Resurrection Life - Ken Miller | KFW 2021

Lesson Transcript

The words of that very early Christian greeting: "The Lord is risen." He is risen indeed. Are we sure? "The Lord is risen." He is risen indeed. Amen. But first we have to go back. Adam. Oh, Adam. "You shall not surely die." Adam, my dear husband, where are you? "You shall not surely die." Adam. In 2020, between 55 million and 60 million people did surely die.

And that doesn't include the approximately 70 million according to the Guttmacher Institute latest figures of 2019, the approximately 70 million children that were murdered in the womb. "You shall not surely die," the biggest lie ever sprung on the human race. "You shall not surely die," except for those living right now on planet Earth, every single human being with two exceptions that we know of has died. And the statistics we're talking about now are just the observable physical casualties.

Then there are the spiritual casualties, the spiritual deaths. Humanity was created, as we heard last evening, with a God-given connection, a life-giving connection to their Creator. And what has happened to every responsible human adult dead in trespasses and sins is how Paul wrote to the Ephesians to describe the state of humanity. Billions and billions and billions of people are living and have lived and died without this God-ordained connection, and they're going into eternity without Him.

That lie was sabotage of the entire human race. And that spiritual death, my brothers and sisters, we know is inconceivably greater than physical death. But I tell you, brothers and sisters, on Easter morning, the Son of God struck a death blow to death itself. So we can ask the question, "Adam, where are you?" And I tell you, we have the answer to that question in 1 Corinthians 15:45. We found Adam. And so it is written, "The first man, Adam, was made a living soul.

The last Adam was made a quickening spirit, a life-giving spirit" in the ESV. And of course, the implication is here that the first Adam was made with this God-given connection to his Creator, but he lost it and he died. But the last Adam, the founder of the new human race, came, and he gives life back again, as we heard preached so well last night. And he is the answer to that unspeakably vile trick played upon the human race by Satan.

And we have many voices in the world today, and many of them, probably most of them, are still just recycling that same lie, repackaged, "You shall not surely die." And maybe there are some of us here this morning that are like that little dog, Bang, who ran out onto the football field, and there was a clamor of voices calling to him from every direction, but there was no dominant voice. And that little dog stood there on the football field turning in every which direction because he was confused.

Maybe you've been listening to many voices. There are many voices: the voice of popularity, the voice of money, the voice of pleasure and sexual immorality, the voice of possessions and power and influence. And maybe it's just the many voices of responsibility that are calling us to a life of over-busyness. But today, my dear friend, in the voice of Martha to her beloved sister, "The Master has come, and he calleth for thee." Will you hear him? Do you hear him calling your name?

Is this the weekend that you should reorient your life to the voice of the one who's conquered death? Do you hear him above the noise? Or maybe you should turn your ears to that voice, that still small but dominant voice that's calling all mankind. Should you turn to that voice maybe for the first time? And above all the din, we hear this voice of love. We hear the voice of the second Adam, the last Adam, who bore the sins of the world upon himself and shed his blood as the perfect sacrifice.

We hear the voice of that last Adam who entered death and dismantled it. And when he got up out of the grave, he flung off death like a young man flings off the bed covers when he gets up in the morning. In doing that, by going into death, by giving himself over to death, and by coming out the other side, he demonstrates to us today, 2,000 years later, his complete mastery of it. And we hear the voice of that last Adam who not only destroyed death and dismantled it by his resurrection.

He not only did that, but the book of Hebrews 2:14 tells us that he destroyed him who had the power of death. Notice that past tense, who had the power of death. That is the devil. And the devil had it until Easter morning when Jesus destroyed him. Praise the Lord. Now, all which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, are free from the law of sin and death. And how are they free from the law of sin and death?

They are freed by a new law that came into force on Easter morning, the law of life in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. There's a new principle now brought into humanity, a quality of life that is stronger than death. And we heard last night how that back in the old days, if you reached out and touched a leper, you were made unclean. But Jesus reversed that curse.

And this law of life in Christ Jesus that was in him reached out, and now he cleanses the leper with that life. The curse has been reversed, and now life is the dominant force. So now, about a year ago, I was meditating on Acts 1:3, "To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." So that phrase, many infallible proofs, really stuck in my mind.

