We have been going through, as a congregation this year, the book of Luke together and our midweek Bible study, our small groups have been going through that. And we've also been studying the book of Acts which is also written by Luke. It's really his second volume of the two volume set, the gospel being the first and the history of the early apostles in church in the book of Acts. And so it's only appropriate that on this Easter, Easter 99, that we look at Luke together. So I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 24 records the resurrection of our Lord. Luke 24 is the climax of Luke's gospel as the resurrection is the climax of all the gospels. And in that we find three stories, a morning story, an afternoon story, and an evening story in Luke 24. In the morning, in the first 12 verses, there is an appearance of angels to women who have come to the tomb to anoint Jesus body. And then in the late afternoon, there are two disciples who are on their way to a nearby town called Emmaus. And Jesus appears to them. And really the first time in the book of gospel of Luke and shows himself to them and they run back to Jerusalem and their Jesus is to meet with them. And the 11 and others that Luke tells us were there as Jesus appears in the evening in Luke's gospel. And then there's a short ascension that is given by Luke and all of this shows us that Luke is trying to bring to a climax his story. And yet it's not at the end of the story as Jesus continues to do his work as the book of Acts records. He is the exalted, the risen Lord who continues to teach and do things from now an exalted state from heaven even on earth. And this morning I thought we would look at the first 12 verses of Luke 24, the morning section that is recorded in all four of the gospels. Luke wants to tell us that it is on the first day of the week that this happened and all the appearances of Jesus are on the first day of the week. And it's by no coincidence that we're worshiping today on Sunday because it's the first day of the week. And that's where it all came from, the resurrection of Christ. Jesus had been killed and Jesus had been crucified. Matthew tells us that he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Eurymathia. John tells us that it was a garden tomb that was nearby the place and site of the crucifixion and there he lay. And then some women came, women who had come down with Jesus from Galilee to the north that come to Jerusalem for the Passover. And they saw the place. We're told in Luke 23 that where Jesus laid him, where the Jesus was laid and rather hastily. And they came back to that site early in the morning on the third day. And we pick up the story in Luke 24 verse 1. This is the word of the true and living God. May we hear it this morning. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found that stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee, the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again. Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping down, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves. And he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. So when's the reading of God's word to us? I pray to him, ask him, if he is the risen Lord, would take these words and bring them into our hearts this morning. Father, we do come to you this morning, and Jesus, we do come to you this morning. Spirit, we come that you would come to us, that we might see the risen Lord in our hearts, that we might love him and adore him, that the words that have been prepared would be truthful, that they would say lie. Lord, may we not look at the messenger, may we see the message, may we not see the preacher but the sermon that is preached. May our hearts be fixed upon that message. Lord, may we see Jesus, may we see you today, and we pray it in your name. I heard a story of a youth pastor who had came out of his room, and he noticed on the street there in front of the church, there were some young men that were gathering around, and they were of youth age, and they were gathering around a stray dog, and he came up to them and didn't know them, but thought maybe he'd strike up a conversation with them, and he asked them how they're doing, and what's up? And they said, well, we're not telling lies, and the one about that said, the fact that the one who tells the biggest lie is going to get this stray dog that we found here, and the youth pastor was shocked, and he said, well, while I, when I was your age, I didn't ever, ever think of telling the lie, and they looked at each other, and they kind of shrugged a little bit, and just fallen, and whatnot, and finally one of them pointed to the youth minister and said, well, I guess he gets the dog. Helping lies, consciously or unconsciously, is a part of our lives, sometimes if we are honest about it, there was a survey done not that long ago, where America told the truth, and then that survey, they found that almost everyone admits to lie, 91% of Americans say they lie regularly, now how they defined that wasn't going in, and some said that fact, most said that they couldn't get through a week without telling at least one conscious, premeditated lie, and some said they couldn't, one out of five said they couldn't even get through one day without doing that. But we can sometimes laugh about lying, we can admit to lying, but lying is no joke when we are the ones who are lied to, isn't? This past year we have been lied to by our president, and for some of us that has shaken us to our core. Others don't seem to be affected by it whatsoever, and that has always kind of puzzled me in the last few months, why aren't people more upset about the lie that Bill Clinton has told us? And it came to me that the reason is that most people don't believe that his lies affected them personally. If your bank lies to you, it gets your attention, doesn't it? If your bank were to keep something from you and say, you know, you really have this much in, but we are going to keep something or something, we