The Voice the Dead Cannot Ignore

Sermon Transcript

Well, I know a lot of people and I assume you do too who just hate to fly. They hate airports. They’d rather do anything but go to the airport and get on a plane. Now those people, a lot of them, they run into circumstances beyond their control and sure enough they have to get to the airport and they get on a plane and they do the very thing they didn’t want to do. Speaking of airports, it seems to be that at airports it’s really easy to get in the wrong line at airports, isn’t it? Right at the beginning when you have to check in your bags. There are all kinds of lines with all kinds of rankings of different people and it’s easy to get in the wrong line. Or when you’re boarding the plane all these, you know, lanes you have to get in and it’s easy to get in the wrong line. But the easiest one to get in the wrong line, it seems to be is the TSA line. You have the PreCheck line there where a lot of people step into that line with a great deal of confidence, especially if there’s not someone there at the opening of the line, and they take all that time to get up to the very front and then the dude with the badge says, sorry, this ain’t the line for you. You have to go into that line. Now, that’s really awkward for that person, isn’t it? Because of course I’m TSA PreCheck, so I know this must be really bad for that poor person.

Well, I was in some other state getting into my pre-check line. I got to the front and the guy with the badge says are you touchless? I said, you know it. Of course I am. You’d better not touch me. (audience laughing) He goes, no, no no no no. Are you pre-PreCheck Touchless? I said, I don’t know. What is that? He said, well that’s another tier of qualification. I mean you have to pay for that. You have to get a pre-check pre-check for that. And I’m like, oh no, I’m from Orange County. I’m just pre-check. I mean, whatever. So I was in the wrong line. It was very awkward for me. I’m not as privileged as I thought I was is the moral of that story. It’s a bummer.

You know when it comes to the topic of our morning there are a lot of people who really don’t want to believe what the Bible has to say. And there’s a growing number of people who when it comes to life after death they don’t want there to be any. They don’t want to fly off to some other place when this life is over. It seems like a lot of people these days who I talked to they just want when this life is done they want it to be done. That’s it. It’s done to this one. I just want everything to be just over. Now they can’t deny that this life will be over one day. I mean, they see that all around them, but they’re really hoping that it will be done. They kind of want it to be like when they check into the hospital and they can sign all those forms that, you know, the Advanced Health Care Directive or the Do Not Resuscitate things, they want to sign all those things, you do when you go to the doctors or you’re filling out a will or a trust or whatever. And, you know, they’re very emphatic about I do not want to be resuscitated. Well the bad news is when it comes to what the Bible has to say even if you had the best attorneys and fill out, you know, long forms and do all that you want, certify them, notarize them whatever you want, you’re going to be not only resuscitated, let’s use the biblical word, you’re going to be resurrected because Christ was resurrected. And the resurrected one says I’m going to resurrect every one I ever made, every last one of you.

And the reality is that he says about the resurrection of every human who has ever been made is that then he’s going to separate them into two lines. My whole goal this morning is to make sure that when you leave today that you know which line you’re in, and I prefer that you be in the right line. Because it’s worse than awkward for you to be in the wrong line, especially when you thought you were in the right line. And I think the words of Christ in John Chapter 5 can help us a great deal. So let’s go to that passage. Nine verses seem like a lot for me. Oh, I want to turn there. And if you didn’t bring your Bibles, it’s printed on the worksheet. If you have a bulletin, a worship packet when you came in, just open that up there. It’ll be printed there on the right side of the sheet. Or if you have your phone out just go to esv.org. That is the translation we use around here. Use any translation you want but ESV, English Standard Version that will take you there or if you have a Bible, that’d be great too, pull that out. And let’s turn to John Chapter 5, because Jesus had a lot to say about a coming resurrection.

Now this passage, as our regulars know, I tend to read the text with some commentary. Don’t laugh at me. So it takes a little longer than it should. But I want you to know… I’m commenting already and I haven’t even started. There’s some double meaning in this text, right? There’s a layered meaning and it comes right in the first verse in verse 21. You’re going to see that when it comes to the word “life” and it comes to the word “death,” there are two definitions for each, which should be no surprise to us, because the most familiar Chapter in John is John Chapter 3, and even Nicodemus was confused about it. But we’ve gotten through that passage most of us in Sunday School, or we’ve heard about it at least, when Jesus says to Nicodemus, you need to be born again. And he says, you know, what does that mean? Do I have to get back into my mother’s womb? I can’t do that. And Jesus goes, no, he says you’re a teacher in Israel and you don’t know these things. You have to be born again. I’m not talking about a physical birth. I’m talking about a new life, a spiritual new life. And even in the Garden when they reached out to eat the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God said to them, “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Now if you’ve read the book of Genesis, you know they lived a lot of days, a lot of years after they ate that fruit. So they didn’t die physically on that day. They started to die, surely, because God kicked them out of the Garden and all the things that it would take for them to live forever, he cursed their physical bodies and the ground from which they were made. And he says, you know, you’re going to be kept from anything that can sustain you, and you’re going to start to pass away. You’re going to return to dust, he said. But it didn’t happen on that day. But something did happen on that day that spells death, relational death, right? God and Adam were no longer and Eve was no longer, you know, copacetic. They were no longer harmonious. They were no longer in a good relationship. They hid. They were shameful. So the relationship died at one level. And God had to work to try to restore that. And he did. But death-death would come later for them. And so we know death has two meanings, even in Ephesians Chapter 2, if you’re a Sunday school grad, you know that passage which says before we become Christians we “were dead in your transgressions and sins.”

