THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST
Matthew 28:1-10
W. E. Sangster was stricken with a progressive illness that was taking his voice and would eventually rob him from preaching in his pulpit. One day he said to his friend, “It is going to be a terrible thing to be unable to stand in a pulpit on Easter Sunday and say, ‘Christ is risen.’ But I can think of something much worse. That is to stand in a pulpit on Easter Sunday and say, ‘Christ is not risen.’”
Thank God, I can stand before you today and declare loudly CHRIST IS RISEN. It is the empty tomb that is full of hope!
A DEAD CHRIST IS A DISAPPOINTING CHRIST!
A family was watching a movie of the life of Jesus on television. Their six-year-old daughter was deeply moved as the film realistically portrayed Jesus’ crucifixion and death. Tears ran down the little girl’s face as they took Him from the cross and laid Him in a borrowed tomb. She watched as a guard was set. Suddenly, a big smile broke on her face. She bounced up on the arm of the chair and said with great anticipation, "Now comes the good part." Yes, indeed, this is the good part. The resurrection of our Lord changes everything!
Christianity begins where other religions end - with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the tomb. Other religions point may point to a founder as Christianity, but they must also point to a founder’s grave. ONLY Christianity is able to point to an empty tomb.
Some tombs are famous because of whom they contain; the tomb of Jesus is famous because of whom it does not contain.
I want this morning to preach on THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST.
I. The resurrection of Jesus Christ settles absolutely the identity of the Son of God
Romans 1:4 “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
Jesus was marked off to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead.
Others may have performed miracles, but the resurrection identified Jesus as the Son of God.
If you will not be convinced by His resurrection from the death you will not be convinced by nothing.
He was crucified because He said He was the Son of God; His resurrection proved He was the Son of God.
During the time of the French Revolution, a man complained to the Foreign Minister under Napoleon, that a new religion of his, one he considered a great improvement over Christianity, had failed to catch on with the people. He asked the Prime Minister for some suggestions. The Prime Minister said, “To insure the success for your new religion. All you need to do is have yourself crucified and the rise from the death on the third day.”
The fact that Jesus Christ arose settles absolutely the identity of Jesus Christ.
Knowing who Jesus is determines who should be obeyed, worshiped, and followed.
II. The resurrection of Jesus Christ sets authoritatively the itinerary of the church
An itinerary is the proposed outline or plan that you are to follow. An itinerary gives order with special emphasis.
Only need one person setting your itinerary. If you have two you will have problems and confusion.
The resurrected Lord is the one who should set the itinerary of the church.
After His resurrection and before His ascension He gave His orders (itinerary) to the church.
See Mark 16:15,19,20.
We are to preach the gospel (death, burial, and resurrection) to all the world.
A. His Power Commands Us
B. His Plan Controls Us
C. His Presence Cheers Us
Do you recognize that The Great Commission is a joint effort? God is not just asking us to do this for Him. He is asking us to do this with Him.
Since Christ goes with us, we can and must go forth in the confidence of that abiding presence.
Years ago there was a Mercedes Benz television commercial that showed their car colliding with a cement wall during a safety test. Someone then asked the company spokesman why they didn’t enforce their patent on the Mercedes Benz energy-absorbing car body, a design that was evidently copied by other companies, because of its successful safety record. The spokesman for Mercedes Benz gave a classic response. He said, "Because some things in life are too important not to share." How true that is.
The gospel is too important not to share.
III. The resurrection of Jesus Christ substantiates abundantly the inability of the grave to retain its prisoners
A. The witness of scripture
The inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God says He died and He arose!
B. The witness of the seal
The Bible said the stone was sealed. This refers to a wax or clay seal bearing the mark of the Roman Empire. To break that seal was punishable by death. No one would have broken it.
What neither friend nor foe did, the Father did. What neither associate nor adversary did, the Almighty did.
C. The Witness of the sepulcher
When one thinks of graves and tombstones, one naturally thinks of death.
A grave means one thing. Someone has died! Joseph of Arimathaea had originally planned on the cave where Jesus was buried to be used upon his own death. But, Jesus had no plot of land on which to be buried. Joseph so loved our Lord that he wanted him to have a proper burial. When Jesus died, Joseph buried him in his own tomb.
Joseph and Nicodemus quickly prepared his body for burial. How could this have transpired and Jesus actually not have died on the cross? They laid him in the tomb. They rolled a stone across the face of the cave.
