Why Easter Matters

SERMON: 2017-04-16--mt2817--why-easter-matters SOURCE DURATION: 00:46:38.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 2 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Segment [1] marks the clear beginning of the narrative exposition (the sermon). Segment [806] is a concluding amen/statement that belongs to the pastoral application/conclusion of the sermon. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:00:00.000; remove through 00:00:04.100] [CUT] (loud rumbling) [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:00:04.100; resume after this marked segment] What a difference two days can make. On Good Friday, the disciples of Jesus were beside themselves with grief, bitter disappointment. Everything they had lived for and hoped for for the last three years had suddenly gone up in smoke before them. As the two disciples on the way to Emmaus later on said to Jesus after his resurrection, before they had recognized him, we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And as we saw on Palm Sunday, to have your heart wide open in the expectation that now it's going to happen only to have those hopes dashed, that was a bitter blow, and it's almost impossible, I think, for us to overestimate the anguish of the disciples when they watch Jesus die. The horror of Good Friday. But then comes Sunday. And Sunday, everything changed. Their mood shifted from despair to hope and from sorrow to joy. And the reason, of course, for that was because they received the amazing news that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead. As the angel says to the women in the story that we have read from Matthew 28, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you're looking "for Jesus who was crucified, he is not here. "He has risen just as he said. "Come and see the place where he laid." It is, I believe, impossible to overestimate the significance and the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Years later, the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, put it this way. He said, "What I received I passed on to you "as of first importance, that Christ died "for our sins according to the Scriptures, "that he was buried, that he was raised "on the third day according to the Scriptures." The resurrection of Jesus Christ is, without any doubt, the most significant event in human history since the creation of the world. In the time that we have this morning, I want to share with you four reasons why I believe Easter still matters today. Reason number one, it proves that Jesus is who he said that he is. Even a superficial reading of the gospels will tell you that Jesus made some incredible claims for himself. Let me just run four of them by you really fast. First of all, he claimed to be the Son of God in his trial before the Sanhedrin in Matthew chapter 26, as the Sanhedrin is trying to find reasons to condemn him, the high priest comes to him with this question, "I charge you under oath "by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, "the Son of God." Notice Jesus' response, "It is as you say." And then later on, when he hangs on the cross and all the crowd is mocking him, he saved others, see if he can save himself, he trusts in God, they said. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, "I am the Son of God." Jesus made no bones about the fact that he was the Son of God, and they knew enough theology to know that that meant he was claiming to be equal to God, that became one of the reasons they nailed him to the cross, because they said, "Who needs witnesses, we have heard out of his own mouth "the blasphemy that causes him to be worthy of death." Number two, on the other end of the spectrum, he claimed to be the Son of Man. That passage in Matthew goes on to say this in verse 64, "I say to all of you, in the future, "you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand "of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven." You will see the Son of Man. The Son of Man was one of Jesus' favorite self-designations in the Gospels. 81 times in the Gospels, he calls himself the Son of Man. And what he means by that is not only that he identifies with our humanity, but he claims by that to be the long-promised Messiah. Because you see, the phrase Son of Man used in this way occurs only one time in the Old Testament, and that is in the book of Daniel. And listen to how Daniel describes it here. "In my vision at night, I looked and there before me "was one like a," say it with me, "Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. "He approached the ancient of days "and was led into his presence." Now listen, "He was given authority, glory and sovereign power, "all peoples, nations and men of every language "worshipped him. "His dominion is an everlasting dominion "that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one "that will never be destroyed." Sound a little bit like Jesus to you? Jesus there is the fulfillment of all that God promised to all of God's people. That promise is not only to Jesus, it is to every human being who by faith is joined to Jesus because we are coheirs with him, and in the new creation, we're going to share a glory that is beyond our comprehension. Jesus said, "I'm not only the Son of God, "I'm also the Son of Man. "I'm the one who's gonna straighten out all of history." Then he goes on to say he claims to be the savior of the world. John 14 verse six, a verse we all know well I'm sure, Jesus speaking, he says, "I