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All right, well, beautiful singing. So happy Easter. If I’ve not met you, my name is Aaron, and preaching pastor here, and we are really happy to have you with us today. If you’re wondering about the banners, this is left over from Rip Roaring Easter egg hunt yesterday, which was a lot of fun. And so thank you for those who helped with that.
Thank you also for those who helped with breakfast this morning. It’s always a good time, and Uncle Wes’s pancakes are always a hit. So thanks, Wes and crew, for helping us out with that. And then I just want to say I’m really happy to have the kids with us. So I love Village Kids, but I love on Easter that we just all get to be together.
And so I’m just delighted that the kids are with us today. So if you have a Bible with you, which I hope you do, if you’d open up to the Gospel of Matthew, your text to study is going to be Matthew 28, 1:10. If you don’t have a Bible, there are pew Bibles scattered throughout. It’s on page 487.
The words will also be on the screens on both my sides if you want to follow along there. And as you open up the Bible, please keep them open. So we do a style of preaching called expository preaching, where we go verse by verse. And so I’m going to read through the passage. I’ll pray, ask the Lord’s blessing on our time, and then we’re going to work through the passage, and we’re just going to work this verse by verse all the way back through it, okay?
So as you open your Bible, please do keep it open. So Matthew 28, verses 1 through 10.
Okay? Please hear the words of the Lord. So the scripture says now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the woman, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified.
He’s not here, for he has risen. As he said, come see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. Behold, he’s going before you to Galilee. There you will see him.
See, I have told you. So he parted quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell the disciples, behold, Jesus met them and said greetings.
And they came up, took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. That’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
Lord, thank you for this time. And, Lord, thank you for this reason why we are here to celebrate. And, Lord, thank you for your sacred word. And, Lord, I pray that you would bless the preaching of your word. Please help me to be a good communicator this morning.
Pray also give the congregation listening ears. Pray that your spirit would be very active in this time, that you would help us to see and believe and trust in the risen Christ. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So this morning, as we gather together, we actually gather together to celebrate, I think, the 15th Easter that we have celebrated as a church.
And as we celebrate Easter yet again this morning, I want us to do so with urgency in our celebration. It’s not. What can happen over time, is that time can take away urgency, which sometimes can be a good thing, as at times it can help us maybe slow us down to see a bigger picture, or maybe we can learn some things, maybe learn from past mistakes that can slow us down from making future mistakes where time can teach us maybe to be a little bit more patient. So at times, time can slow us down in, like, good and right ways. However, at other times, as time slows us down, it actually can be real negative, as time maybe can take away some ambition and excitement where time can take away, like, good, right, proper urgency.
Urgency that really ought to be present now for us with each Easter we celebrate, no matter how many we might celebrate together as a church, there will never be an Easter that we should not celebrate with urgency. Because from the very first Easter, urgency has rightly been present. In every Easter, there’s always urgency, as we see in our text today, from the beginning, urgency. So this morning, as we gather together to celebrate the 15th Easter, Red Village Church. Let’s say it again, friends.
May we do so with urgency? Okay, now, before we go through the passage of Matthew I just read for you, I thought it’d be good for us just to take a few moments to once again intentionally remember just the events leading up to the text today. Events are so essential to our faith. So I know we did some of this last week when we celebrate Palm Sunday. We did this again on Good Friday.
For those here who celebrate Even yesterday at the Easter egg hunt, the kids did such a great job of helping rehearse the events to me as we went through the resurrection eggs. So even though we talk about these things pretty often, even though, even though we talked about them a number of times in this last week, I do think it’d be good for us to just go through these events again, like never wanting to take any of these events for granted. So let me back up a few chapters to Matthew 21. So this is one of the four accounts that we celebrated last week, Palm Sunday, of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a colt, by which he was proclaiming that he was the long awaited, the long promised Messiah. Let’s talk about last week.
As Jesus rode in Jerusalem, many who filled the city were ready to receive Jesus as their Messiah. However, the desires that they had for Jesus as Messiah was very different from the actual mission Jesus was on as Messiah. The people wanted some type of, like, political, military Messiah to bring some type of like earthly peace, specifically peace from Rome, who is ruling over the region. However, as the Lord Jesus Christ came as the promised Messiah, the peace he came to bring would be a much greater peace, a much more significant and important peace, as the Lord Jesus Christ came to bring peace with God. Peace that as mankind we have broken because we all have sinned in our hearts, which has put us at enmity with God.
