Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne Good morning He is risen My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here and if you have a Bible with you, please turn to Matthew 28 We're going to look at verses one through 20 if you're going to use one of the Bibles that we provide underneath the chairs in front of you It's on page 989 Matthew 28 one through 20 here now as I read God's holy and inspired word
After the Sabbath at dawn on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb There was a violent earthquake for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and Going to the tomb rolled back the stone and sat on it his appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men The angel said to the women do not be afraid For I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as he said Come and see the place where he lay Then go quickly and tell us disciples he has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee There you will see him now. I have told you So when the women hurried away So the women hurried away from the tomb afraid yet filled with joy and ran to tell the disciples Suddenly Jesus met them greetings. He said they came to him clasped his feet and worshiped him Then Jesus said to them do not be afraid go tell my brothers to go to Galilee There they will see me While the women were on their way some of the guards went into the city and Reported to the chief priests everything that had happened when the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan They gave the soldiers a large sum of money telling them you are to say his disciples came during the night and stole him away While we were asleep If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed and This story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go When they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted Then Jesus came to them and said all All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me Therefore go and make disciples of all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey Everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age the word of the Lord Let's pray Gracious Father, we do thank you That we have this opportunity to look at your word this morning. We pray that you would use it in our lives as Mike prayed before Fill us with your spirit fill us with your word and send us out to our neighbors and to the nations with this amazing Gospel we pray in Jesus name Amen Sister Sunday and we are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ for celebrating the fact that he rose from the dead It is the most amazing thing. It is the most important thing that's ever happened One author says the resurrection is not merely important to the historic Christian faith without it There would be no Christianity Another author guy named Yurislav Pelican who not only has an awesome name But said if Christ is risen nothing else matters and if Christ is not risen nothing else matters It's true the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important thing to ever happen and what we want to see today What we want to realize today From the word of God Is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ makes him worthy of true Worship and when I say worship I don't just mean coming on a Sunday morning and singing songs which we call Corporate worship and listening to preaching that obviously he's worthy of that But I mean worship in the full biblical sense of the word when they use the word worship in the scriptures They would say what God do you worship and basically they were saying what God are you trusting in what God are you loving? What God do you serve what God do you obey? That's what we're talking about this morning that the resurrection of Jesus Christ makes him worthy of our love Worthy for us to serve him with our lives worthy for us to obey his every word and worthy of us to be Proclaiming his name to the entire world his resurrection makes him worthy of true worship That's what I hope we can see this morning And so we're going to do this by really just looking at three questions We're talking about what happened Why does it matter and What should we do what happened? Why does it matter and what should we do? So if you keep your bibles open we're going to look at the text just for a minute here I just want to walk through this story. It's such an amazing story a little background The couple days before on the day we call good Friday Jesus was murdered he was hung on the cross He died and then they took his body down and they put it into a tomb where his body lay lifeless For the rest of Friday for all of Saturday and for the first part Of Easter Sunday and that's where we pick up the women here in verse 1 We're going to the tomb they were most likely going to Anoint Jesus body with some oils and some spices and some things that normally you would do for somebody who had died But what happens? There's this amazing earthquake now whether the earthquake was happened when they were there or when they're on their way We're not sure about that but the earth shook And it might be exact moment when Jesus rose from the grave and the reason you could imagine that Is because if you were to flip back to Matthew 27 verse 51 You'd see that when Jesus died Matthew writes that the earth shook and the rocks split and so what Matthew's showing us here is that the death of Christ and then the glorious resurrection of Christ are some earth rocking events the two most earth rocking events that we've ever heard about and so then this angel appears oh that you can you can you imagine that Seeing this angel they said it looks like lightning just gleaming white nothing we've ever seen on TV Could ever come close to giving us a picture of what this was really like I mean it was unreal and his clothes were white as snow and so the guards They were paralyzed with fear. I mean you can imagine you're looking at something like you've never seen before They're just laying there probably shaking and they can't move They were maybe even trying to move says they were laying there like dead men Oh, man, it's amazing So then the angel says look at this to the women Not to the guards He says to the women do not be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus as if to say to the guards Yeah, you guys are in big trouble. You lay there and you be paralyzed, okay, but to the women He says do not be afraid and he says this incredible line look at this verse six He is not here He has risen just as he said so he sends them off to tell the disciples their mixed with this They have this mixture of of incredible fear and incredible joy at the same time You know probably like if you're going skydiving you're like I'm so excited and I'm scared to death and so you know They're experiencing this amazing emotion and they're running a running away to tell the disciples And if they're not overwhelmed enough Jesus appears to them The risen Christ he appears to them. He says greetings. They know nothing other than to fall down and worship him And look at that look at verse nine. It says that they clasped his feet
