Doctrine Series – It

s all about GodPart 9 – Resurrection: God Saves

•

God is Father, Son & Holy Spirit, as revealed to us throughthe Bible – which is, His authoritative, inerrant and sufficientWord!

•

He created us to reflect His image, for His glory, but we havefallen short of this responsibility resulting in death, separationand curse, which we see all around us.

•

But God in His loyal covenant love has pursued us and hasmade us a deal we can

t refuse! God the Son has come as aman, the God-man Jesus, humbles himself even to the pointof death by crucifixion! We call it good Friday!What

s so good about it, well Jesus came to be the sacrifice for thepayment of all the sins of men who, putting their faith in Him, wouldreceive guilt-free forgiveness. That

s a great deal! But its futile, awaste of time, if it stays at Good Friday!Death on Good Friday! Thank God for Friday, but if it all endsthere, if Jesus is dead, then Christianity is dead. But if Jesus isalive, then we can understand why Christianity would be verymuch alive today!In line with this, the first very important point I

d like to make thismorning is this – that

God is a promise keeper

, and if Hepromises something, He fulfills! His Word is good.

Isaiah 53:8 – 12

Speaks of the suffering, servant pointing to Jesus, who wouldcome and take the penalty of sin upon himself as a substitute forus, and by doing this, give us the opportunity to be made one witha Holy God!Listen again to the words that Bruce touched on last week:

By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered

We are using a book by Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears called “Doctrine: What Christians ShouldBelieve”, Crossway Books, 2010 as a guide for our doctrine series. Todays message on Resurrection,has been further resourced from “Powerful Faith” by R.A. Torrey, Whitaker House, 1996 and one of myfavorite books: Wayne Grudem

s “Systematic Theology” IVP, 1994. Check out our book table!

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,although he had done no violence,and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the L

ORD

to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin,he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the L

ORD

shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,make many to be accounted righteous,and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many,and makes intercession for the transgressors.

This prophecy, about 700 years before Jesus already explains thatJesus would come and fulfill the role of the sacrifice for the sin ofmany – a holy and Just God, cant turn a blind eye to sin, yet, Hewont push us away forever! He made a way, through Jesus, it wasHis will to exalt Jesus, and count us in, but He also did the hardthing that needed to be done in order for us to be accepted - thecross! The crown of thorns, the lashings!Jesus knew He

d come for this, and at a certain point He began toteach this and explain it to His disciples, but they didn

t listen!

Matthew 16

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go toJerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests andscribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And Peter tookhim aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord!This shall never happen to you.

But he turned and said to Peter,

Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

Peter only listened to the words that Jesus would die, but what heshould have heard was that Jesus would rise from death! Peteronly heard the bad part, and did not listen to the fact that the

outcome was an overcoming of death! Satan took a hold of Peterand he impulsively tried to react! How often do we do this – weonly hear the one part of the story, missing the plan, the greatpossibilities and the amazing outcome! Every cross that we needto carry is potentially a source of great life to us and to manyothers! Don

t do all you can to resist the cross; Satan might try toget you to react. Have peace, and listen to what Jesus is tellingyou – there is always more to His story, and History has proventhis. God will not allow anything to come in the way of His greaterpurpose for your life!Now lets turn to the exciting part:

Matthew 28

At this stage, it would seem like there is no hope! A teacher ofwords never heard before, who does miracles never seen in all theearth – even the Red Sea Parting has nothing on what Jesusmiraculously performed! Jesus is dead!To make sure He is dead – He has been beaten all night long, Hehas been whipped with a cat of 9 tails 39 times (1 strap would be350 times)! He is exhausted and collapses from carrying his owncross. He is nailed to a cross, hangs there for hours, depressed,broken, dead! To make sure, a spear is pressed into His heart sac,that water and blood flow out of His side! Jesus is dead – aprofessional executioner of Rome – this is his only job, to killpeople, horribly, his

fun

is over when the person is dead! Notfeinted, or swooned or a light pass out, dead!Then buried in a tomb with up to 45 kg of burial cloth and for 3days, gets no seriously needed medical attention, no food, nowater, placed in a cold, stone, tomb! Jesus was dead!Do you know of situations that this dead? Do you feel like there isno hope? Is your joy gone? Does it look like the well is dry andthere is no chance for any life?

Matthew 28

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week,Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat