Alright, well it's a joy to be here again to Preaching God's Word. I got a chance to meet with Pastor Peter and he told me about everything that happened. All the last minute construction that you guys had to do and then, man, I felt so bad for him. I told him, "Hey, I'll take you out to get some Tommy's burger." I don't know if you know, he likes Tommy's.

So we're going to grab some burgers and try to encourage him in that way. But I got a chance to hang out with Sam Cho and he told me that several of you guys came in the middle of the week after work and worked all the way through the night and then went to work again, came back, and then worked at the church.

You guys pulled several all-nighters. I heard about that and I was just immensely encouraged, immensely encouraged by the body here. It is clear that you guys love the Lord and that you love each other. It's more than just having a building, but the community here, that's what it's really about.

This is just a place where this community can meet. I'm grateful that you guys have this and I'm sure you guys are going to use it for the glory of God. This is new to me. This is crazy. I was talking with James Hong and this is almost, this is like mega church status right here.

This is crazy. And I was preaching the first service and I could kind of see myself on the periphery. My hands are like wailing and I'm like, "Oh man, that's really annoying. I got to stop doing that." But I think we'll be able to get by. Anyways, today I was thinking about, it's really cool.

Pastor Peter just kind of lets me preach on whatever I want to preach on. And so I decided to preach on my hobby horse. And if you guys have known me for a few years, you guys know my hobby horse is the resurrection. I love the resurrection. It impacted me and really changed the way that I have understood my salvation or at least deepened it.

Deepened my understanding of salvation. And so I wanted to kind of share that with you today as well. So if you guys have, if I've known you for some time and you guys heard my preaching, this might be redundant, but may you still be blessed. Okay. We're going to be talking about the resurrection.

And today our passage that I selected was 1 Corinthians 15, but this is not a passage I'm going to be expositing, but I felt like it touched upon the subject and the importance of the resurrection. And so that we can kind of like jump, jump from here and get into the theology of the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So read with me 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and let's read verse 15, verse 12 to 19 once more. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead, but if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

If Christ has not been raised, even then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We're even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then also, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. Let's join me in prayer before we get into the preaching of God's word.

Dear God, we are grateful for our opportunity to get into your word to study the theology of the resurrection. And I pray that as we come to dive into this truth that we will come to appreciate and love it just as much as we do the crucifixion, the cross of our savior.

Help me to rightfully divide the word of truth to speak clear, speak with clarity and I pray for the congregation that they would receive this lesson and worship you. May it be a people who worship you for what you have done for us in the gospel. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Now you got to think about the resurrection and what it is. It is a person coming back from the dead. It is an outrageous event. And yet 2000 years ago, number of people have testified to this reality. A man by the name of Matthew in Matthew chapter 28 verse 1 through 6.

He 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 women, 'Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has risen as he said.

Come see the place where he lay.'" Mark records the same thing and he says in Mark chapter 16 verse 6, "And he, that is the angel, said to them, 'Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Come see the place where they laid him.'" A physician by the name of Luke gives a record of two men who interacted with the resurrected Jesus and this is what they said when they realized that they saw the Lord.

It says in Luke chapter 24 verse 33 to 35, "And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together saying, 'The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.' Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread." Jesus also appeared to his disciple John and in John chapter 20 verse 24 to 28 it says, "Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.' Eight days later his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them.

And although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered, 'My Lord and my God.'" And then there's another man by the name of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian.

He gives a record of the resurrection as well. He says, "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man for he was a doer of wonderful works. A teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.

He was the Christ. And when Pilate at the suggestion of principal men amongst them had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him for he appeared to them alive again the third day. As the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him and the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day." Josephus spoke those words.

After being crucified upon the cross, Jesus Christ was buried in the tomb. Three days later he resurrected from the dead. The message, the event was so radical, it was so staggering that people could not stop talking about this man who came back from the dead. In the Roman historian Suetonius, he says this.

He says the Jews, he that is Emperor Claudius, the Jews he expelled from Rome. Why? Since they were constantly in rebellion at the instigation of Christus. Everybody was talking about Christus. Everybody was talking about this man who clearly died upon the cross and then resurrected from the dead. Even those who weren't immediate followers of Jesus Christ.

It could not be pushed away as some kind of human fabrication because more than a few people were claiming that they saw Jesus alive. It was hundreds, normal, sound thinking people saying that I saw Jesus. He died and he's alive. Simple message because it actually happened. And it wasn't just a sheer number of people that factored into the authentication of this gospel message.

These Christians were putting their life on the line. You don't lay down your life for a lie. You lay down your life for the truth. Now the question, the question that we must ask ourselves is this. What does the resurrection do? You guys ever think about that? What does it do?

