Speaker: I wanna tell you guys about, uh, an announcement that
most people probably ignore.
You guys ever see this sign before?
Yeah.
No one really cares about this sign, right?
It comes on and people are just like, cool.
And then the flight tent has their thing and you're just like,
on your phone or you're talking.
People got their headphones in like this.
They, they put this thing on and they, and they come up and
it's like, all right, whatever.
Or sometimes it comes on in the flight and you're like.
Do I really need, like I'm sitting down, do I really need to put my seatbelt on?
I'm not gonna get up, right?
This happens a lot.
But one time I was on an airplane where this really, really, really mattered.
So my wife and I were on our way back from our honeymoon in Hawaii,
and there wasn't just this light on.
This light was on.
This light is the, you can't use the bathroom light Now.
The reason that light was on was because we were about to take off.
So we're like coming down the runway.
We're getting ready to take off.
There's a woman in the bathroom, there's a woman in the bathroom, and
they're like, you can't be in here.
Like, we, we need to take off.
Like, you're not supposed to be in here.
And she's like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom.
I'm doing it, you guys, I have, I have free rights in this country.
I could do whatever I want on this plane.
I'm gonna go to the bathroom in this plane.
And they didn't, they didn't let her do that.
They, they, they were like, no, like, ma'am, it's not safe for you to do that.
It's not okay when we tell you to.
Put on your seatbelt, you need to put on your seatbelt and be in your seat.
You can't be doing this.
So then they eventually, this lady was getting really upset, so
eventually they call, they have to call the security to, so we have
to go all the way back to the gate.
They call the security, they come in and escort her off the plane
after she gave this whole speech about rights and all that stuff.
It was, it was hilarious.
But so they, they escort her off the plane and so she, and all
her family gets kicked off too.
Her husband, her kids, they all get kicked off this plane.
I'm sure they didn't get refunded, right?
So they lost their plane trip, they lost their tickets, they all got
kicked off, and I'm sure other things happened to them afterward too, that,
that weren't necessarily super fun.
So they, they all got kicked off this plane because she
ignored the announcement, right?
If she had listened to this sign, she would've been fine, right?
But she, she ignored the announcement.
She didn't take it seriously.
And so she got in big trouble.
Now, I wanna tell you guys about an announcement that's happening in the
gospel of Matthew, chapters 27 and 28, the very end that we're looking at.
That announcement is that Jesus is alive.
Jesus is, he's alive.
He, he's out of the tomb.
He was raised from the dead, and a lot of people take that announcement for granted.
They treat it like the seatbelt sign.
They're just like, whatever.
All right, cool.
Jesus is alive.
Great.
I love that.
That's cool.
Maybe they're like, oh, well, did he really?
I don't know.
Eh, that's okay.
Or maybe they're just like, no, I don't believe that.
Whatever.
But I wanna ask you tonight, what are you gonna do about
an empty tomb in a risen king?
Because Jesus tomb was empty and king.
Jesus is alive.
And that matters for you.
That matters for me.
That matters for how you live, that matters for your future,
and that's an announcement that you have to do Something about.
How you respond to that announcement really, really, really matters.
Matters even more than getting kicked off an airplane.
So turn within your Bibles.
We're gonna be in Matthew 27 at the very end.
Matthew 27 62 is where we're picking up.
All right.
So last week we ended with Jesus burial.
Right?
When it was evening, there was a rich guy named Joseph who came, and
he's, he, he was a disciple of Jesus.
He said, look, I want to put Jesus in in a real tomb.
I don't know if I'm gonna be thrown in a, in a common grave.
I'm gonna give him my tomb.
We're gonna bury him.
We're gonna take care of his body.
We're gonna do do things the right way for Jesus, because we care about him.
That's where we left off.
So look with me at verse actually before we get there, before we get to verse 62.
The way this passage is structured is actually.
Really fun and really interesting.
So normally we kind of work our way straight through the passage, but
the way this passage is structured is actually, uh, if, if you wanna
be fancy, there's this, there's this word, it's called a, a chiasm.
Or a chiasm.
And what that really just means is, it means it's like a sandwich.
All right?
This passage is like a sandwich.
This is what it's gonna look like.
Okay?
So this, this chiasm means it's like this.
So there's parallel sections that work their way to the middle.
The middle is the most important part.
That's how this passage is structured.
So when you're reading this passage, you'll notice there's opposition to
the resurrection at the beginning.
There's opposition to the resurrection at the end.
And then around that section, there's the, the woman arrive at
the tomb and they leave the tomb.
And in the middle is the angel's message.
So that's the way we're gonna look at this sermon.
We're gonna put these chunks together.
We're gonna put these chunks together, and then this is what we're gonna end on.
So.
Fancy word for that.
It's called a chiasm.
Or a chiasm.
It's modeled.
The, the name comes from the Greek letter key, which is an X.
So see how it would, it would be an X if it kept going.
See that?
That's why it's called that.
But that's how we're gonna be looking at this passage, is we're gonna be, we're
gonna take the the outside, and then we're gonna work our way in into the middle.
Cool.
All right.
So it's gonna end up looking like this.
See that?
We went from here to here.
Whoa.
Right.
All right.
So Matthew.
This slide says 26.
It should say 27, Matthew 27 62.
The next day, that is after the day of preparation, the chief priest in the
Pharisees, they gathered before Pilate.
So the chief priest, Pharisees, those are the guys who wanted to kill
Jesus Pilate, the Roman governor.
