Paul, I won't have a chance to say this to you at the end of the service, I know.
But if you keep this music up, you're going to have to get a new pastor.
My heart can't take this.
I tell you, I have been lifted to ecstasy this morning as we have listened to this glorious music of Easter.
And so thank you to you and to your staff of musicians for your concert this morning
and for ministering so effectively to our hearts.
I would like, however, to bring us to focus in the Word of God for just a couple of minutes.
Would you open your Bible with me please to 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21.
1 Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21.
For Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times
for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead
and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
The story of Easter is the greatest love story ever told.
In the events surrounding Easter, we learned that we are the objects of the love of God Almighty.
And he has demonstrated that love to us.
Peter points out four actions that demonstrate the love of God.
The first is that Christ Jesus was foreknown.
What does that mean?
It means more than simply God knew ahead of time what was going to happen when Jesus came into the world.
The idea behind this New Testament word means that Jesus Christ was selected, chosen, designated.
He was purposed in his coming into the world.
And when was it that God designated Jesus Christ to be the Savior?
Well it tells us in the text that it was before the foundation of the world.
You think about that for a moment.
Before the events of Genesis chapter 1 ever transpired, before God ever spoke into being,
space and matter and time,
he had already designated his son Jesus Christ to come into the world that he was going yet to create
and to be the Savior.
We notice that then Jesus Christ appeared, action number 2.
He came into the time and space that he created.
He was made revealed, he was manifested.
The invisible eternal God was made visible in the person of Jesus Christ.
He appeared.
And when?
Well it says in these last times.
That is in this final stage of human history, this period of time when God is going to bring to consummation his purpose for all of history.
Jesus Christ appeared.
When he appeared and came into the world, he came to fulfill that purpose that God gave him before the world was created.
That he might go to the cross and there suffer and die for the sins of the human race.
And be raised again from the dead.
That he might forever save those who become believers in God through him.
Not just any God, the God of the Bible, Yahweh, Jehovah.
Those who become believers in the true God through him, through Jesus.
Not through any religion.
Not through any prophet.
But through this one whom he designated as his beloved son.
His only begotten son.
Those who believe in God through him.
There are those who say, I've always believed in God.
You see we did not become believers in this sense by our birth.
We did not become believers in the sense that Peter means it by our baptism.
We do not become believers in the sense that Peter means this through our good deeds.
What does it mean then to become a believer in God?
Peter says, for your sake he appeared.
Who have become believers in God. What does that mean?
It means that we come to that point in our lives where we recognize our own spiritual bankruptcy.
Our own brokenness before God. Our sinfulness.
And we recognize what God has done in sending his son into the world.
And we turn to him and we give ourselves to him in faith.
And we receive him into our lives as an act of intelligent belief to be our Lord and Savior.
At that moment, at that moment, we become believers in God in the sense that Peter means it.
Jesus Christ was designated before the foundation of the world.
But has appeared at God's chosen time and has been raised from the dead.
Action number three.
It's hard to know whether to chuckle or to weep when we read about those who have been a part of the religion of communism.
Wondering what they should do with the body of linen.
Should they keep sending the embalmer week after week to try to keep the body looking decent, lying there in the mausoleum in Moscow?
Their religion has collapsed around the world.
And the founder of that religion of communism lies dead and his body is in that mausoleum to prove he's dead.
So they try to preserve his body as best they can.
I want you to know there has been no effort to preserve the body of Jesus Christ from the part of man.
Because three days after he literally died, he literally came forth from the grave.
He rose up from the grave.
Death could not keep its prey.
Jesus our Savior.
One can almost see death there in that tomb with him saying, now you lie still there, you stay there.
But death could not keep its prey.
Death bound him perhaps with chains of some sort to cause him to lie still on that cold slab.
But death could not keep its prey.
Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph for his foes.
He rose from the dead.
And Peter concludes by telling us that God gave him glory.
When he ascended back into heaven, God gave him glory.
You say, how do we know he actually got back into heaven when he left the Mount of Olives?
Because Stephen, the first martyr, just before he died, looked up into heaven which opened up before his eyes.
And before he died and left his body, he was able to speak these words.
I see Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
He has been seen there.
We have witness of it, historical evidence, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is now standing at the right hand of God in heaven.
And this same Jesus, who was taken up into heaven and exalted and given a name that is above every name, is one day going to come again.
The angels said, this Jesus that has been taken up from you into heaven shall so come again in the same way as you have seen him go up into heaven.
And John, writing in the last book of the New Testament, the book of the Revelation, has given a vision of that day, yet future from our own, when Jesus Christ will return.
He sees this white horse coming down from heaven.
The heavens are opened and the Son of God comes forth with his armies.
Glorious in his array and across his robe are printed the words on a banner that he wears, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And John says in heaven, I heard as it were the voices of a great multitude.
He said it was like many waters.
Take Niagara and amplify it a hundred times and add to it the pounding surfs on every beach in the world.
John says it was also like the peal of thunder.
And so you take every thunder peal that you have ever heard and amplify that a thousand times and add it to the sound of the waters.
And you have the sound that begins to approach what that multitude was saying.
They said hallelujah.
The Lord God Almighty reigns.
Jesus Christ was foreknown before the world was created, but in these last days has appeared.
He's come. He's been made visible.
He died for us. He rose again from the dead. Has been given glory.
And one day is going to come and establish upon this earth the kingdom of his justice and righteousness.
And we know that because the same word of God that has told us all of the rest assures us of what is yet to come.
And we're going to sing about it right now.
It is number 37 in your hymnal.
And it says hallelujah.
The Lord God Omnipotent reigns.
He is King of Kings and He is Lord of Lords.
Don't worry about getting lost in all of the notes.
If you don't know the tune, all you have to do is keep singing or saying hallelujah and you'll be right in there with the rest of us.
Paul, lead us in this glory.