Well, good morning everyone. If you would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 16 is where we left off. Seems like quite some time ago and we can last meet and I could be here. Mark chapter 16. Before we begin, let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our father, it is with grateful and thankful hearts that we bow in your presence this morning.

Father, thanking you for another opportunity to be able to meet together and to worship you, to hear the gospel of your dear son preached. Father, I pray that you would bless your word mightily. Bless your word as it goes forth. We are thankful to know that you've promised your word will not return unto you void, that it will accomplish the purpose where unto you've sent it. Father, I pray that you would be pleased this morning to send forth your word in power to accomplish a purpose of mercy and grace for your people, that you give us a time of refreshing and feeding on your word, that you would encourage our hearts and comfort our hearts with the preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and everything that he is for his people and everything that he has accomplished for his people.

Father, I pray you'd set our affection upon the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would be all in all to us. Father, I thank you for a place that you've given to us to meet together and worship and this family of believers that you have called together. Father, I pray you'd continue to bless us, that you continue to unite our hearts together in love for thee, Love for your gospel, need for your gospel, and a love for one for another. Father, we pray you'd be with those who are away from us, who are sick and not here for other reasons. Father, I pray that you would be with your people, that you'd heal, that you'd comfort, that you'd bring them back to us as soon as it could be thy will. Father, all these things we ask, and we give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now our lesson begins in Mark chapter 16 verse 9, and I've titled the lesson, When Christ Arose. And the first thing I want us to see here about the resurrection of Christ is that Christ did indeed arise from the dead. Verse 9 says, Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. Now I know that many in This day, the day of our Lord's earthly ministry and immediately after he was crucified, they wanted to deny the resurrection of Christ. Because if they crucified him and he arose from the dead, surely he's the son of God.

And they did not want to believe that. They didn't want anybody else to believe that. And even still today, many deny the resurrection of Christ. And it's because they look at it with fleshly eyes and fleshly logic. They say, well, it's impossible for a dead body to actually be risen again to life. They say that's impossible because they've never seen it happen. That's why they deny it.

But you know, faith believes this. Faith believes things that are not seen. I do not have to see the resurrected Christ to know and believe that Jesus of Nazareth arose from the dead. The scriptures tell us Christ arose from the dead. Now that's all I need in order to believe it, that Christ arose from the dead, the scriptures say so. Even the Old Testament scriptures prophesied of the resurrection of Christ. David wrote about it, we have a picture of it in the picture of Jonah the prophet. The Old Testament scriptures prophesied of the resurrection. And all of the apostles and the members of the early church They insisted on the resurrection of Christ.

This was a battleground in the day in which they lived, the resurrection of Christ. And you know, scripture says in the mouth of two or three witnesses should every word be established. Well, there were many eyewitnesses to the Lord's resurrection, weren't there? He appeared unto many. He talked with them. He taught them. He ate with them. And as far as anything we have recorded in scripture or even in history, not one of them, not one eyewitness of the Lord's resurrection ever recanted it. And I'll tell you why.

Because the resurrection of Christ is vital to the gospel. It's vital. We have no good news of the gospel to preach if Christ is not raised from the dead. If Christ is not raised from the dead, We're still in our sin. Our sin is not forgiven. We have no hope of being saved from our sin. We have no hope of justification. We have no hope of heaven if Christ is not risen. That's how important this thing is of the resurrection of Christ. And if you look over 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I'll show you this. 1 Corinthians 15. Verse 13.

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain. If Christ is not risen, our faith and our hope of eternal life is in a dead man who can't give us faith, can't give us life. Verse 17.

If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain and you're yet in your sins. If Christ is not risen, he didn't take our sin away. Our sin has not been put away. That sin, that judgment of sin, the condemnation of sin, the penalty of sin is still on us. If Christ is not risen, if he is not risen, he died and that sin that demanded his death still exists.

His blood didn't put it away, so we'd still be in our sin. Verse 19, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we're of most men, most miserable. You know, this life is tough. I mean, going through this life, living in a body of sin and a world of sin, going through this life is tough. I mean, it's a tough journey. You think how much more miserable it would be if you didn't have hope in Christ.

If Christ is not risen, We have no reason to put our hope and trust in him. Verse 21, for since my man came death, my man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But if Christ is not made alive, we have no hope of being made alive. We have no hope of spiritual life. We have no hope of eternal life in the life to come.