They're like, Hey, sir, we remember how that imposter, Jesus said while he was
alive, after three days, I will rise.
So even the Jewish leaders remembered what Jesus said.
Jesus said, after three days, I'm gonna rise from the dead.
So then they're like, all right, we don't want anyone to think that
Jesus is actually gonna be able to rise from the debt, verse 64.
Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day less, or because his
disciples might go and steal him away and tell the people he's risen from the debt.
So the Jewish leaders, they're scared that the disciples are gonna steal Jesus' body
and be like, oh, guys, look empty tomb.
Jesus rose from the dead.
Whoa, isn't that crazy?
That's what they think is gonna happen.
So they, they wanna prevent that, and they're gonna say that the last fraud.
Will be worse than the first.
They're gonna say that fake, a fake resurrection would be worse
than a fake Messiah, right?
Because they didn't think he was a messiah.
They thought he pretended to be the Messiah.
And so then they would say a fake resurrection is even worse
than being a fake Messiah.
So pil, he says to them, you've got a guard of soldiers.
You've got some, some soldiers who, who are security for the temple, go
and make the tomb as secure as you can.
So they went and they made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
Setting a guard.
So they station a guard outside the tomb.
They're just like, all right, we're not gonna let anyone mess with this
tomb to fake a resurrection from Jesus.
Now, spoiler alert, guess what happens?
Jesus is raised from the dead walks out of the tomb, and this doesn't help.
Right?
But they're trying to prevent the resurrection.
They're opposing the resurrection.
Then if you skip down to verse 11 of chapter 28, so remember we're we're
looking at the beginning of the passage.
The end of the passage, if you go to the end of our passage, 28 verse
11, we go back to the Pharisees.
So the announcement happens, angel, the woman, Jesus, all that.
Then while they, the woman we're going, behold some of the guard, so we're now
we're, we're back to where we started.
Behold, some of the guard went into the city and they told the chief
priest everything that took place.
And when they assembled with the elders and taken counsel,
they decided what to do.
They gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers.
They bribed them and they say, all right, here's what we want you to
tell People, tell people that his disciples came by night and stole
him away while we were asleep.
So they say, Hey, we want you to, to pretend like the disciples stole Jesus'
body, and that's why the tomb is empty.
Verse 14, if this comes to the governor's ears, we'll satisfy him.
We'll, you know, we'll protect you, um, and we'll keep you out of trouble because
if you were a guard and the body is no longer in the tomb, you're in big trouble.
Right.
That's, I think of that scene.
You know that scene in Captain America one where Captain America needs a uniform, so
he steals Captain or no, captain America two, where he steals the uniform from
the exhibit to wear, and then Stan Lee shows up and he's like, I'm so fired.
Right?
That's the guard.
That's what they're saying.
So they need to figure out something to keep it up, right?
So verse 15, they took the money and did as they're directed, and this story has
been spread among the Jews to this day.
So Matthew includes these two sections about opposition to
Jesus, resurrection, right?
People trying to stop Jesus resurrection and people trying
to cover up Jesus resurrection.
And the reason Matthew does that is because he wants to show
everyone, us included, that there always are gonna be people who.
Don't like Jesus resurrection.
There's always gonna be people who oppose it, who either want you not
to believe that it's true or want you to ignore it, or want you just
to have nothing to do with it.
They want you to think it's made up or they don't like it.
So our first point tonight is expect opposition to the resurrection.
Expect people to push back against the resurrection.
Expect people to say it's not true.
Expect people to be like, oh, you really believe that.
You believe that some guy rose from the dead.
You believe that God actually did that.
Or maybe people are just like, oh, well, maybe he did, but
it doesn't really matter.
That's still opposition.
So expect opposition to the resurrection.
There's a lot of different theories actually, that people try to come up
with to disprove the resurrection, right?
We saw one in our passage, the Jewish leaders, they said, Hey, tell them
that the disciples stole the body.
So I'm gonna go through a few different common arguments that if you, if you
say, Hey, Jesus was raised from the dead, people are gonna oppose you.
And they might use some of these arguments to say, you know what?
This is really what happened.
You know, Jesus didn't actually get out of the, get outta the tomb.
This is what really happened.
So the first one.
Is this disciples stole the body.
Right?
That's when we saw in our passage, well, here's why.
There's no way that this happened.
First, what happened to all disciples before Jesus died?
Were they like, oh, we love Jesus.
We're so excited about Jesus.
We're gonna fight for Jesus.
No, they were all scared, right?
They ran away.
So do you think they would come back and be like, you know what guys?
Let's do something about Jesus.
No, they were hiding, right?
Peter was scared of a servant girl.
Do you think he's gonna go up to a tomb and beat up a Roman
guard and steal the body?
No right sec.
Second thing, right?
These disciples would have to go fight these guards and
take the body out of the tomb.
So that's
definitely, you know, okay.
These PE don't look like people who would go steal a body.
The third thing is that if they stole the body, then they know Jesus didn't
really rise in the dead, right?
So then.
Why did they all die?
Or all of them except John, right?
He went into exile for life.
But why did they all die if they stole the body, right?
If you fake Jesus resurrection, you stole the body and then you tell people, oh,
hey guys, you just rose from the dead.
And then someone's like, oh, I'll kill you.
If you keep saying that and you knew it was fake, would
you let them cut your head off?
Would you let them crucify you for that?
