Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
- The Fact of the Resurrection
- The Grand Indicative
- Statements of What Is True
- Faith Based on the Facts
- Of Infinite Importance
- Read the Witnesses
- Liar, Lunatic, or Lord
- A Society That Wants Less of God
- The Power of His Resurrection
The Fact of the Resurrection
Good morning. Great morning, Amen. We’re gonna get into the Word. We’re gonna talk about Jesus. Is that okay? Before we talk about Jesus though, I wanted to say hi to Jeff and Rivonda over there. Give it up for them. They came in all the way to hear me preach. That’s how good the preaching is. Thanks for making the trip. God is good. This morning what do you think I want to talk about? Very good. I remember, never mind, I won’t tell this story. Okay, this morning I want to talk about the fact of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. The fact. I stress the word fact. There’s so many scriptures we can look at and open with. We’re not going to just look at one, we’ll look at many. But let’s just go to 1 Corinthians 15 to begin. Now this morning I may not say anything new, but that’s okay because we don’t need a new gospel. We need the same old boring gospel that’s been around for 2,000 years because that’s the gospel that changes people’s lives. Every time the church tries to make the gospel more exciting and more relevant and more new they end up messing it up and it ends up being a different gospel, unfortunately. We’ve seen it generation after generation and we see it in our own day. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:1, Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you which also you received and in which you stand by which also you are saved. If you hold fast that word which I preached to you unless you believed in vain. In other words, if you truly believed the gospel and if you truly are standing in the gospel, then yes you are truly saved. Verse 3: “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received,” meaning Paul is saying what I’m about to tell you, I received this from God. Okay, this is a divine revelation. That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. What he’s saying to them is around 500 witnesses saw Jesus, and by the way, many of them are still alive. So if you want to go talk to them, you can go talk to them. You can verify what I’m saying to you about Jesus being alive. Then he says in verse 7, after that he was seen by James and [audio unclear] dead, and Jesus knocked him on his donkey. I mean, off his donkey. You didn’t get the joke. Okay. Think about it. You’ll laugh later. Verse 9, For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain but I labored more abundantly than they all, not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” Now, the resurrection, really the death, the burial and resurrection of Jesus is portrayed in Scripture as a historical fact. In other words, it is not a myth, it is not a religious symbol. It is not a It is not a symbol. It is not a romance. It is not a source of inspiration. It is not any of the things that is often described to be. It’s simply plain old historical fact. That’s what it is. We live in an age that I have to call the gray age, where everything is blurry. Everything is gray. And when it comes to religious truth, no one wants to say this is true and this is false because that’s offensive right and so everything’s gray but we want the comfort of the biblical message and so we allude to the biblical terminology but we fill it with all this grayness and Jesus’ resurrection is, now becomes a symbol of hope. Jesus’ resurrection becomes an inspiration. Jesus’ resurrection is a sign that with God there’s always second chances. Does your heart feel warm? Now, all of that may be true in one sense, but the problem is none of it’s true if Jesus is still in the grave. All of the inspiration, all of the hope, all of the things that are said about the resurrection are completely irrelevant if, in fact, Jesus is still dead. So everything that’s built upon this declaration of a resurrection must be built upon an historical reality. Something that really happened in space and time. Because apart from that, as Paul says, our faith is in vain if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. So the Bible isn’t a collection of inspirational stories to bring us comfort.
The Bible is a declaration of things that God declared through men to us.
