Sure we all appreciate that immensely.
Jesus paid it all.
The one who knows the worst about us
and loves us just the same.
There's only one who loves like that and
Jesus is his name.
Jesus is the sweetest name I know and
he's just the same as his holy name.
And that's the reason why we love him
so.
Incorrigibly happy, utterly unafraid, nearly always in trouble.
Men who knew what they believed believed what
they knew and acted on the assumption that
it was true and let God prove it.
And he did.
They were sent and went.
And as those who were sent and went,
they were put.
And knowing who sent them, they knew who
put them.
And as it was God who sent and
God who put, nothing could frighten them.
The early church.
Those who had discovered what it really meant
to be a Christian.
To be added to the Lord.
To share his life on earth.
As that humanity with which the Lord Jesus
would clothe his divine activity and continue to
do and continue to preach and teach the
things that once he began to do, teach
and preach.
In that body the father first gave him
born at Bethlehem.
This, the new body.
The second body.
The church which is his body.
That fellowship of forgiven sinners out of every
nation, kindred, tribe and tongue whose names are
recorded in the Lamb's book of life.
So we'll turn back to the fifth chapter
of the book of the Acts.
Acts and chapter 5.
Releasing them from jail, said the angel to
the apostles, go stand speak in the temple
to the people all the words of this
life.
That beautiful description that we discussed last evening
given by the angel there to the message
that God had entrusted them to proclaim.
All the words of this life.
That any boy, girl, man or woman who
in true repentance toward God, recognizing their deep
need would turn in faith to Christ.
Recognizing the absolute right that he had to
reinvade their humanity and establish his sovereignty in
every area of their being.
Body, soul, spirit, mind, emotion and will to
come under his total jurisdiction as those who
added to the Lord to become members in
particular of that corporate body the Father God
had given his Son on earth.
This was the message.
Life.
This life.
Not just the life to come.
That life that is to be yours and
mine by virtue of the fact that he
risen from the dead comes by his Holy
Spirit to reinvade our humanity and in life
abolish death and bring that life and immortality
to light.
But what we do and say and are
so that it becomes demonstrably obvious to the
world in which we live who it is
that is in residence and who it is
that reigns.
But what we do say and are representing
his mind, his will, his purpose.
That was the message entrusted to them.
Not simply that our Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world as indeed he did through
the shedding of his own precious blood to
reconcile us to a holy God so that
we knowing that our sins are forgiven.
He God for his dear sake who took
our place saying without doing violence to his
own righteousness I will remember your sins no
more.
No more.
Not just that.
Magnificent as that indeed is and for which
we cannot but be profoundly thankful.
But that isn't really why the Father God
sent his Son into this world but supremely
to get God back out of heaven into
men.
Because that's what it takes to be a
man.
He made us that way.
That's why it takes Christ, not his teachings,
not his example, himself to be a Christian.
Because Christ in the Christian puts God back
into the man.
All the words of this life.
Paul puts it magnificently in the last the
fifth chapter of his first epistle to the
Thessalonians where he says God hasn't appointed us
to judgment he's appointed us to obtain salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
But then he goes on in the tenth
verse of that fifth chapter to make absolutely
certain that those to whom he addresses himself
don't take a narrow emaciated view of what
it means to be saved.
Not a change of destination.
God hasn't appointed us to judgment but to
obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who
died for us.
There's the redemptive act.
But who died for us, he continues, that
whether we wake or sleep, whether we're physically
alive or dead, whether we're still on earth
or already in heaven, whether it's in time
or eternity, whether it's here or now or
been.
Totally irrelevant.
He died for us that whether we wake
or sleep we shall live together with him.
That's salvation.
Living together with Christ.
God back in the man.
The creator within the creature who so engineered
us that the presence of the creator within
the creatures indispensable to our humanity.
So that man in normality is to be
distinguished from the animal kingdom only by a
quality of life and behavior that cannot possibly
be explained apart from the creator within the
creature.
God in the man.
Living together with Christ.
Eternal life isn't a place.
It isn't a destination.
It isn't just a geographical location.
Eternal life is a person.
Said the Lord Jesus, I am the way,
the truth and the life.
I'm the truth about how the way, the
way how to become a Christian but essentially
I'm the truth how to be the Christian
you become.
I'm the one who gives you what it
takes.
That's why we need not only what he
did because he died because of what we've
done.
We need who he is to take the
place of what we are.
Because so it's only what he is in
us that enables us in the process of
time to be moment by moment.
