As we turn our attention to God's Word this morning and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I'd like to talk with you about the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection and part of the doctrine of the resurrection that I think is underrepresented. Now what we have in the Word of God is a gospel of a cross and an empty tomb as we saw on the screen moments ago. And the empty tomb part of the gospel I think is underrepresented. It's not understood as well as the work of Jesus on the cross. And I'd like to examine why that is with you and then take a look at what it is that is so important to us personally that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in a physical human body. If someone were to ask you, why is it important that Jesus Christ rose from the dead bodily? Why couldn't his spirit have just gone to heaven after he had paid for our sins on the cross? What do you think you might say? He started off as a spirit, the Word made flesh. Once he had atoned for sins and paid the penalty, couldn't he just go back to heaven as a bodiless spirit? Our gospel presentations tend to focus so much on the death of Christ that we do not focus enough on the gospel of the resurrection, the gospel of the empty tomb. Even my own gospel presentation that is on our church website, I wrote it for the church website, has a heavy focus on the substitutionary death, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is what we really focused on on Good Friday. Good Friday, the message of the cross, what is that all about? Well, that is the heart of most gospel presentations, whether you're talking about the four spiritual laws, or whether you're talking about the Roman's road, or any other gospel presentation, the cross rightly is at the center of that. But I think as we examine the scriptures, as we look at the gospel that was preached in the book of Acts, we look at the gospel that is recorded for us in the book of Romans, that yes, of course, the cross is central. But perhaps equally as central, and not in our minds, but in the scriptural gospel, is the gospel of the resurrection, the gospel of the empty tomb. It's not important only because the Bible says so, and we believe in the historicity of the Bible. It's not important only because it has apologetic value and proves that Jesus Christ was who he said he was. These are good reasons for the resurrection. It's not only important because Jesus Christ as the son of David had to be raised bodily in order to sit on David's throne and to fulfill the promises of the Davidic covenant. that he would be king forever over this earth. Those are all good reasons for the resurrection. But there's even more to the doctrine of the resurrection that I think is very significant for us as Christians and is very significant as we go out into the world and share the gospel with others. And that's what I want us to get at this morning. I hope you will walk away from our church service today with a better appreciation for what the resurrection of Christ means to you in the same way as what the cross means to you. The cross is very important to you and to your heart. You know that it's there that Jesus Christ paid for your sins. But the resurrection of Jesus is equally as important to you, to your heart, to your daily living. And I hope you'll walk away from today with a better understanding of exactly how. Because when I was growing up, I didn't understand that very well. I knew it was important, I was glad that it happened, but it wasn't nearly as personally significant to me as the fact that Jesus Christ paid for my sins on the cross. However, as I've come to study and understand the gospel better in the scriptures, I've come to have a better appreciation for why the resurrection is so important to me personally. There are serious consequences for leaving out or de-emphasizing or under-representing this aspect of the gospel. And we see that in the church around us. I'll talk more about that as we go through the message today. It is important that we not only believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but we believe that Jesus rose from the dead in a way that is meaningful to us, just as his death is meaningful to us. So here in Acts, I bring us here first because I want us to see how we got to where we are in our under-representation of this doctrine. And it goes way back to the beginning of the preaching of the gospel here in the book of Acts. When the gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed in the Jewish world and in the Greco-Roman world of the first century, there were certain aspects of that gospel that were offensive to those different cultures. And here in Acts chapter 17, we see that the Apostle Paul is in Athens. He is preaching to a group of philosophers, people who were in the center of the philosophical world in the ancient world where Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle had lived and taught there in the city of Athens. And as he stands upon the hill of Ares, the Areopagus, he presents the gospel in a very interesting way. It's not the four spiritual laws, it's not the Romans' road, even though he wrote Romans. But here, notice how the apostle Paul preaches the gospel. After commending them for their religiosity, and yet pointing out their deep ignorance of the God who created everything that is in the world, and rebuking them for their idolatry, as he does in verse 29, when he says, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Now, he's transitioning here to the gospel in verse 30. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. So repentance is a key part of the gospel as it's preached in the book of Acts. And then in verse 31 he says, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness. Now that's also a part of the gospel. We don't often think of God judging the world in righteousness as part of the gospel, but Paul specifically identifies it as such here and also in the book of Romans. Early on in Romans he says that God is going to judge the world according to my gospel. It's the gospel that God is the righteous judge. And he will judge the world, as it says there in verse 31, by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. He gets cut off here in his gospel presentation because when they hear of the resurrection of the dead, as you see in verse 32, some of them mocked. But others said, we will hear you again about this. And so Paul went out from their midst. But you see that Paul is leading out in his gospel presentation, first with the righteous judgment of God, but then with the resurrection of the man, Jesus. The resurrection was a key part of the preaching of the gospel throughout the book of Acts, much more so than in our gospel presentations where it's kind of an addendum. But it's central, it's the root of the message there in Acts chapter two and Peter's preaching and throughout Paul's preaching of the gospel. But notice this, that the Gentile world, the Gentile philosophical mindset was opposed to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. When he mentioned bodily resurrection, They mocked, they jeered, they said, oh, we've heard enough of this guy. We don't need to hear any more from him. He has no sophisticated understanding of the nature of reality. He's preaching this banal doctrine. Greek philosophers, they believed in the immortality of the soul, but they did not believe in the resurrection of the body. In fact, the idea of a bodily resurrection was repugnant to the philosophers, especially the Platonic philosophers. who believed that spiritual things, the noumenal world, the world of ideas and the mind, these were superior to physical things, and that the physical world was something that you really were kind of trapped by and wanted to get rid of. Similar to Buddhism, which is kind of a philosophy, kind of a religion, which seeks nirvana, an escape from the bodily existence in the cycles of rebirth. This mindset, this mindset that the physical body was something that was bad, that we wanted to be rid of, that we wouldn't want to be resurrected, this is something that infiltrated Judaism as well. You see this in the Gospels, especially with the sect of the Sadducees. The Sadducees, they did not believe in angels, they did not believe in the resurrection, and in fact they questioned Jesus on the resurrection with one of their made up scenarios. in order to try to show the absurdity of the resurrection, but in fact they only showed their own ignorance of God's word. But turn over to Acts chapter 23 with me. You see here in Acts 17 the Gentile antipathy towards the doctrine of the resurrection, but you see this also among certain aspects of the Jewish people there in Acts chapter 23 verses 6 through 9. Here Paul is on trial before the Jewish council made up of Pharisees and Sadducees. And the Pharisees, they did believe in the resurrection. The Sadducees did not. And so Paul, he makes an appeal to the doctrine of the resurrection here to try to set his opponents against each other and to try to get himself out of a difficult spot. So when Paul perceived in Acts chapter 23, verse six, that one part were Sadducees and the other part Pharisees, he cried out in the council Brothers, I'm a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial. And when he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose and some of the scribes of the Pharisees' party stood up and contended sharply. We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him? So somehow their hatred for each other here and their different party lines overcame their animosity towards Paul and his preaching of the gospel at this time and some of the Pharisees start defending Paul. Yeah, he hasn't done anything wrong. But I bring this passage to your attention just to show you that this mindset that is against the doctrine of a bodily resurrection was something that was even infiltrating the Judaism of that first century group. Now, there not only was part of the Gentile mindset and a part of the Sadducees mindset, but we also see this idea, this doctrine, this false doctrine against the resurrection infiltrating the church. Paul had to write to the church in Ephesus as Timothy was there, and in 2 Timothy 2.18 he said that there were false teachers in Ephesus who were teaching that the resurrection had already happened, it had already occurred. That the resurrection was a spiritual thing, it wasn't a physical thing, and so people who were enlightened in Christ, they were already resurrected and they weren't supposed to look forward to some future resurrection. that error was present in the church that Timothy was shepherding and Paul had to rebuke those false teachers in his letter. But come with me also to the book of 1 Corinthians. Move over from Acts to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians 15 is known as the chapter on the resurrection in the Bible. I'm sure there are many messages being preached from 1 Corinthians 15 on this Resurrection