Now we’re alive walking around, it says that in verse 2, but we’re spiritually dead. So you’re going to see that right out of the gate. But it’s very important that we understand that when we die biologically the end of the passage and even the beginning of this passage is going to say we’re going to be brought back to life just like Jesus was biologically dead and then on Sunday morning he’s biologically alive. Now we know his spirit never died. Just like your spirit is not going to die the second you die biologically your spirit will be conscious and aware. You’ll return to the God who made you. And then you get your body back one day, and you’re going to have an eternal home in one of two places. And you want to make sure you’re ready for that day and I think this is a good time to do it on Easter Sunday. And you need to be sure.

But in this text there’s so much good information that we need to gather. So let’s start in John Chapter 5 verse 21 and see the double-layered meaning in this text that I think is undeniable in the context. It’s assuming we’ve read Chapter 3 by the time we get to Chapter 5 verse 21, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life.” Now that’s just the understanding going all the way back to Daniel Chapter 12, God is going to bring biological bodies that are dead to life. You can even see it hinted to back in the book of Genesis. “So also the Son gives life to whom he will.” Now even that makes it sound like not everyone’s going to be alive in whatever life the Son gives. And you’re right, not everyone is. Matter of fact, he says few people are going to be on that narrow road, and few people are going to enter through that small gate. And you’re right, not everybody is going to be spiritually alive and right with God. “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” So in terms of sorting out the lines, well the Son has that role. “That all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” That’s huge. Verse 23 is huge. And we’ll think about that in just a second.

“Truly, truly, I say to you.” Now I’m not trying to be blasphemous here but you do know Jesus doesn’t stutter, right? He has no stutter. When he says something like this and this is the Greek word “Amēn,” which we just transliterate directly over to English. When you get to the end of a prayer we usually are used to saying the word “amen,” because that’s how prayers often end in the Bible with the word “amen,” which means “truly,” like that’s right, that’s right. That’s a good thing. It’s a word of affirmation. And he’s saying you need to affirm this. You need to know this is super right and good and you need to take note of it. And he repeats it for emphasis. And you’re going to see it in verse 25. Two statements here are made with great emphasis, it’s like you ought to highlight this, you ought to put it in bold, you ought to italicize it, you ought to pin it in your mind. “Truly, truly, I say to you,” here’s the urgent part of this text, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” Now, that word “eternal” describes the kind of life that the Son gives. And this was something that Nicodemus in John Chapter 3 should have known. Because in the Old Testament it talks about when the Messiah shows up he’s going to give people life to where their heart is like hard to God, it’s stone, but he’s going to change that to where now it’s alive to God. And it actually says in Ezekiel, they’re going to get a new spirit, as Paul like to put it, you’re going to become a new creature in Christ, right? You’re going to now have this new capacity to relate to God. You’re going to be new. You’re going to feel this sense of newness as it relates to your spiritual life with God. But you have to hear the word and you have to trust him, believe.

He,” that person, “does not come into judgment,” bottom of verse 24, “but he’s passed from death,” that category of living dead, right? You’re alive biologically but you’re dead spiritually, relationally. And now you’ve passed over to life. Now you’re biologically alive in this life and you’re alive relationally to God. And then we’re going to learn at the end of this passage you’re still going to die biologically but the sting of death is removed because you’re no longer going to stand in the wrong line once you wake up on the other side and get your body back. You’re not going to go to a place where you’re going to be judged. That’s the whole point. You don’t get judged for the wrong that you’ve done. That’s good news. And so he says you better get this right with me, verse 25, “Truly, truly I say to you,” big deal, underline it, bold it, italicize it, “an hour is coming, and is now here.” That was the whole point of the Old Testament. We’re coming to a time when the Messiah is going to show up and he’s going to give us this new thing, this thing where we’re going to get our hearts remade. And it’s here, it’s now, “when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” What dead? We’re about to talk about the biological resurrection in the last three verses, but these middle three verses are talking about us responding to the message that’s going to move us from the line of death to the line of life. And it starts now in this life even though we’re looking forward to our biological death. Not looking forward to it but it’s on the schedule. So he says that’s going to change everything.

And now he just says I have the authority to do that. You know, I’m the life-giver. And he says this in verse 26, “For as the Father has life in himself,” right? He’s not dependent, he’s not derivative, he has life that is in him and it’s always been in him, “so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself,” which is an oxymoronic statement. You have to think like a philosopher or a theologian at this point. To have an underivative life, which it says in Chapter 1 of John, “In him was the life,” talking about the Word. “The Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.” If you have life that is not dependent or contingent or derivative, right? How do you have that ever being granted to you if you’re talking about granted to you at a point in time in the past? Well, clearly it must not be at a point of time in the past. It must be in eternity past and in a timeless past. And of course, that’s how theologians have always understood this. God has had timeless life in himself. The Father has and in the hierarchy of how we view this, even though they are co-equal, this sense of the Father granting the Son in timeless eternity past, life that is not derivative, not contingent, not dependent, has been given to the Son, just like it’s also been given to the Spirit.

So this co-eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit always existing as life in themselves. And that’s just the structure here, Father and Son. More on that in another sermon, I suppose. John Chapter 5 verse 27, “And he has given him authority,” the Son, “to execute judgment,” when we all die. Why? Because he is the Son of Man. Now any time, if you’re a regular here, you’ll know this. If you’re visiting we repeat a lot of things here because they’re so important. Now, whenever we see the words “Son of Man” in the gospels, and Jesus likes to refer to himself as the Son of Man. The number one title that he keeps referring to when he talks about himself, is Son of Man. The reason it’s capitalized in our English text and our English translation is because it’s right out of what book? I say it all the time. The book of Daniel. That’s the prophecy in Daniel. What chapter do you remember? Seven, Daniel 7. And every time I read it, I try to say, Daniel 7, Daniel 7, Daniel 7, because in Daniel Chapter 7 this prophecy of the coming one like a Son of Man has been given all dominion, all authority, so that all peoples will serve him. And it’s all starting in Chapter 2 of Daniel that he’s going to have a kingdom that is going to be an eternal kingdom. And everyone who submitted to the Son of Man is going to inhabit this eternal kingdom. It’s going to be a good thing, and everyone wants to be in that kingdom because anyone who is not in that kingdom is cast out.