What by his atoning death upon the cross
he gives us the right to become in
the crisis of that moment.
This was the message of life.
A person, Christ, reinvading the redeemed humanity of
forgiven sinners by his divine presence imparting to
them all the divine dynamic.
As the one who essentially in man must
be the origin of his own image.
The source of his own activity.
The dynamic of his own demands.
And at all times and exclusively the cause
of his own effect.
And therefore he's the only one to be
congratulated.
That's eternal life.
It's Christ clothing his deity with our redeemed
humanity.
So that you and I should get so
accustomed to sharing his life on earth.
In that it's that life alone that we
shall continue to enjoy in heaven.
We won't even know we've arrived.
We'll simply look around and say I don't
think I've been here before.
That's about the only impression that you and
I should get when we get to heaven.
Because the life that we will enjoy there
forever is precisely and exactly that life that
you and I receive in the moment of
regeneration when he our risen Lord comes in
the person of his other self the comfort
of the Holy Spirit to share that life
with us on earth.
On the way to heaven.
Fantastic.
That's good news.
Little wonder the angel got excited when he
said go to the temple and tell every
boy, girl, man, or woman they can come
alive.
Tell them all the words of this life.
And when they heard that, verse 21 of
the fifth chapter of the book of the
Acts, they entered into the temple early in
the morning and taught evangelism.
They taught.
What some of us have discussed in the
morning is a teaching priest.
They taught and the high priest came and
they that were with him and they called
the council together and all the Senate of
the children of Israel and they sent to
the prison to have them brought.
But when the officers came and found them
not in the prison they returned and breathlessly
entering into the presence of the Sanhedrin they
said they've gone but the prison's empty.
And the high priest and the captain of
the temple nearly had a heart attack.
The truly truly said they the prison found
we shut with all safety the keepers standing
without before the doors but when we had
opened we found no man within.
And when the captain of the temple and
the high priest heard these things they doubted
of them.
Where unto this would grow.
The situation was getting totally out of hand.
And before they'd got over the shock somebody
else came in and said breathlessly behold the
men whom you put in prison they're standing
in the temple and they're teaching the people.
And there was a bigger panic.
So then when the captain with the officers
and brought them without violence for remember last
evening the common people couldn't help but respect
them hold them in the highest possible regard.
For they themselves feared that they might be
stoned.
And when they brought them set them before
the council and the high priest asked them
and this was the charge.
Did not we straightly command you that you
should not teach in this name?
And behold you have filled Jerusalem with your
doctrine and you intend to bring this man's
blood upon us.
Guilty or not guilty?
Well of course they were delighted to plead
guilty.
They were guilty men.
What was the charge?
They had filled the city of Jerusalem with
their doctrine.
What was the doctrine with which they filled
the city of Jerusalem?
Well we might piously suppose that they went
around telling everybody that the Lord Jesus was
crucified.
That he died.
But that wasn't the doctrine with which they
filled the city of Jerusalem.
Though die he did.
It was to that end he was born.
It was for that cause he came into
this world to lay down his life.
A ransom for many.
No man said the Lord Jesus taketh my
life from me.
I lay it down.
That's why when the Roman soldiers came to
smash his legs as they had done the
legs of the two malefactors they suddenly as
they were just about to break his legs
one said, he's dead.
Don't be so stupid to the others.
He can't be dead.
Nobody's dead that soon.
Not by crucifixion.
But they looked again and he was dead.
That's why instead of smashing his legs they
pierced his side.
For in the twenty-sixth verse of the
twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus of
the unblemished lamb, a male, the blood of
which was to be painted upon the doorpost
and of the lintel, the Passover, God said
not a bone of his body must be
broken.
But Zechariah tells us they pierced his side
because he died on schedule, dead on time.
He had to die that we might be
forgiven.
But that wasn't the message with which the
city of Jerusalem was then ringing.
You see nothing would have served the best
interests of the Sanhedrin, the high priest, captain
of the temple, more than if the disciples
of the Lord Jesus had gone everywhere telling
everybody Jesus is dead.
That wouldn't have scared them.
After all they engineered it.
And nothing would have delighted them more than
that his disciples should confirm the fact.
Furthermore, there was nobody in the city of
Jerusalem who didn't know that Jesus was crucified.
They were there when it happened.
You may remember in the twenty-fourth chapter
of Luke's gospel the two disciples heading for
home because they thought the curtain had dropped,
the show was over, Jesus was dead, they'd
buried him.