And what that is showing us Matthew's teaching us here that they grabbed a hold of his physical body His body came back to life. It's not as if Jesus died and then his spirit lives on No This was a real resurrection his dead body became alive again We see that because they were able to clasp his feet John recounts this in his gospel chapter 20 verse 20 which I have on the screen says Jesus showed them his hands and his feet Luke 24 39 Look at this Says Jesus said to them look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself touch me and see a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have I mean, this is the real deal Jesus dead body is now back to life fully alive Verse 10 he says that the disciples are his brothers. We could preach a year-long sermon on what that means Sermon series and then I love this look at the contrast between 11 through 15 and then 16 through 20 in 11 through 15 You have Jesus enemies devising a plan to spread lies about Jesus And Matthew puts that right next to verses 16 through 20 which are where Jesus appears to his disciples and Equips them tells them he's got all the authority and sends them out to make disciples or in other words to proclaim the Truth so it's just a phenomenal story It's absolutely powerful and it tells us we see in this eyewitness account from Matthew as we see in other gospels that Jesus Physically fully rose from the dead he was dead and then he was fully alive and there's a whole lot of reasons we could spend a lot of time Looking at all the reasons why we would believe that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead One example if you think about the story that the Elders and chief priests came up that the that the disciples came and stole the body Think about the extreme unlikelihood That they would go ahead and steal the body and hide it somewhere and then go off into the world proclaiming that he had risen from the dead Even though doing that was going to bring persecution upon them torture upon them death on them The fact that they went out and proclaim the gospel to the world just shows that it's true because nobody would do that for a lie So that's another that's a reason that we can believe that it's true another reason if you look at first Corinthians 15 Paul says that there was one point that Jesus appeared to 500 people. Let me read this to you. I'll start in verse three. I've just got six on the screen Paul says for what I received I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures That he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to seephus That's Peter and then to the 12 and then here you go after that he appeared to more than five Hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time most of whom are still living Now Paul wrote this letter a couple of decades after Christ rose from the dead But in saying that he's saying listen there was 500 people in the place and they saw Jesus So if you want to hear about that some of them are still alive a lot of them are still alive go ask them Now they're not alive today obviously But at the time they were still alive and so basically Paul's challenge here was that people would go and ask and see if it was true And we don't have historical evidence saying that it's not Nobody wrote letters saying oh what Paul said isn't true. We couldn't find anybody who saw the risen Christ So historically speaking there's just far more evidence that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead
Here's another thing And this one is Is she shocking Jesus Was a in one sense he was what we could call a messianic movement leader Uh, let me explain what I mean the in the Old Testament and it talks about why the world is such a messed up place Why the world is filled with sin and misery why human beings can't seem to treat each other right And the Old Testament tells us it's because Adam and Eve the first people they sinned they brought sin and misery into the world And therefore all of the human race we just have a problem getting along we fight against each other because we're fighting against God I don't know if you've seen the movie Argo Hannah. That's my wife. We watched the movie Argo on Friday night and I the whole is amazing movie And it's the story of when Several hostages were taken in Iran and a few of them got away and we're trying to Get the free from the country But it's this story and you just see knowing it's a true story you I was just kind of Gut wrenched at all at the brutality the way people were treating each other was just shocking But all of that is a result of sin sin came into the world when humanity chose to disobey God and it made us messed up And so the Old Testament talks about Not only that, but that God was going to send someone to make things right That God was going to one day send somebody who would Deal with all this sin and misery in the world and that person in the Old Testament was referred to as the Messiah Which means the anointed one or the chosen one and so The Jews in the first century when Jesus came on the scene they had been waiting for a Messiah For generations and generations and so that's why when people started to say that Jesus was the Messiah This was a big deal Here's a couple examples John 141 when Andrew one of the first disciples here's about Jesus