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“Who Do You Say That I Am?” • 4.1.18 • Calvary Christian
Fellowship, Good Friday Service
Intro
- Of all the
days on the yearly calendar, this one stands as the peak of Christian belief.
It is the day when the church proclaims the truth of the events related to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ!
- This day
reminds us that we as Christians have an historical basis for what we believe
and that the Man that claimed to be God in the flesh, can be trusted for
salvation.
- Today, you
and I commemorate and celebrate a victory that the world doesn't understand,
but that will once again, be forced to comtemplate.
- This
afternoon, evening and week, you will be surrounded by family and friends that
may be skeptical or perhaps, downright hostile toward the gospel.
- When you
report that you came to church to worship the risen Christ, there may be a look
that invites further discussion and if there is, I pray that this might help
you declare the truth.
- This morning,
I want to furnish you with three undeniable facts regarding the resurrection of
Christ, in hopes that you might employ them in discussion over the next few
days.
- The first
fact is that the Resurrection Was A
Predicted Event. Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 16. While you turn there, allow me to review the context
for us.
- Jesus and His
disciples have come to a place in the north of Israe called Caesarea Philippi.
Jesus poses a question to His disciples that all men must eventually answer.
- "Who do
you say that I am?" Peter, speaking by divine wisdom given to him, spoke
up replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" Jesus,
You are God's Messiah!
- With that
established in the minds of the disciples, the Lord began to disclose some
pertinent knowledge to His disciples that He hadn't previously shared.
Text
• Matthew 16:21 : "From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must
go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day." : The Bible records Jesus explicitly speaking
of His impending death and names the ones who will be responsible for it.
- He does not
leave out the stunning fact of His resurrection from the dead on the third day!
Curiously however, One chapter later and we find Him needing to repeat Himself.
• Matthew 17:22,23 : "Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus
said to them, 'The
Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and
the third day He will be raised up.' And they were exceedingly sorrowful." : He is not being cryptic. He tells them
plainly that He will be betrayed. Again, He will die and be raised up. You'd
think that this would amaze and encourage the disciples. It didn't.
- They did not
understand what was being said. All that they could wrap their mind around was
the pain of losing Christ to death! They seemed to miss the news of the
resurrection altogether!
- We see the
third and final time just a few pages to the right.
• Matthew 20:17-19 : "Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the
twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the
scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the
Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise
again.'" : This is how He is
to die: The religious leaders of Israel are going to deliver Him to the
Gentiles.
- He will be
mocked, scourged and crucified. Generally, you were scourged or crucified.
Jesus was going to receive both, a signal to the wrath that God held toward our
sin.
- Now, for the
third time, the disciples are hearing of His resurrection! With the skeptical
world, Jesus was less clear. He made allusions to His resurrection.
- For example,
when Jesus created a whip and cleansed the temple, He was fulfilling Psalm 69:9, a Messianic scripture!
- Understanding
that He was claiming to be the Messiah, they asked Him to furnish proof, a
token or miracle that would prove the legitimacy of His claim. (John 2:18)
- Jesus looks
at them and gives them the one sign that will prove His claims conclusively,
saying, "Destroy this temple and in
three days I will raise it up!" (John
2:19)
- Of course,
the more famous prediction given to the Pharisees is found in Matthew 12.
- The religious
leaders were running out of ways to discount, yet explain the ministry of
Christ without endorsing Him as Messiah.
- They had, at
that time, come to associate His work with Beelzebub, the Devil!
- Jesus
logically refutes their ludicrous assertion: "Why would the Devil cast
himself out?!" They can't believe He is their Messiah, so again, they seek
a sign. Jesus has one for them!
• Matthew 12:39-42 : "But He answered and said to them, 'An evil and adulterous
generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign
of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights
in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth."
: The generation that gazed upon Christ should have been able to discern who He
was, but they were bent by their own prejudice.
-
There was only one miracle that would be offered, which came from the
historical life of the Prophet Jonah, who spent three days in the belly of the
great fish.
-
Jesus believed in the literal historical event and also in what the event
pointed to. Like Jonah, Jesus Christ would spend three days, not in the belly
of a great fish, but in the heart of the earth.
-
Where Jonah was as good as dead, Jesus had been completely dead! The Lord let's
us know that this pointed prophetically to His own experience!
