An Empty Tomb; A Full Life - Part A

If there was an inscription over the tomb of Jesus Christ, it might have been appropriate if it read, don't worry, I'm just borrowing this for the weekend. Because he only was in that grave, just a part of three days, and then he rose again from the dead. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip begins his message, Empty Tomb, Full Life, and examines the Apostle Peter's sermon on Pentecost to show you what Jesus' resurrection means to you. But first, here's a resource that gives you a glimpse of eternity.

Hell. Here's what C.S. Lewis said about this subject.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, The Problem of Pain, these words, There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and especially of our Lord's own words.

It has always been held by Christendom, and it has the support of reason. Ecclesiastes says God has put eternity in our heart. To help you understand what awaits both believers and unbelievers in eternity, we've put together an exciting resource called The Eternity Package featuring Skip's booklet, Hell, No, Don't Go, and seven of his strongest teachings about eternity, including The Truth About Hell and What Most People Don't Know About Heaven. This powerful new resource package is our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to support the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig. So get your copy of the Hell, No, Don't Go booklet and The Eternity Package on CD or as a digital download today when you give a gift of $50 or more.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. This eternity package is some of the most powerful information for you and to give to family and friends. See, if there is no hell, then the Bible is a book of myths. If there is no hell, then Jesus was just a misguided soul. If there is no hell, then the crucifixion was pointless. There's no significance in dying to save us from what? If there's no hell, then you should sin as much as you possibly can because it's not sin. It's just fun, right? It's just all about you getting pleasure in this life, sucking it like an orange dry at every drop of enjoyment you can. So get your copy of the Hell, No, Don't Go booklet and The Eternity Package on CD or as a digital download today when you give a gift of $50 or more.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now let's turn to Acts 2 as we join Skip for today's teaching. So a Sunday school teacher was telling her third graders about the resurrection and then she asked them a question. She goes, okay, students, does anyone here know the first words Jesus said when He left the tomb and little Bethany shot her hand up in the back? She goes, I know, I know. And so she stood up and said Jesus' first words when He came out of the tomb and she opened her arms up were this, ta-da.

I was always like that story, ta-da. From time to time when I travel, I like to, if I have spare moments, go to cemeteries and read the inscriptions on the gravestones. You might think you are a weird person, but I love to see what either they have made sure was written about them or what loved ones had to say about them. Some are quite lengthy, some are very minimal, but some of them are funny. And I did a little research and these are recorded registered inscriptions on gravestones.

Let me just share a few with you. This is from Niagara Falls, Canada. It reads on the tombstone, here lies the body of Jonathan Blake who stepped on the gas instead of the brake. Well, that's one way to always remember that he died in an automobile accident, I suppose. Another one from Edinburgh, Scotland was the grave of a local dentist. And the stone reads, stranger, tread this ground with gravity.

Dennis Brown is filling his last cavity. And here's one from Ruedoso, New Mexico that reads, here lies Johnny Yeast. That's his name, Johnny Yeast. Here lies Johnny Yeast, pardon me for not rising.

New Mexico. If there was an inscription over the tomb of Jesus Christ, it might have been appropriate if it read, don't worry, I'm just borrowing this for the weekend. Because he only was in that grave just a part of three days and then he rose again from the dead. Well, that is one of the themes, yes. It's worth celebrating.

You can't clap too much for that truth. In Acts chapter 2, that is the main theme of Peter's sermon. It is his sermon on the day of Pentecost. It is Peter's first sermon that is recorded in the Bible. And what's interesting is that while this is Peter's first sermon, this is our last sermon in the series Against All Odds. So I'm just going to rip Peter off and let him preach the last sermon in the series. We're going to take a portion of what he said and we're going to examine it in Acts chapter 2. Now let me just say, as a preacher, I'm going to give Peter an A on his preaching exam. This is his first sermon. He gets an A, not that he cares what I think.

But I give him an A for two reasons. Number one, 3,000 people respond to his message and get saved that day. That's a good message.

3,000 people. And number two, because it was a message filled with hope. Filled with hope. Because it's about the fact that Jesus conquered death through resurrection. Now I want you to think of Peter for just a moment. We know what Peter did. What was his occupation? He was a fisherman. So he had what a lot of men like that around the Sea of Galilee had. He had a few boats and nets and he'd get up every day and he'd fish for fish. And it was a very meager kind of a life. It was a very predictable life. In many ways a monotonous life. I'm even sure that Peter looked over the Sea of Galilee in a few days and thought, is this all there is to life?

Is this it? I'm born. I die. In between I catch a few fish.

Period. But then one day, one day, a man named Jesus stepped into his life and said, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. And in hanging around Jesus, watching him, hearing him, day after day, something happened in Peter's heart. It's called hope.

Hope. It was a hope that began to grow and grow and grow. And he thought, man, this is the life. Watching him perform miracles and what he's saying.

Nobody's done anything like this. He was greatly impacted. But then one day, something happened that shattered all of Peter's hopes. And that was Jesus died on a cross. Peter did not expect that. The day Jesus died, Peter's hope died.