And I began to realize that I needed to adjust my thinking on the resurrection a little bit. Now, I have accepted the resurrection by faith out of the gospel accounts all my life, and I still do more firmly than ever. But Paul says here that we have many infallible proofs. And when I began to think of the resurrection as being documented by many infallible proofs, I began to realize that the resurrection is part of concrete human history, just as the reign of Julius Caesar or King Henry VIII.

It is part of human history. We have historical data for what happened there on Easter morning. I began to realize that the resurrection can be looked at differently than, say, the existence of God. We don't have eyewitness accounts of people who saw God. Now, we can make deductions on many things that point to the existence of God. We can make a very strong case for the existence of God through various kinds of deductions. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is different from that.

We don't just make deductions. We have courtroom discovery, courtroom evidence. Court cases have often been won on the basis of one good witness. We have hundreds of witnesses, people who saw Jesus after he was known to have died. And we can accept the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead with the same historical certainty as we accept the fact that George Washington was the first president of the United States of America.

And it's a crying shame that they don't have the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the secular history books with the same kind of certainty. Let's take a look at the infallible proofs of resurrection and of the resurrection. And there are many of them, and we'll look at four of them this morning. Number one is Jesus' death by crucifixion. This is a historical fact that can be validated by multiple sources outside the gospel accounts.

We don't need those other sources outside the gospel accounts for us to believe that Jesus died on the cross. But they're there, and they validate. They help validate the gospel accounts, even though we don't need any validation. And obviously, it's true that if Jesus were to rise from the dead, he had to die first. So that is a historical fact, Jesus' death by crucifixion.

Secondly, multiple eyewitnesses of his resurrection after he rose from the dead, even skeptics like Bart Ehrman, acknowledge it's obvious that his disciples believed that he rose from the dead. So let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. I want to spend a little bit of time at the beginning of this chapter. And first, we'll note the various eyewitnesses that we see here in this account. In verse 5, the first eyewitness listed here is Peter.

And then we have the 12, which would have been Peter, James, and John, and all the rest except for Judas, of course. After that, he was seen of about 500 brethren at once. This must have been, by the way, I just now thought of it, after Matthias was ordained to take Judas' place because there was 12, 500 brethren at once. And some of them, by this writing, had already died. And then he was seen of James. And then finally, after that, the apostles again.

And finally, after all that list of more than 500, we have Paul the Apostle himself met Jesus on the Damascus road. The bottom line is that here we have at least 500 eyewitnesses that could have been called into a first-century court as eyewitnesses to the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ. Folks, it's an open and shut case. It really is, 500 eyewitnesses. The third thing, the third infallible proof, is the disciples' world-changing message.

The disciples were so convinced about this that it happened that they turned the world upside down with their teaching about a resurrected Messiah. And Christian tradition has that all but one died a martyr's death for what they believed. And here's the important thing: people will give their lives for what they believe to be true, but they will not die for what they know is false.

And so even secular historians who don't believe in the supernatural acknowledge that Jesus' disciples gave their lives for a Jesus that they believed rose from the dead. And now we have the early creeds as another infallible proof of the resurrection. And I want to spend some time on this one.

There's very early credal data preserved that even the skeptics acknowledge that they were written as early as AD 33 to AD 35, so that when Jesus met Paul on the Damascus road and called him to be an apostle, there were already creeds circulating among Christians. And this would have been about 35, probably 35 at the latest, 36 AD when Paul was converted. Already then, there were creeds being circulated among the churches that taught that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again.

And the fact that these creeds were being circulated so early means that if Jesus' resurrection had been a lie, the disciples preaching about it would have been thoroughly debunked by people who were right there and knew the facts if they would have been otherwise. And the creeds would have never gotten off the ground.

But the fact that the creeds did get off the ground, that they were generally accepted and circulated widely among the Christian churches at a very early date, and that they still exist in the New Testament as it was canonized, and that they testified to Jesus' death and resurrection, this all means that they stood the test of contemporary fact-checkers, and they're reliable. And here we have a creed in 1 Corinthians 15 that I would like for us to read together, recite together.

If you have the King James, go to verse 3 of chapter 15 in 1 Corinthians. And this is very, very precious to me. It almost wants to send the goosebumps up and down my back because as we read this, we are entering into some of the very earliest material of the early church. So let's recite together verse 3 down through verse 7. I'll try to take it a bit slowly.