am the way "and the truth and the life. "No one comes to the Father except through me." Don't ever buy this story that all roads and all religions lead to the same God, they don't. Jesus is very exclusive, he says, "I am the way, "I am the truth, I am the life. "No one comes to the Father but by me." That's a pretty exclusive claim about being the mediator between a holy God and a sinful people. Now then, number four, he claimed, listen to this, that he will be the judge of all of the earth. Matthew 25, 31 to 33, "When the Son of Man," there you got that phrase again, "comes in his glory, "and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne "in heavenly glory. "All the nations will be gathered before him, "he will separate the people one from another, "as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, "he will put the sheep on his right "and the goats on his left." And the passage goes on to say to the sheep on the right, he will say, "Come blessed of my Father, "inherit the kingdom prepared for you "from before the foundation of the world "and to the goats on his left." He's going to say, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity "into the eternal fire prepared for the devil "and his angels." These are only four of the claims that Jesus makes about himself. And you can go through the gospels and you find a whole lot more. He is the good shepherd, he is the great I am, he is the bread of life, he is the living water, he is the lamb of God. Anybody can make great claims about themselves. The previous church I pastored, we had a man in our congregation who had psychiatric issues and as long as he took his medication, he was able to live a pretty well-balanced life. But as so many patients do, the moment he started to feel better, he started to neglect his medication and his mental issues would come to the foreground and he was a man given to illusions of grandeur. And so you could tell that he was off because he started off by thinking that he was a nurse. Then he progressed to thinking that he was a doctor. I guess he thought doctors were more important than nurses. But by the time his cycle was finished, he viewed himself as the Lord God Almighty. To this day, he's the only one that's ever spit me in the face and try to punch me out in his delusions. The world is full of people who can pretend all kinds of things about themselves. In fact, Jesus makes the observation in Matthew chapter 24, many will come in my name claiming I am the Christ, that is, I am the Messiah. I am the appointed one who's going to fix all of humanity and deceive many. Luke in his account adds the words, "Do not follow them." But guess what? All the false Christs and all the founders of other religions said to say, "They're all dead." So the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead is an indication that he is who he said that he is. Namely, the chosen one of God called forth to redeem all of creation. You see, one incontrovertible fact about human life is that when you're dead, you're dead. You can't raise yourself from the dead. Neither can other people raise you from the dead. So when you're dead, you're dead. The fact then that Jesus was dead and comes to life is proof positive that he had God's favor because only the power of God can raise him from the dead. Don't know if you've ever seen the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud of Turin professes to be, and nobody knows whether it's real or whether it's a forgery, although it leans towards having been real, is a long piece of cloth that has in negative image the image of a crucified man. And it's undergone tests and people have written books about it and made movies about it, and nobody's been able to disprove it. And nobody can figure out how that image was formed on the Shroud. And the only speculation that people have is that somehow or another there was a burst of radiation, a burst of life that left its impression in a negative format on that huge piece of fabric. Is it real or not? I don't profess to know. I do know that the Bible makes a big point of proving that Jesus was really dead. That's why the Roman soldiers stabbed the spear into his side and out came blood and water, meaning that his body had already begun to break down. That's why the Pharisee, it's an interesting thing, the disciples never remember that Jesus was going to be raised from the dead, but his enemies certainly did. And that's why they made sure that Pilate placed a guard around the tomb so that nobody could say he's risen from the dead because his body is missing because his disciples stole it. That's the story they told later on anyway. But the Bible makes a huge point of the fact that Jesus was dead because only the power of God can raise a dead body. And so Paul years later when he is preaching to the Athenians at the Areopagus in Acts chapter 17, puts it this way, he says, he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed and he has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is proof positive that he is who he said that he is. A lot of us will remember the famous C.S. quote, C.S. Lewis, his observation in his book, "Mere Christianity." He's trying to address the issue of Jesus being a good moral teacher and here's what he says. It's a foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with a man who says he's a poached egg or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a mad man or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. The