The Grand Indicative
This is what Machen calls the grand indicative. Does anyone know what an indicative is? I know Mike Bond does because he teaches Latin. An indicative is a grammar term. Does anybody else know what it means? You do? Yeah. I should have known she would have raised a hand. I’m glad you know. I’m not going to have a hand. I’m not giving you the mic, sorry. Okay. An indicative in grammar is a statement of fact. Let me share a fact with you. My cat is fat. Anybody seen my cat? It’s huge. The laser pointer? It just morphs into big. My cat, that is a fact, historical fact. I can prove, come over, I’ll show you, big. Now if I say my cat should be thin, that is not an indicative. That’s an imperative. There’s a great difference. The gospel message is an indicative. It is a statement of what is. Machen says this, and because of Machen’s insistence on the indicative he was kicked out of the Presbyterian Church. Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative. It is a religion founded not on aspirations, but on facts. Here is the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity, and we could call it neo-orthodoxy, we could call it new age, we could call it all, I don’t even know what to call parts of evangelicalism anymore because they’re so gray. But here’s the difference. He says, liberalism is altogether in the imperative, meaning it exhorts you while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative. The liberal preacher offers us exhortation. The Christian evangelist offers us a gospel. A gospel, the word gospel means good news. The good news is based on fact. Listen, this is not good news. Be better. That’s not good news. Now, when I was a non-Christian, that’s what I thought the gospel was. I thought the gospel was be better. Don’t have long hair. Don’t smoke dope. I smoke dope. Don’t have your, don’t dress like a weirdo. I dress like a weirdo. That’s what I thought the gospel. I thought the gospel was change on the outside. I thought the gospel was be weird like those conservative Christians. I thought the gospel was go to church. That’s not the gospel. Those are exhortations. Those are not indicatives. True Christianity, true Bible Christianity, rests on concrete historical events. The death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as they are told to us by eyewitnesses. The Gospel, therefore, is the grand indicative. It is rooted in historical fact. The gospel is not an exhortation to people to change the way they are. It is an offer to people that God can change them because of what He did in space-time history. We can look at many passages. We don’t have time, but let’s just look at a couple. Look at the gospel of John. We’ll come back to Corinthians in a moment.
Statements of What Is True
Look at the gospel of John, chapter 1. This is one of the most full, rich, and we could even say pregnant chapters in the Bible. In John 1.1, here’s what John says. Y’all there? Say yes. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. That’s the indicative.
Statement of fact. That’s what’s being asserted that this person called the word was with God and truly was God. And then notice verse 14 after it says that the same word has eternal life in him and the same word brought all things into being, meaning he was the Creator. Look at verse 14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. That’s all the indicative. These are statements of historical fact. They are not exhortations, they are not wishes, they’re not aspirations, they are not hopes, they are statements of bald fact. This is the tenor of the entire New Testament. The gospel is a statement of what is true, not what we hope might be.
You hear me? Very important. When I get to the punch line, it’s going to be very important. First Timothy chapter 1, we’re just going to look at a few scriptures. We’ll come back to Corinthians. First Timothy, it’s right before Second Timothy. Did that help? Nope. But the T’s are in alphabetical order. Does that help? Here’s what Paul says in First Timothy. He says, verse 15. 1:15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. A statement of fact, an indicative. I hope Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I wish Jesus came. I think Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And then Paul says he was the chief. Well, and he goes on to say if Christ, Paul says, if Christ can save me, then he can save anybody. Because he was a murderer and a blasphemer. He killed people. God saved him. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 — I love this, this is so rich. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, Paul says therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. This is an indicative, folks. This is a statement of fact. If someone is in Christ, their relation to God has been totally altered. Before they were in Christ, they were not related [audio unclear] to Christ. Sonship, glory, inheritance, redemption, forgiveness, all the blessings that God gives us, He gives us in Christ Jesus. Read Ephesians 1. In Him, in Him, in Him, in Him. Everything we have is in Him. And if we are in Him, all things are new because our relationship to God is completely transformed. I stand before God accepted in the beloved. I am a child of God, beloved in his eyes, justified, forgiven, washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. Amen. And that’s true. It’s an indicative. It’s true. Verse 18, now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. That is an imperative. When he says be reconciled, he’s pleading. Or he’s commanding, he’s exhorting. It’s imperative. Some of them weren’t reconciled. So it was not a fact in their case that all things were new because they had not been reconciled. But everything else about this text is in the indicative. And verse 21, for he, meaning God, made him, meaning Christ, who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That is a fact. That’s an indicative. If we are in Christ, Christ has taken all of our sin, Christ has given to us all of His righteousness, and so we stand in Him before God, forgiven and justified. Someone say, hallelujah. Hallelujah. That’s a fact. If you believe, that is a fact. Now, go to… Go to… No, no, no, no, we won’t go there. there. Acts 2. I don’t know, you have to get your brunch? This
Faith Based on the Facts
The first Christian sermon, if you will, the first time that Peter preached: [audio unclear] wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst as you yourselves also know him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God you have taken by lawless hands have crucified and put to death whom God raised up having loosed the pains having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it when you read through the preaching in the book of Acts the good news, the gospel is a declaration of what God has done in, through, and by Jesus Christ — in, through, and by His death, his burial, and resurrection. And often in Acts especially the early chapters when Peter preaches, he appeals to these men and and says, you know. Why? Because many of them knew Jesus before his death and resurrection. Many of them saw the miracles that Jesus did. So he says, you know. The historical facts are before you. You have even seen some of the things that I am declaring to you. Christianity, Bible Christianity, is not an ethereal, spiritual aspiration for some cosmic connection with the creative spirit up there in the sky. That just ain’t it. It’s not gray. It is not gray at all. We do not believe apart from the facts, [audio unclear] nor do we believe contrary to the facts. Rather, biblical Christianity asserts that we believe based upon the facts. Or should I say we are to believe in response to the facts.