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen of Cesep and then of the 12. After that, he was seen of about 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James, then of all the apostles." Thank you.

And of course, back then, it would have been most likely Greek, not English, so it would have sounded a lot different. This is an ancient creed, and I'll explain why it's an ancient creed in just a few minutes. Let's talk about 1 Corinthians. From what I could find, there's general consensus that 1 Corinthians was written on Paul's third missionary journey in about 55 AD before any of the gospels.

So the material that we just read was being circulated earlier than any of the gospel accounts of Jesus' death and resurrection. Even some of the main skeptics acknowledge, and we don't need their word, but they acknowledge that 1 Corinthians was written about 55 AD and was written by Paul the Apostle. The book is not in doubt, even by secular historians. Again, we don't need them. But there's a reason for believing why 1 Corinthians was written about 55 AD, and here it is.

Obviously, the book was written sometime after Paul established the church at Corinth. And we can assign a precise date for Paul's visit to Corinth and the establishing of the church there because we can establish that almost more precisely than any other particular date in the New Testament because a fellow by the name of Gallio was proconsul of Achaia in the records of the Roman Empire. We have it. And he was proconsul in AD 53, the records show. And the proconsuls at that time held power for only one year.

He was there in AD 53. And in Acts 18, we read that Paul appeared in front of this Gallio. So it had to have been AD 53. And so likely, 1 Corinthians was written within two years or so or around AD 55. Now, let's talk about this creed, which we just recited, along with multitudes of believers who've recited it the world over for now 2,000 years. So we know it's a creed because Paul introduces it in the original translated. He says, "Which I also received and delivered" in verse 3.

He introduces the creed with the words delivered and received. And these are technical rabbinical terms for passing along holy tradition. And with these words, he's giving credit to established Christian tradition that he has received. And now he is passing it along to the Corinthians. And in fact, he had delivered it before he wrote the book. He had delivered it. "I delivered unto you." This is past tense at the time he's writing. So he would have delivered this to the Corinthians at AD 53.

Now, the other reason we know it is a creed is because of the style and rhythm. When you write a song, there's a meter, there's a rhythm like la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, that kind of thing. This has it in the original. And it's a method that was used to help illiterate people retain truth. It was put in a rhythmic cadence meter kind of thing in the original. So we know it's a creed.

Now, if you go back to verse 3 and look again at that phrase, "For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I received." He had delivered this to the Corinthians in AD 53, what he had received. This means that somebody gave it to Paul sometime prior to that. Now, we don't know exactly when he received this creed, but there is a theory out of Galatians, and we do not have time to go there, but it's fascinating.

There's a couple of theories out of the book of Galatians 1 where Paul goes kind of over the timeline of his early ministry. Remember, he spent 14 years in Arabia. Well, first, he went to Jerusalem. Then he spent some time in Arabia. Then he went back to Jerusalem. Well, there's a couple of theories that can be developed out of that on how Paul received the creed as early as AD 36 or maybe as late as AD 47 or 3 to 14 years after Jesus had died and went back and rose and went back to heaven.

And that's getting a little bit technical, I realize. But either way, what I'm trying to say here, in the Galatians theory, whether Paul received the creed only three years or 14 years after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, either way, 3 or 14 years statistically is a very short time, historically speaking, the way historians do ancient history. 14 years is nothing. Scholars have other ways of dating the creed in 1 Corinthians 15.

And some come within just a couple of years of Jesus' death using other means than the Galatians theory. The idea or the reality that this creed was in circulation just a few years after Jesus' death and resurrection, this means that as early as 36 AD and possibly as late as AD 47, people all over the Christian world were convinced that, number one, Christ died; two, he was buried; three, he rose again; and four, he appeared to Peter, to the 12, to 500 people at once, then to James and all the apostles.

And the early Christians were convinced enough about this to put these facts into a credal form and circulate them around the churches. And if these events again hadn't happened, the creeds would have never become creeds because it was early enough that there were plenty of contemporaries who would have still been living who could have debunked it and said, "Hey, this didn't really happen if it didn't happen." But it happened, brothers and sisters. Jesus rose from the dead, and we have the record preserved.