resurrection of Jesus proves that he is who he says that he is. And because of that, the resurrection of Jesus means that his teaching is accurate. It means that his teaching is accurate. Now you know as well as I do that the popular notion, particularly in the Western world, is that Jesus' teaching can just best be summarized by the observation that he wants to be totally inclusive. He wants everybody to live in love. And let's redefine that love so that it suits our own particular fancies. Well, yes, to love your neighbor is the second great commandment as Jesus sums it up. But it's preceded by another commandment which is the first great commandment. Who remembers what that is? You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And so Jesus' teachings, and you've seen this before and we've talked about it before, but Jesus' teaching I think can best be summarized in this way. Now you've seen these circles many, many times. I'm still always surprised when I hear of people who say they have no clue what they mean, which means I'm either an atrocious teacher or you need to go back to school and get your machinery worked. So let me, can I give it another shot? Just so that I can say I've done what I can do about this. This summarizes the teachings of Scripture concerning the nature of salvation. And because Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses, the law, and the prophets, this summarizes the teachings of Jesus. And it's really simple. The teaching of Scripture, the teaching of Jesus, is that God is. He has always been there. He is self-sufficient and self-sustaining. He lives outside of time, He lives outside of space, and because He is eternally self-existent, everything that we see in the universe from the vastness of the universe to the tiniest subatomic particle has been created by God and for God. And that includes you and me. We're not just the product of some stupid evolutionary process. Whatever God used to get us here, we'll leave that up to Him, but He's behind it all. And because of that, there are two things that He wants from every last creature that He has created. Number one, He wants us to acknowledge that everything we have comes from Him. And because everything that we have comes from Him, guess what else He wants from us? He wants our thankfulness and He wants our obedience. And His promise is that if we walk in relationship with Him and He gives us everything that we need, then we can live in relationship with each other. And as I've said so many times before, if you want to see what that looks like, look at the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. Before sin entered, it was paradise. It was good. Everything they needed, God provided. But there was a snake in the garden, you know the story. And the snake said, "You can have your cake and eat it too." You can have all the blessings of God without having God tell you the difference between right and wrong, because you're made in His image and you're smart enough now to figure out for yourself what's good and what's wrong. So they ate from the tree of the knowledge of evil. The knowledge of good and evil. God said the day that you do there, that you're gonna die. The result is they get kicked out of the garden. And here is the description of the human race as we find it today from Genesis chapter three on to the closing chapters of the book of Revelation. God, we're alienated from God, we're sold out under Satan's power, we've become exceedingly selfish. It's every man for himself. Some of us just hide it better than others. You get nothing but conflict and confusion. It plays out from two children fighting over toys to two teenagers fighting over the same boyfriend or the girlfriend, two grown up neighbors fighting over whose fence is going to be allowed to be how I, and nations going to war against nations. And it gets worse as history goes on the further we get away from God. Big question in history, the big question in the Bible is how do we get back from here to there? And the human race says we can do it by education, the human race says if only everybody was smart, if only we had a better economy, if only we shared, if only there was social justice, if only, if only, if only. The reality is no matter how smart we get, the very things that God gives us the ability to create just becomes smarter ways for us to be rebellious against God and rebellious against each other. And the message of the Bible is that we cannot get ourselves from here to there because we are sinners through and through. And so what does God do? Sends his own son, born in human nature, born to be like you and me, but sin accepted, lived his life among us, showed what loving God and loving people really looked like, went about doing good, healing everybody, you would think they would have erected a statue for Jesus to show how much they honored and respected him, you know as well as I do, what do they do? Nailed him to the cross, why? Because he didn't fit in the human agenda and the human pride and the human arrogance, he made people feel bad, guess what? He made them feel bad about their sin. But he also died on the cross so that their sin could be forgiven. He rose from the dead to show that the power of sin was broken and he ascended into heaven, poured out his Holy Spirit so that whoever comes to Jesus by faith in him becomes part of God's forever family. And then the Bible says he is in heaven until every enemy should be made a footstool for his feet. Don't ever