Fulfilled!
Notes
Transcript
“Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “ ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’ 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.’ Therefore he says also in another psalm, “ ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
He is Risen!
Welcome - He is still risen, we share in His victory, and He reigns!
Every Easter, preachers all over the world pray, and think long and hard about what passage to preach. And, usually, we go to the Gospel accounts, and we find an account of the empty tomb being discovered and we preach of the stone being rolled away or of angels appearing, or we take a post-resurrection appearance of Christ to His disciples, and we preach the world-changing significance of the resurrection.
And as I was looking this time, I eventually came to the Gospel of John. In chapter 20, we read of the disciples finding the tomb empty. Of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene. Then that night, Jesus appears to the disciples - well, most of them, anyway.
And we read that the disciples were so happy and amazed when they saw Jesus alive.
And when I read these accounts, I am blown away by the significance of these things. I mean, Jesus died. Everyone saw it. Then the sealed tomb is miraculously unsealed, and its empty.
Then Jesus is standing there, alive, in the garden and talks to Mary Magdalene. Then, He appears in a locked room, just standing in the midst of the disciples.
And I read this and I think to my self: “Wow. Imagine seeing these things. What a great faith I would have if the resurrected Jesus appeared to me.”
Because make no mistake, the resurrection is the foundation of our faith. It is what Christianity is built on. If there is no empty tomb, there is no guarantee of salvation. There is no guarantee that death has been defeated.
There are no guarantees at all.
And that’s why these accounts are so amazing and so powerful. We read of those that saw the empty tomb, and who saw the resurrected Christ.
But it occured to me: that isn’t me. Or you. We have not seen what they saw.
And that’s what struck me as I read through this account this time.
Because there was one disciple missing that first night Jesus appeared. The Apostle Thomas. And when he heard that Jesus was alive, he said he didn’t believe it. Because he didn’t see it.
And he said that unless he saw with his own two eyes, he would not believe.
And we know the story. Jesus appears to good old doubting Thomas and Thomas believes. And he confesses Christ as his Lord and his God.
And Jesus says, “good, now that you have seen, you believe. That’s exactly what I was going for…”
… no, wait. He doesn’t say any such thing, does He? Instead, Jesus kind of rebukes Thomas for his lack of faith. And He asks him: “Have you believed because you have seen me?”
And then He says the most striking thing. Out of all His post-resurrection appearances, I don’t think there is anything quite as amazing as this. He says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
It never occurred to me before that Jesus, instead of encouraging Thomas in his newfound faith, tells Thomas about my faith. And He tells Him about your faith, if you have believed.
He tells Thomas how blessed we are to believe because we have not seen the risen Jesus with our own eyes.
Isn’t that absolutely amazing?
So we are here this morning to celebrate the blessing that it is to know the risen Christ, even though we haven’t seen Him with our own eyes.
And it is such a great blessing.
Are you blessed this morning? Do you have the blessing of knowing the resurrected Christ by faith?
If you don’t, you may be asking yourself: why should I believe? How can these people believe in something so absurd? Someone alive after He died? That’s not possible.
Maybe you think the resurrection is a myth. I mean, the internet said that the whole story was made up over the course of hundreds of years.
Or maybe you’re one of those who says: there is some spiritual truth in the story, though it isn’t supposed to be taken literally.
You know, because Jesus died the way He did, it is the belief in living like Him that came to life that day. Or it is selfless love that was born in His followers because He died for them.
Utter foolishness.
Because without the resurrection, I ask: why live like someone whose actions led to Him dying horribly for no apparent reason?
Without the resurrection, why would I be inspired to love selflessly, when Christ died out of selfless love through a death that didn’t accomplish anything for those He loved?
Why should I believe anything Jesus said if the resurrection is a lie? Why should I think that anything God ever said is true if the resurrection is false?
Because, as I said, the resurrection is the foundation of our faith because it proves not only that Christ’s death accomplished what He said it would - and the truth of all Christ said while He walked the earth, for that matter - but it proved the truth of everything God said, ever.