are only going to tell you that you have that much in, you would be furious, and you would march down to the bank, and you would straighten that out. If your bank lies affect us, when they affect us, they hurt us deeply. And the big question as we come to Easter is, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ a lie or not? Is it just another lie, another group of people, not politicians this time, but preachers who tell us a lie year after year? Does it affect us whether Jesus rose from the dead really or not? Isn't it enough that simply the apostles believed it? Isn't it enough that simply they found a way of keeping Jesus' memory alive? How do we know whether they are telling the truth or not? I've been asking these kinds of questions because deep down I am a doubting Thomas. I don't always confess that, but that's where I have been, and the Lord has healed me of that. I really believe it was a problem. But I've been asking these kinds of questions for 30 years. It took me a while to find out what the questions really were. And I've been trying to, as a pastor, answer some of these questions for about 20 years, and I'm convinced that there really only are three possible answers to that question. The disciples were deceived and only thought that Jesus rose from the dead, or they knew he didn't rise from the dead, and they deceived others in telling them that he did, or the third option is that he actually did rise from the dead. And I find no sense in believing that the disciples were deceived. This we have in four gospels are their account of what they claim to have seen, and there's just too much evidence within their own thinking to believe that they were deceived. There are 11 different accounts of Jesus appearing to people, groups of people, individuals inside, outside, here, there, everywhere for 40 days. There's too much evidence to believe that they were deceived in some way. There are 21 accounts of these 11 appearances in the New Testament. The resurrection is the high point of every gospel. It's the main theme of the apostles preaching. It was the resurrection of Christ. There are only four of the 27 books of the New Testament. Mention, go into in great detail, or at least allude to the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead. And the three that don't are second John, third John, and by Lehman, which you might know are only one chapter books that are fairly specifically focused on a topic. The apostles, the resurrection of Jesus was not one of many teachings. It was yet. Paul said, as we have confessed in our confession this morning, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, we are not only false witnesses. We are fools. We are faith is worthless and futile. We are still in our sins. A dead savior is no savior at all. And Paul realized that if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, nothing really has changed and nothing will change. And this will continue to have the final word. And judgment still hangs over our heads. And there's no hope of heaven and no real meaning for Christians now. We live a lie. If Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead. One theologian, C.H. Dodd, put it this way, the resurrection is not a belief that grew up within the church. It is the belief around which the church itself grew up, the given upon which their faith was based. Michael Green, the English pastor in his book, Man Alive says, Christianity does not hold the resurrection to be one of many tenets of belief. Without faith in the resurrection, there would be no Christianity at all. The Christian church would never have begun. The Jesus movement would have fizzled out with his execution. Christianity stands or falls with the truth of the resurrection. Disprove it and you have disposed of Christianity. Or in the words more poetic and sporsical way if those are forceful enough of John updike, he says, make no mistake. If Jesus rose at all, it was his body. If the cells dissolution did not reverse the molecules remit and the amino acids rekindle, the church will fall. Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, side stepping, transcendence, making the event a terrible. Let us walk through the door. That is what you must do. Walk through the door. This is it. If Jesus rose from the dead, everything changes. If he didn't, everything is lost. But how do we know whether they are telling us the truth? The usual line of defense is to show the internal consistency of the gospel data. Examples of this would be Josh McDowell and Paul Little and others who have done a great work in that regard. The thought is this. There is an empty tune everybody admits to that. What is the explanation for the empty tune? Who could have taken it? Whether Romans could have taken it. They had access but they did not have a motive. Well, maybe the Jewish leaders took it. Well, they did not have access. They did not have any motive and they could have produced Jesus' body to refute the apostles who were going around Jerusalem throughout the temple. And Jesus is risen. Others would say, well, he swooned and he fell asleep and he was not really dead and then came up together and they started peering to people. There is great reason not to believe that within the internal data of the apostles give us certain professional executioners examined him and pronounced him dead. People don't come back from a swoon in closed, dark, cold areas like a tomb would have been. Well, this is important biblical defense but it only really narrows down the possibilities. We still come down to two possibilities. The apostles are either lying or they are not lying. They are either not telling the truth or they are telling the truth. There is no middle ground. It really comes down to those two things. Because what we have in the gospel data comes from believers themselves. We must admit that. The gospel data that we have is their account. It is not an independent study or investigation. Then we could look at it internally and say, well, if it is consistent, then we have to believe it. It is their word against the world. It is either one or two things. The resurrection, as someone said, is the most wicked, vicious, heartless, hoaxes ever put upon the minds of men or it is the most fantastic fact of history. One or the other, there are only two things to say about it. You might say, well, I guess it just comes down to whether we want to believe in the resurrection or we don't want to believe in the resurrection. As the saying goes, people believe what they want to believe. I believe that is true. I think the Bible teaches that. People do believe what they want to believe. But believing doesn't make something true, nor does it make something false. The resurrection either did happen or didn't happen. I want to take you through four pointers as we tried to decide which one this is. The first one is that the total unexpectedly of it all. Luke brings us out more than any of the four gospels about the resurrection. The women come with spices to anoint Jesus dead body. They don't come with food to share a meal with the risen Christ. Think about it. Look, they are coming to adorn a court. That is what their purpose is. They come to a bomb Jesus, not seeing his praises, not with notebooks to record the great event of the resurrection that they are anticipating. When they see the stone rolled away from the entrance of the tomb, they don't say, I told you, I told you he was going to rise. He said he was going to rise. And I told you, I see the stone is away. That is not what they are first thinking. And when they fail to find the body of Jesus in the tomb, even then they don't say, oh, I get it, he is alive. That is not what they are thinking of all. They are puzzled. They are wondering to themselves, who took the body? Where is he? What do we do now? They are thinking that it is only after the angels appear. Only after the angels and ask that question, a wonderful question. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Why do you go looking for your friend at a graveyard? That is absurd. It is only after the announced that he is not here, his risen. It is only after the angel accotes Jesus' own words. And only then do they remember his words and start to take his words literally. When they go to the apostles, there are no better. There are no quicker to believe. The apostles are not impressed with their story. They think it is ludicrous. In fact, the word there is only mentioned in the New Testament here. It is a medical term. Luke was a doctor and he uses a number of medical terms. One of them means someone who is delirious from a high fever. That is what they thought when they said they think this is nonsense. You are delirious. You have not got enough sleep or you have got so much suffering in your system. You are gone. You would say you are insane. It has both technical meaning and English as well as a more sarcastic meaning. That is the kind of word used here for nonsense. You see, these people are not people who are on the brink of belief. Just waiting for some reason to believe. That is not the way they approach the tomb. They are not like some on religious TV today who want to call the slightest thing a miracle. They are looking at the miracle. That is not the way they came to this. They were not trained as they approach Jesus. Just give me a sign. Any sign to believe that you have risen from the dead. Even after the encounter with the angels, they find it hard to believe. They are no easy sell. The disciples are no different. I saw an ad. If you have been getting ads from different churches about Easter services, I have glad you did not look at those and came here. I really like the things that have been sent out by different churches to see where they are coming from. One that did not come this year. Another time was a picture of Easter eggs. Then the caption of it said what people weren't looking for on the first Easter. I thought that was a good one. We are not looking for Easter eggs. They weren't looking for a resurrected body either. They were looking for corks. The total unextecency of it all. Look at the second one. I noticed in your notes there. The resurrection accounts are too different to be dreamed up. We cannot lay them all side by side but I admit to you that I have and to best you that I have this week laid them aside by side, paralleling them. And as I laid them aside by side, I found some significant differences between Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. Differences about the time, whether it was before dark or at dawn, differences about where the angels were when they were speaking and Matthew was sitting on a stone. Here we find the angels inside the tomb. How many angels there are. Matthew was only one angel. Here we find two. What the angels said is slightly different if you parallel them. Their response as the women to the news is different. Matthew, they are afraid and yet filled with joy. Great, wonderful statement of early faith. You are afraid and yet there is this joy. It is combined together. In Mark, they trembled and were bewildered and they told no one and Luke were told that they told the disciples. John doesn't even have all the women just has Mary Magdalene and she goes to Peter and John and simply says they have taken our Lord from the tomb and we don't know where they put him. Now before I create more questions in your mind than I can answer, as I have looked through these and have done this over years, these things can be harmonized. Mary probably left right away as soon as she saw the stone rolled away from the tomb. She left before there was any discussion of angels. She has a whole other account of what she saw. And probably even the women that were left or more than the women just mentioned here were told there were others. Mark tells us. They broke up in the different groups. Some saw one thing, some saw another. It can be harmonized. But when you think about it, there really are several options. Either Matthew, Mark, Luke and John made this thing up independently of each other. They all went into different corners of the Mediterranean world and made up these different stories about Jesus' resurrection. But that wouldn't explain how similar they are. They're similar. In fact they're exact and some words and phrases. You can't do that when you're independently doing something. Well, what's the other option? Well, they made it up when they all came together. They got together at Antioch and had a big conference. And Matthew, Mark, Luke and John sat down and now we're going to tell this story. Let's get our story straight. Think about that. That doesn't explain the similarity, the discrepancies, the apparent contradiction. If you're making up a conspiracy and you're getting together for that, you don't put in all kinds of things that will throw people off. You want to get your story straight. I heard a good story about that. It was a teacher that had her students come late. They had played hooky from school, had ditched school, and they came about in the noon time. And their excuse was that they simply had a flat tire. And she's, oh, so that's the reason. Well, you missed a test. I want to give you the test over lunchtime. She put them all four different corners. She has the test only has one question that is which flat tire was it that was flat. I think you got to get together to get your story straight. And yet if the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had done that, if they made it up together, why did they have all these discrepancies? Maybe it was true. Maybe that's the answer. I've explained these gospel accounts. I remember as a daughter looking at those discrepancies and just breaking out of the whole cold sweat at one point because I believe these things. I couldn't get it together. I couldn't harmonize it at first. That they can be. James Boyce put it well. It says if they count together, the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not made up in collusion, and if they were not made up separately, the only remaining possibility is that they were not made up at all. And that's what we should believe. It makes the most sense. Now look at Thursday. Why women or why mention women if you're trying to convince first century Jewish men? This also doesn't make sense. All four gospels record women as the first to hear and report the news. They hear the news from the messenger. They see the evidence. They encounter the risen Christ first. They believe first. They witness to others of the resurrection first. They do all the first things first are women. And this is not the kind of witnesses you would put forth if you were concocting a resurrection conspiracy in the first century. We must take it on its terms where it was when it was written. You say why? Well, as sexist as it may seem to you, women were not thought of as reliable witnesses in those days. Jewish custom at the time prohibited or at least avoided whenever possible calling women to testify in court. They're very few. You can count them on one hand of the times women were brought in the court in Jewish culture. Josephus Jewish first century writer who gives us much about what happened in those days said let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of their sex when he meant by that. I don't know. You have to ask them someday. But the point is that women witnesses are risky. Why do you put him in if you're putting in a conspiracy if you're trying to convince men? Now, it might look good today. Well, I have balance in women. That was the way we would look at it, but that's not the way they looked. They wanted to impress people. They would have put impressive people for to discover the empty tomb like Joseph of their messiah or John or Peter or Nicodemus. These are the people that would be the movers, the influencers. These are the people you'd want to say Jesus rose from the dead if he didn't. Oh, it's a wonderful thing that these women are included. It shows that as we've been learned through the book of Luke, how the gospel is for all people. That's one of the main messages of Luke. It's for the outcasts, for leopards, for the ports, for the Gentile. It's for women's, for everyone who will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So women are given that privilege to be the first to see and hear and to speak of Christ's resurrection. Well, there's one fourth pointer that the disciples themselves, why would they lie? I cannot find a motive for their conspiracy. Now, everyone can lie. They can lie under oath, they can lie in all kinds of situations, but they would have had to lie for the rest of their life about the resurrection. So I find that hard to believe knowing who they were and what we know about them. That would have gone against everything that they believed since childhood. Remember, these people are not, we don't, we read into the text sometimes what we are, but they were not relevantists. They didn't believe that things were relative. They were, they're absolutions. They were not absolutions. They were absolute in their thinking about description and about truth. They were not secularists. They, they believe in a final judgment. They believe they would have to count for every word that they have said. Most people don't believe that today. They, they were not pragmatists who use information, whether true or false for their own purposes. That's not what they were. They were Jewish people who have been raised on the ninth command, that thou shalt not bear false witness. And that they would have been bearing false witness every time they opened their mouth the rest of their life if they were lying to us. Not to mention the fact that they, they got nothing out of it personally for themselves. Many of them became rich. They were beaten, they were harassed, they were ridiculed. Paul records it in 1 Corinthians 4 when he talks about an apostle. Here's the description of an apostle. I think it was great. Look at, listen to this. It is very hour. We, that is apostles, go hungry and thirsty. We are in rags. We are brutally treated. We are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. We are cursed and yet we bless. We're persecuted. Yet we endure. When we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuge of the world. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, 4th, 11 and following. And yet these men would go through all of that. And they could say before, as we've been going through Acts 4, when they were stood before the Sanhedrin that, that implied that we can arrange for your crucifixion just like we did for your Lord. They said, we can't help stop talking about what we've seen in earth. And they continued in that way all their life. And not one, all of them but one was murdered for that very truth they held to. Now a few people will go through all of life for what they know to be a hoax and die for it. Pascal said this kind of bluntly. He said, I prefer those witnesses that get their fruits cut. And the apostles were that kind of witness who would testify even if they were killed. That Jesus had risen from the dead. Now, let's switch gears a minute here. How all of the things we've talked about, all the above are simply pointers. I admit that pointers. They do not eliminate the need for faith. The empty tomb must be interpreted even to this day. The tomb had to be empty for the resurrection to be true. We can't believe in a resurrection and then say, wait, I'll put you buried over here, obviously. But the tomb's mere emptiness doesn't prove the resurrection. I know that. The empty tomb proves nothing by itself other than that Jesus is not there. But the only real way, even with these pointers, it kind of draws to that. The only real way to know the apostles are not lying in that Jesus rose from the dead is this. Get this. You're not going to think you're going to be surprised about what I say right now. The only real way to know that is for you to abandon your present belief system for you to shed your skin of independence of God, the attitude that says, I must see it to believe it, the attitude that says, God, you must answer me on my own terms. This is independent. I'm in charge, God, and you've got to come work this out for me. You've got to shed that. You've got to shed that and transfer it to a perspective of dependence upon God. See, there's only two ways to go. You're either independent of God or you're dependent upon God about truth. This perspective of dependent says, I don't know everything, Lord. I know I don't know anything. I'm not infinite. I never have, never will be. Nobody I talk to is infinite. I'll never be able to know truth without you telling me because you see it all and you know it all. The only way I can really know truth is to listen to you. This perspective says, God, I have not listened. I admit that. But here, here I am, teach me. Here I am, show me. Here I am, I'm listening. Because if you stay on your course of independence, which all doubters are on, all skeptics are on, I won't believe, I won't believe until he personally shows me in a way I want to know it, then you will never believe in the resurrection of Christ. Why? Because that is just isn't the way God reveals himself. That just isn't the way God is convincing people today. God convinces people today. He says it in his word through the Bible, through his word of witness to you, the scriptures, through the apostles. This is where he speaks. This is where he is testified. This is where he's given you evidence. It's faith comments by hearing this message, this word. It is in the Bible that we come to grips with our own sinfulness, our own independence from God. And that's the very thing that keeps us from believing in the resurrection. The very thing that keeps us from believing these things are true, from seeing him and knowing him. And yet also in the Bible, we find Jesus. We find him all of his power and his majesty and his might. We find him all of his care and love and grace and tenderness and kindness. And it's this message of this word that he's put together by his inspiration of himself that powerfully convinces people. And he has risen. Peter said to himself, you have been born again. Come into this new perspective of these dependence. You've been born again through the living and enduring word of God, which is the Bible, which is the message of the gospel. You know, you think about it for a minute here. When the apostles started to preach the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the temple courts, it was the same city, just 40 days later. 50 days rather than later. They came and they started to say, Jesus is alive. None of the apostles go to the empty tomb. It was there. It was still empty, I'm sure. They don't go and say, here's the empty tomb. See, Jesus is risen. No, what did they do? They don't do that at all. They don't do it. They're John's taking tours down the empty tomb. You're going to be able to see it for yourself. No, that's not what they do. They stand boldly and they proclaim, I saw it. I'm an eyewitness. The word of God came to people in thousands came to know you and believe it. And it's the same way today because God does that. He brings His word of witness to us through the scriptures. And if you won't believe the scriptures, you'll never believe the resurrection. You'll have to leave your view of independence and say, I want to know it. I want to reason it all through perfectly. And come on to the idea of dependence that God is there and that the only way you're going to know him is to listen to him and the only place he's speaking right now is the scriptures and come and know him there. You see, we don't need more evidence. You don't need more evidence. You need less arrogance because this arrogance that says, God, you've got to prove it to me on my terms. But it's the dependence upon God that says, Lord, I'm a child. Teach me. The Lord says he resist the proud when he gives grace to the humble. You see, you must leave your viewpoint, which leaves God out of your life and puts you at the center