My problem for many years as I began to study this, take my faith more seriously and through my years in seminary and my year, the beginning years of my ministry, my pastoral ministry was this exact question. What does the resurrection do? I knew biblically it was necessary. We read 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

It's necessary. If Christ did not resurrect from the dead, we are still in our sins. We are still in our sins. We would be damned if Christ did not resurrect from the dead. I knew biblically it was necessary, but logically I didn't know how it fit into the scheme of my salvation.

How did it work? What did it actually do? If you're a Christian, you believe in what we call substitutionary atonement or double imputation. I'm sure you guys have been taught this at your church or here at Berean. If you're a Christian, if you don't know the terms, you at least believe in it.

What it says is that we are all sinners. Because we have sinned against God, we deserve to be damned. The wages of sin is death, Romans chapter 6 verse 23. But Jesus Christ, what he did was he took our sins upon himself and then he ended up dying the death that we deserve to die.

What did he do instead? He took his righteousness, imputed it to us. He gave us his righteousness so that by his righteousness we live. So I thought about this and I was thinking, okay, my sins are given to Jesus. Jesus' righteousness is given to me. He dies because of my sins.

I live because of his righteousness. It's like, good deal, right? Good deal for me. Not for him, but for me it's a good deal. My sins are imputed to Christ. He dies. His righteousness is imputed to me. I live. And I think, why the resurrection? It doesn't seem like his crucifixion is sufficient.

It seems like Calvary is enough for the security of our redemption. So why did Christ have to resurrect from the dead? Now I've heard people say, well Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead as proof. Proof that the work of Calvary was sufficient. It was proof that it was enough to save us.

And when I heard that I just kind of squirmed a little bit. Because what's the implication if the resurrection is simply a proof? If it's a proof, then it's not necessary. Right? If it's just proving the necessity of the cross and it's just showing the sufficiency of the cross for the security of our salvation, then the resurrection is not necessary.

God might as well have just opened up the heavens and said, hey look, the cross, it's done. It is finished. It is enough. But that's not what we find in scripture. When we read the Bible, we not only read about the death of Christ, but we also read about the resurrection of Christ.

When we read about the gospel proclamation, we not only read about the death of Christ, but we read about the resurrection of Christ. Peter says in Acts chapter 2, 32, this Jesus God raised up and of that we all are witnesses. Acts chapter 4, 10, it says, "Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead." Acts chapter 13, verse 34, "And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David." First Peter chapter 1, 21, "Who through him are all our believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory." Raised him from the dead.

It is the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ that is necessary for our salvation. Why? Because the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are essential components of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God for the salvation of men.

And that's why the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 17, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Romans 4, 25, it says this, "Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." Yeah he died for our justification but the text says here he was raised for our justification.

And so we come back to the question, what does it do? What does the resurrection do? I took my seminary training, right? I looked through my commentaries, looked through my systematic theologies, looked through the books that I had, went through the library trying to find the answer, what does the resurrection do?

And dude, I could not find a satisfactory answer. It was really hard. I knew it was necessary. I knew it was important. But what did it actually do? And the systematic theology books that I came across, the commentaries did not help at least to the extent that I wanted it to help.

And I came across this little book by Richard Gaffin and he said this because he came across the same problem. He says, "Charles Hodge's systematic theology devotes four pages to the resurrection in contrast to the lengthy treatment of atonement, approximately 35 pages. W.G.T. Shedd dogmatic theology passes directly from a discussion of vicarious atonement to regeneration.

The major writings of B.B. Warfield in this area concentrate exclusively upon the death of Christ understood as atonement. The approach of Lewis Burkhoff's systematic theology is similar to that of Hodge. After a brief discussion of the resurrection, like four pages, he moves on to a lengthy treatment of atonement, approximately 40 pages.

The approaches of Abraham Cooper, Didactem dogmatic locus de Christo par secunda, and Hermann Bavink, Gerform Merdedammaty provides no significant exception to this general pattern." I never know how to pronounce those German words. But he gets the point across. Nobody's talking about the resurrection. And even in our day and age, we don't hear much about the resurrection.

We hear a lot of things about the cross. You have books like The Cross and Salvation, Cross Center Life, Preaching the Cross, The Cross of Christ, Proclaiming Cross Center Theology, and so on and so forth. All these books about the cross, all these books about Calvary, but hardly any books on the resurrection.

And so today, what we're going to do is answer the question, "What does the resurrection do?" Good? I think it's good. Okay. That's my introduction. What does the resurrection do? We're going to answer that question. And I hope this blew my mind. It blew my mind away. And I hope it not only blows your mind away, but it instills a heart of worship towards your God.

