Christian but you've never really thought through this or you're doubting or wondering, we want to encourage you. Pursue this. Know this. Develop confidence that this really happened.

So, Peter first, in the first couple of verses, just establishes there's a reality to this resurrection that I want to establish as fact. But he goes on in verses 25 through 33.

He says, on top of that, the resurrection of Jesus was something that was predicted from long ago. Right? So, look with me in verse 25. It says, for, he's explaining what's coming before.

Why was Jesus certainly going to raise from the dead? Well, for, David explains this in the psalm that Renan read earlier, Psalm 16, about, sorry, lost my train of thought.

David wrote this psalm knowing that he was looking forward to Jesus. And Peter says, this was predicted from long ago. Now, Psalm 16 is a psalm of confidence in God in the face of enemies who threatened him.

The psalmist is saying, I will not be shaken and I will rejoice in God because God will not abandon me. He will not abandon me to Hades. And in this context, Hades means it's the place that's the opposite of God's presence.

I don't want to get into all the technicality of the theology of hell here, but just, right, it's the opposite of being with God. But that God would not abandon, abandon him to this place, but instead he would find in God's presence paths of life and joy.

And so, David wrote this even though he was a mortal man. And this is what Peter is saying. Even though he knew that he would die and when he died, his body would go into the grave and he says to the first century audience, you know this, right?

Because you know the account in 1 Kings chapter 2 about David's death and burial in the tomb. And no one has wondered whether David has come back from the dead. Everyone knows he died.

So when David is writing this, Peter says, he knew he was looking ahead to something greater. Right? He knew he was looking to a resurrection.

And part of this in his mind was there was a fulfillment of a promise. Because back in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God gave David a promise. This promise is, let me read it, verses 12 and 13.

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body. I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

David knew that this was a promise. And as he wrote this psalm, he said, I know this isn't ultimately going to be about me. But it is going to be about something greater than me.

And it's point, and Peter says, he was pointing ahead to Jesus. And that's why we know Jesus rose from the dead. Because not only is it historical fact, but it was also predicted by God's word from long, long ago.

And this is so important for the first century Jews to hear because the idea of a crucified Messiah was an oxymoron. One commentator said, it's like a burning icicle.

Right? It's like a crucified, the Messiah was to come to save with triumph and victory. And the fact that he died couldn't compute for these ones.

And Peter's saying, do you see the beauty of God's plan? David foresaw it long ago that he would both die and rise from the dead because death could not hold him.

This is the foreknowledge and plan of God. And this is what Peter's saying, this is what you in the first century and this is what we in the 21st century are witnesses to that we have heard of and that we know that the Savior is one who lived and died and rose again for us.

He rose to bring life to all who are resurrected with him. This is a great joy and a great promise.

This is God's plan. So not only do we see that the resurrection is factually true, but not only do we see that this was predicted from long ago, but then in verses 33 through 36, Peter moves on to say that the resurrection of Jesus confirms his messianic rule.

All right? Look with me again because Peter has, you know, sort of brought a summary together in verse 32. This Jesus God raised up and of this we are all witnesses.

Then being therefore exalted to the right hand of God, Peter says not only was he raised from the dead, but he was raised up to in his ascension to sit at the right hand of God.

Now this is a place of honor. This is a place of power. You read through the Old Testament the right hand of God is the place everyone wants to be. Right? It's like being, well, there's no real, there's no, there is no analogy I don't think in our government system today, but being, being God's right hand man, does that make sense to you?

You have all his power, you have all his authority to accomplish what God intends to do. And Jesus is not only raised from the dead to walk the earth the way Lazarus did.

The interesting thing is Lazarus died again, right? But God was exalted to this eternal place at the right hand of God, fulfilling the promise in 2 Samuel that he would have an eternal seat of power and authority and rule.

And this is what David says as he quotes Psalm 110. man, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord, that is, God the Father, said to the Lord of David, who is Jesus, sit at my right hand.

This is what, this is, he's interpreting this Psalm 110, this Messianic Psalm and saying, do you see, David is saying not only was Jesus raised from the dead, but he was exalted to this place.

He is now the king. He has defeated the enemies of God's kingdom. And in the Old Testament, people probably would have read this Psalm and thought about the Philistines or the Jebusites and the Perizzites and all the, or maybe the Moabites, the people who were standing against God's enemy in a very physical, geopolitical day.