he runs off to tell his brother Simon And he tells him we have found the Messiah that is Christ Another example in John is from John 4 25 through 26 the woman said this is when Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well She said I know that Messiah called Christ is coming when he comes he will explain everything to us then Jesus declared I the one speaking to you I am he So Jesus claims to be claimed to be this Messiah this promised Person who would come and make things right deal with the fact the human beings treat each other terribly Here's what you may not know Jesus was one of several Messianic movement leaders there were men before him and even men after him And they all have very similar stories and we see this History has documented this an early historian named Josephus has talked about this But historians identified 10 to 12 other Messianic movement leaders Leaders that did a lot of the same things that Jesus did for example these these men were Jewish like Jesus They came and they would preach about the kingdom of God like Jesus did They promised signs of salvation and deliverance just like Jesus did and they most of them died violent deaths Just like Jesus did
So quantum you know as a question well how can we don't know about those guys? How can we never really heard about them well when all of those Messianic movement leaders died their violent deaths basically their followers some of them had a lot of followers their followers kind of had two options Number one they could give up Pretend that didn't happen and go live a quiet life somewhere Or Number two they could go looking for a new Messiah
But the followers of Christ Didn't either They didn't give up And they didn't go looking for another Messiah in fact they began to Run to everywhere in the world to preach that Jesus is the Messiah that he did rise from the grave And so what we see happening is the church of Jesus Christ beginning and growing and doing things that the history history had never seen before The growth the beginning and the growth the rapid expansion and explosion of the Christian Church is is a historical anomaly There's nothing ever been anything like it In the history of humanity in fact Rodney Stark is a sociologist he wrote a great book called The Rise of Christianity And he talks about how this little group of people following Jesus suddenly Were exploding into be the dominant religious force in the world in fact This is his book title it tells it all the rise of Christianity how the obscure marginal Jesus movement became the dominant religious force in the Western world in a few centuries That is something to be reckoned with the fact that these guys went and spread what they believed and more and more people believed it and now You know the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life They estimate that nearly 32% so roughly one third of the world's population claims to be Christians That's over two billion people With a bee billion it's unbelievable. It's shocking that this little group of followers of a of Christ have exploded into being this world force. It is absolutely shocking and the question is how is that how is the Jesus movement still Going forward? Why is his Messianic movement suddenly what one third of the people believed to be true about God and about his son and the reason is because he really did rise from the grave That's the difference all these other Messianic movement leaders when they died So did their movement but when Jesus died he didn't stay dead He came back to life in bodily form and his followers saw that he there he was they could touch him They could feel him they could see this is the true Messiah this is really the one that God has sent to make things Right to deal with the fact that this world is a horrible hard place where people treat each other horrifically He's the one and so seeing that he truly was the one they began this church planning movement They realized they had the real Messiah and they they they preach the gospel They spread to just as Jesus told them to do to the surrounding areas and then it moved to Europe and move all over different parts of the world move to America moved here This church that we are part of Is a result original a result of the original church planning explosion it's still happening We're still part of it Many of you probably know that we're part of the Florida church planning network We partnered with this group that's planting this church down in Lake Nona We set a few families down there Some of you may know that we're looking at the possibility of bringing on a church planter on staff here at UPC to raise up a core group and Go out and plan a church. We prayed for our missionary one of our missionaries Matthew Philippic he's over there in Japan It is still happening because the risen Christ is alive and he is still ruling and raining and leading His original movement To tell the world to proclaim to the world and demonstrate to the world that he is the promised Messiah They began to obey the great commission. It's still being obeyed. Look at it again Matthew 28 starting in 18 Then Jesus came to them and said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me Therefore go and make disciples of all nations That's exactly what they began to do and then He says he says baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit And teaching them to obey everything. I've commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age when somebody Who was dead is standing before you fully alive tells you they'll be with you you believe them
And you run and say whatever they want you to say to people which is what they did. So what happened a real bonafide Resurrection and a Messianic movement began and has never ended Because of this resurrection. So we should believe that the resurrection truly happened We should worship the Lord Jesus because of it now. Let's talk about why it matters Why does it matter what happened to resurrection? Why is it matter? Here's why it matters because Jesus said it would happen