For a made up lie?
You wouldn't do that, right?
So that's pretty solid evidence.
The disciples didn't steal the body.
So if anyone ever tells you, Hey, I think the disciples actually did steal the
body, you can point them to this evidence that says, you know what, actually.
It's really not likely that disciples stole the body, right?
The disciples weren't very likely to steal the body.
They were all scared, and if they did steal the body, why did
they all die for their faith?
Right?
That doesn't make any sense.
So it's not really a good conclusion that disciples stole the body.
Well, okay, let's say you're talking to your friend at school, or you're
a college professor in a few years, and they're like, well, you know what?
All the Gospel Council of the Resurrection, they
all contradict each other.
Mark says that the, the woman or the woman got to the tomb
and saw it was already empty.
Matthew says they got to the tomb, and then the angel came.
John says that it was just Mary at the tomb.
What?
What is this?
They're all contradicting each other.
It's clearly made up, right?
Maybe you hear that one.
The gospels contradict each other.
Well, first of all.
The gospels, they're not all describing the exact same moments, right?
You can fit all these together.
You could say, you know what?
Maybe Mary did get to the tomb first, and then the woman came, or maybe
the woman left and Mary stayed, and then Jesus appeared to her.
You can fit all these together in a way that makes sense.
Also, they're eyewitness accounts.
They're not like a timeline, right?
John is giving his account of what happened.
Mark is giving Peter's account of what happened.
Matthew is giving his account of what happened.
They're not meant to be like, here's every single thing that happened in Jesus' life.
Remember at the end of the gospel of John, it says Jesus did a bunch of other
things enough to fill many books, right?
There's a lot of different things that happen, and the gospel writers are only
giving us their perspective, the details that they want you to know that fit
with what they're sharing about Jesus.
And if you want, you can actually put all this together on a timeline.
I found one online.
That lines up all the different accounts, John and Mark and Matthew and Luke.
It puts 'em all together to show you what happened.
So this is from answers to Genesis.
You don't have to copy all this down, but I just want you to show
that it all, I just wanna show you, it all fits together, right?
So if, if someone says, look, the Gospels all contradict each other.
They don't say the same thing about Jesus Resurrection.
You can say, well, actually they all fit, they all make sense together.
So if, if you want, I can send you this, or you could take a picture
of this or whatever, but this is on.
Answers in genesis.org.
If you wanna find this chart, you can do that.
Um, but you can fit all this together.
See, we've got, we've got John, we've got Matthew, mark and Luke.
We've got Luke, we've got First Corinthians and Luke.
So it all fits all the accounts of Jesus resurrection fits together really nicely.
So if someone ever tells you the gospel's for each other, that's not true.
They, they all compliment each other and share one unified story.
They just share different parts of the same story.
So then here's my favorite one.
Well, my second favorite one.
My favorite one is that you just didn't really die on the cross.
That's the dumbest thing you could ever say, right?
Oh, he hung on the cross and was beaten and all that stuff that I'm
not, I didn't even put that one in my slideshow because it's so ridiculous.
Right?
Jesus, like faked his death on the cross and then like came out
of the tomb from the inside after he'd been in there for three.
Like, come on, we can do better than that.
So this is my, my other favorite one is that all the disciples are hallucinating.
They're all crazy.
They just, they just saw Jesus ghost and they thought it was, it was actually him.
And they said, oh, he's raised from the dead Now.
What could be wrong with this?
Well, one, Jesus appeared multiple times to different groups of people, right?
That's what we see in the Bible.
He's, he's appearing multiple times in, in Luke, he shows up to these people and
he talks to these people, and John, he talks to these people without Thomas.
Then he talks to people with Thomas, and then in Matthew, we, we see him a
few different times talking to people.
So he, all these people are apparently having the same
hallucination over like a month.
That's not very likely.
Jesus ate with people.
Right.
We see this in, in, in John and Thomas touched him.
Can you touch a ghost?
No.
Right.
Jesus appeared to large groups of people.
So Paul says that he appeared to a ton of people all at once, so
all the people in the same time having the same hallucination.
I I read one guy online, he said that there must, he literally said there
must have been something in the water.
Seriously, bro.
Come on.
Like, no.
All these people have the exact same hallucination at
the same time, not likely.
And then Paul, in one Corinthians 15, he lists names of people.
Now, if you're in, if you're in Corinth and Paul says, oh yeah, this guy saw the
resurrected of Christ, what could you do?
You could go over and say, Hey, did you see Jesus?
What was he like?
What did he say?
And you could go ask him.
So Paul is, is clearly open to people asking people, Hey, did you see Jesus?
What did he say?
What did he teach?
What did he do?
So Paul's not afraid that someone's gonna be like, oh, well actually
it was just a dream, or I was just ghost Jesus floating around, right?
So if someone says, you know, the disciples are just mass
hallucination, they're just going crazy, that's also not true.
So expect people to push back on you.
If you, if you're someone who says, you know what?
I believe that Jesus was raised from the dead.
I believe that Jesus.
Is alive today.
I believe that Jesus walked outta the tomb and we've never found his body, ever.
People are gonna maybe say some things like this, oh, well, maybe the
disciples stole the body, or, well, you know, it doesn't really happen.
I want you to be prepared for that, and I want you to be
able to, to know these things.
You can say, you know what, that's not, that's really not true.
And really you can just walk through the the options.
Right.
Well, what do you think is more likely, you think it's more likely
that Jesus didn't really die?