And then the Lord Jesus encountered them but
they didn't recognize him.
You don't expect to see somebody around whom
you bury.
He was dead.
And said the Lord Jesus why so sad?
What's your problem?
And you'll remember they began to tell their
risen Lord about their dead Jesus.
And said he to them, fools, fools to
be so slow to believe all the prophets
have spoken.
And beginning where God began with Moses in
the five books of the Pentateuch, all the
way through the scriptures and the prophets and
later to the disciples in the upper room
the Psalms, he expounded unto them the things
concerning himself.
For you see when he said to them
what's your problem?
Said they to him, are you the only
stranger in Jerusalem that hasn't heard?
And rather innocently, if you may remember, Luke
24 said he to them, what things?
I think the Lord Jesus knew quite a
lot about what had been happening in Jerusalem.
He was there when it happened.
It was through his hands, through his feet.
They drove the nails.
It was upon his head they put the
crown of thorns.
It was into his side they thrust the
spear.
It was down his cheeks there trickled the
spittle and the blood.
He knew.
So you see for two good reasons that
Jesus was dead was not the message with
which the whole city of Jerusalem was then
buzzing.
The message with which they filled the city
of Jerusalem was this.
This Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised
from the dead.
Jesus our Lord is alive.
Peter and the other apostles answered and said
verse 29, we ought to obey God rather
than men.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus
whom you slew and hanged on a tree.
Him hath God exalted with his right hand
to be a prince and a Savior for
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sins.
And we are his witnesses of these things
and not we alone.
So is also the Holy Spirit whom God
has given to them that obey him.
Because he lives we live.
For by his indwelling Holy Spirit now we
participate in his resurrection.
You couldn't kill him and you can't kill
us.
That's why you don't frighten us.
You see you can't frighten men who don't
know how to die because they're eternally alive.
And that's what it means to be a
Christian.
All the words of this life for a
Christian is somebody who cannot happen apart from
Jesus Christ.
Alive again, sharing his life with them on
earth on the way to heaven.
You see that's what scared the high priest
and the captain of the temple, the members
of the Sanhedrin, the theological leaders of his
day who had engineered his death.
That the whole city was agog with the
news that the one whom they crucified, God,
had raised from the dead.
Have you ever been tempted to shoot somebody
between the eyes?
I have on quite a number of occasions
and in my judgment on each occasion with
considerable justification.
But I'm happy to tell you that to
date I have resisted the temptation.
But could you imagine on some occasion you
failing to resist the temptation and together with
a friend and with his connivance, you shoot
a man between the eyes and he drops
dead at your feet.
You take the body and with the assistance
of your companion you go to a lonely
wood and dig a hole and you bury
the body and you cover it up and
make it look as undisturbed as possible with
leaves and twigs.
I imagine you wouldn't sleep too well that
night.
Every police car that you would see would
give you a start and your heart would
thump a little louder.
Any footfall in the yard outside would alarm
you.
And then three days later while you're in
your home the door double bolted and double
locked and a chain and then you hear
footfalls outside and you peep through the curtain
and it's your friend.
He's coming towards the door and he's looking
very serious.
So you thrust back the bolts, undo the
door, remove the chain, let him in, shut
it, put back the bolts, double lock and
replace the chain.
And then you say, what's wrong?
He says, you know the man you killed?
Well, yes.
Do you remember where we buried him?
Well, yes.
Well, I've just been there and the hole
is empty.
But not only that, I just met him
downtown and he's coming this way.
Say, wouldn't that give you the creeps?
Well, now you know.
You see what the high priest and the
captain of the temple felt like and those
who were their co-conspirators.
For this Jesus, the whole city was alive
with the news that Jesus, whom they had
crucified, God raised from the dead and he's
alive now.
And I'll tell you something just in case
you don't know.
He's on his way.
Far, far sooner in all probability than any
one of us would dare tonight to admit
or believe.
For I believe us to be on the
very threshold of that momentous event, the return
of our risen Lord for his people.
You see, the message of the early church
was resurrection.
Not Jesus is dead, though crucified indeed he
had been, but the one whom they had
crucified was alive again.
Alive again.
And that was the good news.
All the words of this life.
Not simply that he had accomplished the redemptive
act and God had raised him from the
dead and he had gone to heaven.
There simply to prepare a place for us
as indeed he has.
For said he in my father's house are
many mansions if it were not so I
would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you
and if I do that I'll come again
that where I am there you may be
also gloriously true.