So there’s no antithesis, no contradiction between faith and facts. We put our faith in the facts. They’re based on the facts. Modern thought has degenerated from moral relativism which is there’s no right or wrong, to postmodernism, which is there’s no truth or error, to nihilism, which is nothing really matters. There’s no meaning, there’s no purpose. Christianity, however, by asserting that the gospel is based on historical fact, is asserting that the gospel is true. True.
Of Infinite Importance
Now, we need to pause for a moment and think about what we mean when we say the gospel is true. Because I think often, even in our churches where we believe it’s true, we say things which imply that the truth of the gospel isn’t as important as whether or not the gospel is helpful. When the Bible speaks truth, it doesn’t only mean truth versus error, it means truth as opposed to what is helpful or beneficial or enjoyable or exciting or any other adjective we could come up with. Our business in presenting the faith is to keep before the audience’s mind the question of truth.
Well, he says this, he says, they always think that you are recommending Christianity not because it is true, but because it is good. You have to keep coming back again and again to the real point. One must keep on pointing out that Christianity, and I would say the gospel, is a statement which, if false, is of no importance. And if true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important. Think about it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shared the gospel with people and they say things like, well I’m glad that works for you. As if I’m commending it because it works. Because they are by habit pragmatists. If something works, hey, if Hinduism works for you, cool, do it. Christianity works for you, great. If Islam works for you, fine. So we’re all in this gray thing, this pluralistic gray thing, where we are to tolerance means affirming that everyone is equally right. If the gospel isn’t true, then Paul says our faith is in vain, and he goes even so far as to say we are of all men most miserable. If I didn’t believe the gospel were true, I would have nothing to do with Christianity. I mean nothing. Do you understand what I mean by nothing? Nothing. Now, I wouldn’t be a lukewarm Christian. I wouldn’t be a Christian at all. I might even be anti-Christian. But this idea of a moderate lukewarm thing is contrary to the assertion that the resurrection of Jesus is literally true. Because if it’s true, it is of infinite importance. And if it’s not true, it’s of no importance. So the question for all of us is, is it true or not?
Read the Witnesses
Do we believe it’s true or not? Now someone might say, well, okay, I get the grammar lesson today, but the problem is an indicative is just an assertion. You haven’t proven it’s true. You’re right. The only thing I can say at this point, because we don’t have time is that I would challenge you, if you’re a skeptic, to read the New Testament candidly, slowly, thoughtfully, and candidly. And as you read it, think, because this is what we do not do anymore. We read, but we do not think.
