Would you bow with me please in prayer?
Lord, we are reminded of the calling in our lives, the calling from the Savior to follow
him.
And by our presence in this place this morning, we have to some degree answered him.
Search us out, Lord, in wherein we have not followed you fully.
Bring us to a place of complete surrender to your Lordship in our lives.
We worship you as the Lord come down from heaven, as the Lord of glory who was crucified,
as the risen Lord victorious over the grave.
We acknowledge your presence with us today, and we are grateful, and we worship you.
Amen.
I want to express gratitude to GSA 20 for their work in putting together our worship
service this morning and leading us in a service in which we have focused upon three of the
most significant events in the history of the world since the creation.
Those are the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, and his resurrection
from the grave.
It is this last event that today we want to focus on together in our worship service from
this point on as we think about the theme of the risen Lord.
The majesty of Jesus Christ is declared in the fact that he was raised from the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ may be the most unbelieved belief in the church today.
I did not say the most unconfessed, but the most unbelieved belief.
Is not this unbelief in his resurrection demonstrated too often in the powerless and worldly form
of Christianity that is present in many churches?
Is not the true confession of faith in our churches tending to be focused upon a me-centered
religion that promises me what I need, what I want, my own prosperity and blessing, a
kind of faith that offers no challenge, that asks no commitment, and that allows for self-lordship?
Indeed, in far too many Christian churches, that is the true belief and not the belief
in the risen Lord.
For if we truly believe that Jesus died and rose again according to the Scriptures, then
it will make a difference in the way that we worship, in the way that we live in this
world.
The majesty of our Savior is declared in the fact that he is truly the risen Lord.
When we make that claim, there are several implications that are involved that we need
to think about and like for us to consider three of those implications this morning.
If we together confess that Jesus Christ is the risen Lord, what does that mean?
Let's open our Bibles together to Matthew chapter 28 and look again at this account
of the resurrection as Matthew records it.
We'll begin reading in verse 1.
Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene
and the other Mary came to look at the grave.
And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven,
and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.
And his appearance was like lightning, and his garment as white as snow.
And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
And the angel answered and said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are
looking for Jesus who has been crucified.
He is not here, for he has risen just as he said.
Jesus Christ is the risen Lord, and the first implication of that declaration is simply
this, that he truly was dead.
One attack of scoffers against our faith and against the resurrection is to assert that
Jesus never really died on the cross, that he only pretended to die.
This theory is sometimes called the swoon theory.
It states that Jesus fainted on the cross, but that when he was taken down and put into
the grave, he revived and escaped.
This is a rather new allegation of critics of the Bible.
It was created in the 18th century.
Up until that point, critics were determined to keep him dead.
But because they had been unsuccessful in arguing that point, they decided to try a
new tactic and say that he never died in the first place.
But it's really a rather silly idea to say that.
Again, the cruel beating that he endured, the terrible suffering of crucifixion, being
pierced in his chest cavity with a sword, resulting in a bloody discharge from the pericardium,
and then being removed from that cross, placed into a cool, damp tomb without any medical
attention, wrapped in tight cloth, burial cloths, and then left without food or water
for three days.
And after all of that, then having the strength to remove the claws, push aside the stone,
and overcome the soldiers.
Such an idea, such a thought, such an argument is absolutely ridiculous and laughable.
Jesus truly died.
The medical facts are clear.
Now why did Jesus die?
Was it the terrible physical ordeal that he endured?
What he endured was surely enough to kill any human being, but that was not the primary
cause of his death.
Was it then the spiritual suffering that he endured for human sin?
Who of us can suppose to know what that meant to the sinless Christ?
But neither was that the primary cause of his death.
His death came as the result of an act of his will.
He chose the moment to die.
He was given the authority to do that.
In John chapter 10 he said, I have authority to lay my life down.
That is authority that you and I do not have.
We cannot choose the moment of our death.
But Jesus could because he was the God man.
And when he had sufficiently suffered for sin and could say the price has been paid,
it is finished.
