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Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday and I want to welcome you to the end of our look
at the Gospel of Mark together. This is the last day of our look at the last
chapter of the Gospel of Mark, the resurrection chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
And we've been talking this week about the resurrection of Christ and putting
ourselves in different chairs to look at the resurrection, first from the
viewpoint of the women who were there on that first day, and then the viewpoint
of an historian and how historically accurate this truth of Jesus's life and
death and resurrection are.

Then the chair of a skeptic and how you might allow doubts to come into your
mind and why that happens and how to confront that. Yesterday, the chair of a
theologian, we had one day to look at it, the theology, the truth of the impact
of the resurrection. You could spend your entire life studying it and never
finish that study.

Today, we're going to look at the resurrection personally from the chair I'm
sitting in, from the chair you're sitting in, from our chair, from your chair.
Sure, the resurrection is important, but the real importance is found when you
move to your chair. The resurrection has changed history.

It is the foundation of the most powerful world religion, but that's only a
byproduct of the real power of the resurrection. The major purpose of the
resurrection is to change you. So let me read for you again, Mark chapter 16,
verses one to eight.

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome,
brought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus's body. Very early on the
first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb
and they asked each other, who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the
tomb? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large,
had been rolled away.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe, sitting
on the right side, and they were alarmed. Don't be alarmed, he said. You were
looking for Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified.

He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him, but go tell his
disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee.

There you will see him, just as he told you. Trembling and bewildered, the women
went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were
afraid.

I want to focus on the message that was given to those women in that tomb. As
they listen that first day, that message is also for you. It's also for me.

That first day they heard, he is not here. And because he is not here, because
he was not there in that grave and he's no longer in that grave, never will be
in that grave again, neither does death, death have any power over you.
Yesterday, as we looked at the theology of the resurrection, we heard a lot
about death, not having any staying, any power any longer.

Oh, we still die physically, but eternally we will be alive. And even the
physical death that we experience in these bodies, these bodies will be
resurrected to be with him someday. What an incredible, incredible truth from
the scripture.

He is not here. And because of that, I have new life. Death does not have power
over you.

On that first day, these women also heard he has risen. He's not here. He has
risen.

He lives on. And that means he can live on through you. The early Christian
greeting when they saw each other on the street was to look at each other and
say, he has risen because they wanted to remind themselves of the victory.

This is the major victory of your life. You may have family victories and
business victories and educational victories, and you may have other life
victories, but the major victory of my life, the major victory of your life is
the victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because that is the one that's
going to last forever. That is the one that most impacts my life today.

If I'll only allow it to, it's the victory of the risen Christ. He is not here.
He has risen.

And then the next thing they hear is he is going before you. He's going to be
there to meet you in Galilee. The command that they had heard from the beginning
as disciples of Christ to follow me, it didn't end at the tomb.

Instead, the command follow me. It's amplified in the resurrection because Jesus
Christ has resurrected because he is in heaven now. That means every one of the
believers, the billions of believers in the world today can personally follow
him.

If Jesus was still walking this earth physically, only a few people could
personally follow him at the same time. But because he is within us spiritually,
each one of us can follow him in our daily lives. We can live out that command
to take up the cross daily and to follow him.

He's going before you. So you follow him. What does it mean to live the
resurrected life?

It's the he is not here life. It's the he is risen life. It's the he is going
before you life.

But it's also the go and tell life, go and tell. Now it took these women some
time to get it. They didn't get it right at first.

So if you haven't gotten it right at first, you're just like them and you're
just like me. I struggle with going and telling. I struggle with getting it
right at first.

I can certainly relate to these women. So how do you go and tell? How do you
become the kind of person whose life lets other people know of this kind of life
that only Jesus Christ can give?

You do you do four things. Number one, you look to a resurrected Lord. You look
to your personal relationship on a daily basis with him.

You don't let your faith become something that's just rules and rituals. You
don't let your faith becoming something that's just completing a set of tasks
that need to be done at the church or tasks that need to be done in your
devotional life. You make it about a daily relationship with him.

You look to a resurrected Lord and then you live a resurrected life. If you want
to be a go and tell kind of person, you got to live a resurrected life. You got
to let the life that Jesus has be poured into your life on a daily basis.

And that comes in your decisions. That comes when you face temptations. That
comes when you stumble and sin and you go to him for forgiveness and
restoration.

That comes as you deal with the struggles and the problems and trials and
difficulties of life. And that comes just as you work through the daily details
and routine of life. You can live a resurrected life in every one of those
areas.

