Because He Lives

Dr. Charles Stanley, next on In Touch, Because He Lives. Jesus was crucified and those who stood around Him knew that He was dead. No question in their minds about it, He was a dead man. Nobody expected Him to rise from the grave, He was a dead man. So, Joseph, who was one of the council, came and asked for His body and the body was given to him. And the ladies came, bringing their spices and perfumes and so forth to wrap His body. And anybody who was in the crowd, anybody who was in the And anybody who thought about a resurrection said it was nonsense, in fact, that's what the Bible says. For example, that these words appeared to them as nonsense and they would not believe them. And we live in a world where many people still think today that it's nonsense. Why do you and I get together and talk about a dead man? We get together and know in our heart that He's not dead, that He's alive, that He's living within every single one of us. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to this twenty-fourth chapter of Luke, and it's always good to be reminded scripturally of what's happening. Twenty-fourth chapter of Luke, beginning in the first verse. But on the first day of the week, at the early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they'd prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly appeared, and they were in dazzling clothes.

They had to be angels. And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? Because they didn't expect Him to be alive. He's not here, but He has risen. And remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of the sinful men and be crucified and rise on the third day. Think about how many times He talked about all this. They didn't get that part. They got the part about Him being crucified, and they didn't like that. The whole idea of rising from the dead was a totally unknown, unbelievable fact. And even when the Son of God walked with them and explained to them carefully, they still didn't believe it. And then the Scripture says, And they remembered His words and returned from the tomb, and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, also the other women with them, were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense. They walked with Him, listened to Him, watched Him heal, watched Him do all the, watched Him raise Lazarus from the dead. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, and looking in, and John's account of this, Peter ran, he outran him, looked in, Peter walked in to find out what was happening. So, you and I might ask the question, So, what does that

mean to you and me? And I would ask you this question, Do you really and truly believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was buried and then walked out of the tomb? Most people still don't believe it. A majority of people in the world absolutely do not believe that somebody could be crucified and really die, and then come back alive and be seen and heard. But you and I believe it because not only the Word of God says it, but He lives within our heart. And in our life, we sense His presence and power. And so, I would just like to answer the question, Because He does live, what does it mean to you and me personally? So, I would just simply begin by saying, Because He lives, we don't have to live with loneliness in our heart. We can live with the absolute assurance that Jesus Christ is alive and living within us. It's exactly what He promised. He said to His disciples, for example, before He left, He said, I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I will come again to you. And so, He said, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, He'll be in you, with you, and upon you, and He will enable you to do the things that I've called you to do. But primarily, I'm going to be there with you. So, I'd ask you this question. If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the resurrected Lord, who's with you? Who can promise you that they'll never leave you? Nobody.

Only the living Christ can make that promise. So, because He lives and He's not dead, you and I don't have to live alone. And when He made on the promise that He would never leave them nor forsake them, that's a promise that belongs to every single child of God. And all of us have been through situations and circumstances where we may have felt alone, wondered where God was. He's exactly where He said He would be, living within us in the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. So therefore, because He lives, I don't have to be alone. I don't have to live alone. And many of us live by ourselves alone, but we're not alone because the resurrected Jesus is alive within you. You can never be alone. The second thing that I think is important because of the resurrection is this. We don't have to worry about whether God will provide for us or not, because He promised to do that. Now, if He had promised it and stayed on the cross, it'd be meaningless. He promised it, said to His disciples, for example, He said He would provide for them. And in that sixth chapter of Matthew, for example, when He was assuring those early disciples of what He would do for them, making provision for them, no matter what was going on, He made that promise to them. He said, as the Father takes care of the birds of the air, the grass, the flowers, and all the rest, that He would provide for our needs.