He said it would happen and then it did Look at verse six again. He is not here says the angel. He has risen just as he said It is so critical that we see this that Jesus said this would happen And then it happened which means that we can trust everything He's ever said If he said he's going to die and then rise from the grave and then he did We can trust anything he says conversely if it isn't true If he didn't rise from the grave like he said he would then why would we believe anything he said I mean if somebody tells you something and they say something's going to happen then it doesn't happen
He usually don't go ahead and say well, what else would you like to tell me? I'll believe that But he said it would happen now if if it didn't happen then actually Paul says the apostle Paul says that we're wasting our time Look at this from 1 Corinthians 15 17 through 19 This is tough for Christians to wrestle with but this what Paul says And he says and if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile You're still in your sins Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost If only for this life we have hope in Christ. We are of all people Most to be pitted That's the word of God we got to own that Meaning Literally if somebody ever were to definitively be able to prove that Jesus did not rise from the grave Then you and I would be just like the followers of all those other Messianic movement leaders and we would either give up or we would go looking for another Messiah
That's not gonna happen because he really did rise from the grave therefore in In the same way that if if he said something and it didn't happen then everything else he said doesn't really matter If he said it was going to happen and then it did then Everything he said is of extreme value Everything he said Let me let me just show you he did say this. I kind of skipped a slide I want to make sure I get this in there Matthew 17 22 and 23 This is an example of him saying it he said it many other times But this is just one example when they came together in Galilee he said to them The son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him And on the third day he will be raised to life so there's an example of him saying it so now if he said it And it happened we can trust everything he said And that is Absolutely life changing news Because Jesus said the most amazing things We could ever wish to hear And We could look at hundreds of different things that he said that any person would really want to hear But we just want to talk about three really quick three things Something he says about your past something he says about your present and something he says about the future in John 318 he says whoever believes in him is not condemned
Is not condemned which means your sin has been forgiven you can be forgiven Those of us who follow Jesus is what we celebrate every single week that our sins have been forgiven And so if we're walking around with guilt if we're Christians walking around with guilt We're listening to some other gospel. We need to listen to the true gospel that when Jesus died on the cross He paid for that sin. It's gone. He has removed it from you So whenever guilt you're carrying around just let it go. It's gone Jesus has removed it from you Breathe in that amazing feeling of forgiveness if you're not somebody who's following Christ I just want you to think about how much guilt you're carrying Some of us have been following Christ for a long time. We don't remember what it feels like to be weighed down with guilt But you know you know how that feels Guilt over things that you've done guilt over not maybe accomplishing certain things in your life guilt over the way you said something to your friend Who knows what it is if you're feeling that weight of guilt? Jesus says he takes it away He said he would rise from the dead and then he did he says that you are not condemned if you believe in him Which means he'll remove your guilt which means he will so that's one thing That we want you to see this morning another thing about your present is that your life can actually change You gotta realize this that especially those of you who don't have a real relationship with Jesus Aren't really part of a church. I want you to realize something. It's not just about Feeling forgiven Which is and being forgiven which is amazing and enough to praise Jesus forever But it's also about the fact that Jesus tells us he will teach us he will change us He will lift us out of those ruts that we keep winding up in keep we keep doing these things that hurt us that hurt others We keep saying to ourselves. I wish I wish I didn't do that and Jesus says to us Let me get you out of that Let me teach you listen to one of my favorite verses Matthew 11 29 and 30 Jesus says Take my yoke upon you and learn from me For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find Rest for your souls People always think coming to Jesus is about a bunch of do's and do's and so it's about it's about rest for your souls He says for my yoke is easy and my burden is light Look, I know how badly people human beings you know want to change I feel it And I know the world feels it because the self-help section at every bookstore is huge There's like thousands and thousands of books that are based on how you can help yourself become a better person And the reason that there's thousands and thousands and thousands of them is because the only one that ever worked was written 2,000 years ago And before that I know the Old Testament anyway So the but the point is the Bible when people who are following Christ really experienced change in their life Jesus really does teach us remember he's still alive And he's still ruling and raining on high and as we come to him and as we hear from his word he teaches us He lifts us out of these ruts we keep getting in he teaches us how to live a life that brings glory to God and bless his others and brings blessing upon ourselves He makes us into people that we want to be
So it's not just about being forgiven It's also about being having your life changed and then third another thing he said is that you too will rise again Just like him made like him like him we rise Hours the cross the grave the skies allelujah Listen to his words in John 639 and 40 And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raised them up at the last day For my father's will is that everyone who looks to the sun and believes in him shall have every turn a life And I will raise them up at the last day. So It's about your future. It's about knowing that one day you're going to die you already know that It's still 100% of people die that's still the statistic