And we can stand on this as part of world history. Did George Washington become the first president of the United States of America? We're pretty sure that he did. We can be even more sure that Jesus rose from the dead. But this is Saturday morning. And less than 24 hours ago, you were on that hillside outside Jerusalem. You've just heard those hammer blows less than 24 hours ago. Iron upon iron. Claim, claim, claim. And then you see them raising the cross.

Then you turn your head away as you hear that horrific thud as Jesus' cross is dropped into the hole, dug for it, and his body spasms in pain, and his blood is flowing from the lacerations all over his body. And at that time, you do not yet know what that blood means. The scriptures have not yet been opened to you. And you do not yet understand the prophecies of the Psalms and the prophecies of Isaiah 2 and 53 and all the rest and how that Jesus' blood must be shed for the sins of the world. You don't know that.

All you know is that the man who had done so many miracles, the man you had staked everything on, is hanging there like a common criminal dying. And you feel so utterly broken, less than 24 hours ago, helpless and alone. And you wish you could die. And you hear him cry, "It is finished." And then into the Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit. And you know it's all over. He is not coming back. He is gone. Can you imagine how Peter and John and the rest actually felt?

This wasn't some casual acquaintance there hanging on the cross in front of them. They had left everything. They had left their family, their vocation, their fathers. They had left their own status and their own reputation for his cause. They thought he was going to lead a revolution. Night and day, they had been with him for three years. This wasn't how it was supposed to end, but it's over. It's clearly over. All is lost.

And I imagine there would have been medical terms today for the shock that those people must have entered into in the trauma of that hour. The whole world turned as black as the sky on that day. Maybe there's somebody here today who is in a Saturday. You're in that day in between. Something horrible has just happened. Maybe the death of a dream or the death of a loved one. Or maybe you've lost your reputation. Or maybe there's guilt and shame because of the tragedy of sin and believing the lies.

Your world is pretty dark. And the sky is black. And you're not sure if you can ever hope again. And all is lost. Is there anyone here who is facing the kind of discouragement that's so deep that you could cry out with Jesus, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" My dear friends, if we didn't know the rest of this story, it would be black indeed. There wouldn't be any hope, would there? We might as well all go home and live it up, eat, drink, for tomorrow we die.

But there is the rest of that story, and we know it well. And what I was thinking about this morning, as I was thinking about the rest of the story, I was thinking about that astonishing sight it must have been if you could have been there to see those two grown fishermen racing down the path trying to get there first, charging at top speed on Sunday morning toward the tomb. Let's read that account together, Matthew 28. Matthew 28.

If you have the King James, let's read this record loud and clear for the world, the seen world, and the unseen world, especially for the devil and his angels to hear. Shall we read this? I'm sorry. Matthew 28:1. "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, 'Fear not, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen. As he said, 'Come, see the place where the Lord lay,' and go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And behold, he goeth before you into Galilee, and there ye shall see him.

Lo, I have told you.' And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy and did run to bring his disciples' word." Now, over in John 20, you can listen as I read. John 20:3. "Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple and came to the sepulchre. And they ran both together. And the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying, yet went he not in.

Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and seeth the linen clothes lie and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself." A thought came into my mind about that. Jesus rose from the dead. Who folded that linen? Who folded that napkin that was about his head? Who did that? Do you think young men who sometimes have a hard time making your bed and I know I'm getting very practical here this morning.

Do you think we could learn something from the example of Jesus here? I believe Jesus did that. I believe he took the time. The author of all law and order and creation, I believe he took the time to fold that napkin. Let's keep reading. "Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping.

And as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, 'Woman, why weepest thou?' And she said unto them, 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.' And when she had thus said, she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, why weepest thou?

Whom seekest thou?' And she, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, 'Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.' Jesus saith unto her." Put your name in there. Mary. Put your name in there. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself and saith unto him, Rabbonai, which is to say, Master. Will you say that back to your Lord in your heart? Master.

I've thought and thought and tried to imagine what it must have been like to go from the blackness of despair like they did to this glorious understanding that dawned on those disciples after the scriptures were opened to them, and they began to understand that there is something much, much bigger going on here than they had ever dreamed. I don't get tired of thinking about the change that happened in Peter. We know that story well. He collapsed in front of that servant girl and in front of those people.

