This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Avalon Park, Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar driving directions and more audio recordings. He's risen. Hi, my name is Scott Puckett. I'm the pastor here at Christ Kingdom Church and get a chance to leave worship sometimes in preach. I'm glad to be here. This is your first time here with us. Again, just a special thanks. I know some of you might be in from out of town. So you might live right here in our own neighborhood. We're glad to have you here this morning. We're going to be looking at several scripture texts. But the primary one from the Luke chapter 24. It's printed in your bulletin on the insert. I think it'll be on the screen in just a moment. If you have a Bible, you might want to turn there as well, too. Luke chapter 24. Verses one through eight. Hear God's holy and inspired word. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the 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 and 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 is risen. Remember how he told you? Well, 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 he will rise again. Then they remembered his words. That is God's holy and inspired word that we look at here this morning. You know what caught my attention to this passage? Because there are several accounts of the resurrection. What caught my attention was that phrase where it says, why do you look for the living among the dead? Why did you go to an empty tomb or to a tomb? They didn't know it was empty at the time. When there had been one who had promised that he would rise again on the third day. Let me ask you this this morning. Because I know that some of you may not come to church very often. This may be your first time in a while. Maybe possibly the first time in a year or so since last Easter? I don't know. But let me ask you this in every one of us. Why do we look for living, truthful living things among things that are dead? Among things that have no life. Among things that make promises, like the promises of this world, that can never be delivered and never do deliver on. What is it about human nature that has us looking for living things all the time? But always looking in the wrong place. That's kind of what we're going to be looking at here this morning. As we look at the resurrection, hopefully with fresh lenses here this morning. We're going to be looking at that. And before we do that officially or dive into it, let me just remind you that sometimes it's a painful experience. Getting to truth, getting to real hope, getting to real healing can be a painful experience. Many years ago when I started ministry left college, I started working as a youth pastor outside of Birmingham, Alabama. And I had a student in my youth ministry named Craig. And Craig was a great ordinary student. I mean, just a great guy did well in school. He would have done well in sports except for one thing, he had cerebral palsy. You'd be knowing anything about that disease. You know, it literally is crippling in many respects. And very much difficult for anybody, much less of your teenager going through life. But I remember coming across, Craig came to a point where the doctors had made a choice that it was going to be important. He actually had a mild form of cerebral palsy, which was a good thing. But the doctor said, you know what, for him to have a chance of being able to walk better and walk longer in his adult life, we're going to have to do some drastic surgery. The idea was to go in and to break both femur bones of his legs and actually rotate them so they would heal back in a different position than before. And I think Craig at the time was 14, 15 years old. But I remember thinking, you've got to be kidding me. This is like, I don't know much about it, but this is like one of the biggest bones in your body. And you're going to break that on purpose. Not just one, but both. This is going to be a six-month healing process, probably 12 months with therapy before he gets back to normal. With the hope that he'd walk better. But that's what happened. Because his parents loved Craig. Because Craig wasn't really excited about the thought, as you can imagine. Because the doctor really had Craig's best interest in mind. It required breaking something that wasn't broke to fix something much bigger, much deeper. That was more dangerous. That was more broken. Looking down the road. Now let me just challenge you this morning as we dive in. Will you be that bold to trust that there is a physician in heaven, the creator of the universe, that might just take you through a process of breaking that would be painful. Not anything you would plan to do to yourself. Not anything you would walk into on your own, but he would lead you through that like Craig's parents did because he loves you. Because he's a perfect father in heaven. Would you think about that possibility this morning? And I'm going to pray one more time. I'm going to invite you to pray with me and say, God, if I'm broke, I want you to heal me deeply. I want real healing. I want real answers. And make that your prayer here this morning, unless expect him to show up because he is no longer dead. He's alive. Let's pray one more time. God, I ask this morning that you would come in that hearts right here in this room would be willing to say bold enough, hungry and desperate enough to say I really want to be alive. I really want to experience the reality of living God in my life. God, come, break me to fix, to heal what's broken. God, come do the painful surgery so I can experience the reality of a renewed life. God, for those hearts that are praying that this morning, I pray to be everyone in this room. God, would you show up by your spirit? Would you let your words speak? God, would you let anything that I say that's not of your word be quickly forgotten and only those things that are true to your word to be remembered? And may your word not return void. May it do work in our hearts, God. And may the power and the reality of a resurrected Christ be manifest in this place. And may this Easter be different for some than they've ever had before. And deeper and more powerful for all of us. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, one thing that's interesting that when you are a pastor, you have special opportunities that come your way. One of those on the pleasant side is doing things like weddings. And I've got one coming up in May that I'll get a chance to do with Sarah Turner, which I'm looking forward to. But one of the other things that you don't look so much forward to is the going through difficult times with people. And in particular, the funerals, the memorial services. And I bet most of you who are still in here have been old enough long enough. I bet almost everybody here has attended one. Maybe some of you way more than you like to count. But let me tell you one thing that's true at every single funeral memorial service that either attended or that I've officiated at. Is that there's always hope. Now, it may not be a huge amount of hope, but there is always some level of hope that people at the loss of a loved one, a relative, a friend, a child, a spouse, whatever the case might be, are holding on to the idea and the hope that they have gone on to a better place. That they themselves will see them again one day. And in the midst of that incredible grief, the greatest grief we can ever experience, the death of someone we love, there is hope. Every heart is clinging to some level of hope. You know, Gallup Poll back in 2007 did a survey among those to try to figure out how many people actually believe in a life after death. How many actually believe in heaven? Gallup determined just a few years now ago 81% believe in heaven. This is in the United States. 8% aren't sure. So maybe as much as 90% believe there's a possibility. Just about everybody has a level of hope that there is something after death. That this is not the end of life. That you will see somebody else you love one that's gone on ahead one day, that you yourself when you're in that position in that place. Your life will go on and carry on after physical death here on earth. Now it's interesting only 69% believe there's actually a hell. So there's quite a different discrepancy there on that. And only 0.5%, only 0.5%, 1.5% believe or honest enough to say that they think they actually might go to hell. So what's my point? There's hope. 9 out of 10 people are counting on the reality of some kind of afterlife. Less than 1.5%, 1% think that it's not going to be a good thing for them. There's hope. There's hope in just about every human heart. And I bet there's hope in your heart here this morning. But here's my question for you to think about what is your hope based on? What is your hope trusting in? First Peter 1 verses 3 and 3 through 5. I'm going to read just verse 3. This is also printed in your bulletin says this. Praise be to God the Father, Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Do you know that because of the resurrection the Bible tells us God says that you have a living hope if you're faith entrusted in Jesus Christ. Here's my question. Is your hope a living hope? Because by virtue of this there it also implies that there is a dead hope. If you have a living hope it must be because there's some that have a dead hope. And I want you to think honestly this morning and ask the Holy Spirit to speak and reveal to you that where is your hope this morning? Isn't it what the Bible calls a living hope or isn't what the Bible would refer to as a dead hope? As we look at that further on. You know one of the things that I've realized too I've lived long enough to know many people that have battled and struggled and some that still are struggling with cancer. I remember one guy in particular that I knew was going through it and he was basically at the end of all the ropes of opportunities that he had for science that was proven and all the chemotherapy radiation type thing. And it was time for exploratory type measures. It was time for trying experimental drugs and all that goes on with that. And I remember he would say you know I'm feeling better after trying this one here but I don't know whether I have the placebo or the real thing. And of course if you know or have been through that situation or knows what it has that's part of the process. That's part of them testing the new drugs to be able to figure out what really works and what doesn't. But he always had this idea of not knowing did he have the real thing or did he have just a placebo? And I want you to think about here this morning. Is it a living hope? Is it a dead hope? You've got something really tangible that the Bible says you can go to the bank on or is it a placebo? You know even this harsh winter if any of you have yard at all, especially those that are green thumbs, you've dealt with plants that probably haven't survived. Or if you're really good gardener, maybe your plants did survive. I had many that did it. But I was reading about what, how do you can you tell if a plant's alive or dead? Because sometimes it still has the looks on the outside of it being dead when it's really alive. And sometimes they can look even alive for a while in the outside when it's really dead on the inside. Notice what the experts say. They say you won, but one you got to consult an expert to really get