It's like those disciples on the road to Emmaus who said about Jesus, and we were, past tense, we were hoping that he would have been the one to deliver Israel. So Peter went from an all time high to an all time low until the third day. And that first day of the week, that Sunday, when Jesus rose from the grave and showed himself to Peter, now Peter's hope, well, it could be called a living hope.

That's what Peter called it. Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 3, he said, according to his abundant mercy, he has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The day of the resurrection, Peter's hope came alive and stayed alive.

On that day, on resurrection Sunday, Peter's life moved from hopeless living to a hopeless living into a living hope. And that becomes the theme of this sermon that we're looking at. And again, we're not going to look at all of it, just a portion of his sermon.

But Peter has a premise. He's speaking about Jesus. That's the main subject of his sermon.

It's always good to have Jesus as the main subject of a preacher's sermon. Jesus is the main subject, but what Peter wants to show is that this man, Jesus, was a man, but not an ordinary man. He was the God-man. That he was unique from all other people in history. He was not normal. He was supranormal. He was not ordinary.

He was extraordinary. He was, in fact, God's predicted Messiah, fulfilling all of the Old Testament prophecies. And so Peter gives three lines of evidence for this, and they're simple. Jesus' life, Jesus' death, and Jesus' resurrection. That's what he looks at in a few verses. His miraculous life, his meaningful death, his magnificent resurrection. Go back to, or go to Acts chapter 2 and look at the 22nd verse. Just one verse to begin with. Here, Peter zeroes in on the life of Jesus when he says, Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. Jesus' miracles got people's attention.

It's easy to figure out why. They never had seen a miracle before. People got sick. People died. There were blind people around. There were deaf people around.

People got hungry. Then Jesus shows up, and he touches people who are blind. Suddenly they can see deaf people.

Suddenly they can hear. It got people's attention, and it was to them overwhelming evidence that Jesus was who he claimed to be. And the New Testament records over 30 miracles that Jesus performed, where he suspended natural law and enacted supernatural force. He had power over disease. He had power over deformities. He had power over demons. He had power over death. He miraculously showed power, giving evidence of who he was. And Jesus himself appealed to his power, his own power. He said this, John 14, believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence that I am the evidence of the miracles themselves. Then Jesus said in John chapter 10, the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. Sort of like saying nobody else can do what I've just done. Nobody else is out there performing miracles.

I am, and it shows that I am who I claim to be. So he appealed to his miraculous life. Even Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night said, we know that God is with you, for no man can do the signs that you do unless God is with him. And for that matter, the most bitter enemies that Jesus had were forced to admit that he had miraculous power. After Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, his detractors in Jerusalem said, what shall we do?

For this man works many signs. They had heard of them, they had seen them, there was evidence all around them. Simon Greenleaf, who was once a lawyer and at one time the professor of law at Harvard University, said, and I quote, a person who rejects Christ may choose to say that he does not accept it, but he may not choose to say there is not enough evidence.

Close quote. Jesus' miraculous life as attested by the New Testament historians proved that God's power was uniquely operating in him. And if he can do those miracles, then he can do the greatest miracle.

You know what that is? Save someone. What greater miracle could there be than getting a person from earth to heaven? That's the biggest miracle ever.

And if Jesus can unstop deaf ears and open blind eyes and raise people who were dead back to life, then he can do the greatest miracle and that is get a person from earth to heaven by salvation. A while back, a girl approached me. She had been at our Wednesday night Bible study. We're going through the Old Testament and the text that I read, one of the texts in that evening Bible study, it says, the Lord saved Israel on that day. She got so excited and I'm trying to listen, trying to figure out why she's so excited that that text made so much difference to her. The Lord saved Israel on that day. She goes, I was praying for my boyfriend and my boyfriend came forward that Wednesday night at the altar call. I go, well, that's great.

I'm trying to think, what does that have to do with the text? God saved Israel on that day and I said, well, that's great. And she goes, no, you don't understand.

My boyfriend's name is Israel. The Lord saved Israel on that day and that day he gave his life to Christ. She saw a miracle.

She'd been praying for that for a long time. And I get the privilege of watching people every week say yes to the Savior and have him immediately and eternally change their lives. So his miraculous life, that's Peter's first line of evidence. Second, Jesus' meaningful death, verse 23. Him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless or wicked hands have crucified and put to death. Now, at first blush, it would seem unthinkable, unimaginable that a man of the caliber like Jesus Christ could even die.

I mean, think about it. The very one who raised people back to life, died, unstopped, deaf ears, walked on water, fed the multitudes. So Peter wants to make it clear that just as Jesus' life was no ordinary life, his death was no ordinary death. In fact, do you notice in one verse how Peter approaches it from two different angles? It was God's foreordained plan, but you by your lawless or wicked hands have crucified and slain. So on one hand, Jesus' death was a vicious plot. On the other hand, it was a victorious plan. God ordained it. So we have both those elements together. Divine sovereignty, God purposed it. Human responsibility, you did it. All in one verse.