So I want to be in that kingdom, and the Son of Man is the one who’s going to separate, like a shepherd separates sheep from the goats to quote Matthew Chapter 25. He’s going to take, like it says there in his parables, the weeds away from the wheat. He’s going to separate people into two groups. Sadly, they’re not equal groups. One is big, a big crowd, and one is a little flock, as he likes to call it. And we want to make sure everyone’s in that small line. That’s good news. It’s not a long line. It’s a small line. But we want to be in it. Even though it’s enumerable and every tongue, tribe and nation is going to have representatives in there. He has been “given … authority to execute judgment, because he’s the Son of Man.”

John Chapter 5 verse 28, “Don’t marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.” So it seems like even in this text it’s inferred the Father’s going to give the Son the job of calling out to all these dead bodies, though you’re alive and conscious and aware spiritually, as it says in Second Corinthians Chapter 5, you will be bodiless, naked, disembodied and that’s what we call the intermediate state. At one point everyone gets their bodies back. That’s called the resurrection of the body. And it says here the Son of Man is going to go, hey, yohoo and all these bodies now, this is not zombie, you know, apocalypse. This is a resurrection, instantaneous, immediate. It says “in the twinkling of an eye” in First Corinthians 15. It’s all going to happen suddenly, they’re going to come out, John Chapter 5 verse 29, “and those who have done good to the resurrection of life,” that’s the good line, “and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” There are only two destinations. There are only two planes waiting, there are only two jetways, and there are only two lines and I want to make sure you’re in the right line. We have to respond. Those middle verses 24 through 26. But it starts in 21 through 23 by making sure we know who we’re talking about, we have to know who we’re talking about. And we’re talking about not just another option. You’d better pick a religion, because it’s kind of good to keep your kids off of drugs and go to school, or maybe send them to the, you know, to the rabbi and go to the synagogue. Or maybe you should go over to the ward over there. You know, pick the temple over there or the, you know, just…

Jesus isn’t just another option. I want you to look at what it says, John Chapter 5 verse 21. Right? We’re talking about him having life. Verse 22, being the judge. Verse 23, he is the one everyone is supposed to honor. And you can’t honor the Father, which everyone’s trying to do, they call him Allah, right? They call him, you know, Yahweh, they call him all these names. This is the ultimate God, the ultimate being, the Supreme Being. But you can’t honor the Supreme One God of the universe, or the ultimate chief of the pantheon, you can’t do that unless you honor Christ. Right? So we have to pause at the beginning of any discussion about Christianity and we need to, number one, we need to “Rethink Jesus’ Power and Authority.” If you’re taking notes that’d be a good thing to jot down. Rethink Jesus’ power and authority because Jesus starts the whole discussion about what he’s offering and where it ends up by saying just remember who I am. Right? I’m the giver of life. Most people in Judaism at least would say of course the Father gives life. He says well I give life too, I’m the life-giver, and I’m kind of giving a life, the kind of life that’s going to make a difference as to where you end up. So this is a big, big, big, big deal that he is the life-giver.

And if you want to talk about the life-giver and I said there are two meanings here. And you think, well, I guess he gives us spiritual life, that’s true. In your mind, or you can go there if you’re deft and quick to get around, in John Chapter 1, the whole thing begins not only with the co-equal nature of the Father and the Son. Jesus is called the Word in verse 14 it says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” so we know we’re talking about Jesus, the incarnate Christ. It says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And then this text is really interesting in verse 3, listen to what it says here in John Chapter 1 verse 3, it says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” So, you know, people think about the spark of life and, you know, people being illuminated with life. The Son of God, the second person of the Triune Godhead, is the creator of all things. Not anything was made that has been made if it wasn’t made by Christ.

I thought the Father made everything. Well, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Well, that’s a big statement, that word “Elohim” in the Hebrew text. Yeah, God made everything. And the Father you could rightly say is the architect of everything. But the agent of creation is Christ. That’s the way we put it in theology. He’s the agent of creation. All things were made through him as John Chapter 1 verse 3 puts it, but all things were made by him is the word that’s translated into English. Colossians Chapter 1 verse 16, “All things were created by him and for him.” So he is God because this is all made for him, and he’s also the one through whom the Father makes everything. Does the Spirit have a part in it? And of course he did. It says there in the beginning of Genesis, it says the Spirit was on the “surface of the deep.” The Spirit had a play in all of this. So the Spirit is working in this creation. Why? Why did God do it? He could have just snapped his fingers, but he did it as it says in the book of Exodus to put forth a model for us as to how we’re supposed to work. We’re supposed to work six days and rest on the seventh. The point is your battery should last about six days. Then you’d better take a day off and put your feet up. That’s the idea. And then it gets into being a sign between Israel and God. But the idea at the beginning in Genesis is that we learn to work and rest and that’s why God takes six days to do it. And that’s why we see all persons of the Godhead involved in the work of creation.