this opinion. That's the first thing. The second thing they say you got to look at the stem. You got to look beneath the surface of what you see and you got to break open and look at a stem and see what you see on the inside. The second thing you can do is you go look at the root and see how healthy the root is. And we're going to do that now. We're going to go to the expert God, his word. We're going to look beneath the surface. We're going to look at the root of your heart and your life. And I want you to ask the question to yourself, why do you look for the living among the dead? Are you looking for the living among the dead? Well, the first thing, if you're following along on your outline, let's talk about what is the dead hope. Let's figure out exactly what we're trying to avoid. What the Bible says is the placebo that can never deliver. If you're following along on your outline inside, it's the dead hope. One of the things that my mom said to me, she's sitting right over here so she can remember this, as I was learning how to drive. And I've got three teenagers there driving now, one that just started. And we won't talk about and evaluate the process of them learning how to drive. But one of the things I remember her telling me, because I was an arrogant teenager when I was learning how to drive, is that I would follow all the traffic laws precisely and would assume that those that weren't following them precisely, you know, were the ones that fought. You know, if I came to a full stop and it was my turn to go and somebody else started going, well, they're at fault. And she would say this, you say, well, you know what, you could be dead right. Did you say that, Mom, or not? Yes, she did. What was her point? You can be absolutely right, but you could still be dead on the road, absolutely right. You can be dead right. Let me ask you to look, thank deeply, here about the possible reality that in your heart, in your life, that something is not quite right, that there is a dead hope that exists between each of us. In fact, the Bible talks about the dead hope, really, as a two-sided coin, which we're going to talk about both sides here, and just a second. One of the best examples and stories of this is actually, it's printed in your script and your outline there from Luke 15. It's a story, the prodigal son. And we don't have time to read that in its length, because it's a long story. But I bet if any of you have spent any time in church over the years, you probably have heard this story, or read it yourself at one point or another. But it's this story about a father, Jesus tells it, referring to himself on it, who has two sons. He has one younger son who goes off and says, hey, give me my inheritance, dad. Give it to me now, which is basically the same as saying, dad, to you, to me, you are as if you're dead. And whether than waiting for my inheritance when you die, I want it now, because I don't give a rip about you. And so he gives his son his inheritance, and he goes off, and he spends it. And he does, you know, while living and blows it all, but didn't you have the other son? Even though he has stayed at home with the father, has watched his younger sibling go off, blow everything that he has, but sees the younger sibling come back, asks to be forgiven, receive forgiveness from his father, and he's angry because his father throws a party form. His father is saying, look, the son, the mind that was lost has been found, come rejoice with me. He kills the fat and calf, he puts a ring back on his spangry, he puts shoes on his feet, he gives him a robe. He treats him not just as a hired one or as a slave, which is what all the younger son was wanting at this point. He treats him back as a son, and the older sibling is angry because now he becomes an heir again. Now a part of the older son's inheritance must now be split again with the son by his being renewed into the family. And he argues, he doesn't go into the party, and when his father comes looking for him, he says, look, I have served you, I have labored for you all these years, and never disobeyed you once. And you haven't thrown a party for me, ever. And you find the response of another son, who actually was just as distant from the father in relationship as the younger son that left with everything. You find two sons, both separated from their father, but for very two different reasons. I want to talk about that older son first. That older son comes back, and he says this in chapter 15, he says, look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when the son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you killed the fat and calf for him. You have the reality of an older son who had a dead hope, but didn't even realize it at the time. You see the dead hope, the first side of the coin that the scripture talks about. A dead hope, one side of that, takes on the form of moral conformity, religiousness, self-righteousness. In fact, if you look at it here, this is all those that choose to try to find and earn their way before God, or whatever you call your eternal being in your paradigm of life, trying to earn their way by doing good things, by being a good person in and of themselves. This is what every good Muslim is trusting in, is that they can be faithful to Allah and the Quran, then they can be guaranteed righteousness. This is what every good Buddhist is trusting in, every good Hindu, a orthodox Jew who keeps the law of God consistently to the best of his knowledge. And what even good Christians do who think that based on their obedience to God and the teachings in his word, that they will earn their way to heaven. It's called moral conformity. It's called self-righteousness. It's