That’s why when the Gospel spread throughout Israel and then beyond, the good news was presented as hinging on the resurrection, because God promised it before any of it ever happened.
He promised He would prove His Word true, and He did.
And that is the message the early church brought to the world. To those who did not see the resurrected Christ for themselves, were told about Him by those who did. They pointed to all the promises of God and the way He fulfilled them.
And why would they do that if Christ isn’t risen?
You see, that’s why they didn’t preach Christ.
No, from the start, they preached the resurrected Christ.
This is what we see in our passage today. This is what Paul is doing. As someone who saw the risen Christ himself, he is telling people that God has proven Himself right - that He has proven all He said to be true because Christ has risen indeed.
Let me set the scene.
The Apostle Paul and Barnabas leave on their first missionary journey. They first sail to Cyprus, where they preach the risen Christ in the synagogues going through the whole island.
Then, they go to Asia Minor, and they wind up in Antioch in Pisidia. And they enter a synagogue, and after the daily reading from both the Law and the Prophets, they are asked if they have a word to give to those assembled.
So Paul starts with an abridged history of Israel:
Saved from Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, taking the Promised Land, the judges, the monarchy, and he gets to David the covenant God made with him.
And he says that this covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He tells them the point of all that happened before was Christ.
And then he says this:
“Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.
Now, Paul is in a synagogue addressing primarily Jews. But not only Jews. He includes all those who fear God. A “God-fearer,” as they were known, were Gentiles who believed in YHWH and followed Him, but did not join themselves to Israel.
But there’s more here, because Paul makes clear in his writings that the sons of Abraham are not really the physical offspring of Abraham, but those who share the faith of Abraham.
So Paul is addressing his message to those of faith. We are the family of Abraham, according to Paul.
And he says “to us” - to those of faith - has been sent this message of salvation. And he is talking about Christ. He is the message - literally, “the word” - of salvation.
But there also might be a little clever wordplay here, because if Paul happened to be speaking in Hebrew - which was the language used by Rabbis in the synagogues - Paul would have talked about the message of this Yeshua, which was Jesus’ name in Hebrew.
But aside from that, we know this is a reference to Christ, because Paul switches from talking about the message of salvation, to talking about “Him” in the next verse:
“Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.
Clearly, this Word of Salvation, is a Person. And that Person is Christ.
He is the center of the Gospel. He is the message of salvation.
But Paul is doing more still. Paul uses this “word of salvation” to refer to Jesus because he is focusing his hearers on the Word. He is making Jesus the focus of the Scriptures. And remember, at this point, the Christian Scriptures are the Old Testament.
Paul is saying Jesus is the message of the Old Testament.
And Paul gives some examples here.
Note why the religious leaders in Jerusalem sent Jesus off to die.
Because they did not recognize Jesus, the Word of salvation. Because they didn’t understand what the prophets talked about. The prophets that were read every Sabbath. The prophets that were just read in this synagogue before Paul began his sermon.
In other words, Paul says that the prophets bore witness to Christ. To the message of God’s salvation in Christ.
But it goes even further than that. Because Paul says the prophets spoke not only of Christ, and not only that the religious leaders didn’t understand that, but that the prophets spoke of those religious leaders rejecting Christ, and they didn’t understand that.
In other words, the Bible spoke about Christ’s rejection, and because they didn’t understand that it did, they fulfilled exactly what was written about Jesus, and therefore about them, because they killed Him.
They fulfilled the Word of God by condemning Him.
They fulfilled what the Word of God predicted of them, and what it predicted of Christ. Look at what Paul says:
And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
Christ did not deserve death. In fact, as predicted, He is the only Person Who ever lived Who is not deserving of death.
Do we get how amazing that is? Do we grasp what love God has for us that Christ died on the cross?
He is the only Person Who ever walked the earth that didn’t deserve to die. And yet He did. And He did it for us.