But I’m just saying God here is saying, yeah, I made the world but I made the world with Jesus actively involved and no one can say the world came to be or Pastor Mike came to be without Christ. So let’s just make it personal. You need to know that you would not be here were it not for Christ personally making you. I mean, we just have to say that, Christ is your maker. And as such, John Chapter 5 verse 22, he’s also your judge. He’s your maker and you will answer to him. He has the right to be your judge. And one of the reasons I just think logically that the Father says we’re going to let the Son judge you is in part because Jesus put on true humanity. Of course he’s God and this is something we call the Hypostatic Union in theology, two natures, truly God, truly man in one person, two natures not co-mingled, not confused in one person. Right? We have in Jesus divinity and humanity and the humanity, though divinity can’t be tempted by evil, right? Humanity can be tempted by evil. Luke Chapter 4, Matthew Chapter 4. Clearly Jesus was, as it says in Hebrews “tempted as we are, yet without sin.” So you can’t say you don’t know what it’s like to be tempted. Jesus knows what it’s like to be tempted.

And so Jesus is taking on the role of being the number one judge. There’s no jury. There’s no, you know, other justices in the Supreme Court, there’s only one person who judges everyone. It starts with separating people into two lines, and then the righteous get judged on their good works and the unrighteous, those who are in the line not embracing the message of grace, not hearing and believing, well, then they get judged for what they’ve done. No one gets an equal amount of rewards, and no one gets the equal amount of judgment because the judge is going to judge them according to what they have done. And so Jesus is going to have an appointment with you and judge your life, whether you embrace the gospel or whether you reject the gospel. We’re going to give an account to Christ. You’re going to meet Christ and he’s going to judge your life. Yikes!

Well, that sounds pretty heady. Well, let’s go to the last one, John Chapter 5 verse 23, “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” If he made you and you’re accountable to him, I guess he’s pretty important. Yeah. How important is he? He’s as important as the Father. What? Yeah. That’s what we call being co-equal. Having the same gravitas as any person of the Godhead. And you should know that while people might say to you, oh, don’t all roads lead to heaven? Everyone really worships the same God. They just get there in a different way. And that’s a very popular way to look at religion these days. Just note Jesus didn’t leave us that kind of option. He just didn’t. Right? He says here that if you don’t honor the Son you’re not honoring the Father and you’re supposed to honor the Son, it’s a great Greek word, “Kathos” meaning “just as.” It’s like an equal sign. You have to “honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” Now, what’s the first thing Charlton Heston had carrying on the tablets there? What’s the first rule? Right? “No other gods before me.” You’re not supposed to worship any other god, Charlton Heston said. I meant Moses is what I meant but you know what I was talking about. (audience laughing) A pretty stiff crowd here this morning at 11. But you remember the movie. I don’t know. Did they remake it? There’s probably some other, you know, I don’t know, Tom Cruise. I don’t know who played Moses in the next one.

But on the tablets the number one rule was there’s only one God, worship one god. Yeah, but that one God exists eternally in three persons. And that God existing in three persons, we worship all three persons of the Godhead. And as a matter of fact, you cannot know that the Son has come, you cannot worship the Father if you don’t worship the Son just as you worship the Father. Think about that. That means if I’m a Muslim praying to Allah five times a day, putting my mat out, praying toward Mecca, think about this, I am not honoring Allah by any act of devotion if I don’t honor the Son just as I honor the Father. You cannot reject the Son or call him just a prophet. You can’t put him on par with Moses. You can’t put him on par with any prophet if you don’t exalt him all the way up to heaven, the top heaven, and recognize that he is on par with God. You can’t. You can’t have a group that you start and call it some kind of Christianity and say that Jesus isn’t God, he’s an angel. Or you can’t say he has some kind of divinity, right? Like Arius did back in the fourth century. He said well he has some kind of divinity. It’s kind of like the Father’s divinity but it’s not really divinity. It’s not the same exact kind of divinity. Right? That’s ridiculous. They rejected that, you know, three hundred years into Christianity they rejected that. Of course, that’s not what the Bible teaches. If you don’t honor the Son just as you honor the Father, you’re not honoring the Father. That’s what Jesus said. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So any religion that thinks they’re praying to God, right? They’re not honoring God, they’re not getting through to God if you put Jesus in any other place except for divinity. Unless he is God, unless you can sing worship songs like we do to Christ, and honor him as you would honor the Father, then you’re not honoring the God who made you. Because Jesus is the one who not only made you, he’s the one to whom you’ll give an account to. To summarize, I’ll just quote Colossians Chapter 1 verse 15. Christ “is the image of the invisible God.” Now this may bother people. It’s translated “the firstborn.” It’s the word “Prōtotokos,” he is the top one, he’s the CEO of all creation. He’s in charge of all creation. That’s what it meant, prōtotokos. “By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together,” all things consist. If he were to walk away everything would fly apart. “He’s the head of the body, the church. He’s the beginning, the prōtotokos from the dead.” He’s in charge of all who die. He’s also the firstborn from the dead and “everything he might be preeminent.” He’s supposed to have preeminence over everything that we do. And this is why he then calls us to respond.

Look at John Chapter 5 verse 24 back in our passage. He says, now I have something to say. If you have me right in your mind and you understand my power and authority, here’s what I have to say. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He doesn’t come into judgment.” You get to the end of this life. You step across the threshold of this life into the next life. Then guess what? You’ve “passed from death to life.” You’re in good shape. Verse 25, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Well, I want to do that. I’d like to live now relationally with God so that when I hear the voice down in verse 28, I will be in the right place. I will go to the resurrection of the righteous. I want that, that’s what I need. Well, I have to respond to him now and he is the life-giver, as he repeats in verse 26.

The urgency of this is set up by “truly, truly, I say to you.” And he basically says you need this now. You need to hear it now. The “hour is coming, and is now here.” There’s urgency in that. That’s why I worded the second point this way. Number two, “Respond Today to Christ’s Call.” There’s always urgency in the Bible. This isn’t just an ancillary supplemental message of the Bible. I mean, the real point of the Bible is telling you to respond today. It always is that way. Go back to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. I mean, here is the crescendo in the book of Deuteronomy. Moses says, hey guys, you need to choose life. I’m holding before you life and death. I’m holding before you blessings and cursing. Choose life. Then in the next book, right? We have Joshua at the end of the book of Joshua he says choose who you’re going to serve. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” But choose. You want to go back to the gods across the rivers that your fathers chose. Fine. But choose. Get this decision going.