We worship God for the cross. Why do we worship God for the cross? Because we understand the profundity of it. And so I want you guys to know the profundity of the resurrection so that we might grow in our worship towards God. And that's my hope for this church.

So turn with me to Romans chapter 6. Let's answer this question. Romans chapter 6, verse 1 through 10. Romans chapter 6, verse 1 through 10. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means, how can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were also baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.

But we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For death he died, he died to sin.

Once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. Now in order to understand this passage and the significance of the resurrection, it is necessary for us to understand our problem. We can't understand how God saves us unless we first understand what he saves us from. That make sense?

We can't understand how he saves us unless we know what he saves us from. If I were to ask you, what is the fundamental problem of man, what would you say? This is not rhetorical, this is more interactive. I do this once in a while with our church. So if I say what is the fundamental problem, immediately what do you think?

Sin. Immediately sin. Good. I've been taught well. Otherwise I'd tell Pastor Peter. So sin, but what's more fundamental than sin? What is the fundamental problem of the individual man besides sin? Fundamental. Speak to me. Remember Dr. Montoya, the Mexican professor? Speak to me. He always goes like this. Speak to me.

So speak to me. What is the fundamental problem of man? Broken relationship with God. I would say that results from the sin and the problem that I'm thinking about. But yes, that is an issue that does get resolved through the gospel. Let me phrase it like this. What is, what leads us to sin?

Pride. Pride is a form of sin. It's ugly. Yes, it's an ugly, nasty sin, but I would say fundamental. Disobedience, I would say is a way of describing sin. So this is really good because now we're trying to think very precisely of the realm of this category of transgression and sin and just what's messed up with us.

We're studying how messed up we are. Ooh, good. That's it. Inherited sin nature. The problem is not only with what we have done. The problem is with who we are. It's a twofold problem. It's a twofold problem. You have to understand the problem before we can understand the solution.

The problem is not only with what we have done, but it is with who we are. The problem is not only with the fact that we sin. The problem is that we are sinners. That's the problem. Have you guys watched that YouTube clip with John Piper where they get a clip of his sermon and they play the soundtrack of Michael Jackson's "Bad"?

You guys have got to look it up. It's excellent. But it's great because there's a clip from John Piper's sermon and he says something like this. He's really passionate and dramatic. He goes, "I don't just do bad things. I am bad." John Piper is bad. You know I'm bad and you are bad as well.

He says something like that. And then when he says, "I am bad," the Michael Jackson soundtrack comes on. He goes, "Bad." He's posing like this. It's great. It's so profound. I don't just do bad things. I am bad. I don't just do bad things. I am bad. We don't just sin, but we are also sinners.

The problem is not only with what we do, but the problem is with who we are. And so Colossians chapter 2 verse 13, listen to this. "And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh." Deadness is a state of being. That's your problem. You are dead.

And then it says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3, "We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind." Listen to Romans chapter 8. Flip a few chapters to Romans 8. Read this with me. Romans chapter 8, verse 5 through 8. "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.

But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.

For it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." The problem of man is fundamentally lies at the core of who he is. We're not sinners because we sin. It's the other way around. We sin because we are sinners.

It's because we're fornicators that we desecrate the marriage bed. It's because we are drunkards that we get drunk. Because we're materialists that we can worship money. And that's offensive, isn't it? You are a sinner. You are a transgressor. And because you are a transgressor, because you are a sinner, you sin.

The Bible goes even further to offend our senses. It says, "Because you have sinned and because you are a sinner, you deserve to be damned for your transgressions." You deserve to be damned for who you are. It's because of who you are, a spiritually dead man, a man who by nature is a child of wrath, a man who is in the flesh, that you transgress the commands of God.

And because you transgress the laws of God, you deserve to be judged to hell. Now if you understand that, that's why you understand the cross is so beautiful. The Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself our sins. He took upon himself our transgressions, our lust, our bitterness, our anger, our gossip, our slander.

He took upon himself our shame, our perverse thoughts, our black hearts. He's taken everything upon himself and he died the death that we were supposed to die. The Father looked upon his Son and he saw the sins of the world upon him and he crushed his Son because righteousness cannot stand before sin.

And Christ became sin on our behalf because of his love for you, because of the Father's love for you. That's why we love the cross. That's why I love the cross. That's why you love the cross. But there's a question that remains. What about me? God, you took care of my sins.

You took care of my sins upon the cross. You took care of my sins at Calvary. But what about who I am? The fundamental problem still remains. I'm still a man in the flesh. I'm still a man who has a mind that is hostile towards God. I'm still a man who hates the law of God.