the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. And you know what? He wasn't interested in a relationship with the father. He was interested in his dad's stuff. He was looking for his personal inheritance. He was wondering, where's the party for him? And notice what he wanted in his party. For me and my friends, does he say anything about it being with him and the father? No. Oh yes, he was physically present, but he was emotionally and spiritually just as far, just as removed as the younger brother who had physically left home with that. It's a dead hope. You know what? And as long as you feel like you're doing pretty good with keeping the rules, if you're more of a religious moral conformist type person, if this is more your MO, as long as you're keeping the rules, you feel pretty good about yourself. You feel pretty good about things. And secretly, you feel a little bit better than others. Although you won't probably say that out loud, but if you can't push into shove or you're talking privately with a friend, you don't mind sharing just how good you think you are. This is part of a dead hope the Bible talks about. You know what? And if you are a person like this, you know what you think the problem is? The real problem in the world, it's those immoral people. Boy, this world would be a better place if it wasn't for those immoral people out there. And if people were just more like me, this world would be better off. It's the type of idea. The solution is to have more people like yourself. It's a problem that has a dead hope associated with it. Beneath the surface of all this, as I've already said, it's not that you want God is you want God's stuff. And you believe that if you are moral and if you are generally a good person, you believe if you're honest beneath the surface that God kind of owes it to you. I mean, how many of you, if you were really honest, have ever thought, you know, something bad happens to you? All right, what did I do to deserve that? Because you kind of thought you were doing good enough that you deserve a little better treatment from God who's in control of all things. Or if you've lived well and done a really good job, you're counting on God to deliver and do something for you to get you that job, to get you that grade at school, to get you the right relationship with that special guy or gal. And when God doesn't deliver, it's like, what's up with that? Because deep down underneath, you really felt like God owed it to you. You felt like you had done your part, it was time for God to do his part. It reveals the heart of a moral conformist, someone who's seeking self-righteousness and the Bible calls it a dead hope. It's a placebo. It's not the real thing. It can't deliver. How do we know that? Look at some of these verses. Isaiah 64, 6 says this, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags before God. What does that really mean? Let's make that really personal and tangible here. That means that on the day that you thought you were doing the very best, where you did the nicest things to people around you, where you were the most obedient or God honoring with your life, God looks at that moment or that particular day. And he says, you know, it's like filthy rags because it's dripping, it's oozing with pride and arrogance and self-righteousness. What does God say? He says, he's opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. It's a dead hope. And if you read Romans 3 here, it goes on even more boldly, it says this, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There's no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have come, they have together become worthless. There's no one who does good, not even one. What does God say? God's saying when you are doing the very best to live a moral life, you haven't come close to being good because your motives associated with it are all about self-clorification or self-righteousness. Because where you think you've done so well in a few areas of the law, you've neglected many others. You say, I haven't ever disobey a commandment, one of the ten commandments of God, but God says, yeah, but had you lived according to obedience and righteousness with me to live as you're supposed to live. Doing the things you're supposed to do, loving your neighbor as yourself, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
Don't most of us living on this planet have this idea of a scale that if I have more good things in my life, at the end of my life, than bad things, then I'm going to go to heaven. God says, you have a low view of sin. If you really think that anybody scale is going to tip in favor of righteousness in heaven when it's all said and done. Eve took one bite of the fruit, and Adam took one bite of the fruit, and it was enough to forever because it was rebellion against a holy, righteous God who cannot have sin in his presence. One taste did that permanently and eternally, and we think we're going to do a few good things in life until the scale. God says, you have a low view of him. You have a low view of sin if that's the case. You have a dead hope as a reality of it. The question is, why are you looking for a living hope among the dead? Do you think being a moral person is what your hope's resting in? It's a dead hope. It's a dead hope. Well, there's another side of it, of the coin. I love Tim Keller in his book, The Protocol of God, calls it self-discovery. Because see, there are many, whether they're religious people, or whether they're just literally moral people that take the coin on the left, but there is a whole slew of people who opt for the other side of the coin on the right. Self-discovery. What is that? Well, it's best looked at by