So this is not just a doctrinal thing that we want to pound the pulpit on and say, yes, Christ arose from the dead. This is what causes every believer to rejoice. Christ arose from the dead. He died for my sin and he arose from the dead because his sacrifice put my sin away. This is the good news of the gospel. The second thing we see here in this account of what verse nine says, Now when Jesus was risen, the second thing we see is this. Christ died and he rose again for real sinners.

The Lord first appeared to Mary Magdalene out of whom he had cast seven devils. And I just love this. The Lord did not appear first to Peter and James and John. He didn't do that. He didn't, he didn't appear to, to, uh, These men who have served with him in the past, and maybe they had some sort of distinguished past, something that they did in the past that would make the Lord honor them by him appearing to them first. He didn't even appear to these men who are going to be so greatly used in the future to write the New Testament, to go into all the world and preach the gospel. He didn't appear to them first. The first person he appeared to was Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven devils. Seven is the number of perfection.

She was completely and totally possessed by these devils until she met Christ. Until she met Christ and he cast those devils out, his power to cast those out. Now Mary was under the power of Satan. I mean, she had no power at all to set herself free. If Mary had any ability to set herself free from these seven devils, don't you reckon she would have done it? I mean, what a miserable existence to be under the power of these seven devils. And she could not free herself. And Christ came and instantly, completely set her free from those seven devils. And now those seven devils aren't living in her. Those seven devils aren't controlling her. Now the spirit of God dwells in her.

You know, Mary, people may have thought, you know, she's just a nobody. She's just someone on the peripheral, you know, this crowd that's following, you know, the Lord around. But I know this, Mary Magdalene loved the Lord. She loved him. She followed him and she served him, even though she had such a checkered past.

And isn't that the way it ought to be? Anybody who's ever been delivered by this great power from the depths of sin and despair that they cannot set themselves free for, anybody who's been set free from that by such great power and mercy and grace ought to be a person of great faith and great devotion to the Lord. Don't you reckon? That was Mary. She was devoted to the Lord and she never, and here's the reason she was so devoted, she could never forget what a great sinner she was and what great deliverance that the Lord brought to her.

And the same thing should be said of everybody in this room. Should be said of all of us, shouldn't it? We're born under the power of sin, a power that we cannot escape. Just like Mary couldn't set herself free from those seven devils, you and I cannot set ourself free from the power of sin. And the power of sin isn't just the power that you can't stop sinning. I mean, there is a power there. We cannot stop sinning, no matter what we do. But that's not the real power of sin, the power of sin.

Keeps us from trusting Christ. Keeps us from being able to see Christ and hear him in the gospel. That's the power of sin and we can't set ourselves free from it. By our own intellect and our own power and our own going through whatever religious ceremonies that you want to go through, we cannot make ourselves believe Christ. We can't do it. It's the power of sin. We have a sin debt that we can't pay. There's a condemnation for that sin that we cannot pay, that we cannot satisfy God's justice for all of our sin.

And even after the Lord saves us, how many of you sin as little as you want to? Even after the Lord saves us, we can't quit sinning, can we? Even after the Lord saves us. And the Lord has come to his people and freely, completely, and instantly, set his people free from the power of sin.

And I reiterate, being set free from the power of sin is not being made so that we sin less now than we ever used to. No, we sin more than we used to. At least that's what the believer thinks. Only the new man can see the sin of the old man. Once we're born again, we see our sin in a different way than we've ever seen it before. We think, I'm sinning more than I ever used to. And the Lord has freely and completely forgiven us and delivered us from the power of sin so that as much as this flesh tries to quit believing Christ every day, God won't let us do it.

He set us free. His mercy, His grace, His undeserved love, that ought to move our hearts to be devoted to Him. He said, I've loved thee with an everlasting love. This is the love of the almighty. The love of the holy one of Israel has set his love on sinners like you and me. And he showed it when he sent his son to suffer and die for our sins. That ought to make us so devoted to him. That ought to make us so faithful to him, to his cause, to his gospel. to his people because of the freeness and abundance of his mercy and his grace to us. Hannah understood this. Look back at 1 Samuel chapter two. 1 Samuel chapter two. Verse six.