Or do you think it's more likely that all these people had the same
hallucination at the same time?
So the, the logical, reasonable conclusion is that Jesus actually is who he said
he is, and he's raised from the dead.
There's a bunch of other details in the story even that you could point out to,
to show you that, that it's really true.
Maybe you're someone who says, I don't really know if the Bible's true.
I don't really know if God's real.
I don't know if this is really, this whole Christianity thing is
really what everyone says it is.
Well, think about this in this culture.
Matthew says the women were the first people to go to the tomb.
Now, in this culture, did you know that woman actually couldn't testify in court?
So if you're Matthew and you're making up a story, why would you
have your primary witnesses be women?
Right?
Unless it was really the ca like that actually what happened?
So that's another thing you could say.
You could even talk about, remember how we saw that even the chief priest knew that
Jesus said he rose from the dead, right?
If you're saying, oh, well the Christian just made it up a hundred years later.
Why are the chief priests also saying, Jesus said he was gonna be
raised from the dead, so it's common.
It was common knowledge that Jesus said stuff like this.
So there's a bunch of other details in the stories, but I just want you
to know that that Christianity isn't just like some made up, you know?
Oh yeah.
This is just something that the church made up to teach people
how to be nice to each other.
That's not true, right?
Th this is actually the only religion that's based on a historical event.
There's no other religion that.
Rises or falls on a real thing that happened in history.
So Christianity is, is connected to, to real events, real places, real people.
That really happened.
Um.
You're gonna get pushback if you say stuff like that, people are gonna
be like, you don't really believe that the Bible's true, do you?
You don't really believe that, that Jesus rose in the dead.
Jesus fed all these people with five loaves and two fish.
Jesus, really?
You don't believe that Jesus walked on water?
You don't believe that, et cetera, et cetera, right?
You're gonna hear that.
If you believe this, I want you to expect it, and I want you to
be ready so you're not like, whoa, I've never heard that before.
Right?
I want you to do the homework, do the research, and I'm helping you
with some of it so you can expect opposition to the resurrection.
Also opposition from the resurrection usually doesn't really
come down to a mental question.
Usually the reason people are opposing the resurrection is hard hearts.
People don't want God.
And maybe that's you.
Maybe you're like, well, I know that the resurrection probably happened.
I, I think it makes sense.
I think the Bible's true, but I just, I just don't wanna be a Christian, right?
I don't think God is very good, or I don't want to do all the
things that, that God says.
You're still in your heart, you're still pushing back against the resurrection
because what you're saying is that, well, maybe that is true, and maybe you're not
arguing with it, but you're just like, well, you're, I don't, I don't want that.
Right.
I don't, I don't want Jesus.
You're still opposing Jesus.
You're, you're looking at the creator of the universe who rose
from the dead and saying, peace out.
I don't, I don't want anything to do with you.
That's what you're doing, and it, it always comes down to your heart.
If you, you could have all the evidence you want, but if your heart
is hard and, and you're opposed to Jesus, you're opposed to the
gospel, you're not gonna believe it.
Remember what Jesus said, I think it was in Luke.
He said, if they don't believe Moses, they're not gonna believe someone,
even if they came back from the dead, because maybe you're like,
well, I want Jesus to prove it.
I want a sign from God, or I want this.
Why doesn't God do this?
Right?
If you are asking for more evidence, then that probably says more about your heart.
If you're someone out there who's saying, oh, I need more evidence to
believe in the Bible, there's plenty.
God's given you everything you need to know.
Um, it, it really is a matter of your heart.
If you've got more evidence, I'm sure what you would do is make up
more ways to get around the evidence or ask more questions, so it always
is gonna come down to your heart.
How?
Because you, you're never gonna get enough evidence for.
For Jesus, for God's word, for the existence of God, it's
gonna come down to your heart.
All opposition comes down to a hard heart, right?
That's where it started with the chief priest and the Pharisees.
They saw all of Jesus miracles, and guess what?
They were like, nah, let's kill him.
Oh, he's gonna try to make up a story about being raised from the dead.
Let's stop that.
And then the guards come and say, Hey, this angel came and the tomb
was empty, and Jesus is alive.
And they're like, well, just pretend it didn't happen.
No amount of evidence was enough for them, and it's not gonna be
enough for you because ultimately it's gonna come down to your heart.
You have the evidence you need, and what you need to do is, is just
surrender to Christ because he's the king, he's alive, he's, he's reigning.
So if you're that person who's opposing the resurrection,
you know, do do your homework.
Look at the evidence you have, and then come to your conclusion.
If you're someone who believes in the resurrection, who says Jesus is
alive, you learn to defend it because you're gonna get challenged as you
get older, especially, and I want you to be prepared for those moments.
So we're working in, right, we started with the first section in the last
section, opposition to the resurrection.
The next thing we're gonna see is how Matthew is actually, he's focusing on
the different emotions of this passage.
Matthew really cares about the woman who come to the tomb, hear the angel,
leave the tomb and talk to Jesus.
So look with me in chapter 28.
Now we're working our way to, towards the middle of our sandwich, right?
We finished with, with the buns.
Now we're getting to like the, the cheese or the vegetables or whatever.
That's what we're doing right now.
So verse one of chapter 28.
All right.
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.
Behold there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came back and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
That's like so epic when you think about it.
Like think how big this stone is.
And there's like lightning and there's an earthquake, like if you
wanna talk about it, an entrance.
That's an entrance.
His appearance was like lightning verse three.
And his clothing white as snow.
And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.
So they just pass out at the sight of this guy.
They fall down as though they are dead.
So then verses five to seven, the angel's gonna say what he's gonna say, and
then afterward, this is what happened.
So the woman, after they hear from the angel, verse eight, they departed quickly
from the tomb with fear and great joy.
Those are the two emotions.
They, they feel, they feel they're afraid, and they're super excited.
They're really happy.
Then they run to tell the disciples and behold Jesus met them.
So they talked to the angels.
Now they talked to Jesus.
Jesus met them.
Now, isn't that like, that's wild.
They saw this guy die.
They saw him die on the cross, and now they're talking to him like, I know you've
heard this before, but think about it.
You saw you watched some guy die, and then three days later you're
having a conversation with him.
That's crazy.
Jesus met them and said, I love this greetings.
He's like, hi.
And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.
Now, if anyone ever tells you, Jesus never claimed to be God,
what do you do when you see God?
You worship him.
If Jesus didn't claim to be God, you know what Jesus would do?
Stop.
Don't worship me.
What?
We've seen angels do that in the Bible before they, when someone worships
them, they're like, no, no, no, no, no.
Don't do that.
But Jesus, he's, he's taking it in.
He, he's like, yeah, that's right.
You should worship me.
Verse 10.
Jesus said to them, don't be afraid.
Go and tell my brothers, which also, this is such a huge detail.
Who are these people?
The disciples, right?
Did they show very much loyalty to Jesus?
Did they love Jesus very well up to leading up to his death.
Have.
Jesus says, he doesn't call 'em my disciples.
He doesn't say, oh, those losers who abandoned me.
He says, my brothers like my family.
I wanna see them go to Galilee, just like I said, and they'll see me there.
I he's initiating a relationship with these people who left him.
They, they abandoned him.
They were like, no.
Peter was like, I don't even know who that guy is.
And Jesus says, I want him to be part of my family.
So tell him to go meet me and Galilee.
So what Matthew is focusing on here is he's focusing on these emotions that
the woman's have, that the woman have.
So if you go back this, he doesn't say this explicitly, but think about this.
Think about what they're doing.
Mary and Mary, it's like Shane and Shane before Shane and Shane.
Mary and Mary, they go to see the tomb.
Now they're gonna go and see dead Jesus.
They're just gonna go to his tomb and they're gonna put.
More spices on us.
Doesn't smell terrible.
They're gonna, that's what they're doing.
They're showing devotion to Jesus.
Right?
In Matthew, if you look with me, look back up at the, at verse 55,
in chapter 27, also, there are many women there looking on from a distance
who had followed Jesus from Galilee ministering to him, among whom were Mary
Magdalene and Mary, mother of James.
So Matthew mentions these women who followed Jesus all the way from Galilee.
Then after Jesus is buried, verse 61, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there.
So Matthew really wants you to know these women care about Jesus.
They're devoted to him.
They're committed to him.
They love him, right?
They're super invested in Jesus and, and following him.
So that's the first emotion, is they're devotion.
The second emotion I want you to see is that they're afraid, right?
They, they ran from the tomb with fear and great joy with fear.
What are they afraid of?
Right?
The angels already told 'em, don't be afraid.
He said, Jesus says, don't be afraid.
But they're afraid.
And I think this is actually a good thing.
I think there's something good here.
There's also a lot of fear in this passage, right?
The fear for fear of the angel, the guards trembled.
So there's, there's a lot of devotion.
There's a lot of fear.
And then the last thing is joy, right?
Great joy.
Not just joy.
Great joy.
A lot of joy.
Those are the three emotions we've got.
Demotion, devotion, fear, and joy.
And then ultimately what those end up with is worship.
And I think that's what Matthew wants you to see in this passage.
I think he wants you to see that this is what worship of Jesus looks like.
Worship of Jesus is actually a combination of these three
emotions, devotion, fear, and joy.
And so write this down as your second point.
Respond to Jesus with heartfelt worship.
Respond to Jesus with heartfelt, right?
Meaningful, emotional,
full worship, not empty worship.
That's the kind of follower that Jesus is asking for, and that's the kind
of follower that these women are.
They're following him with, with all of their, with all their heart,
all of their emotions are engaged, they're devoted, and they're afraid.
They're joyful, they're excited.
Now, something that I hope you've gathered from the gospel of Matthew
so far is that knowing and doing does not always equal worship.
Right?
Knowing the right things about Jesus and doing the right things for
Jesus doesn't always mean worship.
What group in the Gospel of Matthew is really good at knowing things
about God and doing things for God?
Pharisees, right?
The Pharisees, they know a ton about God and they do a lot of things for
God, but are, do they worship Jesus?
No.
They kill him.
So I think what Matthew is doing is he's showing us at the very end, here's
what real worship of Jesus looks like.
It looks like these three emotions, affections, desires, right?
Worship has to include your heart.
If all your worship is, is just your head.
Your, your actions.
There's, there's nothing that you're really doing that's
different from a Pharisee.
There's nothing about you that's different.
You know the right things about God.
Great.
Satan knows everything there is to know that we could know about God, right?
Satan knows way more about God than you do, so
that's not good enough, right?
That's not true worship, but just knowing things about God
and then doing things right.
Well, about the Pharisee, he did a ton of stuff.