But we know now that God had a greater enemy to overcome. And that is the power of sin and the consequence of sin, which is death itself. And when Jesus rose from the dead, he declared his victory over both of those things and his ability and his authority to impart a life that is not just nice now, but is an eternal quality and character.

That he is able in his reigning rule to give to all who come to him eternal life because he is raised to a place of authority to do this by defeating sin and death in his resurrection.

And as he ascends then to this place, right, Peter says, how do we know this? Because you've seen the Holy Spirit work. Look at verse 35, right?

Because the Holy Spirit has poured himself out on these people and you've seen them do something that they could not do humanly. The Holy Spirit attests to Jesus' reign and rule now in this particular place at Pentecost.

And friends, if you're a theologian and you're noting this, recognize this. The Trinity's at work. God the Father exalts the Son to the right hand and gives to the Son the Holy Spirit who then, the Son pours out the Holy Spirit who then comes to this work in our lives so that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord may be saved.

What a beautiful thing. Peter's summary statement then in verse 36 is so important. Let all the house of Israel know therefore for certain that God has made him that is Jesus both Lord and Christ.

This Jesus who you crucified. Lord being the name that is given to God himself and so he's exalting Jesus and saying this is, this is, Jesus is not just a man who lived and died but this is the man, God man, Jesus who lived and died and rose again and now is exalted to this place.

And he is the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, the one in whom all of the hopes of Israel were pinned on. The resurrection of Jesus exalts Jesus to this high place.

The promised kingdom has come. The promised king has come. Friends, I just want to stop for a minute and think with us.

How do you think of Jesus today? Is Jesus small in your life? Do you think of him as kind of like a helpline you call on when things get rough?

Or maybe like a neighbor who can come over and clean your gutters when they're overfilled with rain? Is Jesus just a little part? Peter's saying Jesus, resurrected and exalted, claims a role of king over all of creation.

He says, this is my world. And he is a living and exalted king today. And he's at work in the world today. And he rules and reigns today.

Now, we live in the in-between times. We know that there's a day coming when he will return and the fullness of his kingdom will be all of ours and it will be glorious beyond anything we could imagine.

And no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no one can even imagine what God has for those who love him who are called according to his purposes. That we can't believe what it's going to be like when the kingdom comes in its fullness.

But we have the taste now and we know that he is seated at his right hand. At God's right hand. We know that he's there now. And he will exert any authority he chooses to exert in this time.

And friends, as Pastor Nick preached last week, the greatest way he shows this is by delivering people from darkness to light. By saving us, sinners, from our sin and bringing us into his kingdom.

Changing us from selfish, ugly people who struggle and are broken and so messed to being his beloved children whom he graciously and lovingly shepherds to be his people.

The exalted Christ is at work today with the power to save and a hope that is sure. And he is both Lord and Christ today.

What a great joy this is. And Peter's not done. Peter's now preached the fact of the resurrection, the prediction of the resurrection, the exaltation of the resurrected Christ.

Now in verses 37 through 41, there's a call to respond. The resurrection of Jesus changes the lives of all who believe.

This is what we see in verse, because what happens is, in verse 37, the crowd hears what Peter is saying and they understand it. They get that this exalted Christ now calls for a response from humanity.

Right? And did you see how he tucked in at the very end? This Christ who is both Lord and Christ who you crucified. Right? The people he's speaking to are the people who lived in Jerusalem and in Judea in the time.

They were the Jewish people of the day primarily. That's the primary audience that he's speaking to today. And he's saying, do you see you rejected him? You refused him.

You didn't receive him. You didn't follow him. This Jesus whom you crucified and they're cut to the heart.

Now, I just want to say this really quickly. There has been a tradition in the church that has called the Jewish people Christ killers. It's a terrible epithet and we should not ever say it because when we look at the Bible account, yes, the Jewish people in the first century were involved in Christ's crucifixion.

There were people who rejected him and wanted it to happen. The Romans were the ones who actually crucified him technically, historically. But friends, when we read the Bible, do you know what crucified Christ?

The sinfulness of humanity because God so loved us that he sent Jesus to bear our sin on the cross so that we might be forgiven.

So yes, the first century Jews rejected Jesus. Yes, the first century Romans rejected Jesus. And yes, the 21st century New Havenites and Connecticutites and Nutmeggers or whatever we're called, we too reject Christ in our hearts apart from his gracious work.