It's the Lord that killeth, and the Lord that maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave, and he bringeth up. He maketh poor, and maketh rich. He bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he has set the world upon them. The Lord is the creator of the world. He set the world on the pillars of his creation, and he created man, a little pipsqueak in his creation, who has, from the moment Adam fell, done nothing but sin against him.

And the Lord comes in mercy, and he kills. He kills the flesh. He kills that self-righteousness, and he makes alive. He causes his people to be born again. He bringeth down to the grave. He reveals to us the depths of our depravity, the depths of our deadness in sin, and then he lifteth up. He makes us a beggar. He makes us see that we're a beggar, and he sets us, takes us from the dunghill, just like David did Mephibosheth, and sets us among the princes of God, among his people at his table to be fed at his table continually. Now I ask you, after experiencing that mercy and grace, how can we ever forget? How can we ever not be thankful? How can we just not constantly remember where it is that the Lord found us? And where we'd be if it wasn't for his mercy and grace.

Now that makes a person devoted and faithful to Christ. It's because of love and thanksgiving. That was Mary. This great sinner who experienced great mercy and grace and saving power was a person who's devoted to Christ. And you know, since we're under this, this sin, the sin nature that we still carry around with us, every believer knows this and you know, It shows you the depths of this flesh and the sin that does so easily beset us that we have to be reminded that we're sinners still. Now, we're sinners. Oh, the Lord's been merciful. The Lord's been gracious. The Lord saved us. Given us faith in Christ, I trust him, don't you?

But I'm a sinner still. Both these things are true. And everybody around us is sinners too. So maybe be surprised, but don't be shocked when they show it, because they're just like us. And just be careful. Judging somebody too harshly just because they sin, just because they do wrong, doesn't mean they're not a believer.

We're sinners still, and the Lord is still showering us with mercy and grace and his power the same way he did the first day he ever revealed himself to us. All right, here's the third thing about the Lord's resurrection. Salvation is all by grace. I mean from beginning to ending. Salvation is all of grace.

Verse 10 says, and Mary went and told them that she had been with him. She'd been with the Lord as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, believed not. Now, God is no respecter of persons. You know, here comes Mary into the 11, and I know there were other men, you know, involved in this circle of believers who had been with the Lord, had been following with the Lord, who are here weeping and mourning, you know, the death of their master.

And they probably thought, you know, Mary's not much. I mean, you know, You think of her past, her past sins, and maybe they were kind of holding it against her. She used to be controlled by these seven devils and these men. It was worse in that day even than it is in our day.

They thought, well, she's just a woman. I mean, she can't preach, she can't teach, she can't pray public. She's just a woman. She's not like us. And they probably kind of looked down on her. Even though she was a sister, they would have said, yeah, she's a believer, but they probably thought they were a little higher on the hierarchy than she is. But the Lord appeared to Mary first and sent Mary to tell these disciples that the Lord had risen. You know why?

There's no hierarchy in God's kingdom. There's neither male nor female. Greek nor Jew, bond nor free. God loves all of his children equally. He really does. He loves all of his children equally. And it's perfectly. I mean, if God does anything, it's perfect, right? So God's love for his people is all perfect.

Now, if God already loves you perfectly, there's nothing you can do to make God love you more than he does somebody else. Serving the Lord publicly. I didn't mean that the Lord loves you more than somebody that sits quietly and worships the Lord with you. There's nothing we can do to make the Lord love his people more than he already loves us in Christ. And the moment we try to do something to make God love us more, we lose it all.

The Lord appeared to Mary and sent Mary with this great news to his disciples, the Lord's risen. Now, let me say this. Mary was the one that came to the tomb early. Early. She got up early and she had everything prepared. She had come to anoint the Lord's body. She wanted to, she came early.

These men didn't. These men didn't, did they? The Lord does honor those that honor him. He does. Now he honors those that honor him. He honored Mary because she honored him and came to the tomb early. Well, Frank, how do you reconcile that salvation is all of grace, that God loves all of his people equally, the same? He doesn't love one more than another. How do you reconcile that with the Lord honoring those that honor him?

Well, it's because it's all of grace. It's all of grace. If you and I ever do anything to honor the Lord, why do we do it? It's because the Lord gave us the grace to do it. It's because the Lord put it in our mind and in our heart to do something that would honor Him. And then He turns around and honors us for doing what He put in our heart to do. It's still all of grace, isn't it? It's all of grace.