So Easter is not just about Jesus rising after dying. Easter is about Him rising after dying our death. His resurrection is victory over what we deserve.
Because God the Son came as One of us, but did not sin like all of us.
And yet He died. Just like God promised in the prophets.
We see that in what Paul says here. Jesus was rejected by His own people, and given over to Pagans to die on a cross.
And this fulfilled what was written of Him.
God told us what would happen before it happened.
So He died, and was taken down from the cross where He bore our curse for sin, and He was laid in a tomb.
And this would be the most horrible event in all of history, but for one thing.
But God…
But God - two of the greatest words in the Bible. When Paul drops a “but God,” you can be sure he is about to say something that - if we really understand it - is absolutely life changing.
Just as God told us beforehand through His prophets: Christ was sinless, yet He was condemned by His own people, and He was delivered over to death, and He was buried in a tomb.
And if that were the end of the story, how that would inspire selfless love or ethical living in anyone is quite beyond me.
Why would those who witnessed nothing but a man dying go through all the world to tell people about it? There’s nothing remarkable about that.
If God predicted that this man would live the perfect life, then be betrayed by His own whom He loved, rejected by His own nation, sentenced to die a horrible death at the hands of pagan overlords, and then it all came to pass, where is the blessing?
What am I so blessed to believe without seeing? If that’s the whole story, the only blessing is that I didn’t have to see an innocent man die a bloody and horrible death to give no assurance of anything to anyone.
If that’s the whole story, what hope do I have, even if I live the best life I can and love the best I can?
If that’s the whole story, why even bother to do any of those things? Nothing changes. Let’s just eat, drink, and be merry, for eventually we all die. Vanity of vanities, and all that.
But thank God, Jesus came and lived perfectly. And He loved perfectly. And even His death was perfect.
But that isn’t all there is to it. That isn’t all God promised beforehand.
Yes, He suffered and died, and He was laid in a tomb.
But God.
But God raised him from the dead,
This is the whole point Paul is making. This is the crux of the matter.
He is risen!
Jesus died, but was resurrected. He is alive. The tomb is empty. Death had no power over Christ.
Just as God promised, He walked out of that tomb alive - resurrected, never to die again.
And the disciples saw the empty tomb. And they saw the risen Jesus:
and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.
For many days the risen Christ appeared to His disciples.
And they saw Him, and now they were witnesses - eyewitnesses of the resurrection. And they brought their witness to the people who did not see it with their own eyes.
And if Christ had died and been buried, and that’s it, what is the message? Why bring that message to anyone? How will anyone be blessed by believing that Jesus simply died?
Think about it:
Yes, Jesus’ death was for us. Yes, God loved us so much that He gave us His One and only Son to take on our sin and die so we could be forgiven.
God the Son loved us so much that He carried His cross - and worse, carried our sin! - to Calvary where He faced the punishment for sin. And that sin was punished. And in His death, He set us free from the penalty of sin.
But if the story ends there - with His death - how would we know any of that was accomplished? How would we know that God fulfilled all He said He would for thousands of years?
Why should we believe that all Christ promised He would do was done, and still will be?
The answer is that we wouldn’t and, quite honestly, we shouldn’t.
But God!… He raised Him from the dead.
Christ is risen. That’s the good news - the Gospel - that the disciples brought to the world. That is the news Paul brought to these people.
That is what God promised since the time of Abraham. Which is why Paul says:
And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers,
Stop there. Paul was bringing the good news - the Gospel. And he doesn’t say that the good news is only that Jesus is alive after dying. No, the good news is that by rising again, Jesus fulfilled what God promised to His people from the moment He called a people.
The good news is that God keeps His promises!
The good news is that because the tomb is empty, we can believe.
No, I take that back: because the tomb is empty, we should believe.
Just like, if the story ends with Jesus’ death - there is no reason to believe; so too, because the story continues - because to this very day, Jesus is alive! - because Jesus did rise from the grave, the fact of the matter is that there is no reason not to believe!!