And the Apostle tells us that I hath
not seen nor heard neither hath it entered
into the heart of man the things which
God has prepared for them that love him.
But the Lord Jesus didn't simply go to
heaven there to peep through the clouds and
watch you and watch me on earth sweated
out and do our best for Jesus.
Until at last we crawl into heaven on
our hands and knees covered with dust and
blisters and he thumps us on the back
and said well done my good and faithful
servant.
You made it.
That isn't the Christian life.
Sweating it out for God.
The Christian life may involve suffering, persecution, death,
jail.
All those things.
All that we might live in comfort and
prosper.
Paul says I've learned in whatsoever state I
am therewith to be content.
To have much and abound or have nothing
or little.
He says that's totally irrelevant.
Because my privilege on earth is simply to
make my humanity available to him whose life
I share until he no longer has anything
to accomplish through me on earth.
For to me to live is Christ.
To die, gain.
Absent from the body, present with the Lord.
So says he I'm here only and I
recognize the fact that I become expendable to
the one who inhabits my humanity.
That I might be, this is the way
he puts it in the first chapter of
his epistle to the Philippians, that I might
be to the furtherance of your faith and
the furtherance of your joy.
And so long as my Lord Jesus has
something to accomplish that will be to the
furtherance of the faith of my fellow human
beings and their joy on earth in a
restored relationship as creature to the Creator, I'm
happy to hang around.
But the moment the Lord Jesus ceases to
have any intelligent purpose to accomplish through me
on earth, I'm off.
And I'm going to where I belong which
is far better.
Great.
The glorious hilarious liberty of being expendable to
the Lord Jesus in time or eternity knowing
that you've been redeemed by what he did
upon the cross to live together with him
on earth in time and in eternity in
heaven forever.
Marvelous.
And so the message of the early church
was life, God's gift to forgiven sinners.
Not a sensation, not just an exotic experience,
but somebody in somebody.
Christ himself living, actually president and resident within
your heart.
You're only an exclusive hope.
Not of getting to heaven, though it is,
but that isn't what the Apostle there says.
It's our only hope of being restored to
image, glory, restored to our true function, to
become man again.
So that by what we do and say
and are, we reflect the image and likeness
of our maker.
You look in the first chapter of the
book of the Acts.
Finally convinced of his resurrection, Peter stands, verse
16, and he gives a very excellent exegesis
from the 69th and the 109th Messianic Psalms.
Something of course that before the Lord Jesus
had been crucified and risen from the dead
and before he taught them for some 40
days the things concerning the kingdom, something Peter
before then could not have done.
Because he was one who didn't want the
cross nor believe in the resurrection, but something
has happened.
And so he now takes those two Messianic
Psalms and expounds them concerning the betrayal of
the Lord Jesus by one of his closest
devotees, a man named to be an Apostle,
Judas Iscariot.
It is written in the book of the
Psalms, verse 20, let his habitation be desolate,
let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric,
his apostolic office, let another take.
Wherefore said he, if these men who have
accompanied with us all the time that the
Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John and to
that same day that he was taken up
from us, must one be ordained.
Now his motive was good, their method was
bad, they committed a boob.
Because the one whom they finally selected was
never approved by God, never heard of again.
Because they made a fundamental error in their
selection that we won't take time out now
to discuss.
But his motive was good, and what he
had to say was valid.
Must one be ordained, said he, verse 22,
to be a witness with us of his
resurrection.
Of his resurrection.
Not of his crucifixion, his resurrection.
Said Peter, the supreme criterion of one, whoever
he may be, who is to assume the
office that has been vacated by Judas Iscariot,
who fell, must be that he stand shoulder
to shoulder with us and bear testimony to
the fact that this Jesus, whom they crucified,
God raised from the dead, Jesus, is alive.
That was the criterion.
Acts chapter 1, convinced of the truth of
it.
And then Acts chapter 2, they entered into
the good of it.
You men of Israel, verse 22 of the
second chapter of the book of Acts, hear
these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders
and signs and miraculous quality of life, all
these things which God did by him.
In the midst of you all, as you
yourselves also know, him being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you've taken
by wicked hands of crucified and slain, whom
God hath raised up, having loosed the pains
of death, because it was not possible that
he should be holden of it.
This Jesus, verse raised up, whereof we all
are witnesses.
Chapter 1, convinced of the truth of it.
Chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, entering
into the good of it.