So in the context after Jesus rode into Jerusalem in Matthew 21, from there he set up shop where he would teach and preach about the Kingdom of God. With many of these teachings being pretty challenging for the crowd to hear. While some in the crowd received these challenging teachings, many others did not receive these teachings of Jesus. And it seems with each teaching, more and more of the crowd became more and more upset with the Lord Jesus, where it seemed like even more and more from that Palm Sunday crowd who were just singing his praises as he rode into Jerusalem on the colt, we’re now singing a very different tune as the week went by, a growing number becoming frustrated, even hostile towards Jesus as we began to realize that his mission was not their mission. But as we know, it wasn’t just the crowd who was upset with Jesus.
The religious leaders who basically stood against Jesus and his public ministry his entire life. But in the events leading up to our text today, his religious leaders became even more and more opposed to Jesus as the week went on, which made the religious leaders more and more committed to see Jesus put to death. You can read more about these teachings of Lord Jesus Christ as well as the growing opposition to him from the end of Matthew 21, the beginning of chapter 26, which in the historical timeline, this would have been Sunday through Thursday of that week. So it’s a lot packed in in a very few days where Jesus went from the hero of the crowd to the one who the crowd was turning on in hostile ways. Let’s keep going.
In Matthew’s account at the end of Matthew 26, which would be Thursday evening, we see that Jesus was anointed with expensive perfume, which is much to the dismay of his disciples. We then read that Jesus enjoyed a meal with his disciples in an upper room, a meal that’s referred to as, like the Last Supper or the Lord’s Supper, where this is actually something we’ll be celebrating at the end of the sermon here. And at this meal, Jesus continued to share with his disciples some of the events were about to take place, Events that would be necessary for him to fulfill the mission of peace that he came on yet again. As Jesus shared these things with the disciples, they did not understand what Jesus was talking about, where they even, like, rebuke Jesus as he taught them with one of the disciples, a man named Judas, being so upset with Jesus with his teachings, particularly upset when Jesus was anointed with the expensive perfume. So he gets up, he left the upper room, and he went to go find evil men, those who were seeking to kill Jesus.
Evil men who, just prior Jesus, promised that he would turn Jesus over to them for a small sum of money. So keep going to context. After celebrating in the upper room, in the middle of chapter 26 of Matthew, which would have been late Thursday night, Jesus got up with some of his disciples. They left the upper room and they went to a garden just outside the city gates, A garden called Gethsemane that is located on the Mount of Olives, where in the garden, Jesus would pray to his heavenly father concerning his mission of peace. Where Jesus prayed with such intensity, he was like sweating.
As Jesus asked his heavenly Father that the cup of judgment that he was about to drink in the place of his people, which was how peace would come, as Jesus would bore the justice of God that separated God and mankind, that put mankind empty with God, Jesus prayed asking his Father, if there’s another way for the cup to pass, so be it. But there was nothing. This is how God determined before the foundation of the world how peace would be found. Jesus prayed. You may remember, Jesus shows up.
He shows up with those seeking to kill our Lord. And as Jesus came to the garden, he finished his betrayal work with a kiss as he kissed the Lord on his cheek, which signified to the Roman soldiers which was the man they were to arrest. Where after Jesus was arrested, we see he was put through a series of kangaroo courts, starting with the kangaroo court in front of the chief priest, which is one who very much wanted the Lord Jesus dead. Where Jesus stood before the chief priest, lies were told about him as he was physically beaten by others who hated him. From there, in chapter 27, which takes place from Thursday night into Friday morning, Jesus left the kangaroo court before the high priest and then was taken to a Roman court where a man named Pontius Pilate was the authority over the region.
And as Jesus brought into this kangaroo court, he continued to be physically beaten, mocked, and ridiculed. However, as Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, even Pilate could see this kangaroo court that the Lord is being put through. He could see that Jesus was innocent of the charges brought before him. Yet, out of fear, fear of a riot, Pilate turned to a crowd who gathered to see Jesus on trial. And according to a custom, Pilate offered to release to a crowd a prisoner.