Jesus did die on the cross and thank God he did. If it was not for the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, and his offering for sin, then forever our souls would be lost. There is no hope without death of Christ on the cross of Calvary.
The soldiers testified to the death of Jesus Christ. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus handled his body. They wrapped it for His burial.
A huge stone was rolled to close the entrance of the tomb, but it could not hold Him. Some experts say it would have taken upwards of 20 men to move it. However, on the third day, Jesus walked out without the help of any man. Not even his foes denied the empty tomb. They just merely sought to explain it away.
A woman was vacationing in Israel when she died. The authorities called her son-in-law and gave him 2 options. Bury her in Jerusalem for $150 US dollars, or ship her body home to the USA for $4,500. The man chose to ship her home because the last person he heard was buried in Jerusalem came back to life!
Jesus walked out of the tomb. He conquered death. THE EVIDENCE IS INDISPUTABLE.
Death could not hold him. Death had no control over Deity.
Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior,
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!
A man was walking down a street when he noticed in a store window a beautiful painting of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He stood there gazing at the picture for the longest than realized that a little boy was standing beside him. He patted the little boy on the head and said, “Son, what does that mean?”
The little boy said, “Don’t you know? That there man is Jesus, an’ the woman that’s crying is His mother, an’ them others are Roman soldiers. They killed Him.”
The man smiled and then started walking away. In a few moments he heard someone running, turned and saw that it was the little boy. He came running up to the man, out of breath, and said, “Mister, mister, I forgot to tell you that he didn’t stay dead.”
IV. The resurrection of Jesus Christ states amply the impossibility of any situation or circumstance to be too great for Him.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ declarers that there are no situations or problems too great for God to handle.
A teacher asked her class what each of them wanted to be when they grew up: President; ball player; fireman; and astronaut were among their answers. One by one they answered until the teacher came to a little boy named Bobby. The teacher asked, "Bobby, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Bobby responded by saying he wanted to be "Possible" when he grew up. The teacher thought she had misunderstood the child.
"Possible," she asked, "you want to be possible?"
Bobby said, "Yes, I want to be possible." The teacher asked, "Bobby, why do you want to be possible? What does that mean?"
Bobby replied, "My mother is always telling me I’m impossible. So, when I grow up, I want to become possible!"
The resurrection of Jesus Christ throws away impossibilities.
Give me your most impossible situation or circumstances: finances, health, or family. None are as difficult to overcome as death. Difficulties disappear when you bring the resurrection of Jesus Christ into the picture.
Admit the resurrection of God and impossibilities must throw up its hands. Difficultly is not in the dictionary of the resurrected Lord.
If Jesus can reverse death, he can reverse your situation.
How do we measure power in the spiritual realm? The resurrection was Paul’s ruler or standard for measuring power.
Philippians 3:10 - That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection...
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, presents us with the supreme exhibition of God’s power.
A. No problem too hard for God to solve
B. No provision too hard for God to supply
C. No person too hard for God to save
D. No predicament too hard for God to surmount
V. The resurrection of Jesus Christ supplies amazingly an intercessor for me
My intercessor died for me but now he lives for me.
Heb 7:23-25 - And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
A. He compassionately intercedes .
I think of Jesus’ words to Peter, foretelling his denial, in Luke 22:31, “Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: BUT I HAVE PRAYED FOR THEE, that thy faith fail not.”
It’s interesting to note that this is the ONLY time Jesus ever spoke of His own personal, private prayer life. Yet, what a picture! The Lord Jesus, the Lord of Glory, the Risen, Resurrected, and Redeeming Christ is praying for us. He takes our needs and names; our problems and petitions before the Father. He talks to Himself about us, and goes before God on our behalf.
B. He continually intercedes
Robert Murray McCheyne said: "If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me."
VI. The resurrection of Jesus Christ secures assuredly the invitation that He offers.
Romans 4:25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
The invitation is an offer of justification through His resurrection.
If Jesus did not come forth in triumph from Joseph’s tomb, then we have no Gospel to preach to the lost men.
All our hopes rest upon the fact that He who was delivered up to death for our offenses was really raised again for our justification.
During the time that the body of our Lord lay in the tomb, there was no one on earth who could be sure that redemption was an accomplished fact.
If He had not risen, it would have been sure evidence that He was either deceived or a deceiver, for He had definitely predicted His resurrection as well as His sacrificial death.