Now, you may have some highfalutin theology that you think is biblical, that makes you think that there’s no choice to make. We’re supposed to tell people you have to decide what you’re going to do here. Now, I know that decision, we’re going to blame God and say God is actively involved. No one’s going to come to Christ unless the Father draws him. I’m all about it. But we’re putting in front of people this thing called the good news of the gospel, and it always comes with imperatives, commands. Put it this way, jot this down if you’re a note taker, Mark Chapter 1 verses 14 and 15. Mark Chapter 1 verses 14 and 15. “After John was arrested,” it says, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,” the “Euangelion,” the good news. We get the word “evangelical” from that, right? What is the gospel? What is the good news? Here’s the next verse. It says he came preaching the good news. What is it? To “repent and believe in the gospel.” Right? So I have two words that are commands repent and believe in the good news.

So today I should, when confronted with the reality of what I’m supposed to do, understand the authority and power of Christ. And he’s saying to me now get in the life category. Get out of the death category. Don’t get to the end of life in the death category because then you’ll be in the wrong line. So get in the life category. And to do that you have to repent and you have to trust in the good news. What’s the good news? That Christ came “to give his life as a ransom for many.” And I’m supposed to embrace that. It’s all about what we talked about on Good Friday and every Good Friday. It’s what we talk about all the time. Christ died absorbing all human penalty for our sins after living out and carrying out and fulfilling all human righteousness. I need to embrace that. I need to trust in that and say Christ did for me what I needed done so that I can have a place in this kingdom. I’m going to trust in that and I’m going to repent of my sin.

Now the message is very clear but let me make it very, very clear to you that there’s no possible way we can have salvation to move from death category to life category unless we understand that we deserve the death category and most people aren’t willing to preach that. Certainly when they have, we have our floral color clothes on and flowers in the lobby, and we brought our aunt to church. Right? We don’t want to talk about that. Right? Because I’m about to say you have to admit that you are a sinner and you deserve judgment. Happy Easter, right? But that’s what the Bible says, right? “Unless we repent,” to quote the book of Luke, “you will all likewise perish.” And you need to know that you’re going to get on the wrong plane and go to the wrong destination if you do not repent. Repentance, by the nature of the word, means I’m turning. I’m turning from evil. I’m turning from sin, and I’m embracing the solution to sin who is Christ himself. Or to put it in these terms, here is another passage you can write down in your notes if you’re a copious note taker, Second Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 15. Second Corinthians 5:15. It says that “he died for all,” Christ died for us so, “that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

So our leader, the resurrected Christ, is the one I’m supposed to look to and say I want to live for him. Whatever he said, which I’m supposed to learn about the Great Commission, go “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.” That’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to learn. That’s why I’m supposed to go to church, which is all about lecterns and Bibles and we’re supposed to learn everything, so that I can follow him. I can do what he says. So I’m no longer supposed to live for myself. Which, by the way, is the definition of evil. If you want to learn about it read this book. Since I’ve quoted Joshua, let’s go to the next book, Judges. Have you read the book of Judges? The book of Judges is like a time span of over 300 years in the Old Testament. And it just goes like this. Whooo, I mean, it’s like a toilet. It’s just spiraling down into the sewer. Sorry. This it is. Right? Happy Easter. Just down, down and down. And you know what’s punctuated in the middle of the book and at the end of the book, this line, if you’re a Sunday school grad you’ll know this. It says, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Right? There was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Do you know what that means? Just do what you want. Do what you want.

Hey, do we live in a culture that has ever told you that? Just do whatever you want. Do what you want. Everyone does whatever’s right for you. And we have this phrase now “your truth,” right? That became very popular in the last 20 years. Your truth. My truth. You’re to just speak your truth. Live your truth. Be who you want to be. Do whatever you think is right. Here’s how it’s defined, Second Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 15, “no longer live for themselves,” right? The point is I’m supposed to be convicted that I’m in the category of death and I deserve to be there. How do I get to the place where I know I need to repent? Well, it’s a supernatural thing. Do you remember when Jesus had that conversation with Nicodemus in John Chapter 3? Jesus said stuff as Nicodemus is scratching his head going I don’t get it. What are you talking about? He says, you know, the Spirit is kind of like the wind, which, by the way, is a play on words because the word “spirit” is the word “wind” in Greek. And he says this, it comes and goes and you don’t know where it’s coming from and you don’t know where it’s going, you can’t see it. He said, the Spirit is like that and he’s doing work in people’s lives.

Now, later in the book of John he describes what the Spirit’s work is in very specific terms in an outline form, bullet point form. He says the Spirit will come to “convict the world,” that means you feel it, “concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” It’s exactly what we’re talking about here, sin, righteousness and judgment. If I’m supposed to respond to the call of what Christ says and I’m supposed to believe what he says, and I’m supposed to trust in what he says, then I need to know that I’m a sinner, I need to feel that and to sense that and I need to know, yes, I belong in this category because I know I’m a sinner. Righteousness is the standard. That’s why the more we learn about Christ the more we see the standard and I see my sin. The bigger the standard the more I learn about Christ, the more I see my sin. The Spirit convicts us of the delta between my life and Christ’s. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Well, we sometimes think well, I kind of got close. It’s like trying to touch the rim on a basketball court. I’m pretty close, right? But it’s like swimming to China. You need to know you’re not going to get anywhere close, right? There’s no possible way you lived up to the righteousness that a holy God needs.