Here’s a fact: if you have not placed your faith in Christ - if you don’t believe in Him - whatever your reason, it isn’t good enough.
It just isn’t. Because the tomb is empty.
And if you have placed your faith in Christ, and you don’t believe God – if you don’t believe every last promise He has made – whatever your reason, it just isn’t good enough.
You have every reason to believe Him. You have every reason to live like you believe Him. You have every reason to believe that He will finish what He has started in you and that even when by all worldly standards it looks like He has failed you…
…brothers and sisters, we still have every reason to believe He has not. That He has not forsaken us. That He will never fail us.
Because He promised He never would.
And God keeps His promises!
Like He promised that Christ would die for us and then be raised on the third day to prove it.
That He is risen proves every last word that God has spoken – every last promise will be fulfilled.
Because Jesus is risen, God has fulfilled His promises to us. That is the Gospel:
And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus
Note what the fulfillment of the promise is. Christ would be raised.
That’s the promise. The promise given to the fathers in the Old Testament.
Christ is not the promise. He is not the message of salvation.
The risen Christ is the promise! Christ resurrected is the message of salvation!
The once dead but now resurrected and victorious Christ is the promise God has fulfilled.
This is the promise He has fulfilled to the children of the fathers - to all who share the faith of Abraham.
This has been fulfilled to us!
And Paul doesn’t leave it at that. He is in a synagogue, where the prophets are read every week. He wants to show everyone there how they had been reading and hearing about the resurrected Jesus all along.
And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “ ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’
As Paul said, this comes from Psalm 2:
I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
The Psalmist says he will tell of the decree - of what God has sovereignly said would be. And this is written from the point of view of the One decreed by God.
YHWH said to me - “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”
And while this can lead us down a road of theological debates over what it means that God the Son is begotten of God the Father, that really isn’t the point of what Paul says here.
Because he speaks about Christ being raised, and then points us to this Psalm.
Why?
In the ancient world, kings were considered in many societies to be deities - usually the son of the highest god. We see this from the Pharaohs of Egypt all the way to some of the Roman Emperors.
And the Psalm Paul pulls from here is a royal Psalm. It’s about the King. The King, Who is also God’s Son.
Let’s get some more of the context. God says:
“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
The “Son” here is the king. And this speaks of the ultimate King - the true King of all the earth - as the Son of God - the King God has established.
Who is this?
Paul says it is the risen Christ.
It is through the resurrection that Christ was made King over all the earth. He is the true Son of God - the true King. He is who all the imposter kings of the earth have claimed to be.
And God has proved Who He is by raising Him from the dead.
As Paul says to the Roman believers of the good news:
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
That is the decree. God decreed the Lordship of Christ by raising Him from the dead.
It is because He is risen that He is King.
Just as God promised. This is fulfilled by the resurrection, Paul says.
But Paul isn’t done. He wants those of faith who have not seen the risen Jesus for themselves to know for sure that God has kept His promises. So He points to more of what God has promised:
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.’
Paul here is referring to Isaiah 55, where God says this through His prophet:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
That glorification was achieved in the resurrection.
He has made Christ not just the King of Israel as He promised to David, but He is King over all – over all the nations that did not know YHWH. He is the King of all who thirst; of all who have nothing to offer on their own.
Through the resurrection God said Christ will draw all people to Himself. That is what God promised.
And that is what He fulfilled through the resurrection.
So I ask what God did through Isaiah: why do we labor for what does not satisfy? Oh, how many things we have striven for in our lives that we no longer care about one bit.
How many times we have re-prioritized our lives.
How many things that were so important to us 20, 10, even a few years ago no longer have any relevance to us.
Do you know why that happens? Because we thirst, but we go to the wrong place to have our thirst satisfied.
Because we spend what we have on that which cannot fill us.
We labor and labor and labor - and for what? Whatever it is, we lose the reward for our labors at death.
Unless, we hear the promises of God, and delight ourselves in them. Unless we strive to live according to the everlasting covenant that is rooted in God’s steadfast love.