There's an age-old question I've been asked time and time again. The question goes like this, who's responsible for the death of Jesus Christ? Is it the Romans? Is it the Jewish leaders? Is it Judas Iscariot who betrayed him? Is it Pontius Pilate who gave him the sentence? Is it the false witnesses who accused him before the Sanhedrin?

Answer, yes, all of the above. But wait, you've left someone out. Me. I'm responsible. You. You're responsible. Because Jesus died for our sins.

But wait, you left somebody out. God. God.

It says, who being, verse 23, delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. What that tells me is God predetermined it. It was part of his plan all along. All along.

All along. For years there has been a theory about Jesus' death and resurrection, that it was all part of a plot. In fact, there was a book out years ago called The Passover Plot that says Jesus' death was staged by him and his resurrection was also staged by him. That Jesus had one of his followers give him water laced with a drug that would render him unconscious but not dead. And then he had another friend of his, Joseph of Arimathea, stick him in a tomb and nurse him back to health because he was still alive.

Though I don't agree with that theory at all, I do agree with the premise. It was part of a plot. But it wasn't a plot hatched by Jesus or Joseph of Arimathea or a few followers. It was a plot hatched in heaven by God himself who determined in advance that his son would come into this world, part of a divine plan. So in summing up the death of Jesus, let me make a few statements. Jesus' death was a strategy, a divine strategy. He is called in Revelation 13, the Lamb, slain from the, do you know the rest of it?

Foundations of the world. From the very beginning of time, it was part of the plan of God, the purpose of God, that his son would be crucified. So it was a strategy. It was also voluntary. Jesus didn't get caught and taken to court where he said, oh man, bummer, I got caught.

No, he didn't get caught and this is not an accident and it wasn't that he was just murdered by them. He chose to do it. It was voluntary. He said that he was the Good Shepherd and the Good Shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. He even made this statement, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I have the power, listen to what he said, I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it back up again. So his death was a strategy and his death was voluntary.

But there's more. His death was substitutionary. Jesus didn't die for his own sin because he didn't have any sin. He was the only one that lived a perfect life from beginning to end, never committed a single sin in his life. No, he died as a substitution for others.

Isaiah the prophet put it this way, all we like sheep have gone astray but God laid on him the iniquity of us all. So his death was a strategy, it was voluntary and it was substitutionary. Another statement I don't want to make about it is that Jesus' death was necessary, had to happen if the obstacle between us and God was going to be removed.

It was absolutely necessary. There's a separation that mankind has from God. You may not know about it, you may not feel it, but it's there. It's called your sin and my sin. And that roadblock can only be removed by that atoning death on the cross. Romans chapter 5, Paul says, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son. That is, we're reconciled. The roadblock, the obstacle was removed so that one party and the other party can be reconciled or brought together.

They're brought together by the removal of an obstacle. That's what the word reconciliation means. So his death was necessary. Now, although it was God's plan from the very beginning, as stated here by Peter, it doesn't make the ones who put Jesus on the cross any less guilty because it was their choice. They chose to be in that crowd and shout, crucify him.

Pilate chose to listen to the persuasive voices of the crowd and say, okay, take him to the place of execution. Everybody that day made a choice and today you have a choice to make. What are you going to do with Jesus Christ? You can say, well, I don't plan on really doing anything with Jesus Christ, thank you. I'm just going to wait and see what happens. I'm just going to live my life as I live my life.

I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to accept him. I'm not going to reject him. But you know what Jesus said? That if you don't receive him, you've rejected him. If you don't receive him, you've rejected him. You are either for me, he said, or you are against me. So if you say, well, I'm not for Jesus, then in Jesus' view, you're already against him.

You have a choice to make. And then I want to make one final statement before we get into the third vital point of Peter in his line of evidence, and that is Jesus' death was a victory. You know why it was a victory? Because he didn't stay dead.

Pretty simple, right? He didn't stay dead. Remember the old saying, you can't keep a good man down?

Well, you can't keep the God-man down. They put him in a grave, but three days later, he got up from that tomb. His resurrection conquered death.

It was a victory. So that's Peter's line of evidence in two short verses to them, his miraculous life, his meaningful death. Now, he goes to the third line of evidence, that Jesus is different than anyone else, and that is his resurrection, his miraculous resurrection. Now, I want you to notice how important the resurrection is. There are nine verses that Peter uses to speak about the resurrection. Now, think of it. He has used one verse to speak about Jesus' whole life, one verse to speak about Jesus' atoning death, and nine verses to speak about his resurrection.

Why? Because it's that important. Because that's the theme of his sermon. That's the theme of every sermon in the book of Acts. That is really essentially the theme of the New Testament.

The culmination of all redemptive history is the resurrection. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Against All Odds. Find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now, here's Skip to share how you can connect you and many others with the truth of God's Word with a gift to keep these messages going out around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. God's Word informs every aspect of our life with timeless wisdom from his own heart. This ministry exists to connect people around the world to God's Word so they can experience the life change that comes from knowing and following Christ. Through your generosity today, you can help expand Connect with Skip Heitzig into more major U.S. cities and reach more people with the life-changing truth of the Bible. Plus, you'll keep these teachings available to you wherever you listen.

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