Sunday morning all around the country, all around the world. And I don't want to be left out, so let's take a look here at 1 Corinthians 15, verse 12. Here in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 12, you see that the church at Corinth also was being infiltrated by this false doctrine, this bad teaching, that bodily resurrection was not something that was good and God wouldn't do that. Here it says, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, that was the message that Paul and Peter and all the apostles were preaching, How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? Now we can stop there for the time being because all I'm establishing right now is this historical fact of this error all throughout the ancient culture. This continued throughout church history. There was a dangerous church heresy that persisted for centuries that has been called Gnosticism. They taught that the goal was to escape our materiality which was created by a demigod, which was not the true God, but was an emanation from the true God, and that this physical world is full of suffering and is imperfect, that we want to escape from that into the spiritual world. That was the teaching of the Gnostics that was influenced by this Platonic philosophy and mixed together with Christianity. It's interesting to go back and look at how the doctrine of Christianity was mixed with the thinking of certain philosophies and religions in the ancient world and to see how bogus that teaching was. And then that gives us wisdom then to be able to say, well we're not going to do that today. We're not going to take the doctrine and the philosophies of the world around us and mix them with Christianity in order to try to make something that's more appealing to our culture. We don't want to do that. The Gnostics did that. We don't want to be like them. People will look back centuries from now and they'll see who was faithful to the teaching of the Word and who mixed it together with the ideas of ungodly men. Let us be faithful. Now, we come down through church history to today and fortunately Gnosticism has died. There's not a lot of Neoplatonic thought in the church today. Our doctrinal statements all clearly state the bodily resurrection of Jesus and our own future physical resurrection. But because this idea against the resurrection was so deeply ingrained in Western and Eastern philosophy, I think we're still suffering some of the effects from it. Western philosophy, while Christianized, still has deep roots in Greek thinking. And that's why when we present the gospel to people, we ask questions like this. Do you know if you're going to go to heaven when you die? Now, it's true that the believer in Jesus Christ does go to heaven when he dies, that our spirit goes to be with the Lord. But the Bible doesn't ask that question. When the New Testament apostles and when Jesus is asking people questions about their future hope, it's not about the bodily-less existence after death, but instead the focus is on the resurrection. See, if Paul or Peter or Jesus were here today, they wouldn't be asking people, are you going to go to heaven when you die? They'd be asking people, are you going to enter the kingdom in the resurrection? You see the difference? One of them focuses on the historical future reality of resurrection, the other one doesn't. Going to heaven when you die is something that could happen whether you believe in a future bodily resurrection or not. So Satan seems to have a particular dislike for the doctrine of bodily resurrection and he's always trying to get people to either outright deny it or failing that, get people to not think about it or to de-emphasize it or simply distract us from its implications. But the Bible makes it clear that the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and our own future bodily resurrection is central and essential to the gospel. You're here in 1 Corinthians 15, so let's back it up and take a look at how the Apostle Paul states that here. He says that some there are saying there is no resurrection. But notice how Paul introduces this chapter back in verse 1. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Amen. That he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. So you see that here in the gospel of Jesus Christ as Paul preached it, as the apostles were given it, you have both the cross and the empty tomb. If you take away the cross or you take away the empty tomb, you don't have a full gospel. Some churches are known as full gospel churches. A truly full gospel church is a church that is clearly presenting the gospel of what Jesus did on the cross and what he accomplished in his resurrection. What I mean by that will become clear as we continue in the scriptures this morning. For now, take notes. The cross and the resurrection, the empty tomb, both essential parts of the gospel. First importance. You come down to verse 14 and you see that Paul says, if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. That the resurrection of Jesus Christ is of such importance that if he was not raised bodily, not just talking about some spiritual resurrection, not just talking about going to heaven after he died, if he was not raised in a physical body, then our faith is vain. It's useless. It's empty. That's how important this doctrine is. Why is it so important? Why couldn't he just have gone to heaven? He paid for our sins. Why did he have to be raised in a body? Look at verse 17. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. If Christ wasn't raised bodily from the dead, then his work on the cross would not save you. He had to be raised. I will tell you why. But first, come with me to the book of Acts. Acts chapter 2. I want you to see this in Peter's preaching on that first gospel message on the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 24. The Holy Spirit is poured out. Now the apostles are able to proclaim the gospel of the cross and the empty tomb. Listen to the way that Peter presents the gospel. This is going to encourage us to restore the preaching of the resurrection to its proper place in our evangelism. Our evangelism in the pulpits, our evangelism that's personal, door to door. I want us to have a full gospel presentation. Look at what Peter says. This Jesus, back in verse 23, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified, there's the cross, and you killed by the hands of lawless men, and God raised him up. The cross and the resurrection right there, that's the heart of the gospel message. Because it was not possible for him to be held by it, God loosed the pangs of death. Now he spends a lot more time talking about the resurrection than he does about the cross here in his gospel presentation. He mentioned the cross, but now he's going to dwell on the resurrection. David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One seek corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You'll make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried. Well yeah, but didn't his spirit go to heaven? We're not going to mention that. His tomb is with us to his day. But what Peter wants to focus on, what the Holy Spirit wants to emphasize, is that being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on the throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. That he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. He's driving home this point. He's emphasizing it. He's giving evidence. He's giving proof for it. Because everything hinges on this. This Jesus God raised up and of that we are all witnesses. What are they witnesses to their witnesses to the resurrection? Being therefore exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the father the promise of the Holy Spirit He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing so you got the Apostles you got the Holy Spirit everybody pointing to one truth David did not ascend into the heavens David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And what is the final statement? What has everything been building up to? Verse 36, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. You crucified him but God has made him Lord in Christ God raised him up God exalted him to the highest place the resurrection the exaltation of Jesus Christ in a body is the message of Acts chapter 2 a Wooden cross and an empty tomb We mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 17 that everything depends upon it. If it wasn't for the resurrection, our faith is in vain. We're still in our sins. Now I want to show you why. Come with me to the preaching of the gospel in the book of Romans. I've been spending a lot of time meditating and reading in Romans. We were there on Good Friday in Romans chapter 3. But you know Romans chapter 3 is pretty early in the book, isn't it? Why doesn't Paul just wrap things up after Romans chapter 3? We've got that most important message there about the redemption that is in Christ Jesus in Romans 3 24. We've got the teaching of how his blood is a propitiation that it is satisfied the demands of the righteous wrath of God. His desire to destroy sinners has been satisfied by the blood of Jesus. This is received by faith. That's what you need. That's it. You're saved if you believe that. But he doesn't stop there. As he goes in and preaches the gospel, he's still got a lot of chapters left to talk about the gospel. And where does he move from after he talks about atonement? He talks about the resurrection. He talks about new life. Resurrected life. You see, what has happened in the church is as we go out and preach the gospel of the cross, which I'm not against in any way, preach the cross, But as we go out and only preach the message of the cross, what have we created? We've created a generation of Christians who are going to go to heaven after they die. Because their sins are forgiven. And that's it. They don't live like Christ. They have no power over sin. They dwell in sin and darkness. They wander around in the world powerless, hopeless. But their sins are forgiven. And they're going to heaven when they die. Because we haven't preached the resurrection. We haven't preached new life. We haven't told them that just as Jesus Christ's death pays for their sins, so the life of Jesus Christ creates a new life within them, a life of victory, a life of power, a life of freedom from sin. A life that serves God and isn't just meandering around lost in the world. Look at Romans chapter four verses 24 and 25. As Paul is moving from the doctrine of the atonement in Romans chapter three, that it's received by faith as illustrated by the life of Abraham and the testimony of David there in chapter four, we come towards the end of chapter four in verses 24 and 25 and notice what Paul says. The accounting of righteousness towards Abraham was not written only for his sake, there at the end of verse 23, But that testimony of righteousness by faith was also written for us. It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord. That's the first