I'm a man who cannot submit to the law of God. I'm still a rebellious murderer. I'm still a lustful adulterer. I'm still a covetous thief. So what about me? The question that should resound within the Christian is, yes, Lord, you took care of my sins upon the cross, but what about who I am?

What about this flesh? What about this nature? What about my soul? It's still corrupt. It's still depraved. It's still dead. And God gives a shocking commandment. You want to take care of the problem of who you are? Listen to my voice. Kill it. If your hand causes you to sin, what do you do?

You chop it off. If your eye causes you to sin, what do you do? You rip it out. If your life is found to be corrupt, what do you do? You put it to an end. Now you guys should be thinking, your head should be spinning. I can't put myself to death.

If I go back to the grave, I'm not coming back up. Nobody dies. No human being can die and come back. But the Lord says there is one. There is one. A man by the name of Jesus. He went to Calvary and he was crucified. He went to Golgotha, gave up his soul.

He went up that hill to die. And three days later he resurrected from the dead. Death could not hold him down. Death could not seal his condemnation. But he was condemned before he died. First Corinthians 15 verse 55, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

In the life of Christ, where is it?" So the answer to the problem of dying lies in Christ. The secret to the answer, the solution, is in Him. The Canadian scientist G.B. Hardy, he said this, "When I look at religion, I have two questions. One, has anybody ever conquered death?

And two, if they have, did they make a way for me to conquer death? I checked the tomb of Buddha and it was occupied. I checked the tomb of Confucius and it was occupied. I checked the tomb of Muhammad and it was occupied. I came to the tomb of Jesus and it was empty.

I said, there is one who conquered death. I asked the second question, did he make a way for me to do it? And I opened the Bible and discovered that he said, because I live, ye shall live also." There is one who died and resurrected from the dead. And he made a way for us to experience the same thing.

So God looks upon your fallen and corrupt body. He looks upon you in the flesh and he tells you to do and fulfill the most radical command of commitment loyalty, die. But then he says this, trust that I will raise it back up from the dead. He who gave us life when we were born will give us life again.

Matthew chapter 16 verse 24 to 25 says, "Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." So the answer is in Jesus.

But the question still remains, how does it work? How does it work? You've given me the solution, but tell me and show me how you arrive to that answer. Romans chapter 6, let's go back to Romans chapter 6 verse 3 to 4. Romans chapter 6 verse 3 to 4.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.

What Paul is talking about here is the efficacious power of spirit baptism. The efficacious power of spirit baptism. First Corinthians 12, 13. Now these verses I'm giving you are, if you're taking notes, write it down. They're gold. These are gold verses. First Corinthians 12, 13. It says, "For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body." So that term, "for in one spirit," that can be translated as "for with one spirit." For with one spirit we were all baptized into one body.

In the same way John baptized with water, so the Lord Jesus Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit. We're all baptized and the result of that baptism is unity in the body of Christ. You get a similar teaching in Galatians 3, verse 27, which says, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Have put on Christ.

This is how it works. I use hand motions and my congregation makes fun of me because it seems childish, but I think it works really well. This is Jesus. So children, if you're listening, this is for you as well. This is Jesus. This is you. The Bible talks about, in First Corinthians 12, 13 and Galatians 3, 27, the moment we believe we were baptized with the Holy Spirit, but we were baptized into Christ.

We put on Christ. You see that? So the result of spirit baptism is unity with Christ. Now this is important. Unity is critical because if we're united to Jesus Christ, whatever happens to Jesus happens to us. Whatever happens to Jesus happens to us. So if Christ died, that means we in union with Christ have what?

We die. If Christ resurrected from the dead, then we in union with him have been resurrected from the dead. This idea, this life that we have in union with Christ, that is what we call new life. That's what we call resurrected life. That's what we call regenerated life. That's what we call a life with a circumcised heart, a life with a renewed mind.

That's the life that is born again. When we use these terms, there's a specific truth that the apostles and the writers are trying to convey. Regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification, they're all terms that we kind of lump up together. But the Bible is teaching that this reality that we have in union with Jesus Christ, that life is the regenerated life.

That is the life with the circumcised heart, with the renewed mind. That is the life that is born again. So the reason, how it works is through baptism, we're united with Christ, a unity, where we die with him and resurrect with him. You got that? Okay, good. I hope you worship God.

Let's look at Romans 6, 5 through 7. "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." You see the language coming out. "We know that our old self was," what? "Crucified." Our old self was killed.

"With him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been set free from sin." How do you mortify the body? How do you mortify this heart of lust? How do you mortify this heart of bitterness and anger and greed?