We kind of get the sense that Pilate expected or maybe even hoped that the crowd would ask for innocent Jesus to be released. What we read is that the crowd did not want Jesus released. Rather, the crowd cried out for a murderous man named Barabbas to be released. Instead, as they shouted back to Pilate that they wanted Jesus crucified. So, an act of cowardice, Pilate turned Jesus over to religious leaders, the ones seeking to kill Jesus as they finally got their wish and they were given opportunity to kill Christ, which they decided to do by crucifixion, one of the most painful, shameful ways one can die.
So on Friday morning, the religious leaders took the the broken and bloody Jesus that was so broken because he was beaten and whipped with such violence. Scripture tells us it was actually hard to even recognize him as a man. Not only did he beat him, but they also further mocked him as they put a crown of thorns on his head and a robe on him, did that. Then they took a cross and they placed it on his shoulders, where then they would pray Jesus outside of the city gates of Jerusalem, which once again, to a very different chorus from when Jesus was led into Jerusalem just days before on Palm Sunday. And as Jesus was taken to the designated place, a place called Golgotha, which means place of the skull, or in Latin, the word calvary, it was there that Jesus was nailed to a wooden cross where he would hang until he died.
And as Jesus hung on the cross. On the cross. The crowd that was there, as well as passersby, continued to mock and jeer the Lord. And by the sixth hour of the day, which is still Friday, the sixth hour being noon, reading Matthew 27, that darkness covered the land until the ninth hour, which is 3pm at the ninth hour, our Lord cried out to his heavenly Father as he yielded up his spirit into death, where Jesus fully drank the cup of judgment.
And all this taking place not simply because of sinful, wicked men, but it’s all happened according to God’s good eternal plan. Who decreed for all this to take place. As mentioned, it’d be through Jesus peace would come. Scripture tells that upon him was a chastisement that brought peace by his wounds. That’s how we are healed.
Keep going. As Jesus died, a massive curtain in the temple which symbolized God and man being separated from each other was torn in two from top to bottom, which declared that Jesus did indeed make the way for mankind to have peace with God. As the curtain tore in two, there was also a great earthquake that shook the area. Tombs were opened, bodies of saints who had died were raised, which. Can you imagine what that must have been like to be in Jerusalem as these events unfolded?
The end of chapter 27. Sometime that Friday evening, a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea, an act of courage, went back to Pilate, or not only to report to Pilate that Jesus died, but Joseph also requested the body of Jesus be given to him, which Pilate granted. So Joseph took the body of Jesus, wrapped it in clean linen and placed the body of our Lord in a freshly cut tomb that was cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone at the entrance of the tomb to close it, which Joseph did as two ladies named Mary stood by and watched by. This is all done late Friday night.
The next morning, Saturday, reading Matthew 27, religious leaders go back to Pilate and they requested that guards be placed in front of the tomb. Because the religious leaders were concerned about one of the teachings that Jesus gave, which is teaching concerning the bodily resurrection from the dead. So in the concern, religious leaders were worried that some of the followers of Jesus would come seek to steal a life or steal the lifeless body of our Lord and then go about telling others that Jesus rose from the dead. So the religious leaders go to Pilate. They ask for guards to be placed outside the tomb to protect against the body from being stolen.
And Pilate granted this request as well as he sent soldiers to guard the tomb by also further sealing it up which happened sometime on Saturday as the body of Jesus laid in the tomb. So in the context from Sunday to Saturday, a lot happened. You can imagine this is absolute roller coaster of emotions for all in the city, particularly for those who were closest to the Lord, which included the two Marys who were present when Joseph and Mythia laid the lifeless body in the tomb late Friday night. It’s too late as we become important characters for our text today as we pick up Matthew 28, which is now Sunday early in the morning as our passage declares one of the most central important truths of our faith. One of the most central important truths, period, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
As mentioned at the start, as we work through our text today, we’re going to see the urgency of this most central and important truth, which is urgency. To say it again is no less urgent today than it was on the first Easter. So that is a little bit longer intro, if you please. Look back with me our text starting verse one as mentioned. I’m just going to work all the way back through this verses 1 through 10.