It says in Matthew 27 and verse 50 that Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded
up his spirit.
He yielded up in the sense that he sent it away or he dismissed his spirit as an act
of his will.
Jesus was truly dead.
In what happens here we see a bit of an insight as to what death is.
Death is not ceasing to exist, but death is the separation of the spirit from the body,
the separation of the immaterial us from the physical us.
James says that the body without the spirit is dead.
That's what death is.
The body goes into repose.
The spirit is removed from it.
That is death.
And Jesus truly died.
There was no pulse.
There was no respiration.
There was no brain activity.
He truly died on the cross.
There is no question about that.
There can be no legitimate doubt of it because of the witnesses that we have to his death
as recorded in the Gospels.
And remember that one of those was writing as a physician.
In fact, Jesus was so dead that they took him down from the cross and buried him in
a grave.
This is not merely a matter of interest to us only.
It is a crucial theological point because death was required as the penalty of sin.
Death is the judgment of God upon human sin.
And in order for Jesus to adequately and fully deal with sin, which is why he came into the
world, he had to truly die.
And he did.
The wonder of it all is not merely that he died, but that he died on behalf of sinners
like you and me who deserve the judgment of death.
The wonder of it is that he died for us so that we might escape the spiritual death that
we all deserve because of our rebellion against God.
He truly died.
But there is a second implication in this declaration that he is the risen Lord.
And that is that he is truly alive as surely as he breathed his last and ceased to dwell
in that body into which he had been incarnated.
So he returned to life.
As surely as he left the earthly scene and departed from here, so he returned again.
And he entered again into that same body which he had left.
But upon entering it, he changed that body so that it would be a supernatural one.
His first body was a natural body like yours and mine.
It was not indwelt by sin as ours is, but it was a natural body.
The body he has now is not a natural body, it is a supernatural body.
It is a body that can adapt to this realm, the natural realm, but is perfectly suited
for the supernatural realm.
It is the same body and yet it is a different body that he dwells in today.
It is a body that is identifiable as the body of Jesus and yet it is not an identical body
to the body he lived in because it is in fact a supernatural body.
It is the same but different just as when you plant a kernel of wheat into the ground,
that wheat sprouts over time.
It is the same kernel of wheat, but it is different in a different form.
The fact that he is truly alive is not a profession that comes to us from disciples who hallucinated.
The declaration that he was alive was not the result of hopeful imaginations of his
followers.
They had none of the necessary emotions or the desire to believe that he would be raised
from the dead that would be necessary to create such an illusion on their part.
Their predisposition was that he was truly dead and they were in hopeless despair about
that and overwhelmed by fear.
Some of them, even after he appeared to them, were doubtful that he was truly alive, but
he is.
And we worship his majesty as the Lord who is risen, risen from the realm of the grave
and of death.
Risen like none were raised before him, but risen like many will be raised after him.
John, that apostle who was so very close to Jesus, who was next to him in that place of
affection, who leaned upon Jesus' breast at the Last Supper, John, was the last person
on earth that we know saw Jesus after his resurrection.
It was sixty years after that first Easter when John was on the Isle of Patmos.
It was there that he saw Jesus.
Listen with me to Revelation chapter 1 and let's take a look at his account.
He says in verse 10, Revelation 1, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind
me a loud voice like the voice of a trumpet saying, write in a book what you see and send
it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia,
and Laodicea.
John says, I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me and having turned, I
saw seven golden lampstands and in the middle of the lampstands one like a son of man clothed
in a robe reaching down to his feet and girded across his breast with a golden girdle.
And his head and his hair were white like white wool, like snow, and his eyes were like
a flame of fire.
And his feet were like burnished bronze when it has been caused to glow in a furnace, and
his voice was like the voice of many waters.
And in his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged
sword and his face was like the sun shining in its strength.
This is the only physical description of Jesus that we have in the Bible.
It is a description of him in his resurrection body, his supernatural body.
Obviously, it is somewhat symbolic.