mention of the resurrection in the body of the letter. It's there in the introduction. But in the body of the letter, this is where he's introducing this teaching, this concept. That Jesus Christ was delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification. He was delivered up for our trespasses. He was raised for our justification. So Paul is now moving into the preaching of the empty tomb. He's moving into the preaching of the gospel of the resurrection. It's not only the gospel of the cross, it is also the gospel of the empty tomb. And that's where we're going then in chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. See, we still got a lot of gospel preaching left in this first eight chapters of Romans. We've dealt with the cross. Now, let's talk about the resurrection and the significance of that. Because the cross deals with our past. The resurrection deals with our present and our future. What do I mean by that? Well, the cross deals with our sins. Now, I've still got sins in the present. I've still got sins in the future that the cross deals with. But what I mean is that the cross deals with the things that we've done that make us guilty before God and that require God to judge us. But that's not the only need we have. Not only do I need forgiveness, which I need desperately, but I also need power. I need freedom. I need hope. I need joy. I need self-control. I need a sound mind. I need life. I don't need not just to die, I need to live. And the cross makes it so I don't have to die. But the resurrection makes it so that I can live. People out in the world, they're walking dead. They don't have life. Paul says that before you became a Christian, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. But when Christ comes in, He doesn't just deal with the guilt of your sins, but he sets you free. Notice what has gone earlier here in Romans chapter 4 when Paul is giving the illustration of Abraham's faith. Look at how Abraham believed God in verse 17. It's written, I have made you the father of many nations. And he believed in the presence of God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope against hope, he believed this, that he should become the father of many nations. You see, Abraham's body was dead. For as far as having children, he was dead, powerless. And so we are dead, powerless, spiritually. But we believe in the one who raised Jesus from the dead. We believe in the one who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. The power of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the power of God for salvation. Not just forgiveness, but new life. That's the full gospel. Not just forgiveness, but new life. You know, in the church there's been this controversy in the last 50 years called the doctrine of Lordship Salvation. And some people have come and they said, well if you're preaching that you have to repent and obey Jesus Christ as Lord in order to be saved, that's like preaching a works gospel. That repentance is a work that you do and obeying the Lord Jesus Christ is a work that you do. And so they say that's Lordship Salvation and that's a works gospel. And other people say, well, no, that repentance is not a work that merits you in a thing, and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't justify you. And they've got this debate and argument going on. Now, I appreciate those who are trying to defend the doctrine against merit and works of ours. I am fully on board with preaching and teaching that says we are not saved by any work, including works of repentance or works of faith, but that we are saved by the grace of God and the work of Jesus Christ alone. But at the same time, I think the reason why this confusion has entered in is because people have a half gospel. They've been preaching the cross, but they haven't been preaching the empty tomb. So we don't have to frame this discussion and debate as to lordship salvation, but instead we frame it as, are you preaching the power of the resurrection? Do you have a resurrection gospel? That's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about human beings obeying God from some human power or repenting in their own strength. Nothing like that. What we're talking about is that when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, that we believe in him and we receive a new power, a new life that Paul talks about here in Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8. In fact, let's look at it. Romans chapter 6. Come forward a little bit. Let's look at verse 4 through verse 13. Romans 6 verse 4. You see that Paul teaches concerning the resurrection gospel that we were buried with him by baptism into death. So here you got not just the cross, but the burial is significant for you. Your sins were dealt with at the cross, but that's not the end of the story. You were also buried with him. So the burial of Jesus Christ is significant in the gospel. Paul included it there in 1 Corinthians 15, right? So you are buried with him by baptism into death. The baptism here, I think, is not water baptism, but it's the spiritual baptism that baptism points to. So by that spiritual baptism, the Holy Spirit baptism into Christ's death, in order that Notice this part, here we come to the resurrection Sunday. In order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Those who preach the full gospel are not preaching that you have to do works to merit salvation. They're preaching that the work of Christ is so sufficient to meet all of our