And that's why Christ died. This was God's plan from the very beginning. So let us never fall into that unnecessary and unhelpful and primarily untruthful statement about Jewish people.

Let us recognize it is the sin of humanity that caused Christ to be crucified. And these people, this audience then hears this and they are cut to the heart.

They are convicted of their sin that they have rejected. They recognize that their rejection of Christ, this risen and exalted Christ, has broken any claim to a relationship with God.

They have rejected God himself by doing this. and they knew that that put them under condemnation. It knew, they knew that it would put them in a place of spiritual death and alienation from God and they cried out, what are we to do?

What do we do? And Peter's response in verse 38, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now I want to spend just a minute on this because it's so important, right? The exalted Christ as we behold him as he is convicts us of our sin.

How are we to respond? First we must repent. What does repentance mean? It means turning around, right? It means turning away from sin, from selfishness, from life apart from God, from rejecting God.

It acknowledges that sin is evil, not just misguided or unfortunate. It agrees that sin is an offense to a holy God. It recognizes that all of our little sins are expressions in one way or another of rejection of God and His rulership in our lives.

But repentance isn't just turning away from something. It's also turning towards something. Repent and be baptized. Turn towards faith in Christ.

And this baptism is a word that's being used here to determine it was a right that in the first century would express a kind of allegiance or joining a club.

And I don't want to think about baptism in the church as joining club because I don't think it. but it had significance outside of the church of identifying with a group of people. And so when the call to be baptized they were taking a cultural form and saying in Christ this is a uniquely special thing.

Being baptized is an expression of faith that you have repented from your sin and turned and you are now Christ's people. You are now Christians when you weren't before.

Right? And the beauty of baptism has this symbolism of washing so that we are washed clean from our sin because Jesus has borne the penalty for our sin.

And it has this beautiful picture of baptism where we go down into the water and being raised to new life. In Romans 6 it talks about being baptized with Christ into his death and being raised with him in his resurrection to new life that by faith being connected to Jesus brings this new spiritual life and this new person we now become new people being God's people being followers of Christ for the first time.

Peter is very clear. The baptism is for the forgiveness of sins because this is the thing. When we think about the resurrection of Jesus when we think about its significance part of what the resurrection of Jesus does is it sheds light on the sinfulness of humanity.

Right? You go back to the very beginning in the garden there was no death. There was no sin. But when sin entered death entered. Right? And now Christ comes along and Christ is risen from the dead defeating sin and death and now offering to all who call on the name of the Lord forgiveness of that sin the removal of ultimate spiritual death and death from separation from God and instead bringing spiritual life to all who come.

This is the very core of the gospel and this is why the resurrection is so important. We have a tendency here to talk about the death on the cross that's where Jesus died for our sins and that's true.

But if Jesus did not rise from the dead he's no different than David. He's another guy who kind of followed God in a certain way and he taught some things that's really interesting but he's just another man who died.

But that's not true. He actually rose from the dead and it makes all the difference in the world. And Peter calls the people and he says because this is true repent and be baptized and you will receive the Holy Spirit.

That is you will receive God working in you to change your heart to apply what Christ has done to you so that you can be a saved person, a new person, a Christian, a someone with eternal hope and eternal life because of that.

And this is the promise that you will have. love. And friends, it's so important. Listen to Paul as he writes in 1 Corinthians 15, just a few verses later, 1 Corinthians 15, 14, about how important this is.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it's true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, then even Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. this is the question, friends.

If Christ rose from the dead, it changes everything. And friends, I want to preach a whole other sermon on what that means for us, but I'm not going to.

I didn't even give this scripture to Sam, so you're all just going to have to listen. But I want to read from 1 Peter chapter 1 just to close this sermon on the glories of what it means that Christ has risen from the dead for his people.

So listen to this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, even though it is tested by fire, may be found a result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Friends, this is the fruit of Christ raised from the dead for all who believe. faith. And he calls us this morning to repent and believe.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you. What a glorious, glorious passage and a glorious truth that you are not a wise teacher dead in a grave, but you are the exalted and living King and Lord in Christ over all.

Oh, Lord, cut our hearts to the quick for our sin. Call us to repentance. Thank you that the blood of Christ is sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.

Thank you that the resurrection of Christ secures our hope of life both now and eternal with you. Oh, Lord.

We worship you, the risen Christ. Jesus name. Amen.