So read this now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn, as is still dark outside of the first day of week, meaning like very early Sunday morning, we see the two Marys who I mentioned were present when Joseph buried our Lord late Friday night. We see them back on the scene and we see that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And we see in other Gospel accounts two Marys didn’t go to the tomb just to like remember and mourn, which we might do at a grave site of a loved one who’s buried. But the two Marys got early that morning also with intentions of putting smelling spices in the tomb and to anoint the body of Jesus Christ. We also read in the Gospel of Columns, as these two women were on the way to the tomb, they had a discussion among themselves of a dilemma that they were about to face.
Which is a dilemma, how are they going to roll away the giant stone that was in front of the tomb? However, in verse two of our text today, we see as they arrived in the scene, this stone rolling away dilemma. It was solved for them as reading the text. There was a great earthquake that once again shook the reef the region which earthquake that occurred not simply because like tectonic plates like run into each other in the earth’s mantle. In the text, this earthquake took place because an angel Lord descended from the heavenly places to this scene.
And as the angel Lord appeared, he proceeded to roll back the giant stone and as he rolled it back, we see in the text that he, like, sits on it. As women ride the scene, as a seals take place, naturally their eyes are taken to the angel. But as they looked at the angel sitting on the stone, it was a difficult look for them. It is in verse three, the appearance of the angel was like lightning and the clothing, white as snow, like absolute brilliance. You know, my mind’s eye this week, I just pictured two women, like, having to squint.
They may put, like, the hands around their eyes, the shield, maybe, like, turning their head to the side to look over the corner of their eyes. The brilliance is just so intense, like they couldn’t look straight on. And as women who are trying to look at the angel remind in the text that they weren’t the only ones who were there at the scene on this Sunday morning, we see in the text that the guards who Paula also placed at the scene of the tomb, we see that they’re there. And as the earthquake happened, as the brilliant angel appeared and rolled the stone away in verse four, the guards became terrified as fear filled their hearts. And we see that they started to tremble and became like dead men, which my guess is they’re, like, stunned into silence as, like, shock filled their bodies, where they’re basically, like, paralyzed.
Who knows, maybe even, like, fainted. This is happening in verse five. We see the angel turn to the women to look at them. And the angel looked away because he arrived on the scene to deliver to the women an incredible message. The most incredible message in the text.
As the angel said to the women, women, do not be afraid. I have not come to harm you. But I’ve come to tell you some incredibly good news, good news that I urgently want to share with you. For I know you’re here early this Sunday morning to seek Jesus, who was just crucified and died on Friday. I’m sure the angel knew the intentions of the Marys to put spices in the tomb and anoint the body of the Lord.
Verse 6. However, Mary, Mary, listen, you’re not gonna be able to do those things. The reason why, because the body of Jesus is not here. And the body’s not here because, like, grave robbers came and stole the body. Rather, the body is not here because the incredible good news, for he has risen.
He has risen indeed. Mary and Mary, the body of Jesus is not in the tomb because Jesus is not dead. Rather, he is very much alive.
An incredible message from the angel to the women. This is this angel simply proclaiming the message that Jesus said would happen. In the text, he has risen just as he said. This is really something that Jesus said, really throughout his entire teaching ministry, including between Palm Sunday and Good Friday in the events recorded in Matthew 21:26, as the Lord declared the scriptures, as he told his people that he would die, but he would rise. Again, the text, the end of verse six, we take Isaiah, as the angel declared this really good news.
He then takes the women into the tomb to see the place where Jesus body once laid. Once again, this is something the women observed take place that Friday night as they watched Joseph lay the body of the Lord in the tomb. But now, here, this Sunday morning, as he looked into the tomb, they don’t see the body. It’s gone. Said again he was risen from the dead.
No, already for us, I’m sure you’re feeling some of the urgency in this passage. There’s nothing normal, nothing casual, nothing routine about any of this. We would label none of this under the banner of like, yeah, it’s kind of important, but maybe not so urgent, rather obvious in a sense. This is important and urgent. In fact, most important, most urgent.
We see the urgent to see urgency of the scene, the urgency of the message resurrected Christ, even more so in the following verses, starting in verse seven. You want to take your eyes there as the angel, after sharing the message of the resurrection with the women, we now see women were now to take that message and now they were to go share it. As the angel says, women go quickly, not casually, not as you get around to it, not after like maybe some more urgent things that you’d rather do. Rather go now, quickly, urgently, and tell the disciples this message, Tell them that Jesus is risen from the dead, truly is making the message that Jesus foretold would happen. The same message that the angel declared to the women, the message that the women received.