And I wonder how often you and I have needs and we hassle with them, we argue about them, we tell other people about them, but we don't turn immediately to the resurrected Christ who made you this promise that whatever need we have, He will provide that need. Because He doesn't do it exactly when we think He ought to. Because He doesn't do it exactly the way we think He ought to. We think, well, God, where are You? He's where He's always been. Would you not agree that Jesus would never fail to keep a promise? He is God who came in the human flesh in order to reveal Himself to us. Therefore, this is not just another man making a promise, this is holy God making a promise. And so, when I think about the very idea of the resurrection and the fact that He's taken away all the uncertainty, that you and I don't have to worry about things. We can trust them into His hands. Listen, there is no situation, no circumstance too large that His almighty sovereign hands can't handle it. But that promise only belongs to those of us who believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. It was a substitutionary death. He took our place. He not only died on the cross, He was buried in the tomb only for a short period of time, that He rose from the grave, He ascended to the Father, and He lives within the heart and in the life of every single believer. And somebody says, Well, I don't believe that.

Just because you don't believe it doesn't make it's not true. Because it is true, you have to get your belief system consistent with the Word of the living God. Jesus is alive, seated at the Father's right hand, ready to make provision for everything you and I need. Because He lives, you and I can pray with confidence. And a lot of people pray and say words, but they don't pray with confidence. They pray and hope God listens. They hope things are going to work out better. They hope, hope, hope, hope, but no confidence, no assurance. And one of my favorite passages of Scripture, the Apostle John wrote in that first John, little first John book at the back of the Bible, when he said, This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and if we know that He hears us, we know that we have the petition we desired of Him. And remember what Jesus said. He said, Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He that knocked, it'll be opened. And listen. He says, every single thing that you and I ask in prayer, according to His will, He's going to provide. And I think how many times people pray with no expectation. If you pray with no expectation, there's something wrong, because that prayer has a great crack right down the middle. We're to pray with confidence.

And you see, the only way you're going to pray with confidence is to believe that Jesus Christ, who went to the cross and paid your sin dead and full, ascended to the Father, is seated in His right hand to make intercession for us. That's what He says. If you don't believe that, then praying is sort of futile. The answers to our prayer, the confidence we have in prayer is based on the fact that not Jesus was crucified, but based on the fact that He rose from the grave, was seen and, listen, heard and ascended to the Father. And He says in Hebrews, He sits at the right hand of Almighty God. That's who He is. But if you don't believe that, you haven't, in other words, when you pray, what do you think? And so many people say, well, I pray and nothing happens. You know why? Because nothing happens because you do not believe and expect and anticipate and look for an answer given to you, not by your good works, but by the living Christ. Because He lives, everything is different. But it isn't just because He lives, it's because He lives and I believe He lives. And I'm committed to that. And then, I think about what He said in, also in the Sermon on the Mount, because He lives that you and I can have a godly, powerful influence in the lives of others. And you remember He used a couple of illustrations here in this Sermon on the Mount. And He said, for example, you are the light of the world.

He's talking about us, His children. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Listen to this. Let your life so shine that those, listen, who see your good works will glorify your Father who is in heaven. What is He saying? God intends for us to live the kind of life, watch this, in this spiritually very dark world, that you and I would be lights. And there are people today who would like to put out our light. The one thing about our relationship to Jesus Christ, nobody can put that light out, because that is Christ living on the inside of you through the Holy Spirit. And He intends for us to live the kind of life that we influence others, makes an impact on others. Every father to impact his family, every mother to impact her family. And for us to grow up as children and grow up as adults and that we live our life because of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, the resurrected Christ. We live our life confident, bold, assured that our testimony about Jesus is absolutely the eternal truth, eternal truth that has impacted us all the days we've been saved. He intends for us to be that kind of person. In other words, you say, well, I'm a nobody. There's no such thing. When He saved you, He made you a somebody. And you are a somebody, listen, indwelt by the Spirit of God,

