BONUS： What the Resurrection Means for All of Us
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Summary
Happy Easter! In this episode, Pastor Ken encourages us to remember that we are all equally dead in our sins apart from Christ. We are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, not because of anything we did, but because of what He did for us.
Transcript
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Okay guys, happy Easter weekend. I wanted to just give you a little bonus episode to wish you happy
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Easter and to do the only fitting thing before Easter Sunday and that is talk about the wonder
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and the beauty and the great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I thought the best way to do
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that was to read you some scripture. So whether you are a seasoned believer or whether you're
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still trying to figure out if this whole God thing is real or maybe you're a new believer
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and you're still trying to understand, okay, how do I express what the gospel is? What exactly is
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Easter celebrating? I hope that this encourages and edifies you. So let me read you a little bit
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of Romans 5. We'll start with verse 1. This is really the gospel. Therefore, since we have been
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justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also
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obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of
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God. And then I'll fast forward a little bit to verse 6. For while we were still weak, at the right
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time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps
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for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still
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sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more
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shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to
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God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
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More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
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reconciliation. So we are reconciled as an unholy, sinful people to a holy, perfect God. We had to
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be restored. We had to be renewed. We had to be redeemed in order to be granted access to this
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perfect, holy God of the universe. We are sinful. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of
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God. Whether you have the most egregious sins in your past or whether you think that your sins are
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just small and petty. You've stolen a pen or you've told a lie or you've gossiped or you've judged
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someone hypocritically. Whatever is in your past, no matter how bad you think that you are or how good
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you think that you are, the fact of the matter is, is that as Ephesians 2 says, we are all equally
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dead in our sins apart from Christ. If you think about a dead person, a dead person can't help
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themselves. They can't do anything. They can't save themselves. They can't make themselves better or
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fix themselves up so they look more presentable. They are completely and totally helpless. And that
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is how Ephesians 2 paints us, that we are dead in our sins. This Romans 5 passage says that we are
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enemies of God. So we were in a really bad place, all of us, no matter our background, doesn't matter our
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race or our sex or our socioeconomic background, or like I said, our sin history. We were all equally
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dead in sin apart from God. We were enemies of God. We were hostile to God. We were under the reign of
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Satan and we had to be saved. And how were we saved? Again, going to Ephesians 2 specifically verses 8
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through 10. We were saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ. He made us alive together.
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In Christ. He made us new. He gave us new hearts. He made us new creations. He gave us his righteousness.
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He gave us his holiness. He forgave us of our sins and he made us acceptable before God. Not because of
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anything that we have done, but as a gift, he gave us this salvation and redemption and reconciliation.
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So we have a hope of salvation. We get to now go from being enemies of God to friends with God.
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We get to be fellow heirs with Christ of God's inheritance. We get to look forward to the hope
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of heaven after death. But not only that, we are free from the chains and the shackles and the slavery to
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sin. So not only do we have something to look forward to in the next life, but we also have
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liberation from the burden of sin that holds us down today. We find joy and we find freedom. We
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find a lightness. We find a satisfaction and fulfillment in the repentance from sin and in
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obedience to God. Jesus' burden is light and his yoke is easy, whereas the burden of sin is really heavy.
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The yoke of the devil is really difficult. And so Jesus gives us freedom, not just in the next life,
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but also in this life. So that's what Jesus' death accomplishes, but that's also what Jesus'
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resurrection accomplishes. That's what sets Jesus apart. A lot of people who claimed that they were
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special or claimed that they were maybe some kind of Messiah or some kind of prophet died.
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In fact, they all died. Only one of them rose again. According to the testimony,
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of multiple eyewitnesses. And so I want to read you from Luke 24, what happened when Jesus was raised
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from the dead three days after he died on a cross for our sins, becoming our sacrifice to reconcile us
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to God, taking on our punishment, our sins that we might be forgiven and made acceptable before God.
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So let me read you about, let me, let me read to you about the resurrection. Luke 24, verse one,
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But on the first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had
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prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And when they went in, they did not find
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the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by
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them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to
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them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? Meaning Jesus. He is not here, but has risen.
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Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered
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into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. And they remembered
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his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
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Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them
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who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not
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believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen
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cloths by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened. And we could
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keep going there, who Jesus spoke to after he rose from the dead, and the entire story of the
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resurrection. But I highly encourage you, if you have or if you haven't read Luke 24, the account of
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the resurrection, to go do that today and tomorrow. Maybe gather your family around. If you've never
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done that before, maybe it feels a little bit awkward. That's okay. It's not you speaking.
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It's the Word of God working. And it's the Holy Spirit working. And He cannot fail. It doesn't
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matter if you're a bad reader. It doesn't matter if you've never read the Bible out loud. It doesn't
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matter if you've never said a prayer with your family. You can pull this passage up on your phone,
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and you can read it with those who are around you. I promise it will only be an encouraging and Holy
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Spirit-filled experience. And it will glorify God. That is what the resurrection accomplishes for us,
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that it is the defeat of death, is victory over sin and darkness. Just as our sinful selves have died,
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as Christ has died, so our new selves, our renewed selves that we were given by grace through faith,
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have also defeated spiritual death forever in Jesus's resurrection. And so that's our hope, is that yes,
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death, physical death, unfortunately, sadly, still happens. But we have faith, and we have hope,
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and the ultimate victory over death. That death doesn't have the same consequence, the same impact,
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the same sting for the Christian, because our God defeated it. And He has given us that hope in the power
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and the reality of His resurrection. That's a bold claim. It's a bold claim that the God that we serve
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came as a man, fully man, fully God, that He died on a cross for our sins, and that He was
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raised to life three days later. And in that, we get salvation that we never even earned, but it's just
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given to us as a gift. It's a bold claim, and that is Christianity. Christianity has always been
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controversial. It has always been countercultural. It has always been scandalous. It has always been
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radical. It has always been the center of scorn for people who don't believe the gospel. So let us not
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be surprised by the adversarial and even hostile culture when it comes to contending for our faith.
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It's always been that way. Let us rejoice in our sufferings. Let us rejoice in any persecution
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experienced here or abroad by Christians. Let us remember that it's worth it, that the gospel
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is worth speaking up about, is worth defending, is worth rejoicing over with all the crazy stuff going on
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in the world today. Let us take time to rest with our family, to truly celebrate the resurrection of
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Jesus Christ, and to remember the eternal truth that God came to save us, and that He is in total
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control, and that He has already claimed victory over darkness. And even as it seems like darkness is
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winning, we know that God wins. So thank you so much for listening to this. We will be back here on Monday.