And now this is now their message to declare as well. Go tell the disciples this most incredible, this most important, this most urgent message of good news.
As women were to quickly go and declare the message of good news of Christ rising from the dead, the angel let them know some more good news, that Jesus is already going before them to Galilee. Now, Galilee, this is about 70 miles or so, kind of give or take from Jerusalem, maybe a few day journey on foot. And Galilee is not like a random place that Jesus is off to. Rather, this is the region that Jesus is from where many of his disciples are from where his ministry was started. This is even a place that Jesus told them that he would go after being raised from the dead.
You read about that. Matthew 27, as they’re making their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said he would go to Galilee after he rose from the dead. As the angels let the women know that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee, he gave them some even more exciting news that they would see him there. Which can you imagine the anticipation of that trip, of taking that 70 or so mile trip by foot to go see Jesus? I also think that probably would have been a real roller coaster, emotion type trip, really with each step, at least for me, I would imagine women, the others, if I was there, going from like, really excited to see Jesus, but then maybe start to like wonder or doubt if what happened actually happened or if like maybe their minds were playing tricks with them.
That this message almost seemed too good to be true. Which perhaps is why the end of verse seven, if you take your eyes there, to prevent doubts from creeping in along the journey to Galilee, the angel just declared, see, I’ve told you, or listen, I have told you, I have told you the same things, the very same things that Jesus told you, the same things throughout all scripture, verse eight, with more urgency, read that as disciples are given or the women are given the mission by the angel to share the message. Disciples, we read that they quickly departed from the tomb, doing so with fear, great wonder and excitement, but also with great joy as they ran to the disciples to tell them this message, right? Do you feel this here? The urgency quickly departed, ran to share the message.
This incredibly good news message was filling their hearts with incredible urgency to share it with others as they’re running with urgency, we see before they get the disciples in the text, we see that Jesus got to them as he met them, as they were on their way, right? They didn’t have to wait to get to Galilee. Jesus came to the women. And as Jesus met them, we see in the text, he greeted them by simply saying greetings, which is a simple saying, but I think we know when someone greets us, there’s measures of care and kindness attached to a greeting, where often greetings have like excitement attached to them as well. And I am sure this is true of our Lord.
The scene as he greets the women, he communicates his care, his kindness to these two women.
It was a joy for our Lord to see them. He was excited to see those who he loved. And as Jesus greeted the two Marys with more urgency, they came up to him, they took him by the feet and they worshiped him, which here, this is clinging to Jesus. This is an act of complete worship. That not only is a great model for us and how we are to approach the risen Christ to cling to him, but it’s also deep, important theology attached here.
Friends, only God, only God is worthy of our worship. So as women, as they did this act, they’re professing Jesus as God. And because Jesus received the act of worship of the women, this is Jesus affirming that profession that indeed he is God in the flesh, which is the truth that we see all throughout Scripture concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the eternal word who became flesh, the great God man. It be blasphemy to worship anyone or anything other than God.
We’re going to end our text today. Verse 10 where we finish the text with continued ongoing urgency, where we read that our Lord shared a very similar message with the women as the angels just did. As the angel says to the women, do not be afraid.
Go and tell my brothers main disciples to go to Galilee and there they will see me. That’s by the way, referring to the disciples as brothers. This also speaks to like care and kindness that Jesus has with his people. Disciples here are his brothers, those who he delights in for us. That’s where we’re going to close in the text today.
But as we close the sermon, I want to close with continued urgency by leaving you with two urgent messages that we see not just in this text, but urgent messages all throughout the teachings of Jesus Christ. Urgent messages really throughout the entire Bible. So I just have two quick things first. This Easter, our 15th Easter friends, urgently believe in the message concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And urgently believe in ways that you’re pouring out your life in worship of him who is the great God man.
Now, for some of us here, perhaps this message of Jesus Christ, him crucified and risen, this is one maybe you’ve heard before, you’re familiar with, maybe even so familiar you can even like recite it maybe along some of the other events that I started out the sermon with that led up to the death and resurrection of the Lord. However, for a host of different reasons, you’re kind of sitting on this message. You’re not doing anything with it. Maybe for you think there’s no need for this message. Maybe you don’t fully understand it, or maybe you actually think this is just too good to be true.