Jesus said, if your righteousness doesn't exceed that of the Pharisees,
you're not gonna make it to heaven.
So worship has to include your heart.
If your heart's not in it, it's not worship, it's just empty.
Now, these three emotions are crucial to worship.
The first one probably makes sense, right?
Devotion.
Okay.
Love and commitment to Jesus, right?
We're, we're faithful to Jesus.
We follow Jesus.
We, we care about him.
We're invested in him.
We're dedicated.
Right?
That makes sense.
Okay.
Contract with that, that that sounds like real worship, but what about fear?
Right?
That doesn't make, why did you include that Lewis?
I thought they said don't be afraid.
Well, I think fear of God is something that maybe you, you've thought
about or you don't understand.
And I think Matthew is also including that in here because true worship of God
always has right fear of God included.
Now, maybe you've heard fear of God is respect.
That's part of it, but I think it's more than that.
Because I can respect someone without really trembling, right?
I'm not like, oh man, wow.
That's not respect.
So it's a little different than that.
The best way I can describe it is being here.
Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon region?
Have you been to the Grand Canyon?
I remember one time I always said to the Grand Canyon during one of these,
one of the coolest moments of my life.
I was outside.
I think you were there and you were there.
You gave us all COVID when we were there and you were there.
Um, being outside at the Grand Canyon during a thunderstorm, coolest thing
ever because when you get to the Grand Canyon, right, you look over
the edge, you feel so small, right?
You feel tiny, and you see a person down there and you're like, that's a person.
You feel tiny.
But then with a thunderstorm, man, I like 10 outta 10.
Highly recommend this.
You should definitely go to the green hand during a thunderstorm because.
Thunder is loud and scary, but when you're outside in a thunderstorm,
man, that's different, right?
If you go outside, whenever there's a thunderstorm at the office, Mark Hogan
is always like, I love thunderstorms.
And he goes outside and he listens to it.
It's so fun, um, because it's, it makes you realize how small you are, right?
You realize like this electricity is literally creating a vacuum so
loud that the air is going boom and clapping, and you have thunder.
It makes you feel so small now in this moment.
Like, yeah, I'm scared, right?
I'm like, man, if one of those hits me, I'm gone.
Right?
If I get hit by a lightning bolt or if I fall off the edge
of this thing, right, I'm dead.
But at the same time, there's something so like just amazing about it.
You're like, wow, that's so cool.
That's so awesome.
And that I think is a sense of.
Of how fear of God is.
Right?
When you look, when you, when you hear about what God does, when you,
when you see God in his word, there should be a sense of of awe, right?
Of wow.
And you're kind of scared.
But if you're a Christian, you don't have to be afraid of what
God's gonna do to you, right?
Because Jesus paid for your sin.
He took all of God's wrath for you.
So God, God's power is never gonna be directed at you if you're a Christian.
In a punishing way, right?
God is never gonna to direct his his power at you in a way that's wrathful or angry.
So you don't have to be afraid of God's wrath on you specifically.
But you should, I think sometimes look over the cliff and be like, man, if I
fell that would, that would be terrible.
And that's a long fall.
When you're at Fritz's on the zip line and you got to jump off the thing and commit
and trust the zip line, sometimes I don't think Christians think enough about that.
And that's when you think about all these passages in the Bible,
these warning passages like, oh, can I lose my salvation?
Or whatever The reason for the warning passage is so you stay on the path.
The warning passage keeps you on the path if you're a Christian.
So you, you look over the edge and you're like, oh man.
And then you stay on the path.
That's the point of a, of a, like a warning in God's word is for you to
see God and not treat him casually.
Right?
Like if any of you guys, if your, if your parents own a gun, they're,
or if they've ever, if you've ever gone shooting with them, right?
They're very serious about it.
They're like, Hey, this thing is powerful.
You have to treat it properly.
You can't be, be flippant about it or treat it casually.
Or maybe you're learning to drive, or my, my mom, the first time that
I was gonna drive someone else.
My mom said, they're putting their life in your hands right now.
Anytime someone gets in your car, you could kill them.
Anytime you get in a car, you could kill someone else.
There's an appropriate level of man that's intense that you should feel about God.
But at the same time, we also see the joy that these women have, right?
They're, they're so excited.
There was fear and there was great joy.
They were so excited about God.
They were delighted, they were satisfied, they were full.
So Jesus isn't just to be learned about or served.
He's supposed to be served in a way that's worshipful, that's from the
heart, and you're learning about Jesus should fuel your worship, right?
Just like wood fuels a fire or gasoline will help a fire,
but it's not fire, right?
Wood is not fire, but wood helps fire.
Same thing.
Your learning helps you worship, but learning is not worship unless there's
emotion in it, unless there's devotion, unless there's fear, unless there's joy.
So your learning should fuel your worship.
But if all you're doing is stockpiling information about God and memorizing Bible
verses and, and doing all this stuff, and there's no worship, there's no heart
in it, then you're really just, you're just piling up wood and you got no fire.
Same with doing things, doing things for God, right?
I'm not saying doing things for God is bad.
I'm saying doing things for God has to have worshipful heart along with it.
So who has your heart?
Maybe you do a lot of things for God.
Maybe you serve at our church.
Maybe you serve in kids' ministry, or you, you help set up, or maybe you,
you like learning about the Bible, you know a lot of information about
God, but, but who has your heart?
When you do things, what is it for?
What do you get excited about?
What?
What's your, what's your treasure?