Witnesses to the resurrection.
Entering into the good of it.
Because on that day, the Lord Jesus, risen
from the dead, came in the person of
the Holy Spirit to invade their humanity, and
it was on that day they were added.
One hundred and twenty, there at Christ's command,
to be added as the first individual members
in particular of that new body corporate, to
which were added, before nightfall, three thousand others.
And what was the great discovery that Peter
made on the day of Pentecost, when he
entered into the good of all that for
which the Lord Jesus came, who said, I'm
come that you might have life.
Well, the great discovery that Peter made was
that the Lord Jesus, now indwelling them by
his Holy Spirit, was to be to them
as God, all that the Lord Jesus, as
man, allowed his Father to be to him,
indwelling his humanity by the same Holy Spirit,
to be to him.
As my father sent me, I'm going to
send you.
And Peter, there we're told in the 22nd
verse, suddenly recognized, having already acclaimed his deity,
thou art the Son of God, the Christ.
Now he says, Jesus of Nazareth, a man,
but a God-approved man, that man alone,
of all mankind, that God could approve as
he walked this earth, in the sinlessness of
that humanity that was incarnate, fashioned in the
borrowed womb of a virgin girl, conceived of
the Holy Ghost.
Therefore said the angel Gabriel to Mary, shall
that holy thing that shall be born of
thee be called the Son of God.
But Peter, on the day of Pentecost, recognized
the sheer humanity of our Lord Jesus, who
emptied himself, humbled himself, made himself nothing, and
was born a human being.
And suddenly he realizes it, a man approved
of God by miracle signs and wonders, a
quality of life that had no possible explanation
but the activity of his father as God
in the man, which God did by him.
I understand now what he was trying to
teach us, that if only we would enter
into the good of his atoning death, then
he, having presented us to the Father, accepted
in the Beloved, would come in the person
of his Holy Spirit, that he might invade
our souls, occupying our human spirits, gain control
of our minds, our emotions, and our wills,
and so direct our humanity, that he as
God in us might be all that the
Father as God had been allowed by him
to be.
Not making us God, just the creature only,
but inhabited by the Creator, just the earth
and vessel in which the treasure would reside,
that the excellence in the power might be
of God.
Peter, with the others, on that day has
entered into the good of it, and they
recognize it stems not only from his atoning
death that reconciles guilty sinners to a holy
God, but from his triumphant resurrection that allows
them on earth to share his life on
the way to heaven.
The good news of the gospel.
Chapter 3, convinced of the truth of it,
entering into the good of it, in chapter
3 they demonstrate the fact of it.
Do you remember how that man, blind or
rather lame from his mother's womb, was brought
daily and laid at the temple, at the
gate that was called beautiful.
A man, a story of whom you are
well familiar with, who asked for arms and
got legs.
Silver and gold, said Peter, have I none
such as I have I give thee, invoking
all that he is, releasing his divine energy
in the name of Jesus.
Rise and walk.
And he was marvelously healed.
And as the lame man, we're told verse
11, which was healed held Peter and John,
all the people ran together unto them in
the porch that is called Solomon, greatly wondering.
And when Peter saw it, he laughed at
them.
He said to the people, you men of
Israel, why marvel you at this?
Why do you look so earnestly on us,
as though by our own power, by our
own holiness, we made this man to walk?
Don't be so stupid, said Peter then.
Neither I nor John are that holy, nor
do we have that kind of power.
All that has happened is that the God
of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob,
the God of our fathers, hath glorified his
son Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied
him in the presence of Pilate when he
was determined to let him go.
You denied the Holy One and the just.
You desire a murder to be granted unto
you.
And you killed the Prince of Light, whom
God hath raised from the dead.
Whereof we are witnesses.
Chapter 1, convinced of the truth of it.
A witness to the resurrection.
Chapter 2, entering into the good of it.
A witness to the resurrection.
Chapter 3, demonstrating the fact of it.
A witness to the resurrection.
Chapter 4, only 28 chapters, don't get discouraged.
As they spake unto the people, verse 1,
the priests and the captain of the temple
and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved,
grieved that they taught the people and preached.
What do you think they were preaching?
They preached through Jesus the resurrection from the
dead.
Not, of course, just that physical resurrection to
which we all look forward with eager anticipation,
save the Lord Jesus comes before then, then
we which are alive and remain will be
changed in a moment, anatomo, atomically, and this
corruption is going to put on incorruption.