think it's the politicians or the military or the smart people of society that are running the world, God sits in heaven and he laughs at everybody that defies his authority. And the only reason Jesus is holding off is because he doesn't want anybody to perish, he wants all people to come to repentance, he wants everybody to have a chance to get his everlasting life and glory. But there comes a time when his patience runs out, when history, as we know it, gets rolled up like a scroll. Jesus comes back in the glory of his father with countless and countless myriads of holy angels, the trump of God is going to blow in a way that everybody's ear is gonna hear, the dead in Christ will be raised, and when Jesus comes back, guess what happens, as we saw earlier, he separates the sheep from the goats. This present creation and all those who have not bent their knee before Jesus are going to be condemned to everlasting judgment in the fires of hell, that's what Jesus teaches, he talks more about hell than anybody in all of the Bible. This is the reverse side of God's love, he is the enemy of all that which is hurtful and destructive. Then he takes his people, he gathers them into his kingdom, and he makes a new heavens and a new earth, and we're going to celebrate, you know, we can't begin to imagine what it's gonna look like, but it's gonna be pretty darn good, it's gonna be really good, because eye hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard, the heart of man hasn't even imagined what God has prepared for those who love him, he reveals it through us to his Holy Spirit. Now that's the teaching of scripture, but that's the teaching of Jesus. Now you think that might have some implications. Do you think that ought to make a difference as to how you live your life? See, if Jesus is just a good moral teacher, and he's enough thinking of nobody, then you can decide, well, I want to follow him, or I want to follow, you know, anybody else. But if he is who he said that he is, and God said, "Yes, he is the one "that I want you to look to," then you think it might be smart to listen to his teaching, and obey his teaching? Ought it therefore not to be our primary responsibility in life to get to know this God, who made the whole universe? Who made me? Who wants to be in a relationship with me? Who gave his son that my sin could be forgiven? Who allowed his son to die and be raised so that the crud inside me can be put to death and I can become a new creation in preparation for the day of glory? Ought that not to be the ultimate priority of everybody's life? And would we not be foolish, utterly foolish, to ignore this Jesus and pretend he's just an ancient figure in history who has no impact on my life today? Here's how scripture puts it. Through him and for his name's sake, this is Paul writing to the Romans, speaking of his own ministry, he said we receive grace in apostleship to call people from among all Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And in Acts 17, chapter 30, again, part of his speech at the Athenian Areopagus to all these wise, wise philosophers, he says in the past, God overlooked such ignorance, that is all the idolatry that people were committing because they didn't know their true God. But now he says he commands all people everywhere to repent. If Jesus is who he says that he is, and if his teaching is true, then finding out what that teaching is and getting our lives to line up with that teaching would be the smartest thing in all of the world. Wouldn't you agree? That's what God is calling his people to be. But there's more, and that's this. This message must be proclaimed to all nations. If Jesus is the one ordained by God, the stone which the builders have rejected, but which by God's wisdom has become the head of the corner, if Jesus is the one who alone can fix the human heart and thus the human race, and if this Jesus has told us what it is that he's looking for in our lives, then isn't it the kindest thing that we can do for the rest of humanity to make sure that the people who have walked in darkness can see a great light and will not be wandering into destruction? If you were driving down the road and you knew the road was washed out ahead and the cars go whizzing by, would you stand there with your arms folded and say, "I wonder what that's gonna look like? Oh, there goes another one. Oh, still another one. Well, this one almost stopped in time, but I guess his brakes weren't quite working, right? Send him to Tim's garage." You know, of course not. I mean, you're going to stand there because you're gonna get out whatever you need to do and you're going to stand there and wave them down, aren't you? Aren't you? Even if you don't like the people that are coming at you. Even if it's your bad, nasty neighbor and part of you would love to see him go over the cliff. You're not gonna let it happen. You're gonna stop him with everything in your power. So what's the first thing that Jesus says to the women at the tomb? "Go tell my disciples." Do you notice the emphasis in the whole resurrection story about go tell? And as an aside, isn't it interesting that women are the first witnesses to his resurrection? I haven't checked this out, but I would be surprised if in that day and age, a woman's testimony in court probably didn't even count. But you see, Jesus comes and he turns everything upside down, doesn't he? And it's Mary Magdalene, out of whom he has driven seven demons who is passionately in love with Jesus because of what he has done for her. She's the first one together with these other women. And all the stories vary a little bit, so you have to put all the pieces together. But she, he says, "Go and tell my brethren." And then if you know Matthew chapter 28 at all, you know how the story ends with this command, which we call the Great Commission. Jesus came to his disciples and he said, "All authority in heaven and in earth has been given to me. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father "and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, "and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." In Luke's gospel, he says, "Stay in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high." Why? Because the power of the Holy Spirit is going to send you to the nations to proclaim the gospel. And you and I are here today, and many of us have come to faith in Jesus and we're part of his forever family because somewhere along the line over the years, there was somebody who heard that call, his heart or her heart burned with passion, and they proclaimed the good news of Jesus sometimes at an incredible cost. And that's the last thing that we learned from this story and why this story is so important. The resurrection of Jesus matters because we can live courageously. Paul writing to the Corinthians, that grand chapter on the resurrection, talks about all the unique aspects of it and then he finishes with this practical application. He says, "The sting of death is seen. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. How does the resurrection of Jesus help us to face life courageously? Two ways. Number one, he said, "I won't leave you alone." He's come to live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the power of his Holy Spirit is the power of his resurrection. It is life that nobody can hold down because death could not hold him. And so in the power of Jesus, there is nothing that we cannot do in obedience to God for his glory. We need to understand that we serve a living savior. A Christian isn't just somebody who does nice things. A Christian is empowered by power from on high. Heaven's power lives within our souls. And even though we have our struggles and we have our battles, there is a river of the water of life that will well up in us when it is needed to provide life and light and healing and strength to the people all around us. And not only that, our labor in the Lord is not in vain. You know why? Because whatever we have done in Jesus's name is going to carry on into all eternity and we will receive our reward. No matter how sometimes we may have been abused for following Jesus, no matter how difficult that road is sometimes, no matter how tempting it is to follow the ways of the flesh, no matter how we crave our own lives instead of the kingdom of God, the reality is when this age ends and the new age comes and Jesus hands out his prizes, we're going to receive the crown of life. We won't even remember the grief that we experienced or the difficulty that we encounter. And we will forever remember the goodness of God. Going to end with a real story taken from Nick Ripken's book, The Insanity of Obedience. Earlier on we mentioned his earlier book, which is The Insanity of God. The Insanity of God refers to God sending out his people into very difficult situations of life and The Insanity of Obedience is a follow-up on that book and Nick Ripken went through some very difficult times in his own life and wanted to do research among the persecuted church all over the world as to what enabled Christians to remain faithful to God in difficult situations. And part of it was to restore hope and faith in his own life because he had lost a son and ministry in Somalia and some other places had been really difficult for him. And so towards the end of the book, he tells the story of Dmitri. Dmitri is a Russian peasant, lived some distance north of Moscow, started a home church because he wanted to instruct his children in the faith and they would gather around the word and they began to sing their songs of faith. They lived in a small village. Pretty soon other people heard them and asked them to be allowed to join them and out of that comes a little home church. Never thought of it as a home church. He was just a man, a simple peasant who wanted to share the gospel with his children and with his neighbor. Pretty soon the authorities were knocking on his door saying, "You can do this." They tried to beat him up and they tried to intimidate him but he kept on going because the passion of Jesus drove him. And now the church multiplied and they became 50 and then pretty soon they were 75. And by now the authorities were really angry and they came in and they roughed him up some more and they threatened him some more and a little old Russian grandmother prophetically was so put out by this authority that she walked up to him with her bony little finger, waved it in his face and he said, "You have just touched a holy man of God. You are not going to live." Two days later he dropped dead. Well, that was a great way to do evangelism because the next week the church multiplied to 150. 