And I was converted, if you will. I don’t like that word because it implies the change of religion when I was actually a skeptic and became a Christian. My conversion was the result of the fact that I actually took up the challenge to read the Gospels and I read them and I read them over and over and over and the more that I read them the more I was convinced that Jesus truly was the Son of God he truly died he truly rose from the dead and He truly was the way, the truth, and the life. Many people who reject the gospel message, many people who will say to you, they’ll come up and they go, well, you know, the Bible’s got contradictions, and I’m like, I handed my Bible, say, can you show me one? Oh, no. Oh, so how do you know that? From your many years of studying the Bible? Well, no, it’s just one of those hand me down objections, right, that people have. The more that you read and study the scripture, I believe the more you’re convinced that it’s true. What we have in the New Testament is witnesses to historical facts. And as you read through Acts and through the Epistles, and you see the witness to the resurrection of Jesus, you realize you’re dealing with eyewitness accounts, and they’re very, very believable, if you will. We don’t have time to read through them all, but there are many, many, many, many. But we have not only the witness of the writers, we have the witness of Jesus himself. Jesus said, and this is why I believe all the Bible is true, because Jesus said so. Jesus said he would be persecuted, or he would suffer, he would be buried, he would die, and he would rise again. and he said it repeatedly to his disciples. And then it happened. It literally happened. It historically happened. Jesus gave witness before he died, and before he rose, that these things would indeed happen, and then he literally rose as he said they would. You know, another thing we tend to do today we tend to… I see this in many quasi… I don’t even know what to call them anymore, but these kind of quasi-Christian things that go on. They want to somehow honor Jesus, but they want to reject what he taught. I mean, they’re really in a predicament. But so often they’ll use terminology and fill it with their own kind of new age and stuff, and just a conglomeration of various religious beliefs kind of stuffed in there. But the thing is, we can’t say we believe in Jesus, or I’m a follower of Jesus, or I’m a Christian, the word Christian doesn’t mean I’m good. That’s not what Christian means. Christian means I’m a follower of Christ. I’m a disciple of this man known as Jesus Christ. Well, if you’re his disciple, what does the disciple do? He’s a learner. He’s a follower. So if I’m a disciple of Jesus, then I’m supposed to believe what he taught. Like that sounds elementary, but I’m telling you, a lot of people say I’m a Christian, but then if you ask them, do they believe this and this, they say no, yet Jesus taught it. The thing is if we reject the teaching of Jesus, we’re really rejecting Jesus. Because the two go together. Yet some people insist on rejecting his teaching while simultaneously approving of him as a prophet, a teacher, a man of God of some kind, spiritual guru.
Liar, Lunatic, or Lord
And again, to quote Lewis, and I’ll close in a moment. Lewis says this is a great quote you’ve probably heard before from me, if not other people. He says, I’m trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him, meaning about Jesus. Quote, I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is, and then Lewis says, that is the one thing we must not say. A man who is 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 of 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 he’s a madman 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. Let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us and he did not intend to. And that is the snare of liberalism in all of its forms, is that it wants to do homage to Jesus, but it is not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible said, I will suffer, I will be buried, I will be crucified, I will rise from the dead. I am the way, the truth, the life, no man comes to the Father but by me. The Jesus of the Bible said that I and the Father are one. The Jesus of the Bible declared that before Abraham existed, he was. The Jesus of the Bible said that He is and was God in the flesh. Astounding. So he really is or he’s really crazy. But those are really our options. And the last witness we have to the grand indicative is the Holy Spirit. And I’d love to spend time reading John 14, 15, and 16, that we don’t have time, but I encourage you to read it. And ponder that Jesus promised that after he died and was resurrected and then ascended into heaven, He would send another Paraclete, another Comforter, another teacher, another counselor, and that that Spirit would teach us truth. So that we would have the testimony inside of us, the inward witness of the truth of the gospel. Let me say this, if you are not a Christian, if you’re a doubter still, I can say this on the full authority of God’s Word, that if you want to know the truth, you can know it.
If you want to know, if Jesus Christ is really who he said he was, if you really want to know, you can know. No one who truly seeks God sincerely fails to find him. Or let me put it in the positive form, everyone who seeks God truly finds him. But the key word is truly. It must be a search in sincerity and truth. Not a search for a God that we want. Not a search for a God that will fit our current lifestyle. I remember sharing the Gospel with someone years ago. I said nothing about morality. I said nothing about sexual morality. And I’m just talking about Jesus. And she interrupts me and says, so what you’re saying is that I can’t live with my boyfriend. I never said any such thing. But you see, she understood. She understood the implication. Now some people seek God and all of a sudden God approves of living together, and God approves of this, and God approves of that, because their search is not in sincerity. Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories. That’s why the first and Second Commandment ought to be pondered regularly. I am the Lord your God and there is no other. You shall not make false images because that is what our heart wants to do
A Society That Wants Less of God
Final reflection. Have you ever noticed how callous our society is? And I was thinking about, if you read books from like previous times, it seems like in different periods of history, there was a more sense of God, even in not just our culture, other cultures. Go to Europe and look at all the cathedrals. I mean, there was a sense, and maybe it wasn’t an evangelical faith as we think of it, but there was a sense of reverence, if you will, that existed in the culture. That, of course, is gone in our culture. And to a great degree, our culture is godless. But I think one of the reasons is, is because we want less of God. You know, God doesn’t cease to exist if we don’t believe. Jesus isn’t on the throne if you say he’s not on the throne. You can say Jesus is not Lord. He’s still Lord. A fact is a fact is a fact. Whether we believe it or not. We might even hate the fact, it’s still a fact. But God withdraws himself from people that don’t want to know him. It’s true. And when the collective message of our society is, God, we don’t need you because we’ve got iPhones, God says, okay, try that for a while. Let’s try that for a couple of generations and see how you’re doing. Well, how are we doing? Bad. It’s really bad. Marriages are bad, public health is bad, education is bad, it’s bad, bad, bad, economy is bad, it’s bad.