Convict the world of sin, righteousness, and what’s the last one? Judgment. You cannot become a Christian at a church that’s going to say to you (using a mocking tone) well, we like to talk about all the positive things about Christianity, because I don’t want to say the negative things, certainly not when we have flower crosses in the lobby, because, you know, we want to be happy. You cannot get saved of your sins like that, which would be really bad, because everyone who listens to a church that doesn’t talk about those things will all end up in the wrong line. And that’s worse than awkward, isn’t it? That would be tragic. Jesus talks about the result of places like that that don’t want to talk about sin, righteousness and judgment. Here’s what he says. “Many will come to me on that day,” Matthew Chapter 7, and say, Lord, Lord, did we not go to church all the time? And he’ll say, “I never knew you; depart from me.” That’s big. That’s more than awkward. You’re in the wrong line, buddy. You think you have credentials for this line? You don’t have credentials.

How do I get credentials? Embrace Christ. How do I embrace Christ? I know I’m a sinner, I need to repent. How do I get that? You beg the Spirit of God to convict you of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And once you feel and sense that, then you throw yourself on the grace and mercy of God. That’s the gospel. And he says in John Chapter 5 verse 24, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” Next verse. “An hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” This is something that is supernatural. It’s hard for me to explain it to you. But there will be some people here today who will hear this and God’s preparing them. It’s like soil. I can throw the same message out to four different people, this is how Jesus taught it, and someone’s going to rightly respond because God has done the preparatory work, and there are other people who think it’s the most ridiculous message they’ve ever heard. And then other people go, oh, that was pretty good but it won’t last more than an hour. And others it will last a couple of weeks and then it’ll all go away. Then there’s someone who will have their life changed here today because God did the preparatory work. They’ll have, as Jesus likes to say, ears to hear and eyes to see, and their lives will be changed because the Spirit’s done the work of sin, righteousness. And they say, I just needed to know what to do. I needed to know how to respond.

Don’t wait. Hebrews Chapter 3 always reminds us, today’s the day, today’s the day. “As long as it’s called today,” do it today. Today if you hear his voice don’t harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion. A lot of people put this off. Don’t. And I love how this ends. I don’t love it. These are hard words. But he says, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart,” just want to keep doing our own thing, “leading you to fall away.” You heard it. You went to church. You sat under the teaching of the Bible. But now I’m done. But instead, “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” The reason you marched through those doors, get in your car, go home and say, I don’t want anything to do with this because you know it is going to impact your sin life. And a lot of us would much rather cling to our sin than want to say I want to repent. You have to be willing to be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And that’s where you pray that God would do that. And then you’ll say, today is the day.

John Chapter 5 verse 27, back in our passage if you’re still there. This Christ who has, we call it an “Aseity,” this life in himself, this non-derivative, non-dependent life from eternity past. “He’s given him authority,” the Father has, “to execute judgment, because he’s the Son of Man. Don’t marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.” Now it’s just their bodies in the tombs, of course, whatever’s left of them. They’ll “come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” Now, let’s put it down this way. This is the upshot of everything. I want you to be ready when your day comes. Number three, “Be Ready When Your Day Comes” because your day is coming, right? Hebrews Chapter 9 verse 27 says, there’s an appointment on the calendar for you. “It is appointed for man.” That’s an appointment. “It’s appointed for man to die once.” Okay? Again, happy Easter, right? You’re going to die and you have an appointment.

As a matter of fact, it says in Psalm 139 that every day of your life before you were ever even born, God had marked them all out. Every single day. He’s decreed all the days of your life. Jesus even said this in Matthew Chapter 6, he says you can’t add an hour, not just a day. You can’t add an hour to your life. A bird doesn’t add an hour to its life. A bird does not die without the Father and his overseeing providential decrees determining all this. The life span of a bird, not to mention you. So you don’t know when that’s going to be. A lot of people woke up this morning. We have a county of, what, 3.3, or 3.4 million people. This is a big county. People got up all over this county checking their phones, figuring out what they’re going to do for breakfast, figuring out how their meal thing’s going to go. What are they going to do or are they going to go to church? What am I going to dress in? Do I have gas in the car? They did all this planning. They figured their day out. They thought about what’s coming tomorrow. Not a single person I’m assuming in the almost 4 million people in our county, 3.5 million people, got up and said today is going to be my last day. My last day on planet earth. And yet, think about the numbers game, the mortality rate, plenty of people it is their last day. They will not live this full day.

In James Chapter 4 he said do you know what? Don’t say tomorrow we’re going to do this or that. Here’s what you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” God’s all into making plans. Make plans. You should have a calendar, a day timer, plans, goals. Great. Go for it. But start it with this. If the Lord wills, number one, I’ll be alive tomorrow or this afternoon and then we’ll do this or that. If the Lord wills. So you can’t put this off for tomorrow thinking well I have tomorrow. You don’t know if you have tomorrow. Some people say, well you’re leveraging, you’re twisting my arm now. Happy Easter, right? So what? This is what the Bible says. He says to the Corinthians, today is the favorable day. Today is the day of salvation. That’s my job. It’s what the Bible says. I didn’t write it. I’m just relaying it to you. Today’s the day. You need to get this right with the living God. We presume we’re in control but we’re not in control. We can’t control our future. We can’t control tomorrow. We have to get back to knowing what the Bible has to say. And this is a big deal.