Unless we share with our risen Savior the sure blessings God gives to His own:
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.’
Blessed are those who have not seen with our physical eyes, and yet believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead.
He was made manifest in the last times for our sake who through Him believe in the God Who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory - just as Isaiah predicted - He raised him from the dead and gave Him glory so that our faith and our hope would be in Him.
And Paul is not done laying out his case just yet.
He has spoken of the promise to the true King that He would be His Son – and this was fulfilled by the resurrection.
He has spoken of all that would be fulfilled through the covenant with David – which Paul has already said was fulfilled at the resurrection.
And now, Paul shows that every king, and every promise, and every covenant pointed to Christ – and was fulfilled by the resurrection:
Therefore he says also in another psalm, “ ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
You see, just like we sometimes seek earthly things to satisfy – and we do, even if we have placed our faith in Christ. And just like Paul wants to make sure we know that we can’t find true satisfaction by seeking earthly things, Paul wants to make sure that along with those earthly things, we don’t look to earthly kings.
Because Christ is King, because He is risen.
This comes from Psalm 16 – a Psalm of David. As a prophet, David predicted the resurrection.
Because the Holy One of God isn’t him. And he knew it. He knew the covenant pointed to Christ, the true King.
Because David – after fulfilling God’s purpose – he died, and was buried, and his story did end there. But Christ – Whom God raised up – His did not.
For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption.
All of these Old Testament promises are fulfilled in Christ. Things God said long ago, all came to pass when Christ walked out of the tomb in victory.
So that we may know that God is a God Who keeps every promise.
So we may know that all He said is fulfilled in the risen Christ.
So that we may know that death has been overcome.
So that we may know our sins have been forgiven because He took them to the grave, and left them in the grave:
Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,
Through the Man Jesus - God the Son in the flesh - forgiveness of sins is proclaimed.
Through the risen Christ forgiveness of sins is proclaimed.
and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Paul talks here about the Law. And while we never lived under the Law of Moses, Paul is clear elsewhere that with the giving of the Law, sin was counted against everyone who transgressed the will of God.
And we have all done that.
We are all guilty before God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
And the wages of sin, is death.
But for everyone who believes, Paul says we are free of all that.
We are set free from the Law because Christ fulfilled it.
We are set free from sin because Christ lived sinless.
We are set free from death because Christ died.
We are set free from the curse because Christ became it.
And we know all of this to be true, because Christ is risen.
So we see in what Paul says in our passage today all that has been fulfilled by the resurrection.
We see what has been fulfilled of those who did not believe, but turned Jesus over to death.
We see what was fulfilled of Christ Who was rejected by His own and turned over to death on a cross, but rose on the third day.
We see what has been fulfilled to us – to all who believe because of the resurrection. We have received the promise, and we know it.
We are free!
Now all that’s left is for God to fulfill through us what He promised. To fulfill what is sure because of the resurrection.
Because we were buried with Christ into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For the death Christ died, He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives - that began when He walked out of the tomb - that life He lives, He lives to God.
So we must also consider ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God through Jesus Christ.
We must present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.
Because we have. God promised we would be, and He fulfilled that through the risen Christ.
Now, we have to seek to have it fulfilled through us as we live in the resurrection power of the King.
Not seeking that which perishes. Not striving for what cannot satisfy. Not spending on what will never fill us.
But seeking Christ. Seeking to be satisfied by Him and Him alone. And seeking to be filled by what only He can give.
Do we believe Him? (get an answer)
Then let’s receive the full blessing of believing Him.
Let’s walk out of here like Christ walked out of the tomb - unto God, in newness of life, that His glory may go forth.
That the risen Christ may be glorified in the lives of those He died for.
And that more and more people may share in the blessing of believing in the risen Savior.
I end where I started: Christ is risen.
If you believe that you are blessed beyond measure.
Be satisfied with that blessing - be filled - and live unto God, as one brought from death to life.
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