Gloriously true, and we shall be clothed upon
with our house from heaven.
But that spiritual resurrection that comprises that spiritual
new birth whereby on the grounds of redemption
God restores to man by the gift of
the Holy Spirit that life that was lost
in Adam, regenerate, and added thereby to the
Lord.
Being thrown into jail, being forbidden to teach
or preach in the name of Jesus, finally
being let go, verse 23 of chapter four,
they went to their own company, reported all
that the chief priests and elders had said
to them, and when they heard that they
lifted up their voice to God with one
accord, and they had a fantastic prayer meeting,
and the place was shaken, verse 31 tells
us, and they were all filled with the
Holy Spirit.
That simply means that with one heart they
made themselves available truly to the Lord Jesus
as the one who inhabited their humanity, so
that he could be who he was in
action, God in the man.
And they spake the word of God with
boldness, and verse 33, with great power, gave
the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them
all.
Tell me, what was the message of the
early church?
To what were they bearing witness?
There could of course have been no resurrection
apart from his atoning death upon the cross,
but what mattered was that Jesus was alive
again.
That's why Paul puts it this way, first
of his two epistles, the 15th chapter and
the 14th verse, if Christ be not risen
again from the dead, my preaching is vain,
and your faith is vain.
No matter what I tell you about the
cross, no matter the tears trickled down your
cheeks at the thought of his agony there
on a Roman gallows, if that Jesus whom
I preach isn't alive again, my preaching is
an exercise in futility, and your faith is
in vain, you're still in your sins.
So what's the heart of the gospel?
If apart from the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus, no matter what we may say about
the cross, our preaching is vain, and we
leave those to whom we minister in their
sins, what's the heart of the gospel?
That Jesus, our Lord, is alive again.
Not just to go to heaven and wait
for our arrival, but on earth to share
his life and give us what it takes
to get there.
To me, to live is Christ.
Commenced to the truth of it, entering into
the good of it, demonstrating the fact of
it, preaching in the power of it.
Little wonder that a reign before the high
priest Peter, back in chapter 5, and the
other apostles answered and said, we ought to
obey God rather than men.
You don't frighten us.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus
whom you slew and hanged on a tree.
Him hath God exalted with his right hand
to be a prince and a savior, to
give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
We are his witnesses of these things.
Jesus is alive, and here we are to
testify to that fact, reinforced by the one
who has the right to authenticate our message,
the Holy Spirit whom God has given to
them that obey him.
And when they heard that, they were cut
to the heart.
Took counsel to slay them, imagining falsely, as
others have done, as we have discussed in
our morning sessions, that if only they could
be silenced, that would silence God.
But there stood up one in the council
of the Pharisees.
He was a Pharisee by the name of
Gamaliel, a very fine gentleman, a doctor of
the law, had in reputation among all the
people.
The common people respected him.
One who I'm absolutely convinced finally found his
way to the Lord Jesus and put his
trust in him to be redeemed and be
numbered amongst those whose names are written in
heaven.
I'm convinced of that because he was that
intelligent.
I mean, a man as intelligent and with
as much insight as was possessed then by
Dr. Gamaliel couldn't help but get saved.
He commanded to put the Apostles forth a
little space, and then he turned to his
colleagues on the Sanhedrin.
He said in so many words, why don't
you grow up?
Why are you behaving, panicking, like a bunch
of small kids?
He says, you men of Israel, take heed
to yourselves what you intend to do as
touching these men.
Before these days rose up Theodos, said Gamaliel,
boasting himself to be somebody to whom a
number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves,
who was slain.
He's dead!
And all as many as obeyed him was
scattered and brought to nothing, said Dr. Gamaliel.
Theodos is dead.
Does he frighten you?
All who followed him was scattered.
And not only that, said Dr. Gamaliel, verse
37, but after this man rose up, Judas
of Galilee, in the days of the taxing,
he drew away much people after him.
He also perished, and all even as many
as obeyed him dispersed.
Theodos said, Dr. Gamaliel is dead.
And Judas is dead.
And they don't frighten you.
All who followed Theodos scattered.
All who followed Judas scattered.
And Jesus is dead.
Theodos is dead.
Judas is dead.
And Jesus is dead.
And as all who followed Theodos scattered, as
all who followed Judas scattered, so will all
who followed Jesus scatter.
I say unto you, refrain from these men.
Let them alone.
If this counsel or this work be of
men, it'll come to nothing.
Jesus is dead.