The fact that He rose from the dead is in itself the proof that His death upon the cross had satisfied the claims of divine righteousness and had met every requirement of infinite holiness. God has raise Him from the dead in token of the satisfaction He has found in His work.
A simple illustration may help to make clear what I am trying to say. Let us imagine the case of a man convicted of a crime and sentenced to spend a certain period of time in prison. In this particular instance, by some arrangement which of course I recognize would be no ordinary thing, a substitute takes his place, agrees to serve out his sentence. In accordance with this understanding, the substitute is locked in prison. Now as long as this man remains behind prison bars, the one in whose stead he is suffering can never be absolutely sure that the law may not yet lay hold of him and demand that he serve out the least part of the sentence.
But one day as he goes down the street, he comes face to face with the one who so generously agreed to become his representative before the law and to bear the punishment that his crime deserved. He learns that, having served the sentence, his friend is now free. At once the offender’s mind is at rest. He knows the law can have nothing to say to him. Its claims have all been met; and he, the guilty one against whom the original judgement was rendered is now a free man.
Christ’s payment for the judgment of sin can be evidenced only by His bodily resurrection. God declared His acceptance of the work of His Son by rasing Him from the dead. THE EMPTY TOMB IS THE RECEIPT OF CALVARY.
The ability of the power of Christ’s death to take away sin is always conditioned in the New Testament with the fact of His resurrection.
If there is no resurrection of Jesus Christ, then we are in trouble!
A. Redemption would be vain
Redemption is placed on the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is on this that our salvation rest.
B. Remission would be void
We would be yet in our sins.
If Jesus did not rise from the dead, sin won the victory over Christ and therefore continues to be victorious over all men.
Romans 4:24 informs us that Jesus was delivered up for or our offences and was raised for our justification. If the resurrection is not true, salvation is not true, and we are yet in our sins.
The New Testament constantly affirms that the death of Jesus was not merely the death of a martyr in a righteous cause, but a sacrifice initiated by God himself to pay for the sins of the world.
The resurrection of Christ from the dead was the receipt of approval on what Christ had done. The resurrection is the receipt for the payment that had been made.
The resurrection was God’s “Amen” to Jesus’ cry from the cross, “It is finished.”
VII. The resurrection of Jesus Christ supports assertively the inevitability of a future judgment
Acts 17:31 “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
Daniel Webster once said, "The most solemn thought ever to enter my mind is that I must personally give account of myself to God."
Unsupported by friend, wife, or attorney, each of us must one day stand before God
A. Period of judgment has been ordered
B. Person of judgment has been ordained
C. Proof of judgment has been offered
Driving swiftly down the streets of one of our western cities, a man lost control of his horses. A courageous man, springing from the sidewalk, brought the horses to a standstill and saved a man’s life. By a strange coincidence the man whose life was saved was charged with murder. The trial judge was the man who had saved him. Later the trial came on. The lawyers had made their pleas. The judge had charged the jury. They had reached a verdict, and just as the judge turned to speak to him, the prisoner arose and said: "Your honour, I don’t think you know me."
The judge said: "Answer my question. Have you anything to say why a sentence of death should not be passed upon you?"
Stretching out his arms, the prisoner said again: "I don’t think you remember me. I am the man you saved. Don’t you remember? Have mercy!Have mercy!"
The judge leaned forward with tears on his cheeks and said: "Yes, I do remember you. I have known you ever since you came before me, but then I was your saviour, now I am your judge. I must sentence you to die."
Today Jesus wants to be your Saviour; tomorrow He will be your judge.
Conclusion
On February 17, 1991, Mrs. Ruth Dillow was sitting at her home in Kansas when she received a phone call. The person on the other end of the line identified himself as being from the Pentagon, and he was sorry to inform her that her son, private first class Clayton Carpenter had stepped on a land-mine and had been killed. Of course, the news hit her like a blow, and as the reality began to set in, it was as if she had lost her own life with the life of her son.
On the third day, after mourning in the depths of despair, she got a second phone call and this time the person on the other side of the phone said... "Mom! I’m alive!" At first she couldn’t believe it was her son, but as they began to talk finally it began to sink in. "This really is my son, he’s not dead, he’s alive!" She said that it felt like she had gotten her life back again when she got her son
Clayton Carpenter had never died; but Jesus Christ did die. However, He arose the third day.
What a difference His resurrection makes!