-
Indeed, all of scripture, the volume of the book, is written about Jesus
Christ! This is what the Lord spends His time telling His downtrodden disciples
on the day of His resurrection.
-
Turn with me to Luke 24. This
chapter records the famous "Emmaus Road" encounter. The unnamed disciples
are caught by Jesus in a state of shock and unbelief.
-
Jesus takes this time to correct their thinking and open their blind eyes
opening their eyes to their own scripture!
•
Luke 24:25-27 : "Then He said to them, 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe
in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not
the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?' And beginning at Moses and all the
Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself." : What an amazing time this must
have been! You guys are bummed out over an hour sermon on one section of
scripture. Jesus did a "whole" Bible study!
-
Jesus rebukes the disciples for their slow hearts! They knew the scriptures,
but they were slow to believe! The scriptures that they grew up reading pointed
to this very reality!
-
The story of God's call to sacrifice of Isaac is a good example. We recently
studied that Abraham considered Isaac dead for three days as they journeyed to
Calvary! (Hebrews 11:19)
-
That is a story written in the book of Moses. What about the prophets?
Certainly, we have Jonah's account, but let me give you one more which was
written by David.
•
Psalm 16:9-11 : "Therefore my heart is glad, and my
glory rejoices; My
flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not
leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your
Holy One to see corruption. You will show me
the path of life; In Your presence is fullness
of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures
forevermore." : The resurrection was a
predicted event, predetermined by God to reveal His choice of Messiah!
-
If Jesus did not resurrect from the dead, He would have no claim to be the
Messiah, to be God incarnate, to be worthy of worship and certainly would have
no claim to our hearts!
-
With all of this scriptural precedent, it's a wonder that the disciples who had
the best vantage point missed it! When they heard about the resurrection, it's
likely that they "spiritualized" it.
-
This brings me to my second point: The
Resurrection Was A Physical Event. Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 27. Look who believed in the
physical aspect of what Jesus was teaching.
•
Matthew 27:62-66 : "On the next day, which followed the
Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to
Pilate, saying, 'Sir,
we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be
made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and
steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the
last deception will be worse than the first.' Pilate said to them, 'You have a
guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.' So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone
and setting the guard." : The disciples should have
been at the tomb and were not. Who was actually there? The skeptics, the
religious leaders, were the ones that kept a watch over the tomb!
-
They knew where it was and they dispatched their own detachment of Roman guards
to stand watch over the tomb "until the third day!"
-
The religious leaders expected a physical resurrection! A spiritual
resurrection would not have caused the religious leaders any concern nor left
the guards in a near catatonic state!
-
That is what happened on the morning of the resurrection! These guards shook
for fear and became like dead men when the angel came to roll away the stone
that they were to protect!
-
From there, we see numerous accounts of Christ being seen in various locales. The
gospels mention over a half dozen people and their seeing wasn't merely a
visible phenomena.
-
Mary Magdalene, a woman who had been vexed with seven demons before Christ met
her, was the first person to witness to the Lord's resurrection. She saw Him
and was able to cling to Him.
-
He had mass! He had a body! Certainly, it was enough of a human looking body to
recognize, but it wasn't exactly the same as our human bodies.
-
John 20:19 records the dinner that
the disciples were having on that Resurrection Sunday. - They assumed that the chief priests would be looking for them
soon, so they gathered in a locked room. They are gathered there together when
Jesus simply appears among them!
-
He says "Peace be with you." According to Luke's account, they were
reasoning in their hearts that they were looking at a spirit! Our Lord's reply
is found in Luke 24.
•
Luke 24:28-32 : "And He said to them, 'Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise
in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I
Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you
see I have.' When
He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not
believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, 'Have you any food here?' So they gave Him a piece of a
broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their
presence." : He partook of food! Notice, He had
to have some honey! I love it! These sightings were not short lived glimpses
that can be discounted easily.
-
According to Acts 1:3, Jesus
presented Himself to the disciples repeatedly over a 40 day period of time,
with many infallible proofs. In other words, He kept demonstrating His new
body!
-
And this wasn't something that was shared by the disiciples alone. Paul tells
us that he was seen by over 500 brethren at one time, most of whom could be
questioned! (I Corinthians 15:6)
-
If I were to rank my favorite scene though, it would have to be Thomas, the
Doubter.
-
He was not with the disciples when Jesus ate this food. He kept hearing from
everyone about it, but he had not experienced it.