What's most important to you?
That's a worship question, and that's what I want you to be thinking about
as we finish the gospel of Matthew.
I want you to think about who has my heart?
Am I just doing things for God or learning things about God, or am I worshiping God?
Am I just singing songs to God, or am I worshiping God?
Am I just hearing sermons or am I worshiping?
Am I just.
Acting like a Christian around my parents or I worshiping
God with my actions at home.
Those are all things that, that are the difference between real
worship and being a fake Christian.
So then the middle of this passage is gonna show us where that joy and
where that genuine worship comes from.
The source of all this joy is the angel's announcement.
The angel says something that causes the woman to run out.
With great joy, and that's what we see in the middle of this section.
We're at.
We're at the meat of our burger.
All right, so five through seven, but the angel said to the women, so angel
shows up, lightning rolls a stone away.
Right?
Guard falls that down like he's dead.
Angel said to the women, don't be afraid for, I know that you
seek Jesus who was crucified.
He's not here for, he has risen.
As he said, which I love that.
I love that this is here, right?
Jesus called it.
He's like, yep.
I said I was gonna be racing the dead, and I, I am.
So then come see the place where he lay.
Then after you see it, go quickly and tell his disciples that he's
risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee.
There you will see him.
Look, I've told you so the angel's announcement.
Is the middle of this passage is the focus, and it's the
reason that there's so much joy.
Now, the, the reason that the resurrection is, is all of this,
like, it's, it's the, the reason that they're, they're so devoted, Jesus.
The reason they're so afraid, and it's the reason they're so joyful
is because the resurrection is, is everything to a Christian.
If Jesus is not alive, we're not worshiping a living God,
we're worshiping a dead God.
Jesus isn't alive.
He doesn't make any, any difference in anything that we're doing, so Jesus is.
Alive, and that's the source of joy.
But also what I want you to see is there's a lot of, there's a lot of
movement in this passage, isn't there?
Like, come see the place, then go quickly.
He's going like, people are moving all around, right?
The the women are coming this way and they're supposed to go,
and then Jesus is going this way.
They're gonna all go to Galilee.
There's a lot of action here.
And that's because joy is meant to be shared.
Joy.
What it is you have to tell someone, right?
That's how joy works.
And so for our third point tonight, I want you to join Jesus in spreading joy.
Join Jesus in spreading joy.
The resurrection is like an explosion because after the resurrection, all
this, all these people come flying out and they're telling everyone about it.
There's the angel, there's the woman, there's Jesus, there's the disciples.
There's a lot of running.
There's a lot of.
Action.
There's a lot of people telling people things, and that's because the
resurrection is the source of joy.
And so from Jesus in his resurrection, it goes outward into everything.
And next week we're gonna see that Jesus says, go to all nations and make
disciples, and in this case, spread joy.
See, joy comes from a living savior, so the resurrection.
Because a lot of Christianity, we talk about the cross, right?
We talk about all the cross and we put crosses on our buildings
and we wear a cross on our neck.
We talk about so much about the cross.
The resurrection, arguably is equally important, right?
The Bible, Romans four says that the resurrection gives us
forgiveness from sin, that Jesus was raised for our justification.
So the resurrection is a source for forgiveness, right?
You, you can say, I don't have to pay for any of my sins because of Jesus.
Jesus is alive.
He's alive.
And so I am free.
I'm not guilty anymore.
The resurrection gives victory over, over death and over sin.
One Corinthians 15, right?
We that quote from Hosea, death is swallowed up in victory, death wears
your victory, death wears your sting.
It's gone because of the resurrection.
Right?
If you ever make a, if you ever see one of those lists online of like
what people are afraid of most.
Number two is always like public speaking, and then number one is death.
That's like always the order.
You don't have to be afraid of death anymore, right?
If, if you, if, if you're someone who, who goes to sleep at night and you're,
you're not sure if you're gonna wake up the next day or, or you, you know, are,
are terrified of, oh, what's gonna happen?
And if I go up in the airplane and it starts getting bumpy, you
don't have to be afraid because you know that death just takes you.
To God, and you know that you have a God who's stronger than death,
who walked out of the tomb, so you don't have to be afraid of that.
So there's joy in being forgiven.
There's joy in freedom from death.
The resurrection, Romans six, four, tells us that there's new
life because of the resurrection.
So as a Christian, you don't have to sin anymore because of of Jesus.
You don't have to spend your life searching for satisfaction and happiness
and these things that leave you empty.
There's so much joy that comes from that.
There's also joy in a certain future with God.
One Peter one says that according to God's great mercy, he's caused
us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of the dead.
The resurrection is the means by which you are certainly going to heaven.
Jesus was raised from the dead.
Therefore, you can be confident.
If you're a Christian that you're going to heaven.
So if you're someone who, maybe you're not sure if you're a Christian
or you, you, you are a Christian, you doubt your salvation a lot.
You can look back at Jesus resurrection.
The tomb is still empty.
Did nothing change.
You can look back and say that tomb is empty.
Jesus is alive.
He will take me to heaven.
You can trust Jesus.
You can get joy from that.
You don't have to doubt anymore.
You don't have to be afraid anymore.
You can say Jesus is alive and I'm certain of that, and he will He.
He's interacting with time and history and space, and he
will take me safely to heaven.
He'll protect me from losing my faith.
You can trust him for that.
So there's so much joy to be found in the resurrection.