the younger son and the story of the prodigal son. The younger son, who says, you know what? Rather than trust my father in a relationship with him to give me all the stuff that I'm looking for and desiring, and rather than realizing that my father himself is the prize, is what's the most thing that my heart longs for. I'm going to set out, I'm going to turn my back on my father, I'm going to basically tell him you're dead to me, give me my inheritance now before you physically die, and I'm going to go do it my way. I'm going to go find fulfillment my way. This is the other part of the population of our planet that rather than chooses a religious code or mode or moral system to follow, they go the opposite way. I say, whatever I want to do, whatever is good for me is what I'm going to follow and what I'm going to put my trust in. Again, Luke 15, you see the passage here where the son comes, the younger son comes, and he says, father, give me my share of the estate, so he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together, all that he had, set off her distant country and they're squandered his wealth and wild living. He went off and he followed his own self-discovery way, finding his fulfillment in life. The younger son had a dead hope, but he didn't realize it. Well, very similar to the older son, the younger son goes off and decides in just a different way, then rather than it being the father that I really want, it's just the father's stuff, it's just God's stuff is what I'm really after. And rather than be dependent on him and following his religious rules, I'm just going to do it my own way, I'm just going to follow my own compass of life. You know what? I ain't going to be all for tolerance, but you know what I'm so much for tolerance if I'm in this camp? It's not because I so much respect everybody's other opinion, it's because I don't want anybody telling me that my opinion is wrong. That's the number one reason my people are for tolerance, if they were honest because they basically want to be validated and have reason to say look, leave my beliefs alone, don't challenge that my viewpoint may be contrary to what the truth is as we look at that. They choose a moral compass that allows or at least excuses them to do whatever they want to do, to make any decision they want to in life, but it's a dead hope. The problem that these people think, you know, guess what the problem is that they think is with the world. And he guesses, they think the problem is with all those other people, all those moral people, all those people that try to do the right thing, it's religion, it's all those religious people. And of course the solution is for people to be more like them, to be more like them. To be the service is all they want is God's stuff, not God with it, it's a placebo of dead hope. Let's look at what the scriptures say, Proverbs 14, 12 says this, there's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. This is one of the scariest verses in the entire Bible. In a little sweet little book of wisdom called Proverbs, that most of us don't have a problem reading all the time, but you know what this is saying? That you go to default mode and do whatever you think you want to do, you could totally miss the reality and totally miss the truth. It goes on to say in Romans 1, 24 through 25, therefore God gave them over in the simple desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve creative things rather than the creator. How many songs do you heard in your lifetime about love? And love being what it's all about or seeing movies or TV shows love, love. Isn't ironic that love can be so worshiped on this planet, but the God who says he is love is rejected. How many people have paid countless amounts of money for either prescription drugs to help them or to go to pay professional counseling services, psychologists, psychiatrists, whoever the case might be, to give them inner peace when there's a God who says he is the God of all peace. It's the worshiping of the created things rather than the creator and God tells us it's a dead hope. So my question again, why are you looking for a living hope among dead things? And this is one approach that we have with that. What do those two approaches have in common? It's all about you. It's all about you. The truth in reality is that you will probably gravitate between these two camps on a regular basis. You know, it's not very uncommon to hear of one who has lived a life of moral conformity, self-righteousness, get to a place where they finally give up the trying harder. They're sick of feeling bad and guilty and never living up to their own expectations that they'll flip to the side of the coin and just go for self discovery. Got a friend of mine who knows a pastor who had faithfully been serving God, not even just in this country but even in another country overseas as a missionary, starting a church and another part of the world, faithfully following God, living a moral conformist type life. But the pressures of that, the lackness of relationship with God, filling him up, let him to a place where he finally began living a duplicate life and a private life. They began with one woman and then multiple women. And now no longer claims to believe in God, now goes off and lives a total life of self discovery. Why can somebody make that kind of a radical switch? And by the way, it can work the other way. Many people can live the self discovery life and come in and try to think, I just, it's time for me to be religious. But the common denominator is it's all about yourself. It's all about getting stuff from God rather than getting God. I like what Tim Keller says in his book, The Protocol God. He says this, it is only when you see the desire to be your own Savior and Lord lying beneath both of your sins of moral goodness that you are on the verge of understanding the gospel and becoming a Christian indeed. When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you are on the brink. If you follow through, it will change everything. How you relate to God, self, others, the world, your work, your sins, your virtue, it's called the new birth because it's so radical. Jesus Christ who had the power, who had all the power in the world saw us enslaved by the very things we thought would free us. So he emptied himself of his glory and became a servant. What did Jesus do? Jesus came in to say, look, don't use this coin. The coin of self is going to lead you down the wrong track and it's going to disappoint you. And whether you're a moral conformist at the end of his life looking back going, what's it all for? What's it all matter or the self discovery person who gets into their life and thinks, I still haven't found it. I've been looking for it. Jesus comes in and says, look, those are dead hope. But number two, there's a living hope. There's a living hope. If moral conformity and self righteousness is a dead hope, if self discovery is a dead hope, what is the living hope? It's discovering the righteousness of Jesus Christ is the living hope. Look what Ephesians says, Ephesians 2, remember that at that time you were separate from Christ without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near to the blood of Christ. Without Christ, you were without living hope. But now you've been brought near and given a living hope. Living hope is trusting in Jesus Christ, not yourself. Living hope is, as 2 Corinthians 521 says, God made him who knew no sin to be sinned for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. It's not about you. It's about him. That's the reason why God says at his name, every niche about and every tongue confess. At the name of Jesus, because it's all about him, and it's about his righteousness, not your own. He perfectly keeps the commands of God on your behalf. It's kind of like this. You might recognize this guy. He's getting a little older. Charles Barkley, one of the great MBA players of all time. I happened to work at that first church I was telling you about earlier in the same town that he grew up in as a boy. What does that mean? That means sometimes when you're at the local YMCA in Leeds, Alabama, Charles Barkley shows up and just comes around and starts shooting with the guys. Well, a friend of mine, actually the senior pastor of the church I worked at was there one day. He was telling me the story. He was just going there to get some exercise, get a little pickup game of like two on two basketball. And as he's trying to divide up teams, he sees Charles Barkley walk into the Leeds YMCA. And he says, I'm on his team. And sure enough, he's a little short guy. And Charles Barkley take on these other three or four guys, two on three or two on four whatever it was. And he was telling me about how great it was. He said he never had a more fun game, because all he did, he wanted to pass it to Charles. He said he just threw it up in the air. Okay, you know, just sort it in his direction. And Charles did all the work. He got the ball. Okay, when all the guys came to try to guard Charles, Charles was just kind of flipping behind his back to my buddy Craig. He just come in and do the layup because nobody was guarding him. What was the point? Or when he came back and took that three point shot, but he was always afraid to do normally he just kind of threw it up there. He wasn't worried about it because if it was going off which it would, Charles was going to take it and come back and slam it in for him. He played that entire basketball game, his favorite game of his life, completely relying on someone else's talent and someone else's ability. And it brought joy, brought peace, brought contentment and fulfillment. That's what it's like to depend on the righteous of Christ. It's not that you don't try to follow God's word. You're realizing something that has already done it perfectly in your place and has already established a relationship with you and God that's secure. So you can be free just to walk in a new life. That's what it's like. It's trusting in his righteous life, but it's also trusting in his substitutionary death. A long word simply to say, he dies in your place. He dies in your place. Romans 5.8, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That means as the Bible says, there is a real penalty for sin and the real requirement and the payment of it is your life. Adam and Eve, after the one first sin that they had in the garden of Eden, God promised them death. Now imagine living a life full of sin. God says that the payment due is your life, is death because of rebellion against the Holy Righteous God, your Creator God. Jesus comes and says, I'll take your spot. I'll take your place in that. There's a story that's told about this guy named Napoleon that as he went off one time, as they were having the big war between France and Britain, at one point they got to a lottery draft system where they were trying to make sure they had enough men and recruits. They pulled up this one guy's name and they had him come in. He says, look, I can't serve because I died two years ago. If you check the record, I died in action two years ago. They were like, obviously, this guy is trying to pull a fast one, right? Here he is standing in front of us alive, but they did. They looked him up. There's his name, his birth date, everything on it. He died in action two years earlier. As they explored, he went on to say, tell him the whole