of your life. You must leave that viewpoint. You've been tweeting God in the proofery of your life. He's out there someplace, but you must start to view yourself and your life and Christ Jesus and the resurrection from God's viewpoint. And this is his viewpoint. This is his viewpoint. Let me switch ears one more time and then we'll wrap this up. Where is your proof that Jesus didn't rise from the death? The burden of proof is on the Christian's approval. Yes, it is. When I've given you pointers to that, where is your counter? Where is your refuge of this? Where are you speaking against? What evidence do you have of it? What witnesses can you bring out in history? You see, the Old Testament predicted hundreds of years before the fact that Jesus would rise from the death. The eyewitnesses proclaimed it in the New Testament. Millions of people have been totally changed by it through the history of the church. Where is your evidence that all of it is a whole? The ball is in your court. How can you support your belief system that Jesus didn't rise from the grave and that he isn't the Lord? Isn't it really that you don't want to believe it in spite of all the evidence God is giving it? You see, but Ron, I didn't say I don't believe it. I just say I just don't know if he rose from the grave. I can't. I'm not in a position to tell. Why not? There is clear evidence that you've been given even today that he did. You see, a gnosticism is a smokescreen that you're using that covers up your unwillingness to believe in the parent upon God. It is to be neutral is to reject God. It's just a smokescreen. It's the same thing. It's just simply saying no. Where is your evidence? Where is your unbelief? Where is your evidence? Where is your neutrality? It's really a matter of being committed to your worldview of independence from God. The very thing that Jesus has come to free us from. Our real problem is that we're running from God. That we wanted our way. That we say it's my life and God, don't you come in and mess it up. And this running in this direction, the Bible warns us, will end us. And the destination will be hell itself. If we keep running that way, if we keep running the course of independence, it will end up in hell. Jump the course today. Believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. He came to take hell for you. He came to take hell for runners like you. When he died in the cross, he died for sinners. He died to take your death if you will turn and believe in Him. How would you hear the news? It's Easter. And when we look at our text, there's three responses there. The tins call it nonsense. You're in delirium. You're crazy. You can walk off saying that today. Staying on your course of independence from God. Or you can do it like Peter who at least at the time wondered about it. Walked away, but there really was no change. Interesting. The linen closet, but no belief or thirdly, you can remember his words. You can believe his angel. That's what a messenger is. That angel is a messenger. It's what it word me. You can bleed his messenger, the proclamation of his word today. You can believe that message. It really comes down to, will you be honest and believe it? Will you jump course from your independence to dependence upon God? Will you hear the voice of God's messenger today? He is not here. He has risen. You see Jesus and forgiveness and resurrection for your body and for your soul right now is for people just like you. There are no different than me or sinners or a need of a Savior. Come, trust that Savior. The risen Lord Jesus Christ. Don't be lied to anymore. And let me add this. I didn't plan on saying this. Any of you who are here that have confessed Christ sometime in your life perhaps you're even a member of this church or a member of some church, but you're just not walking with him. You're not coming to church. You're not worshipping him on a regular basis. You're not involved. You're not growing. You're not hearing the word preached. You're not taking of the Lord's suffer on a regular basis. How can you really say you believe that Jesus is risen? See, our faith is what we do with our name. James said that faith without works is dead. We're not saved by our works, but our works show whether we have faith or not. And I'm delighted this morning to look out to the physician. Well, I'm not going to flatter you. I was going to say you're a good-looking crowd. A great crowd. Look at this crowd. Why isn't this like this everywhere? Are you really dependent upon God? Are you really believing in Christ, trusting Him? Giving your all to Him? Are you trying to walk a middle ground someplace? That's where you find yourself this morning. You're in a dangerous spot. Because Jesus doesn't say that if you're just one time stand up to confess Him, you're saved. It says, if you truly trust in Him, the only way we can know we truly trusted in Him is if we keep walking with Him. As our confession said, if we hold to this gospel and all that it implies until the very end, come back to Jesus. The reason more, isn't he the reason more? Great. And be here next week. You'll show that that you really trust Him. If you're here next week. And if you find other things to do, you'll show where your heart is. Jesus says where your treasure is, your heart will be also. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. He is His reason. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that what I just said would not unduly offend anyone here. I pray it would not be interpreted as simply a pastor trying to fill his church. I pray it would be received as it is given. But a heart for those who are on the periphery. Lord, I pray that wherever we find ourselves this morning, Lord, you would move us to the center. The center of dependence upon you so that we can really see and believe that Jesus is risen from the dead because you used it so. And we trust Him and we love you for it. Lord, I pray that you would draw your own to yourself even as we pray now in Jesus' name. Amen.