But also once Jesus gives you this joy of forgiveness, of victory over death, of
new life, of a certain future with God, once Jesus gives you that joy, naturally,
you should want to share it, right?
If you, if you, if you're like, oh, well that was kind of cool.
You're not gonna share it, right?
But if you are like, oh, wow, that was amazing, you're gonna share it.
Joy is always the best motive for spreading news.
If you don't believe me, why is this always an Instagram post?
This is like always the biggest.
If you want to get the most comments on your Instagram, get engaged.
Everyone's gonna comment.
You're gonna get a ton of emojis, a ton of likes.
Like this is gonna blow up your Instagram if you get engaged
because joy is meant to be shared.
And the more excited you are about something, the easier
it is to tell people that.
Have you ever met an engaged woman who's shy about being engaged?
If you do.
That's a rough situation.
Right.
But usually they're, they're like, they can't wait to tell people, you
know, they're like, every time you're talking to 'em, they're like, oh yeah.
Um, you know, I, I was on this trip over the weekend and, and
they're, they're, they're shoving their ring in your face, right?
Or they're typing on the computer and they're like,
yeah, I'm, I'm doing some work.
You know, or.
They're like, oh, did you see my, I just got my nails done.
Right?
If you, if you meet a girl who just got engaged, this is
happening all the time, right?
They're, they're like, I got engaged.
This is the cool, and they're posting, you know, 185 days to the wedding.
Oh my goodness.
You know, they're posting all that and then a week later, oh, 178
days, guys can't believe it, right?
Because they're excited and they should be
right.
Joy is always the best motive for sharing news that that's.
No brainer.
And so if, if you are a Christian, you have the, the biggest reason for joy
of anyone on the planet, you should be more joyful than anyone's fiance.
You, you should be so excited.
And if you're scared of evangelism, the easiest way for you to, to get
better at sharing your faith is to be more excited about Jesus, right?
The easiest way for you not to be embarrassed about Jesus is for
you to be like, Jesus is awesome.
I love Jesus.
That's the easiest way to do it, right?
Why do you think a sports team has a parade?
They're excited.
They wanna tell everyone, we just won the championship.
We just did this, and we want everyone to know about it.
So we're gonna block off the street and we're gonna cause all this traffic
and we're gonna potentially cause harm by having this giant parade
because we want you to know we're excited, we're telling people about it.
That's what they do.
So joy is meant to be shared.
And so if you aren't joyful.
Jesus.
If you're not excited about being forgiven, if you're not excited
about not having the fear of death anymore, if you're not excited about
the certainty of your salvation, you're gonna be a terrible evangelist.
Right?
Like, imagine if you were trying to tell someone about your fiance and you're
like, yeah, well they're, they're okay.
I mean, they're like sometimes nice to me.
I'm terrible.
Right?
Terrible endorsement.
Right.
But if you're like, oh my goodness, my fiance's amazing, and, and
they're so cool, or they're so gorgeous and they're, they're so
helpful and they love me so well.
Right.
That's a, that's a good evangelist for a fiance, right?
For a wedding.
And so if, if you're someone out there, you, you, you, you
believe in the resurrection.
You say you're a Christian and you're scared.
I would just say focus on Jesus.
Focus on how much joy you have in him.
Focus on all the promises he makes to you.
Focus on how good he is to you, and that'll help you talk about him.
It'll, it'll get easier because you're, you're just, you can't help it.
Joy is meant to be shared.
And I also want you guys, maybe you're not a Christian, or maybe you
are, you never thought about this, but did you know that the gospel is
really just an invitation to Joy?
Did you know that the gospel is good news?
It's not like, oh, you know, God said, do this.
You stink.
Right?
The gospel is good news.
The gospel is an invitation to the thing that'll make you the happiest to God.
God says, I want you to be happy, so here I am.
You can come to me if you trust Jesus.
That's the gospel.
The gospel is good news about how to be happy forever, how to be the
happiest for the most amount of time.
That's, that's what the gospel is really about.
It's about joy.
So maybe you, you've always thought of Christianity as a bunch of rules or
just something your parents make you do, and I want you to see that the gospel
is really just an invitation to joy.
And Jesus is out here telling people about it, spreading joy because God
is ultimately gonna make you the happiest for the longest amount of time.
And so if that's you tonight, I, I want you to think there's an
empty tomb and there's a risen king Jesus alive, and he's inviting you.
You can find happiness in me.
Stop trying to find happiness in whatever you think is gonna make you happy, right?
Whether it it's approval from others or this dream school or career, or, or
maybe you just want to your freedom and autonomy and go do whatever you want.
That's not gonna make you happy.
It's gonna leave you empty and regretting it.
But Jesus is alive and he can free you from sin and free you from death
and give you the most amount of joy for the longest amount of time.
Let's pray and we'll go to small groups.
God thank you that you want us to be happy.
You don't necessarily have to want us to be happy, but you want us to
be happy and so you give us yourself.
I'm so grateful that you make a way for us to relate to you, that you
want us to be part of your family.
You want to do good to us, you want to um, you want to work for our joy.
And so I pray that you would help us to just remember that.
Oftentimes when we don't trust you, it's because we don't think you're
looking out for our best interests.
So I pray that you help all of us here to trust that you know what's best for us.
You love us more than we love ourselves, and so you ultimately
will make us the happiest.
So help us to believe that.
Help us to be focused and honest in small groups.
Um, and I pray all this in Jesus name.
Amen.