And his followers will scatter if he's dead,
said Dr. Gamaliel, if he's dead.
But if it be of God and this
Jesus is alive, you cannot overthrow it, lest
happily you be found even to fight against
God.
And of course Dr. Gamaliel was right.
Theodos is dead.
And Judas is dead.
And all who followed them long since have
scattered.
They're dead too.
But Jesus, our Lord Jesus is alive.
That's why we're here tonight, 2,000 years
later.
With countless millions of others that circle the
globe out of every nation and kindred and
tribe and tongue, who know by his gracious
presence through the Holy Spirit within their hearts
that Jesus is alive.
His Holy Spirit that bears witness with their
spirit that they have become the children of
God.
To him they agreed.
And when they had called the apostles and
beaten them because they couldn't deny themselves that
luxury, they commanded that they should not speak
in the name of Jesus and let them
go.
And they departed from the presence of the
council rejoicing.
Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
shame for his name.
Convinced of the truth of it, entering into
the good of it, demonstrating the fact of
it, preaching in the power of it, they
lived in the joy of it.
And daily in the temple, from house to
house, face to face, man to man, they
cease not to teach and preach that Jesus
was the Christ.
Teaching and preaching.
You see, teaching is an intelligent exposition of
the facts.
Preaching is simply an exhortation now to mix
those facts with faith.
That's evangelism.
If you just teach, of course, and don't
exhort anybody to act upon what they know,
all you produce is a bunch of academic
eggheads.
If you only exhort, preach without teaching, you
don't produce men of faith, you produce men
of froth.
But when you teach and preach, exhorting those
who are the recipients of God's Word to
mix with faith that which they've come to
understand by his divine revelation, then you produce
men and women of God who'll enter into
the good of all that God had in
mind when he sent his Son, not only
to reconcile us to a holy God, cleansing
us from our sins, but that we might
become the recipients of his divine indwelling and
share his resurrection on earth, on the way
to heaven.
In these concluding few moments, see how Peter
later presented the message and the claims of
our risen Lord.
In the first chapter of his second epistle,
he addresses himself to those who have obtained
like precious faith with us.
In other words, those who've learned to look
to Christ.
And by that disposition within our hearts that
recognize that he alone can redeem them and
they could never redeem themselves, invoke that redemptive
activity so that he, the Lord Jesus, can
move in and present them as his blood
-bought property in the presence of a father
God who's pledged his name, his honor, and
his glory to accept us for his dear
sake who died in our place.
Those who have obtained like precious faith.
According, he says, verse three, this is the
lovely way he puts it, for this is
the message of life.
According as his divine power, and Peter indicates
that that's exactly what it took for God
to do it, all the release of the
divine energy.
According as God's divine power has given to
us, can never be earned, can never be
merited, given to us as his free gift
for the wages of our sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life.
But it took all the divine energy released
in raising first his dear son from the
dead that we too with him might share
his resurrection.
According as God's divine power has given to
us all things that pertain to being alive.
What would you say it is that pertains
to being alive?
Well, life.
For only life abolishes death.
That's why the Lord Jesus said, I'm come
that you might have just what dead men
need.
Because it's the only cure for death.
The gift of life, and that's resurrection.
Not physical life, that we have by natural
animal birth.
As the Lord Jesus explains so clearly to
Nicodemus, reputed to be the third richest man
in Jerusalem, member of the Sanhedrin, and the
senior theologian of his day in the city.
He said, that which is born of the
flesh is flesh.
Nicodemus, that only born of the Holy Spirit
is spirit.
Marvel not that I say to you, you
must be born twice.
That was baffling to a theologian.
He said, how could a man be born
twice?
Can he enter the second time into his
mother's womb and be born?
And immediately advertised the fact that he only
knew that quality of life that a man
receives by animal birth from animal parents.
That which is born of the flesh.
But in that spiritual new birth, the forgiven
sinner is re-inhabited by his maker.
And the Creator is once more within the
creature.
And by his divine indwelling, he gives us
all that pertains to being spiritually alive.
But Peter doesn't stop there.
We don't congratulate ourselves that we're on our
way to heaven.
He says, that life that pertains to being
alive, and we know what that light is,
because John tells us in the fifth chapter
of his first epistle, this is the record
that God has given to his eternal life.
And that life, which alone is eternal that
he's given to us, is in his Son.
He that has the Son has life.
He that doesn't have the Son of God
doesn't have life.
So a Christian is somebody in somebody, Christ,
indwelling your humanity and mine, whose presence in
life abolishes death.
But, says Peter, that life that pertains to
being alive is that life, continuing in the
same third verse, is that which pertains to
God-likeness.
For the moment the Lord Jesus comes to
take up residence within your humanity, then you
have in him the one of whom alone
are those fruits of righteousness that Paul describes.
Eleventh verse of his first chapter to the
Philippians.
The fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus
Christ.
The fruits of his Spirit, that are to
replace the ugly works of the flesh, so
that if any man be in Christ, that
which demonstrates the fact is that Christ is
in him.
And he becomes a new creation.
Old things are passed away and everything has
become new.
Because, says Peter, in the same chapter there
in the fourth verse, by these exceeding great
and precious promises, we are made partakers of
the divine nature.
Hold your breath when you read that.
Partakers of the divine nature.
In this common clay of our humanity, that
we are to be inhabited, re-inhabited, by
our risen Lord, who as God made man
to share the life of his maker.
Marvelous.
And Paul picks up the chorus.
Let me leave you with these two beautiful
verses.
Magnificently rendered out of the Amplified New Testament
in the third chapter of his epistle to
the Philippians.
His supreme concern for himself, and that which
inevitably was his supreme concern for those whom
he had had the privilege of leading redemptively
into a relationship to their once crucified but
now risen Lord.
Said he this, verse 10 of the third
chapter of his epistle to the Philippians.
My determined purpose is that I may know
him.
That I may progressively become more deeply and
intimately acquainted with him.
Perceiving, recognizing, understanding the wonders of his person
more strongly and more clearly.
That I may in that same way come
to know the power flowing out from his
resurrection, which it exerts over believers.
That I may so share his sufferings, be
willingly identified with him in his death.
That I may be continually transformed in spirit
into his likeness.
His likeness.
So that others in me will see who
it is that is in residence.
That if possible, listen to this magnificent 11th
verse, that if possible I may attain to
that spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me
out from among the dead even while still
in the body.
That's it.
That's what it means to be a Christian.
To enjoy that spiritual resurrection that puts God
back into the man that cannot but inevitably
lead of its genuine to a moral resurrection.
But a moral resurrection that will change my
character, change my walk, change my behavior.
The life that leads to godliness.
It'll become demonstrably obvious as one who has
enjoyed a spiritual resurrection that leads to that
moral resurrection that I've been lifted out from
among those who were born dead even while
still in the body.
Still in that humanity on earth that you
recognize once inhabited by Saul of Tarsus.
But now I'm Paul the Apostle, crucified with
Christ.
Knowing that I deserve no more nor less
than what occurred in the one who took
my place, sentenced, executed, and buried.
But nevertheless, please don't get me wrong, I
live.
Yet not I.
Christ lives in me.
And the only reason that he can live
in me now who died for me then
is that God raised him from the dead.
So what's the heart of the gospel?
That which was the message of the early
church, Jesus our Lord is alive.
Waiting to take up residence within the redeemed
humanity of a forgiven sinner.
To show himself strong on their behalf.
That God is big enough for the job.
Paganini, the great violinist on one occasion, was
billed to give a concert.
Placards announced the coming of this fantastic musician
with his priceless instrument.
He'd produced the whining of the wind in
the trees and the cooing of the dove
and the trickling of water down the mountain
stream.
Great crowds came to hear him play.
And finally there was a deathly hush as
he stepped through the curtain and came right
to the edge of the platform over the
footlights.
And then lifting up his violin in his
hand, with his thumb he plucked out a
string and plucked out a second and plucked
out a third until only one remained.
And then staring almost like a madman into
the faces who were somewhat shocked as they
waited, he said, ladies and gentlemen, one string!
And Paganini.
And he began to play on the one
remaining string.
And they heard the whining of the wind
in the trees and the cooing of the
dove.
The sound of water trickling down the mountain
stream.
Just one string.
And the master player.
Just an empty box and a piece of
catgut.
But in the hands of Paganini.
That's what Paul means.
Lifted out from among the dead.
Just an empty earthen box and one string.
All that I am, available to all that
he is.
And the perfect harmony of a life in
tune with his Maker.
You've been listening to a sermon by Major
Ian Thomas.
If you've been blessed by this sermon, you
can find more sermons by him and additional
resources on this subject at path2prayer.com.
Again, if you've been blessed by this sermon,
you can find more sermons by Major Ian
Thomas at path2prayer.com, as well as other
resources.