story what happened. You see, I had a good friend who was single at the time. I was married, had children. When my name came up in the first lottery draft or whatever it was two years earlier, he said, look, I'll go in your place. I'll put down your name. I'll put down your birth date. You've got a family. You stay with them. That's what happened. It was such a hub to do with this whole thing. I actually got to Napoleon himself who came back and when you heard the entire story through it, here's what his decision was. He said, the man goes free because he had died in the person of another. He had died in someone else's reality who went to war in his name and his birth date. Napoleon, the great warrior, let's him off the hook because there had been a sacrifice made for him that caused the life of another. Someone had died already in his place. Let me tell you that. Put that on steroids to understand that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has died in your place when you place your faith in trust in him. He takes on your death penalty so that his reward of his perfect life of righteousness can be given to you instead. It's a great, amazing exchange. It's a living hope that trust in Jesus that he not only has lived to write his life in our place, but he's died in our place as well. Well, the scripture's gone and they tell us in 1 Corinthians 15. For if the dead are not raised and Christ has not been raised either and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You're still in your sins. Then those also have fallen asleep in Christ or lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitted more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as an Adam all dies so in Christ, all will be made alive. If there is any hope for you to have an eternal life in heaven, it's only based on the fact that one has gone before you that has been raised from the dead. If Jesus Christ did not raise rise from the dead, if there's not really an empty tomb that represented his resurrection from death, then you have no hope. This is why this is a big holiday. This is why this is a big deal. This is why this should trump even Christmas in realizing this is the fulfillment of Christmas that God would come and conquer paying for your sin penalty and then conquering sin and death by being the first one to be raised as evidence and proved that all those who place their faith in Christ in Jesus Christ will one day on the last day be raised to eternal life. They don't get me wrong. Everybody will be raised. But only those who have faith in Christ will be raised to eternal life in heaven and the new heavens and the new earth, those who are raised without Christ to final judgment, to stand on their own righteousness before a holy God. And they can bring their scale. You can bring your scale on that day and try to convince God how you're good things outweigh your bad and do your best with that and take your chances with that or you can toss the scale away and go, you know what, I'm going to stick to the guy Jesus, the son of God. I'm going to trust in his righteousness. I'm going to count on that. And that's why John 316 is so powerful when he says, God so love the world, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You know, what's amazing, it's kind of like this check. You can try your own little coins of righteousness or you can take a check from Jesus Christ, the son of God, 100% perfect righteousness with a promise of eternal life. And if that is your choice, you can insert your name in that here today claiming his promises receiving Christ into your own life and you can walk and trust in that. That's the good news. That's why we celebrate Easter. That's why we say he's risen and why you say he's risen indeed because that's the only hope that we have of righteousness and Christ. We bow our heads and pray with me. Father God, this morning I just asked right now that as hearts are no doubt thinking about the reality of these truths, God would you come and the quietness of your Holy Spirit, those hearts who have opened themselves to hearing the truth. Those who have been said, hey, break me that I might experience real healing. God, would you bring that hope right now? Would you remind them that you promise to forgive the sins of those who confess them before you, that you promise to come and live in the lives and the hearts of those who receive you as their Lord and Savior. So, Father, for those that any of them might be here today, who might question and wonder, who might want to receive you? God, would you just have them in the quietness of their heart, pray something like this? Lord Jesus Christ, I admit that I'm a sinner that I deserve separation from you. But thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for my sins. I place my faith in trust in him to forgive my sins, to give me new life and to walk with him as my Lord and Savior. God, for any of that made that prayer, that decision, that thought this morning, God, would you give them immediately today in the days that had assurance of their salvation and the promise, God, that your Holy Spirit will come and work and move in their hearts. So, God, I just ask right now that you would strengthen them. And for those guys that are here that are already followers of you, you strengthen them with their realization of the hope of the righteous as a Christ. And God, for those who are still trying to live according to the law and still trying to be good enough, God, would you set those people free again, fresh this morning, that it's the righteous as a Christ that they cling to that they trust in. So, God, strengthen them here now and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.