I know some of us talk about that we don’t want to be resuscitated. And we think, well, maybe if I’m a Christian, I’ll be resuscitated. But if I’m a non-Christian maybe we’ll just all go away. This annihilationism thing. Jot this down, if you would. I already quoted it off the cuff, but Daniel Chapter 12 verse 2, just the way this is even put, and it talks about the bodily resurrection in Daniel, which is five centuries before Christ came. It says, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,” we’re talking about bodies now, “some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Well, that contempt and shame are going to last forever. Just like when Jesus said in Matthew 25 verse 46, he was very clear. Some “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” This concept of eternal life isn’t like, oh yeah, these people are going to live and those people are not going to live. The life part is in contradistinction to punishment. Everything’s at stake. Your Do Not Resuscitate isn’t going to work when Christ calls your body and then gives you a body that is impervious to destruction. Because every resurrected body is impervious to destruction. It’s impervious to agents, it’s impervious to illness. That’s the reality.

Okay, there’s one more thing we have to understand in this text. When it says there in John Chapter 5 verse 29, these bodies are going to come out of the tombs, and “those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment,” some of you are going to take that and go, okay, fine. I like this because, you know, this whole thing about going to all the things the pastor talked about during announcements and Bible studies, I don’t have time for all that. And this whole thing about, you know, repenting and the Spirit. I don’t want any of that. I don’t want to be a Jesus freak. I will give a little more to that guy ringing the bell at Christmas, I’ll put more money in that thing, and I’ll maybe help some old ladies cross the street. And I’ll smile at strangers and I’ll do more good and then I’ll get to the resurrection of life. That’s not what this means. That’s not what this means. The Bible could not be more clear that you are never going to get eternal life, you’re never going to get from the category of death to life by doing more good things.

The classic text that all of us should know and should learn is Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 8 and 9, that we are not saved by our good works. If we were saved by our good works like First Corinthians Chapter 1 and Titus Chapter 3:5, all these passages, they would say we would have cause then for boasting, and we’d say we earned it. You don’t earn it, you don’t earn it. You can’t earn it, right? It is a gift of grace. The whole book of First Corinthians Chapter 3, Chapter 4, keeps telling us it is a gift. You don’t earn it. It is a gift. And it’s a gift that is to be appropriated when we repent and trust in Christ, and then he grants us this, he moves us from death to life as we just read in our passage. That giving of this gift is given to us apart from any good works. Well then why does he say those who do good and those who do evil? Because once we do it, just as he taught Nicodemus back there in John Chapter 3, something changes on the inside. It’s called new birth, right? New birth is simply what we call in theology, regeneration, new birth. We get something changed on the inside. It changes our core desires. And now we want to please God.

Now our flesh still doesn’t want to. And we still have the delta between who we are and the standard of righteousness. As a matter of fact, we learn more and we keep seeing the deficit in our holiness. And no one knew that better than James. James, do you know who James is? The half-brother of Christ. Can you imagine having an older brother who’s Jesus? Holy smokes, man, that’d be a hard household to grow up in. Maybe that’s why James said in James Chapter 3 verse 2, “we all stumble in many ways,” except for my brother. I mean that’s what he’s saying. We’re all sinners and he knows that. Now, he’s a Christian. He knows that we all sin. But he says this in James Chapter 2 verse 14, but don’t tell me you have faith and have no works. Clearly, if you’re a Christian you’re going to start doing good works. Good’s going to start to come out of your life. Jesus put it this way, right? You can start bringing good treasure out of a good heart. You’re going to know a tree by its fruit. You can start seeing things change organically from the inside. Your core desire is going to want to change. You’re going to want to go to church. You’re going to want to read your Bible. You’re going to want to talk about Christ. You’re going to want to do good things. You are going to want to smile at people who are strangers. You are going to want to help an old lady cross the street. You’re going to want to give and be generous. Those things are going to come out of your life because you want to, not because you’re trying to earn a seat. Those are signs to give us some assurance.

When I go to the airport, I mean, I’m fairly good at memorizing things, but I check my boarding pass, I don’t know how many times, wanting to make sure I’m at the right gate, at the right time, on the right airline. I’m like, I already checked it, but I keep checking it. Why? Because I want to make sure. I want to make sure. I want to make sure. Every time I check that I’m just making sure I’m in the right line, at the right place, at the right time. It says nothing about who bought the seat. Some benefactor might have paid like a massive amount of money to put me in first class with the best service that anyone can have on that plane. I could have VIP service paid for by some rich person and now I get VIP treatment on the plane, and I’m just checking to make sure I have a seat. That’s all I’m doing. I want to make sure I’m at the right gate, right time, right place, right airline. But that gives me assurance. I don’t earn the place by looking at my boarding pass. The boarding pass just reminds me that I’m in the right place. Your good works don’t earn you a seat on the airplane, but they do give you confidence that this is the right thing. You’re in the right place. Christ has done something in your heart.

What’s evil? Back to Second Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 15. It’s just doing your own thing. It’s the book of Judges. It’s the last chapter in the last paragraph of Judges, Judges 21:25, “Everyone did what’s right in their own eyes.” Well, that’s evil, and it created 300 years of terrible stuff. Just let everybody do whatever they want. But if we’re Christians there will be a king, right? There was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Christians, they have a king. We live for him who died for us and rose again. The resurrected Christ becomes our King.

I just want you to look at this text, but with this we’ll be done. Go to Acts Chapter 17. I won’t even read it. I just want you to glance through it while I describe it. But I want you to get your eyes on a few of the words as I kind of glance through this text. Start in verse 22. Acts Chapter 17 verse 22. If you have your Bibles or your phone out or whatever, I just want you to see this. If you have an English Standard Version right above verse 22, there’s a heading that the translators put up there just to kind of segment these sections off and give you some, you know, some orientation to what’s coming next. Well here in verse 22 just above it says Paul addresses the Areopagus. That sounds like an airline. Like, what is that? Areopagus? Areopagus, some old translations called it Mars Hill. It’s really basically in Athens where the professorial types, the professors at the universities hung out. It’s where the philosophers hung out. It’s where the smart people hung out. And it’s a symposium of sorts, and Paul’s going to get thrown into the middle of this and he’s going to address them, he’s going to talk to them. And he starts dealing with their culture that’s a culture that’s a lot like our own. A lot of religions, a lot of ideas, a lot of philosophies. Everyone has their own thing, their own truth, their own ideas. And he says as much, I see your religions, I have heard your ideas.