sealed by the Spirit of God with a mission by the Spirit of God. He said we're to be like salt and light. That is, it is impossible to put salt on food and you're not taste it. It flavors it. We are to be the flavoring. We are to be the seasoning of our society. And when we cease to be the seasoning of our society, things grow dark. He said the light of the world, the salt of the earth. And because He, listen, not because He was just crucified, but because He was crucified and lives within us, it's not our life, it's His life. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ made all of this possible. And then I think about this. I think about the fact that because He lives, we experience the Holy Spirit within us. You remember what He said to His disciples? He said, Now, we've been together these three years, but I want you to sit down and wait till the Spirit of God comes Spirit of God comes upon you. Wait till Pentecost, you won't be prepared to do what I've called you to do without the Holy Spirit. So, let me explain carefully to somebody who may be wondering. The Holy Spirit of the living God is the third person of the trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to His disciples, you won't be able, you're not equipped to do what I'm telling you you must do until the Spirit of God comes upon you.

And so, that's why He said, sit down in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power. Let me tell you what's happened to you now that you've trusted Christ as your Savior. When you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, it was because the Holy Spirit was doing His work in your life, opening your eyes, opening your ears, opening your understanding to understand what it means for Jesus to die, a substitutionary death which meant He was your substitute. God placed upon Jesus all of your sin and your guilt. He was your substitute so that you'd not have to pay the price of eternal separation from God. And now, what did He do? He sealed every single one of us. When you trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit didn't just come into your life. The Bible says in Ephesians twice, He came into your life to seal you as a child of God. And listen carefully. You may be one of those persons who's been saved and you think, well, I used to be saved. No, you either weren't or you still are because God's seal cannot be broken by anything. It's the resurrected Christ who makes our salvation so certain, so absolutely secure, so unbreakable. The salvation that He died for is not something we have to work at keeping up. Sealed, and the Bible says, well, how long? Until the day of redemption. Ultimately, until He comes again.

We're sealed as His children. And because He lives, I know that that's true, and you and I can count on it. We're not saved for a season. We're not saved if, we're not saved when, but we're saved by the grace of God, the third person of the Trinity seals us forever as one of His children. So, praise God we can sing. Because He lives, we can face all kinds of tomorrows. Then I think about it in this light, and that is because He lives, we can be at peace in the midst of the most difficult times in our life. The most difficult times. He said, my peace, watch this. He said, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give unto you, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now, what kind of peace does the world give? Well, I can tell you what some folks try. Some people when they're going through difficult circumstances, they decide to drink. And they think if they drink enough, they'll drink away their sorrows. No, you can't. Or they're on some other kind of drug. Or all kinds of immorality and all kinds of situations and circumstances, doing their best to forget their circumstance, to overcome it by being totally obnoxious in their attitude and their conduct. No, when the Scripture says peace, it's the peace that He

gives that's able to sustain us. That is, when you go into the most difficult times, He is your anchor, that nothing can blow you away from the anchor of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because, remember who He is. This is God who came in the flesh to reveal the living God. And He's seated at the Father's right hand. And He says, my peace I give unto you. The world's got all kind of approaches for peace. Most of it's in a bottle, or most of it is in some kind of container. The peace that He gives cannot be contained by anything, because it's the peace of Almighty God. But if you don't have Him as your Savior, you don't have anything. Let me ask you this, what assurance do you have about anything in your life if you reject the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord, the Master? If you reject Him and refuse to accept Him into your life, what assurance do you have? Don't fool yourself, you can't have enough money. You can't have enough things. You can't go enough places. You can't control enough. You can't be big enough in the eyes of people. Because you see, you don't have anything in reality until you find Jesus Christ as your Savior and you trust your life to Him. He came to give us life, and He calls it the abundant life. That's a life man can't create. It's a life man can't destroy.