needs that it doesn't just take away the guilt of our sin, but it also gives us a new life. We are resurrected with Christ, and that resurrected life is going to manifest itself. If it's real, if it's there, then it's going to do something. Life does things. Life grows. Life emerges. Life bears fruit. Life multiplies. That's what life does. We're talking about the resurrection of Christ, that his resurrection is personally significant for you and I. That you needed forgiveness. He did that at the cross. But you needed to be raised from your spiritual death, and he did that on Sunday morning. Paul continues. If we have been united with him in a death like his, and we have, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. United in his death, united in his burial, united in his resurrection. This is the work of God in the gospel. We know that our old self was crucified with him. That's the death, the burial, the body of sin brought to nothing. So that what? We would no longer be enslaved to sin. Wow. I'm not enslaved to sin. I'm free. Do you think of yourself that way? Do you recognize that? Sometimes you look at your life and say, well, I've done that sin over and over again. I feel like I'm pretty enslaved. There's a bad habit. We talk about addiction. Addiction is this terminology of slavery. The Bible says you're free. You're free. By what power? How are you free? I don't feel free. You're free by the work of God and the resurrection. You need to dwell on that. You need to meditate on that. You need to make that truth your own. God has given it to you, but it is appropriated by faith. And if you don't meditate on it, if you don't believe it, then you won't experience it. You don't experience freedom because you don't believe. Period. That's the only reason. If you believe, you will live. You won't be caught in sin, you won't be overcome in trespasses. Faith, from start to finish. We don't start with faith and then do our best. Well, faith gets you forgiven, but then you gotta struggle along and look for help where you can find it, and maybe this guy who's not even a Christian wrote a book that can help me. Where's the power of God? What kind of gospel is that? You see, easy-believism makes little of the resurrection for this reason. It doesn't understand, it doesn't see that the powerlessness in Christianity, the reason why Christians have to look elsewhere to try to have some kind of victory in life, is because they don't preach the gospel of the resurrection. but you're hearing it, you're forgiven the message of the cross. You're free the message of the resurrection. A lot of Christians, they feel guilty because they forget the message of the cross. A lot of Christians feel powerless because they've never been taught the message of the resurrection. Don't live with half of a gospel. Guilt-free, but still bound in your sin. If Satan can hide this truth from believers, we'll live broken and defeated lives in bondage to sin. And by and large, that's what the Evangelical Church looks like in America. And nothing is more important in our day than the preaching, the believing, the meditating, the living of this message. Nothing but the proper teaching of the resurrection and all of its implications can write the course of our lives and our churches and show this world the reality of the truth of Jesus. All men, Jesus said, will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. The power to love is the power of the resurrection, new life. Who's going to prove the power of God in our generation? Who's going to show the power of the resurrection today? Maybe you'll make up your mind that it's going to be you. Maybe you'll prove the power of the resurrection. One last verse here as we wrap things up in the book of Ephesians. Come with me to Ephesians chapter 2. We mentioned Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 earlier, the spiritual death that people dwell in before Christ comes in. But God, in verse 4, not only does God deal with the wrath that we were under, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, what did he do? He made us alive. He made us alive, resurrected together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And when he says, by grace you have been saved, he's not just talking about forgiveness of sins, he's talking about freedom from the power of sin, from that spiritual death that you dwelt in. You've been made alive. And he's raised us up with him. This is mind-blowing. His exaltation to the right hand of God, seated in the heavenly places. We're there. You're there. I don't feel like I'm there. Your feelings can be deceptive. Feelings will follow the truth. And you must believe the truth in order to feel the truth. You will feel as if you are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus when you believe that you are. You see, what you really believe is not revealed by your doctrinal statement, but by the convictions that dictate your actual thinking and behavior. So what kind of person are you? Are you a person with everlasting life growing and flourishing in your heart by the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Are you living a life free from the dominion of sin, waiting eagerly for Jesus to return? If not, I've got good news for you. God gives that through faith in Jesus Christ's resurrection. He gives it. He pours it out freely from heaven. Come, you who have no money, buy. Come and partake of the feast that God is offering without charge. He paid the price. You get to enjoy it.