My old pastor used to say God’s a gentleman. He knocks on the door, says, if you let me in, I’ll come in, I’ll fellowship with you, I’ll sup with you. But you’ve got to open the door. And that’s true collectively, and that’s true individually. Ironically, the Lord is everywhere present, always present. But the manifestation of his presence is withdrawn if we don’t want it. And when we say to God, I don’t need you, he says, okay, fine. Have fun with that. But when we acknowledge our need and we say, God, I want to know you, God, I need to know you. I desire to know you. Well then you can know him. And then you can know him in a very rich and deep and powerful way, a way that literally transforms your life.
Literally.
The Power of His Resurrection
One more verse I’m going to close. I know I’ve kind of rambled. I didn’t follow my notes too well. In Philippians 3 Paul says this, he says, but what things, oh, 3-7, I’m sorry, but what things were gained to me, his status in the religious community amongst his fellow Jews, I mean he had quite a pedigree, he describes his pedigree here, but he counted these things lost for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things lost for Christ, meaning for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and I count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
You know, when you have a cup and it’s full, you can’t put anything in it. But when you pour it out, and it’s empty, now you can be filled, right? Paul said, I counted all things out, so he poured out all of his earthly comforts and statuses. He poured all those out so that he could be filled with Christ. But our lives are so full of stuff, human comforts, human this, human that, everything.
We get along fine without God. Who needs God when you’ve got an iPad, man? You’ve got Google. Look it up. But Paul says all of these things are rubbish compared to Jesus. And if you know Jesus, you know this is true. Because if you’ve ever spent time with Jesus, and I don’t mean that thing called quiet time. I mean that thing we call the loud time, when he’s real to you. When he grants you the blessing of his manifest presence. When you experience the reality of his resurrection, because he is alive.
Then you say, ah, what is that comfort? What is that benefit compared to this? And be found in him not having my own righteousness, which is through the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings be conformed to his death. Oh, Jesus, my friends, is alive. And I know you know that, but we need to know that we know that. And we need to remind ourselves, as Paul said to Timothy, Paul’s very last letter, and this really astounds me, his very last letter he says to Timothy, Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Remember, do you think Timothy really forgot? No, really. Do you think he forgot? In another sense, he could have forgotten. Most of you came here and said, hey, I didn’t forget that Jesus rose from the dead. I’m with you now. I believe. And so I said, well then why were you defeated all week? Then why are you in bondage to sin? Why are you looking at pornography? [audio unclear] Victory must be appropriated by faith. And if you’re not experiencing the victory that Jesus promised, then, go to Jesus and get it. That’s all I can say. Go to Jesus and get the victory. Because if the gospel is true, it is of infinite importance, but if it’s not true, it’s not important at all. The world doesn’t need to see us fail. The world doesn’t need to see Christians who are not living any differently than the world. They need to see Christians who are living in the power of the resurrection. And the glory of the Gospel is that is a real possibility for every true child of God.
Because being in Christ, the Word says that we were made alive with Him, we were seated with Him, we have ascended with Him, we are in Him. His victory becomes ours. You can have the victorious Christian life because Jesus conquered the grave, amen? Let’s stand, Lord, we thank You for what You have done. I pray, Lord, that You would continue to remind us, remind us tomorrow when the children are fighting. Remind us tomorrow when our boss is being unreasonable. Remind us tomorrow when somebody crosses us. Remind us all throughout the day, every day, that we can walk in victory in Jesus because Jesus has conquered sin and death and the grave, and Satan, and He is the Lord. And because I’ve been born again, I am united in Jesus Christ and he shares his victory with me. Thank you, Lord, for the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We pray in His name, amen.