It is the life of Almighty God, the resurrected Christ, because He loves us. And that's a reason we can sing, because He lives, I can face tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, all the days of our life we can face when we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and our Lord. Then I think about all of us are going to face death one of these days, and because He lives, we can face death courageously, boldly, and confident that what He said was true. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. The only people who can relentlessly believe that are those who have received Christ as their Savior, because He's the source of your life. And we can sing and praise God and shout, do whatever we choose to do to express our gratitude to Almighty God. But He's the one who is our life. And so, think about this. The truth is there's no end to your life. When you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, the gift of eternal life becomes yours. It is a life that cannot be ended under any condition. Because He lives, you and I can live forever. Now, there's a passage of Scripture I want to turn to to make all this reality, and that is Romans chapter ten. There are two verses in this passage I want you to listen to carefully, because Paul says in these two verses, there are many others, but I just chose these two. Listen to this, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

What he's saying is if you verbally say what is true in your heart, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and I believe that He's risen from the dead. Notice he says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord. You say, oh, I believe about Jesus. No. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Do you believe that He's a person of the Trinity? Do you believe He came to earth, died on the cross as a substitute for you, taking all of your sins, bearing them Himself in order that you might be forgiven and cleansed of your sin? Do you believe that's who He is? Do you believe that's what He did? Not just believing about Him, but if you confess with your mouth Jesus Christ as Lord, you have accepted Him as your Savior, you believe that He's the Son of God, you believe He indwells you. Can you say that? Notice what he said, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Those two things are absolutely essential. You must be willing to confess Him as Lord, and you must be willing to believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. So, when people say, oh, I believe about Jesus. That's not it. Oh, I don't doubt maybe He could have risen from the dead. No, if you confess with your mouth, you make a confession, a commitment, I do believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord.

He's the sovereign God of this universe. He's the Savior and the only Savior. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and you believe that He, Jesus, who was crucified and buried, also rose from the dead and is seated at the Father's right hand, do you believe that? If somebody says, well, I don't know about that, then you're not saved. Paul makes it very clear in just that one verse. Then he says, for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. He made it very clear what salvation's all about. He didn't say anything about going to church to be saved, that we're going to celebrate Him. And something about good works to be saved because He says, for by grace have you saved, my undeserved love and favor. For by grace have you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. That faith is a gift of God lest any person should boast. Our salvation is wrapped up in His awesome love and power, not in our good works, not what we do, not what we say we're going to do, but just the fact that He is the living, resurrected Christ, Lord. Have you ever done that? Have you ever come to the place in your life where you acknowledged, I'm a sinner, disobeyed God, rebelled against God, had my way? Have you ever done that?

And then ask Him to forgive you, not on the basis of looking around to see how good you've been, but looking at the cross and recognize His death was not simply the death of a man, it was a substitutionary death. He took your place. Now watch this. Only God could die for the sins of the whole world. Only He could take upon Himself all the sin of all mankind for all of time. That's who He is. And so, therefore, our salvation depends upon our relationship to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the living God who lives within you. If you are going to heaven, there's only one route, and that's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, confession of Him as your Savior, and believe that He is the resurrected Lord. And I would simply ask you, if you have never done that, one of these days you're going to die, and then it's going to be too late. And you say, well, I think I'll be okay. That's the devil's lie. You will not be okay, only, listen to this, the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross, who rose from the grave. That is man's only hope. Listen to this. If you think salvation comes any other way, what other way is there? It means that you're going to depend on something you do.

Thank God. He made it possible only by something He does, not by something we try to do. Because how much are you going to do? How long are you going to do it? No. Somebody says, that's being narrow-minded. Yes, very narrow-minded. Because He didn't want us to be confused. He wanted us to realize there's the cross and the empty tomb. Anybody can understand those two things, if they're willing to, and willing to surrender your life to Him. That's my prayer for you. Stop fiddling around, fooling yourself, trying to think that God's going to accept you because you've been so good. If you could see yourself the way God sees you, you wouldn't like that at all. He's willing to cleanse you, make you a brand new person. Listen to this, and He says in His Word concerning death, absent from the body, present with the Lord. And listen, there is no hope without Jesus. And there's all the hope for all eternity with Him as your Savior. That's my prayer for you. And Father, how grateful we are You made Your message so simple. We thank You for trusting You, trusting in what You did at the cross, believing what You left us, an empty tomb,

and the awesome assurance that You're the living God. We say thank You in Jesus' name, amen.