Whatever your reason, up to this point, you’ve yet to respond to the message of the Lord Jesus Christ with urgency in ways that you are worshiping him with your life and friend. If that Is you this morning. I’m so glad you’re here. Is I want to plead with you to right now to respond in the same ways that the women in our text did, that by faith you would cling to Jesus Christ in joyful worship of him, where by faith you believe, in accordance to the scriptures, that the God man, Jesus Christ, he did come and he died for you to take on the punishment of your sin, which he did on his cross leave that he was buried, but according to the scriptures, that he rose again from the dead and he is very much alive. Friend, this morning, by faith, please urgently believe in this message.
Please, by faith, turn from sin and turn to Jesus, and turn to him in ways you’re willing to leave all things behind in order to have Him. Friend, this morning, if by faith you turn from sin and turn to Jesus, the promise of scripture, he will greet you and he will greet you with all of his career, all of his love, where you’ll be eternally valued as one of his precious and beloved children. Now, for many of us here, this message is a message we actually have already believed, where we have confessed the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We believe it, but perhaps for a host of different reasons. Over time, maybe this message has become a little stale, maybe a little routine, maybe even a little boring.
And as you look at your heart, you know the urgency surrounding this message, the death and resurrection of Christ, it just isn’t what it once used to be. Where perhaps you’re not joyfully clinging to Jesus Christ in worship in ways that you once did. And friend, if that’s you this morning, I also want to urge you to just put away whatever is keeping you from that urgency and urgently return to your first love by clinging joyfully to Jesus Christ and His message, doing so with all of your heart, soul, love, mind and strength. My friend, if that is you this morning, for whatever reason, the urgency does not land in your heart as he once did.
If you would turn to Jesus, ask for forgiveness, he will greet you as well, with all of his care, all of his love, all of his mercy, all of his forgiveness. Friend, would you do that today? Don’t put it off as if there’s something that’s like more urgent and important that you must do first, which leads to the second urgency I want to leave us with this morning is simply urgently share the message of Christ with those around you. Which by the way, perhaps, maybe is the reason why you don’t have the same urgency of like, joyful worship you once did maybe for a host of different reasons, sharing this incredible message of Jesus Christ crucified and risen for whatever reason. Maybe that’s become like less and less urgent to you.
In the text. It’s receiving the message of Christ quickly, with running, with urgency. The women did with the angel with the risen Lord instructing them to do. And they went to find the disciples to tell them the incredibly good news that Jesus has risen, that he is very much alive. And church, may we do the same for all those that God has placed in our lives to quickly, urgently tell them this message.
In fact, how can we not tell this incredibly good news message with others? How can we keep it bottled up and not tell our family and our friends or our neighbors or our co workers or our classmates or whoever it is we might run into this message that Jesus is alive and he is calling people to himself. And he will greet with care and love all who by faith come to him revealed Church, may we with urgently share this message, this incredible message of good news to the world around us.
Before I close, let me just read just the words that come at the end of Matthew that capture this as well. This is just a few verses down from where I stop in the text. Words that came as Jesus and disciples were in Galilee. Trust these words will be familiar to you as well.
May receive these with urgency. Then Matthew says this now, the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded.
And behold. Please hear this. Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age Church today and always may the message of Jesus Christ, his sacrificial death, his glorious resurrection, always be most urgent, most important to us. May the wooden cross, empty tomb always mean everything to us. And may this be true no matter how long the Lord might give us, give us as individuals or give us as a church, no matter how many Easters we might continue to celebrate.
May we always worship the Lord Jesus Christ with overflowing joy and overflowing urgency. Let’s pray.
Lord, what an incredible miracle to raise Jesus Christ from the dead.
Lord, thank you for your great love for sinners like us that according to your good plan you would send your only Son who lived the life that we could never live sinless to die the death we deserve. To die where he became cursed for us, only to rise again from the dead. And Lord, I pray that this message would fill our hearts with joy and urgency today.
God, I pray for those here who have yet to believe.
Lord, today we just pray and we plead with you that you would open up their eyes, that they would turn from sin, they would turn and believe and see the risen Christ, that you would greet them even in this moment.
God, I pray for those here who for different reasons, maybe have lost some urgency in their faith. Maybe they have left their first love.
Lord, I pray that yout would give them a spirit of repentance, that yout return them to the joy of their salvation.
I pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.