And then like 40 days later or something like that, he was standing in front of the Sanhedrin telling them what they had done to Jesus crucify their own Messiah without any trace of fear in his body. And that's so amazing to me. Peter was so bold in the book of Acts. And we don't have time to go there. But not too long ago, I went through the book of Acts, and I studied all the addresses, the public addresses that were given, the sermons, the preaching, and the personal testimonies.

And if you look at those public addresses that were given in the book of Acts, just about every one of them, the resurrection is central to that message. We'll just go to Peter's first message and take a look at that. And you can see what I'm saying by that. Acts 2. When Peter is preaching there on the day of Pentecost, we have his sermon goes from verses 14 to verse 36 in Acts 32. I'm sorry, Acts 2.

Of those 23 verses that comprise the record of his sermon, nine of those verses have to do almost half the words have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his Lord and Master. And actually, the crucifixion, although the crucifixion was central to those people too, they didn't neglect that either. But in this particular sermon, it only gets a couple of short references. The resurrection and the gospel of Jesus was at the resurrection was at the center of the gospel for those early believers.

It was a compelling reality to them. It had just happened. And I'm thinking we need to celebrate Easter more than once a year. And I've come to the place where I kind of think to myself, we should celebrate Easter at least once a week on the Lord's Day. We should have some reference to the resurrection. Somebody should get up and say, "Hey, this is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. And we can look back on his death and resurrection today.

And we can look forward to that eternal day when he'll return again." So what does the resurrection mean for his followers in daily life? Now, on Saturday, August 21st, 2021, 2,000 years later, what does the resurrection actually mean in daily life? And we talked about the fact and we heard last night how that the last Adam is a life-giving spirit who reversed the curse. The law of life in Christ Jesus now has made me free from the law of sin and death.

And the resurrection demonstrates to us it first demonstrated to the apostles. And it demonstrates to us that the life that had been present among them for three years, that life could not be quenched by killing the body. Jesus was indestructible, invincible, irrepressible, immortal. I like those four words: indestructible, invincible, irrepressible, immortal.

And above the noise of this world, if you're standing out there kind of in confusion, not sure which voice to hear, above the noise of all that, the Master calls for you. And he's calling your name and my name, Mary. Mary. Would you like to live the kind of life that I lived when I was with you? How would we like to live the kind of life that Jesus lived?

Victory over sin, victory over Satan, victory over the world, full of grace and truth, full of peace and joy, sacrificial love overflowing from his life, gracious words, meekness and gentleness, indestructible, invincible, irrepressible, immortal life. All of the above are the qualities that are wrapped up in the eternal life that Jesus offers to all who believe. Am I exaggerating it? No. How do we get this life?

It says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." There's a two-letter word there, one each time in verse 1 and in verse 2: in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus. Those two letters are bursting with possibilities: in Christ Jesus. I'm going to give a little very imperfect illustration.

So do you believe it's possible to go from Washington, DC, to LA in six hours? DC to LA in six hours. 3,000 miles in six hours. Well, at a fast walk, I can do 4 miles an hour, 24 miles maybe in six hours. That's a long way from 3,000 miles. But getting from DC to LA is possible if in six hours is possible if you get in the right vehicle. And it requires a certain commitment to do that too. Your ticket must be paid for a certain way. And you have to agree to the terms.

You have to agree to the set time of departure and so forth. And you drive to the place where the airplane will leave. You check in your luggage. Certain things aren't allowed. You go through a screening process, the narrow gate. And you arrive at the boarding area. And then you do a very amazing thing. You, along with hundreds of other people maybe, walk onto an apparatus that is basically a thin tube with flimsy-looking wings hanging onto it and motors hanging onto those wings.

And those wings hanging outside your window are full of some of the most flammable substance known to man, jet fuel. And you follow the instructions of the flight crew, and you get ready for takeoff. And then you, along with the other hundreds of people on the plane, do an amazing thing. You do an amazing thing. You totally commit your lives to the two or three fellows that are sitting up there at the front of that airplane. And those fellows up there might not be all that old or experienced.

They're probably fairly experienced. I hope so. You trust those people whom you have never met to run this machine that's filled with explosives. And you trust them to run that thing straight down the runway, hopefully, without blowing it up. And before they reach the end, you hope they will get that thing up into the air. So it's flying, flying. And you trust those fellows to run this machine 600 miles an hour, six miles up in the air for six hours, 3,000 miles without wrecking it.