You mortify it by uniting it with the Lord Jesus Christ and crucifying it upon the cross. That's why the apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter 220, "I've been crucified with Christ." I no longer live. He's saying I'm a dead man. He's emphatic about that. I'm a dead man. The ego is gone.

I myself am no longer alive. So because I am dead, the powers that once ruled over me, the powers of sin, the powers, the spiritual forces of darkness, the angelic, demonic powers that ruled over my life can no longer command me what to do because I'm dead to them.

I'm dead to them. Have you ever talked to a dead person, tell it to do something? It's not going to listen to you because it's dead. So the commands that we receive from our former masters is irrelevant to us because we are dead to them. They cannot tell us what to do.

I'm dead to sin. I'm dead to death. I'm dead to the law. I'm dead to Satan. I'm dead to the world. The life of the flesh that could not help but return to its perverse masters and abusive masters is now rotting away at the cross of Calvary. I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live. So this is where we get a profound lesson. Jesus Christ not only died so that we might live. He died so that you might die. He died so that you might die. But the gospel doesn't end with the cross. Praise the Lord. If it ended with the cross, we'd just be united with him in dying.

That's not cool. He resurrected from the dead. And in our union with Jesus Christ, we have resurrected from the dead. We have new life. We have been raised from the grave as a new man, again, with a new mind, a renewed conscience, a circumcised heart, a regenerated soul. We are a new creation.

We are born again. And this life that you have could do what it couldn't do before. This new life that you have in Jesus Christ, his resurrected life, can do something that you could not do before, and that is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

That's why the resurrection is so powerful. Without it, you would not be able to love the Lord your God. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead would never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. The life that Jesus Christ lives, the resurrected life he lives, he lives towards God. So we in union with him have a life that is now lived not towards sin, but towards God.

Now, before I bring things to a close, I want to address the question, "Why do we continue to sin then?" That is an interesting question. I think it's a logical question. If we have crucified the former man, the man of sin, and we have resurrected to a new life, a life of glory, then why is it that we continue to sin?

The answer is because the death and the resurrection that we experience in union with Jesus Christ is something that we experience spiritually. It's what we experience spiritually. And for that reason, there's a conflict between what the Bible teaches as the inner man and the outer man. There's a conflict within us.

Romans chapter 7 verse 15 to 20 says, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." The reason why we sin is because the newly resurrected man conflicts with the remnant of our sinful flesh. But there is going to be a day when we will be freed from sin.

We are free from the power of sin through the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ spiritually. But there will be a day when we are freed from the presence of sin, and that is a day when we die. That is a day when we physically die, experience death in a physical way, and in our physical death afterwards we are resurrected into a physical life, and we experience the fullness of the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

So the reason why you resurrect in the end times, the rapture of the church, the reason why you resurrect from the dead during the millennial kingdom and the eternal kingdom of God and have these glorified bodies is because of your union with Jesus Christ. Your eternal life that you have, the eternal life that we often so talk about, is profoundly and essentially the life that you have in union with the Son of God.

Does that make sense? The eternal life that you have after all of this is a life, it is not a life that you have apart from God. It is a life that you have because you are united to the Son of God. And that is why it is eternal.

That is why your new life is an eternal life because the Son of God is eternal. And that is why your eternal life is glorious because the resurrected life of Jesus Christ is glorious. And that is why the eternal life that you have is also powerful because the resurrected life of Jesus Christ is powerful.

The life that you experience in end times and for all of eternity is a life that you have because of your union with the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 to 21, "But our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body." Our spiritual death and resurrection is going to culminate in a physical death and resurrection at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that is what the resurrection does. And I hope it was an encouragement to you and I hope that as you begin to dive, and this is, we just skimmed the surface today. We really did just skim the surface. Just like the cross, man, one message is not going to do it justice.

But I hope it's something that will compel you to dive more deeply into scripture regarding the subject so that as you read the Word of God, as you meditate upon these truths, it will elicit more love and worship from your heart towards your God. And may you study this not to simply know it but to give God the glory which He deserves.

Pray with me. Dear God, we are grateful for the death of Christ and we are grateful for the resurrection of Christ. We are grateful for both these things because we know without either of them we will be left in our sins, in our transgressions. We know that through these things you have saved us.

I pray for us as a community, I pray for Berean, that their understanding of the things of the Gospel would increase so that understanding these things that they would worship you more. May they fall in love with you every day, oh God, and find out things about you that causes them to exult in you automatically.

Father we know that it is only by your grace, it is only by your grace that we can deepen and further our affections for you so would your grace be upon us. We will pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.