But then he gets into it. Just glance through that. He says now I’m going to say about the real God, I’m going to tell you about the real God. And he starts where Christ started in our passage in John Chapter 5. Let’s talk about the “God who made the world and everything in it.” Let me tell you about that. He’s not “served by human hands.” You don’t need all these temples and bread and fruit put out in front of God. You don’t need all that. As a matter of fact, this God is the God who, look at verse 25, he gives us everything. He’s the giver of life. He gives us life and breath and everything. He’s made us. He put us on the planet. Our lives are dependent, derivative from him. He wants us to seek him, verse 27. And then go down to what he’s calling them to do. He’s calling them to do what I’m calling you to do, what God is calling us all to do. Verse 30, “times of ignorance God overlooked,” all that. “Now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” And I can say this too, right? If you were ignorant before you came in here about what exactly Christ is calling you to do, the times of ignorance for you are over. This is a big statement about Old Testament, New Testament. For you have been living in New Testament times your whole entire life. But now if you’ve been kind of like, I don’t really know what this is all about, if you’ve unless you slept through this or we’re watching soccer or something on your phone, you now know this is what Christ demands. This is the gospel. This is the response.

So the times of ignorance we’re done with that. Now he’s going to command you. Right? You’re certainly in this phrase, “all people, everywhere.” You qualify. He’s calling you to repent. Why? Here’s the motivation. It’s the motivation in our text in John Chapter 5. He commands this because God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness.” Oh, not personally, he’ll be there, but “by a man,” right? This one who was truly a man also truly God, “whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Right? That’s how our passage was. He was risen and the Risen One is going to make sure everybody rises and everyone in a body with toenails and kneecaps and eyelashes and elbows are all going to stand before him, and he’s going to evaluate their lives. First of all like a shepherd separating sheep from goats, making sure you’re in the right line.

As Paul brings his sermon to an end here, just three verses left, and I bring mine to an end, I just want to show you the response. “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.” And I know maybe you’re the uncle who was dragged here because you’re just polite and maybe you think this is ridiculous. You can’t believe this preacher really believes all that. And I’m glad I’m a scientific guy with a college degree, because I don’t believe this. This is ridiculous. Dead people stay dead. I don’t believe any of this. We’re just a bunch of atoms and, you know, I’m wet neurons and just when all the electricity stops, I stop. You can mock the resurrection, or you can say what happens in the rest of this verse. Others can say, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe “we will hear some of you again on this.” Maybe I’ll read a book on this. Maybe I can check my calendar. Maybe I can come back at Christmas and see what, you know, see what that’s all about. I can learn more.

I just want you to know if you find yourself anywhere in Acts Chapter 17 verse 32 and you think that maybe you haven’t responded, you certainly have responded. That’s a response. It’s a clean no. Right? Just know that’s a clean no. You’re saying no. When I say today is the day to respond to Christ, you’re saying, no, no, no, I’m not going to. The answer is no. It’s a no for me. That’s what you’re saying. It’s a no for me. So Paul goes, okay, he’s done, verse 33, but I love that the chapter doesn’t end in Acts Chapter 17 verse 33. It ends in verse 34. This gives me some hope because as I drive home, my verse 33 comes this afternoon, I hope there’s some verse 34 in this room. “Some men joined him,” right? They joined him believing, trusting. “Among whom were Dionysius the Areopagite,” there was one educated guy in Athens, “and a woman named Damaris.” She was important too. They give us her name. I don’t know what she was or who she was, an important person, “and others with them.” A bunch of other people too. I love that it ends on a positive note.

And this is the thing, I really can’t determine who does what with what I did. All I’m doing is repeating the message. The ball’s in your court. It really is. And I’m just asking you to respond. The ball’s in your court. And at this point a lot of people do put artificial things in the path, right? Raise a hand, walk an aisle, fill out a card. You know, there’s none of that. If the Holy Spirit is convicting you of sin, righteousness, and judgment, you will know what to do. You’ll cry out to God for mercy. And then all the things Pastor Kellen was telling you about, you’re going to get involved in stuff. If it’s not here and you’re visiting friends, you’ll find a church that teaches the Bible and you will dive in. That’s going to happen. Or you’re going to say, this is dumb, you’re going to mock, or you’re going to say, ah, check it out later. And you will presume upon tomorrow. But I would plead with you to get it figured out today.

Let’s pray. God, help us, please, in a world where there are plenty of people pitching a lot of things, and we always question their motives, we question why, we are bombarded with marketing and all kinds of things. I pray there would be at least an understanding of the sincerity, not just of my heart, but of the Scriptures calling us to respond to good news. It is good news. It’s just good, good news that sinners have a Savior and a solution to our sin. And it really isn’t just about feelings of guilt or improving our lives because in many ways our lives get tough when we follow Christ. But it’s really about getting the question of eternity settled and seeing the evidence of it. Having a boarding pass that actually is getting populated just week after week and month after month, we see good works growing out of a heart that is sincerely wanting to please you. And I pray that would happen, that there’d be some Dionysius and some Areopagites here that are out there really saying, I believe, I trust, I’ve repented because we know, as your Word says, you’re calling people, all people everywhere to repent when we see the good fruit of that in the days and weeks to come, just to know that your Word is living and active and at work here, right here in this church and in this county.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.