For example, the two-edged sword coming out of his mouth speaks of the authority of the
words that he spoke.
But John saw Jesus in his glory, and his response was that when he saw him he fell at his feet
as a dead man.
Now remember, this is the one who was closest to Jesus, his beloved disciple, the disciple
of love, John.
But John is an old man now looks upon the risen Christ sixty years after his resurrection
and falls down before him in a dead faint.
He is truly alive, beloved.
And were he to appear here today, all of us would fall down before him as dead people,
just as John did here.
It is frightening to us to consider what a spiritual body appears like, what a supernatural
body looks like.
But that is the kind of body that Jesus has in his resurrection as the risen Lord.
There is no other body in the whole universe like that one right now.
The saints who are in heaven, we believe, are in a temporary body of some sort, providing
a covering for their soul.
But what they dwell in is not like the body Jesus is in.
The angels, when they appear, are not unlike what we see here.
But their body neither is like this body.
This is the only one in the whole universe.
It is a prototype, or to use biblical language, it is the first fruits.
But it is the kind of body that you, if you're a Christian, will have one day.
For this same apostle John wrote in his first epistle that we shall see him, and when we
see him, we will be like him.
That not only means that we will be free at that moment from the sin that now indwells
us in these bodies of flesh, but it means that the very bodies that we live in will
be changed from natural bodies to supernatural bodies, a matter that Paul elaborates upon
in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
He is the risen Lord.
He was truly dead.
He is now truly alive.
And he dwells in a glorified body.
And he stands in heaven before God the Father on our behalf, his work of redemption being
finished.
And soon he will come to receive his own to himself.
He is truly, truly risen.
But there is a third implication that we arrive at from this declaration that he is the risen
Lord.
And the third implication is just simply this, that as he was truly dead, and as he is now
truly alive, so he is truly Lord.
Truly Lord.
He is the Lord in the first place of all history.
On this occasion when Jesus spoke to John, he said to him in verse 17, do not be afraid.
I am the first and the last.
The idea there seems to be I was before all things and I am the last of all things.
Everything that exists, I embrace.
I'm the first, I'm the last.
Anything that happens in all of history is in my control and my power.
I'm the first, I'm the last.
I want you to know that Jesus Christ is today the Lord of history.
And there is not an event that takes place in our world, there is not a movement among
the nations, but that the Lord of history ordains it and sees to it.
And it accomplishes his sovereign plan.
He is the Lord of history.
He is also the Lord of Hades in verse 18.
He says, I am the living one and I was dead, truly dead.
And behold, I am alive, truly alive forevermore.
And I have the keys of death and Hades.
Jesus Christ has the keys, the authority of death and Hades.
We belong to him.
You and I need not fear the grave.
We need not fear the specter of death.
For death has become now merely a servant to the will of Jesus Christ.
And death cannot take you, it cannot take me until that moment that Jesus Christ gives
it the authority to take us, for he has the keys of death.
And Hades, which is the realm of the dead, will only open to you and to me when Jesus
Christ is ready for that realm to open to you and to me.
The child of God who is walking in the will of God is invincible until the purpose of
the risen Lord is accomplished for him in this world.
And then only too gladly will the risen Lord call his child home.
He is the Lord of Hades.
He is the Lord of the death and the grave.
We can broaden this thought in Ephesians chapter 1.
The apostle after exclaiming the power that God exposed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ
says that God has now highly exalted him and put everything under his feet and declared
him to be the head of the church.
The risen Lord is the Lord of the church.
He is the Lord of Grace Church Roseville.
I fear too much we forget that.
We forget that in our relationship to the church.
We forget that in the way we conduct ourselves in the church.
We forget it in the decisions we make about the church that Jesus Christ is the Lord of
this church, of his church.
In all things, he is the head.
And we see him here in Revelation chapter 1 as the Lord of the church addressing letters
to seven of the churches that existed in that day.
And as he did so, addressing problems and symptoms that would appear in churches throughout
this whole age.