150. But now the authorities were really threatened so they arrested him and they put him in jail and there he sat for 17 long years. He was in a prison with 1,500 hardened criminals. The only thing that enabled him to survive with his faith intact were two spiritual disciplines that he had learned from his father. The first was to sing a heart song for Jesus. Every morning when he'd get up he would face east and he would raise his hands and he would sing his heart out for Jesus. Well, all the prisoners heard this and they mocked him and they clanged their cups and they threw food at him and they threw feces at him but he kept at it. And the second discipline was whenever he found a little scrap of paper and had access to a pencil he would write down every verse of scripture that he remembered, every song that he remembered and he would plaster it on his cell. As soon as he put it up they would always tear it down and this went on and on and on until they finally broke his spirit because they said, "Your wife and family, we have, they've turned their backs on you. We have, you know, we've done them." You can imagine how that would go, right? And so in the pit of despair he came to the place where he said, "All right, I will sign whatever confession you want me to sign." Of course they wanted him to sign a confession that he didn't believe in Jesus and that he was a Western agent and that that's why he was in prison. So all night long he had terrible anguish of heart that he could no longer bear this kind of persecution but something very miraculous happened that night because a thousand miles away his wife and children and his brother, by the Holy Spirit, became aware of the condition in which he found himself and they had themselves a little prayer meeting. And not only did they have a little prayer meeting but in the spirit Dimitri in prison actually literally heard their prayers. He heard them pray for him, intercede for him and then he knew by the Holy Spirit that they were safe. He changed his mind. Next morning he said, "I'm not gonna deny my Jesus. You can do to me whatever you wanna do." And so the time came they were gonna execute him. So they dragged him out of his cell to the place of execution and then another fascinating miracle happened. And these things tend to happen under the worst of conditions as you can imagine. As they were taking him to the place where he was to be executed, these 1,500 hardened criminals, remember them? The ones who clang their cup and threw poop at him and food and all kinds of nasty things. Every last one of them stood beside their cell, raised their hands and sang his heart song for Jesus. And that so spooked his guards that they dropped him and they said, "Who are you?" And he said, "I am a son of the living God and his name is Jesus." So eventually they didn't know what else to do with him and they released him and he went back. And Nick Ripken, interviewing him at the end of his story, let me just read it to you how the story ends and then we'll be done. "Brother Dmitri," this is many years later now, he's interviewing them in the very little house from which Dmitri had originally been arrested, "Would you do something for me?" I asked. I hesitated to continue, but his eyes moved me forward. "Would you sing that song for me?" Dmitri pushed himself up from the top of his seat, Dmitri pushed himself up from the table, he stared into my eyes for three or four seconds. Those seconds felt like an eternity to me. He turned slowly toward the East, stiffened his back to stand at attention. He lifted his arms and began to sing. He says, "I don't know Russian." So I didn't understand a single word of his song, but I didn't need to. The words probably didn't matter. As Dmitri raised his hands and his voice in praise and sang that song that he had sung every morning in prison for 17 years, the tears began to flow down both of our faces. Only then did I begin to grasp the meaning of worship and the importance of heart songs. He said, "I had tentatively arrived in Russia looking for answers and wondering if faith could survive and even grow in the world's most hostile environment. Dmitri became one of my first guides in my journey. I began to sense that this journey was not about developing discipleship materials, but it was about walking with Jesus in hard places. I felt drawn to this life Dmitri had lived, knowing Jesus, loving Jesus, following Jesus, living with Jesus." Don't know where you find yourself today. Maybe intellectually you subscribe to the reality of who Jesus is. Maybe you're committed as best as you know how to follow his teaching. Perhaps you bubble forth with his proclamation and there's an urge inside you that says this message needs to be shared. If those things are true, the chances are life is not always easy for you because the world is becoming increasingly hostile. And the pressure is on all around us to shut us up and to not proclaim Jesus. But the good news of the gospel, the significance of the resurrection of Jesus is this. He said, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age." And in the deepest pit that you and I can ever find ourselves in, in the most difficult spot relationally or every other way, Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die. And though he die, yet shall he live." And more than that, in the Lord, our labor is not in vain. So never apologize for Jesus. Never be ashamed to own his name. Never be afraid to proclaim it. Never be afraid to say, "I belong to Jesus because you're on the winning side of history." The resurrection of Jesus matters and it matters forever and ever and ever. Amen. [PROPOSED CUT 2 START at 00:46:34.640; remove through 00:46:38.000] - Amen. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 2 END at 00:46:38.000; resume after this marked segment]