But after that what this is saying The person who died Yet came back to life fully Says to you and I if we follow him if we believe he is who he says he was Who he says he is that you too you and I will will rise just like him We will be our bodies will be back Now what's amazing is it's glorified perfect bodies that work wonderfully and perfectly No surgery ever needed ever again No sickness in fact the book of Revelation describes where will be delivered to the new heavens and the new earth talking about a place where there's no more death No more crying no more mourning no more pain In other words, it's a it's a new place where the it's a new world that has not been ravaged by sin It's a new place where nobody will ever harm you or hurt you or stab you in the back or say something about you that cuts you to the core
Nobody will be tortured and there'll be no hostages
The same person who said he would die and then three days later rise from the dead and then did Tells us that we can be forgiven that our life really can change And that we can rest assured knowing that we too will rise again after we Die so so we've talked about what happened that there really was a resurrection And we've talked about why it matters because if he said something and it happened Then we can believe everything he says and he says amazing things. So third what should we do And the answer is worship worship the risen Christ every one of us Let's fall and worship the risen Christ those of us who are believers those of us are regular members and attenders Let's worship him. Let's repent and believe let's examine ourselves this morning and really think about the ways that we haven't loved God with our whole hearts We haven't loved our neighbors as ourselves We haven't been on mission and then we and then we remember that all of those failures that we have are gone Jesus has lifted them from us which gives us this power and this excitement to go out and to make disciples So let's worship him this morning when we sing in a bit Let us sing with everything we've got in John Piper's got it right. He says worship is the fuel for mission So let's really let him have it when we are singing and worshiping and let's worship him with our whole lives Let's realize that we are prone to wander Lord. We feel it and let's come back Let him seal our heart for the courts above if you are not a believer If you don't have a church home if you're here today because it's Easter Sunday I want you to just hear me Actually, I don't want you to hear me. I want you to hear the Lord And I want to ask you three questions Whatever your objections are to Christianity just put them on the shelf for a minute and just think about this Do you want to feel do you want to be guilt-free? Do you want to know what that feels like for that those that wait to be lifted from your shoulders and never come back at least not for very long Do you want that is that something that would interest you? Second question is do you do you want to have a life that is being changed regularly and do you want to continue to grow and become a person that you really prefer to be And third do you want that assurance knowing that when you die you know that one day you will rise again if any of these things If any of these things Tug at your heart. I just plead with you
Learn from him turn to him Receive him Receive what he's done on the cross in the tomb In the resurrection and through his ascension receive the Lord Jesus Christ and I want to challenge you Here's the challenge ready our regular members and tenders you'll you'll be here for anywhere for this You'll be here anyway, but those of you who don't normally come here if you're local I just want to challenge you we're starting a new sermon series next week on Paul's letter to the Galatians We're going to really dig into the gospel and see how it just sets us free It's it's going to be called astonished because as we look at what we see in the book of Galatians We're just going to be astonished and I want to challenge you particularly those of you who don't normally attend the church But you live nearby would you come back would you commit to at least come into maybe the first four weeks It's going to be a 12 or 13 week series But want you make the commitment to at least come and and investigating what we're going to be talking about I got to do is listen I want to put that challenge out there to you So what happened a resurrection? Why does it matter because Jesus said it was it would happen and then it did which means we can believe every word that he said every word That's in the scriptures and so what should we do we should worship worship worship worship the risen Christ which is what we'll do now let us pray
Father in heaven we want to thank you and praise you for this amazing news of The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ that in raising him from the dead you said to him to us to the world That what Jesus said on the cross is true. It is finished Our sins have been paid for Our Lord has risen from the dead to lead us to transform us To send us out. He has guaranteed our inheritance. He has guaranteed. We will live with you Father, I plead for those who do not know you in this room. I plead that you will draw them to yourself Draw them to your son. Let no one caught in sin remain inside the lie of inward shame But fix their eyes upon the cross and run to him who show great love and blood for us Lord Jesus freely you bled for us and so we worship you We worship you today Give us grace and your Holy Spirit so that we may worship you every day
In Jesus name We at University Presbyterian Church thank you for listening to this message Our mission is to help people know God grow together and serve others To learn more about the church or how to have a vital relationship with God Visit our website at www.uPC-orlando.com or call our offices at 407-384-3300