How do you do that? You live the way that Jesus told us to live. He told us he
wants us to live with a love for God and a love for others.

He said nothing's more important than that. Start there. If you want to live a
resurrected life, start there.

Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as
yourself and watch what the resurrected life does to make you a go and tell kind
of person. You look to a resurrected Lord, you live a resurrected life, and then
you also long for a resurrected body.

You long for that day when we're going to be in heaven with him and he's going
to give us a new body. Some people get confused by these verses that we've read
this week and think that because we don't get our resurrected body for a while,
that means we don't immediately go to be with Jesus when we die. No, immediately
you go to be with Jesus when you die, if you stay long enough on this world to
die before he comes again.

But later, Jesus is going to resurrect even our bodies out of the tomb and he's
going to combine our resurrected spirit with our resurrected body. If you want
to have more study about this, you can go to a foundation study on the afterlife
that I've done and get some more about this, but I just want you to not be
confused about the fact that we get a resurrected body, just like Jesus got a
resurrected body. And as you look at your body, you look at your life in this
world today and you see the struggles that you go through.

You see that things aren't perfect. Maybe you're getting older and you feel like
I'm going downhill, not uphill. When it comes to my physical body, the story is
not over yet.

And when you feel pains and struggles in this earth, on this planet, even in
your own body, instead of just being doubtful, instead of just being afraid,
instead of just wondering what's wrong with me, turn those feelings into a
longing, into a longing for a resurrected body, knowing that one day I'm going
to spend eternity with him. What do you do to become a go and tell person? You
look to a resurrected Lord.

You live a resurrected life. You long for a resurrected body. And then the
fourth thing, I want to go back to the first thing, because it's so important,
you look to a resurrected Lord.

Yeah, I put it in twice, but it deserves it because really what it's all about
is my daily relationship with Jesus. And I can have a daily relationship with
Jesus because he is alive. He's not in that tomb anymore.

So I can talk to him every day. I can get guidance from him every day. I can get
strength from him and encouragement from him every day, because he is a
resurrected Lord.

What does it mean that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead? It means this,
Ephesians chapter two, verses one to 10. I ask for you, you were dead in your
transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of
this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at
work and those who are disobedient, all of us also lived among them at one time,
gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and
thoughts.

Like the rest, we were by nature, objects of wrath, but because of his great
love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. Even when we
were dead in our transgressions, it is by grace, you have been saved and God
raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ
Jesus, in order that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches
of his grace expressed in the kindness that he has for us in Christ Jesus. It is
by grace that you've been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which
God prepared in advance for us to do. And so we come to the end of our study of
the gospel of Mark. I like what somebody on our research team said about Mark
chapter 16.

This has to be one of the best chapters of the Bible. This is our hope and
promise. And Mark and his typical style has not said it with a lot of words.

He just gets right to the point all the way through the book. We've seen that
again and again and again in this bullet point gospel. He just gives us the
bullet points of the, of the resurrection of Christ.

And really that's all you need. He is alive. And because he is alive, I can live
a new life.

Jesus, thank you. Thank you for everything we've read in this gospel. Thank you
for what you taught us.

Thank you for the miracles that you did to show us your power and your
compassion. Thank you for the way you confronted even the enemies of faith in
ways that invited them in. Thank you for the tender way that you cared for your
disciples when they had doubts.

But thank you also for the way that you challenge their lives, even as you
challenge our lives and thank you, Jesus. Thank you for the Garden of Gethsemane
where you chose not my will, but God, your will. Thank you for the night of
trials that you faced.

Thank you for your willingness to choose to go to the cross and to hang there,
dying for our sins. Thank you, Jesus Christ, that you allowed yourself to be
placed in a cool tomb. God in a tomb.

What humility. And thank you, Jesus Christ, that you are undoubtedly, certainly,
you are alive. And because you are alive, I have new life.

Thank you for what the meaning of your life is in my daily life. Thank you,
Jesus Christ, for this indescribable gift, for this great victory, for this
incredible joy of your life. Help me to live that life today.

In your name, I pray. Amen. I want to invite you to join us next week as we
continue in our regular studies and drive time devotions, or you might want to
go to one of our websites or on iTunes and look up drive time devotions and do
one of the other studies of one of the other books, you can do them with us in
order, or you can do them in a different order as you would like, whatever way.

I am thrilled at your commitment, your daily commitment to listen to God's word
and let it impact your life. Thank you for finishing this study of the gospel of
Mark and thank God for the difference that he has made in our lives through the
truth of his word. We'll see you next week for the next study and drive time
devotions.