-
At one point, Thomas stood up in front of the disciples and proclaimed that he
needed a specific test to believe it. John
20 records the scene for us.
•
John 20:25b-29 : "So he said to them, 'Unless I see
in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the
nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.' And after eight days His disciples
were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and
stood in the midst, and said, 'Peace to you!' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your
hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.' And Thomas answered and said to
Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" : Jesus,
in wonderful condescending grace, met Thomas right where He was. He graciously
invited him to do what he proposed!
-
Can you imagine what that moment must have been like for Thomas? The issue for
the Lord was that He wanted Thomas not to be unbelieving, but to believe!
-
And when Thomas physically put his hand into the wounds of the Messiah, he
proclaimed that Jesus was His Lord and God! That is the point of the
resurrection!
-
Yet, as I close this section, the religious leaders armed with the knowledge of
Christ's resurrection refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ.
-
Here, Thomas is given the grace to believe. Christ is the Lord and He is God
whether you acknowledge that truth or not! It's far better to acknowledge it
now! Why do I say that?
-
It leads me to our final point. The
Resurrection was a predicted event. The
Resurrection was a physical event. Finally, the Resurrection was a premiere event!
-
Please turn in your Bibles to I
Corinthians 15. When we use the word "premiere," we are referring
to the first performance of a given act or play.
-
In this case, Christ's resurrection is the first of a new type of life. This is
Paul's meaning when he explains the significance beginning in verse 20.
•
I Corinthians 15:20-23 : "But now
Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have
fallen asleep. For
since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ
all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward
those who are Christ’s at His coming." : Paul
makes reference to the Jewish feast of firstfruits, which just happened to
coincide with the same day that Jesus rose!
-
It was an agricultural offering that the people brought to the Lord. Being
early in the season, it was the first of the crops to come up and could have
been the last!
-
Their faith however, was that God would bring more to sustain them. This act
then, was a symbolic gesture in which the believing farmer put his trust in God
to provide more of the same.
-
What is Paul saying? There have been many that have been brought back from
death in the scripture. The Shunnamite woman's son in II Kings 4 was revived from death.
-
A Syrian soldier was dumped into a hole near the bones of Elisha and he was
raised from the dead in II Kings 13:21.
-
Jesus raised the 12 year old daughter of Jairus in Mark 15:41 and 42. He
also raised His friend Lazarus after a four day stint with death in John 11.
-
These would have been the accounts of the resurrection before Jesus did what He
did. In essence, Christ redefined the word, making what came before
resuscitation!
-
When Jesus rose, He did something that nobody else ever did before: He stayed
alive, never to succumb to death again! That is the kind of life that He has
made for all who believe upon Him!
-
The resurrection is what explains the life that every believer lives!
-
It explains why, like Paul, we will "fight beasts in Ephesus" (v.32), and be torn between living here
for the sake of others and going home to be with the Lord. (Philippians 1:23)
-
The resurrection causes us to re-evaluate everything that we once held dear and
to look at it as loss and dung for the sake of Christ! (Philippians 3:7,8)
-
It is why we refuse to soil our conscience before God, knowing that there will
be a resurrection of the just and the unjust! (Acts 24:15,16)
-
Jesus is the firstfruits from which all will be made alive and the forerunner
leading us into the very presence of Almighty God! (Hebrews 6:19,20)
Conclusion
- Tell your friends that the resurrection was predicted by the scriptures a thousand years in advance, but Jesus several months in advance!
- Tell your friends that the resurrection was predicted by the scriptures a thousand years in advance, but Jesus several months in advance!
-
God's Messiah had to suffer for His people's sin, but could not provide their
salvation unless He rose again! Jesus alone can make the claim that He is
worthy of our trust.
-
Tell your friends that the resurrection was a physical event, witnessed by more
people than was legally necessary to establish a truth!
-
Jesus took a tour to convince His own brothers and sisters, meeting them where
their faith could go no further, allowing them to touch Him, to know that He
was alive!
-
Finally, tell your friends that the resurrection was a premiere event which
explains your life and choices, knowing that you will one day, you will be
rewarded for a faithful life.
-
In fact, you will want to tell them that they will also be resurrected and will
have to answer the one question that matters: "Who do you say I am?"
-
Is He the Christ, the Son of the Living God? Better yet, is He Your Lord and
God? He rose to force us all to answer that and I pray your family and friends
will answer well!
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