So while these are seven literal letters to seven literal churches, they are representative
in the sense that those churches are like churches in the 1990s.
And we can go to the letters that are written in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and see ourselves
altogether too much.
We see him standing in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks in the position of examination.
He's in the midst of it because he is the Lord of this church.
And the local churches that profess him that say we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God incarnated by the virgin birth, that he lived a sinless life, he died a death for
sinners, he was raised from the dead.
That churches like that, like this, might focus upon him for he's in the center of the
seven golden candlesticks.
He is the Lord of the church.
And when we come to worship, we come not to see what we can get out of the service for
ourselves.
That is secondary.
That is a byproduct of what will happen if we come to give to the Lord of the church
what is due him, our worship and our praise.
Then I remind you that he is the Lord also of all the supernatural realm.
In Ephesians chapter 1, and we see it illustrated in Revelation, he is the Lord of the angels.
Angels whether holy or fallen, good angels or demons, and Satan.
He is the Lord over them ultimately.
He is the Lord of all principalities and powers and rulers.
All of them acknowledge that he is Lord.
Even the demons cried out and said, we know who you are.
Why have you come to torment us before the time?
You see they had to acknowledge the fact that he is Lord even in their realm of the heavenlies,
the supernatural.
And he is Lord likewise of all human beings.
Paul tells us that because of the humble and obedient death on the cross, God has highly
exalted Jesus Christ and given him a name, a title that is above every name or title,
that of Lord.
And he says every knee will bow and every tongue, not just of Christians, every knee
and every tongue, will confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
And that day will ultimately come when every knee will bow before him, everyone.
Whether they acknowledge that he even exists, every person will one day bow the knee to
him for he is the Lord of all humanity.
There is no realm, there is no reality that is outside of his control, whether it be human
or demonic, whether it be earthly or heavenly, whether it be our feelings and our circumstances,
there is no realm that is outside his control.
Will you believe that today?
Will you lean upon that?
Will you allow that implication of this declaration that he is the risen Lord to soak into your
heart?
That whatever you're facing today, whether it be blessing or trial, that he is the Lord
of those circumstances?
The majesty of Jesus Christ is found in all of these truths that we've looked at.
That he is Savior, that he is Son of God, that he is Master and Shepherd, that he alone
is the Bread of Life and the Lamb of God.
And his majesty is found in this truth that he is the risen Lord.
If it is true that he is the risen Lord, what are the ramifications of this in my life and
yours?
Let me suggest quickly five of them.
If in fact he is the risen Lord, then the greatest act I can perform is to worship him.
If he is the risen Lord, the greatest act that I can perform is to declare his worth
and to bring praise and honor and glory to him if he is the risen Lord.
And how can I do that?
How shall I do that today?
And before this service ends, and when I get home this afternoon, and tomorrow and this
week at work and in my relationships with others, how shall I bring glory to him if
he is the risen Lord? It makes a difference.
For the greatest act that I can perform is to bring glory to him.
If he is the risen Lord, the greatest opportunity I have is to tell of him.
On that morning, his resurrection morning, the angel said, he is risen, go and tell.
If he is the risen Lord, the greatest opportunity that I have is to tell of him.
That's why he calls me his witness.
You shall be witnesses, he said unto me.
And then he ascended back into heaven.
Through the apostle, he calls us his ambassadors.
We are told that we stand in the place of Jesus Christ in this world, calling people
to be reconciled to God.
The greatest opportunity I have in this life is not that promotion that I'm anticipating
at work.
The greatest opportunity I have is not to influence my children.
The greatest opportunity I have is to be a witness for Jesus Christ as the risen Lord.
The greatest opportunity.
And if he is the risen Lord, the greatest joy I can experience is to be with him.
If it is true that he went into the realm of death and he truly died, and if it is true
that he came back from the dead like no one else before him, then the greatest joy that
I can experience is to spend time with him.
Just coming to understand the marvels, the awesome truths about this person.
If I can enter into his presence in some way, then that is an invitation that is unequaled
in anything I can do.
And as the risen Lord, he is the one who invites us not only to come into his presence once
a week for worship on Sunday morning, that's a false idea, but he invites us rather to
live every day, every hour in his presence.
And to know the joy of his resurrection power, and the joy of his fellowship, and the assurance
of his care and comfort in our lives.
We can know that, and he invites us to know it.
He desires us to know it.
If he is the risen Lord, the greatest joy that I can experience is to be with him.
If he is the risen Lord, the greatest privilege that I can foresee is to be like him.
I can't imagine any honor in the whole universe greater than that.
To one day have a body like his body, and to be like him.
That does not mean to be deity, but it means to be blameless, to be righteous, to be without
imperfection in any sense, to be holy as he is holy.
If he is the risen Lord, the greatest privilege I can foresee, I can possibly imagine, is
that one day I shall be like him.
He that has this hope purifies himself, says John, even as the Lord is pure.
And finally, if he is the risen Lord, the greatest service I can do is to obey him.
Do I really understand that he is the risen Lord?
That he truly died as the Son of God and the Lamb of God, and that he truly is alive again
from the dead?
If I understand that, then the greatest service that I can do is to obey him first by repenting
of my sin and trusting him alone as my Savior.
That is the obedience of faith.
And it is obedience, it is that obedience that brings salvation to the soul.
Obedience to repent of my own sinfulness, and to turn to him alone to trust him as my
Savior and receive him into my life.
Have you done that?
If he is the risen Lord, then the greatest service that you can do is to obey him first
by trusting him.
And if you have done that, then the greatest service you can do is to obey him by seeking
his purpose and his plan for your life, and forsaking all, taking up your cross, and following
him.
Now if he is not the risen Lord, don't bother doing that.
If he is not the risen Lord, it's a waste of your life's opportunities.
If he is not the risen Lord, such a message as the one I'm declaring this morning is
folly at its best, and deceit at its worst.
But if he is the risen Lord, then the greatest service that I can do is to find out what
God wants me to do with my life, what his plan for me is, and then to begin following
him in that direction, and laying everything aside, and taking up that cross of identification
with him, and death with him, and marching onward.
He is truly the risen Lord.
How is that affecting your life today?
What difference is it making in the decisions that you make about this church?
What difference is it making in the way that you treat your family?
What difference does it make in your relationships with your co-workers?
What difference does it make in the way that you look at your possessions?
What difference does it make as you consider your future, that he is the risen Lord?
Dear friend, that is the majesty of Jesus Christ.
And if we profess that we believe it, then we had better live it.
Let's pray.
How would God want you to respond this morning?
You say with your tongue, he is the risen Lord, but is there some area of your life
that says your tongue is lying?
Does your conscience point a finger and call you hypocrite?
Because you say he is the risen Lord, but you're not living that way?
Understand that coming to understand and see that is the work of God's Spirit in your
heart.
He's the one bringing that enlightenment and that conviction right now, and he's doing
it for your good.
He's doing it because God loves you, and this risen Lord loves you.
And he wants your best, and your best is to bow the knee to him.
That's your best.
Will you do that today and trust him as your Savior if you've never done that?
Will you receive him right there where you are, repenting of your sinfulness and trusting
him alone to make you right with God?
Christian friend, are you living according to the will of God for your life?
Is the risen Lord the preeminent one?
Is he the decision maker?
Is he the referee?
Is he the king?
Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, the disciple of the risen Lord, then you must
forsake all and take up your cross and follow me.
That's important, eternally important.
Oh God, wherever this message finds us today, may we eagerly respond to the Lordship of
Jesus in our lives.
May our raised, exalted head of the Church, who stands in our midst this morning, examining
our lampstand, our witness, our testimony, our consecration, may that Jesus Christ, who
is glorified, be praised and worshiped in our lives.
May there be no exception among us today.
Let's sing together.
I have decided to follow Jesus.
No turning back.
Amen.