And sometimes you look out the window, and those flimsy wings are going up and down like this. And you are concerned that they might fall off. And then you hope that at the other end, when you arrive at LA, you might look down. You might be able to see that tiny strip, that narrow ribbon of concrete down there. And you think to yourself, "How in the world are they going to put this thing on that little thin strip of concrete?" But they do, again, about 250 miles an hour.

And you hope that they get it stopped before they reach the end of the track. The only reason that we feel safe getting into these machines is because there is a documented historical record of safely transporting the passengers who get inside of them. I tell you, flying from DC to LA requires a commitment of the whole life. You really have to get fully on board. But how hard is that? How hard is getting on board and complying with what is required on the airplane?

How hard is that relative to the challenge of getting to LA in six hours? You don't have to help fly the airplane. You don't even have to flap your arms. The engines and the people running the plane do all that. All you do is commit yourself to getting on the plane. Then it is possible for you to do the impossible to get to LA in six hours. Can you live like Jesus? Can you live as he lived?

The chance of living like Jesus in your own strength is less than getting from DC to LA in six hours by flapping your own arms. You can't do it. You can't possibly live like Jesus. But through his death and resurrection, he has opened the way for you and I to be in him, to be united with him, in him. And here's the promise that he gave his followers shortly before he died. He said in John 15:4-5, "Abide in me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, ye can do nothing." Abiding in him. We've known that. But it is still the only way. It is the secret to his kind of fruitfulness. And abiding in him requires more than just an intellectual faith about the things about him. The devils believe and tremble.

And I can intellectually believe that it's possible to travel from DC to LA in six hours. But believing that and actually getting into the plane are two different things, could be two different things. No. They're not necessarily two different things. That's why I get into the plane. But they're not necessarily the one and the same thing. Entering into Jesus' resurrected life does require total commitment to Jesus and his kingdom. It requires a surrender of my will and of my life to his will and to his life.

He's at the controls of this thing. He directs my path. Do you want to live an impossible kind of life, though? Which do you choose? You want to walk to LA? Or do you want to fly? Once we make that total commitment, fasten our seatbelts, and trust him to take us, we do discover that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. And we discover that we're flying. This is how the Christian life is actually meant to live, be lived. Do you hear the voice of the Master? Don't wait in confusion and weariness any longer.

Run to the one who is calling you above the crowd, the one who conquered everything by his death and resurrection. Why would you want to do anything less than that? We've got the courtroom data. We've got everything on our side. Let's not be shy about it. And there's one thing that I haven't even mentioned. And I'm sorry we don't have time. Well, yes, I will mention it. And that is how his resurrection affects the future of those who commit their lives to him. Can we recite Romans 8:11 together?

Now, I'm sort of used to thinking about Romans 8:11 as being for the present reality. But as I study the passage more, I'm not giving up the present reality in that verse. But maybe it is pointing more toward the future reality and the resurrection of our own bodies. So can we say that together?

"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." The same power that raised him up 2,000 years ago. We have the promise that that same power will raise us up, will quicken our mortal bodies. Our past is wrapped up in his death and resurrection. Our present is wrapped up in his death and resurrection. And our future is also. And I want to close with just one verse.

I wish I could read more from this exuberant passage in 1 Peter 1. If you have a chance today, maybe in your quiet time or whenever you have time to reflect, just read 1 Peter 1 about the first 10 verses or so. And he is so exuberant. And he is so enthused about the future. But here's why in verse 3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Amen.

I've asked Brother Linwood if he would lead us in the song "Lift Up Your Glad Voices." Lift up your glad voices in triumph on high, for Jesus hath risen and men shall not die. May worth of terrors have gathered around him and shore the dominion of death and the grave. Be verse from the fetters of darkness that bound in resplendent in glory to live and to save. Loud was the chorus of angels on high. The Savior hath risen and men shall not die. All glory to God in full anthems of joy.

The being he gave us death cannot destroy. Sad were the life we may part with tomorrow if tears were our birth, right and death were our end. Our Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow and made us immortal to heaven ascend. Lift then your voices in triumph on high, for Jesus hath risen and men shall not die.