And Mary went to tell this wonderful news. The Lord's risen. Can you imagine how excited she was? Oh my goodness. She came to the 11, and the other people that were there, how many of them, I don't know. But she came to tell them the Lord's risen. And nobody believed her. Most frustrating thing in this world, you tell somebody the best news that can ever be for their soul, and they refuse to believe it.

These other disciples, they heard her come, I saw the Lord. Now you'd think that they would remember the Lord telling them on several occasions, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem, I'm gonna suffer and die, I'm gonna be taken by the chief priests and the Pharisees and the Romans and the Gentiles, and I'm gonna suffer and die, be shamefully entreated, and then the third day I'm gonna rise again. How many times did he tell them that? And you'd think they would remember the Lord tell them that.

Here is the tragedy. of unbelief that even believers that you and I live with every day. This is so heartbreaking. Unbelief stopped them from remembering the word that had been preached to them. Now I know that there are people in places in Maybe they don't live in a town where there's a faithful pastor. Maybe the work hasn't been there very long, and there's a lot of people who are sitting under the gospel regularly for the first time in their lives. Maybe they've been listening online for years, and now they finally got a pastor. It's just different.

It's different listening online as listening to a man preach to you who can look you in the eye and preach to you, talk to you about Christ, who sits in his study every week thinking about each person by name, each person he's gonna be preaching, it's different. You've been taught, everybody in this room, you've been taught the word a long time, a long time. Shawn, how many messages have you heard? I mean, your whole life long.

And when we hear a message, and we're not blessed by it, and we leave not believing it, you know the problem? It's unbelief. Unbelief stops us from remembering the word that's been preached to us. Unbelief stops us from our hearts being comforted when the word is preached to you. You know, when we preach the gospel, We're preaching about the forgiveness of sin in Christ. We're preaching about his bloody sacrifice that took away the sin of his people.

If that doesn't comfort your heart, I mean, you know when you're in time of great trial and difficulty, and boy, there's times you hear the word preached and it's such a comfort to you. But what about when everything's going great? You don't seem to have any problems in your life. Does the word still comfort you? Does forgiveness of sin in Christ still comfort your heart?

It does if you're listening as a sinner, it does. But unbelief stops us from listening as a sinner, doesn't it? So the gospel doesn't comfort our hearts. So it doesn't thrill our hearts. And we stay miserable because of unbelief. Because we choose not to believe the gospel when we hear it preached.

Unbelief is a choice. You believe the truth. because you can't help it. It's true. You believe the truth because God's given you faith in Christ and you can't not believe him. To hear the gospel, to hear the gospel of Christ and to refuse to believe it, to refuse to rest in Christ, it's a choice. You choose not to believe him. So we're not comforted by the message. We're not benefited by the message.

You know, you and I are in constant need of the forgiveness of our sins. It ought to be constantly comforting to our hearts to hear of the forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ. And the proof that he took away the sin of his people is he was raised from the dead. He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. And of all the sin that we need constant forgiveness of, unbelief is the worst one, isn't it? Unbelief is the worst one. And this unbelief went on. These men and women insisted in their unbelief. Look at verse 12.

After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the residue. Neither believed they then. Here's these two more disciples that the Lord appeared to on the road to Emmaus.

And he taught them the scriptures, beginning at Moses and the prophets and the Psalms, He opened their understanding to understand that all those scriptures wrote of him. And their hearts burned within them as he preached the gospel to them, as he preached himself to them.

That's what makes the heart of the believer burn within us. It's speaking of Christ. It's hearing of Christ. And they were so thrilled. Their understanding had been open. They understood the Old Testament scriptures like they'd never understood them before, and they had to go tell somebody the good news. And they ran to the disciples. Wouldn't believe them either.

Now you'd think it would start to dawn on them, this is at least the third witness that they've heard that told them that the Lord had risen. You know, the Lord told us that he'd rise from the dead in three days. Now we didn't believe him, we didn't understand what he was talking about, but you know what? It's been three days since we buried him. Could be, he's risen from the dead just like he promised he would.

And if they had believed that, they'd have stopped all this mourning, all this crying, all this worrying, all this fear. Unbelief is what stopped them from enjoying the benefits, the blessing of the resurrection of Christ. They refused to believe. Again, it's a conscious choice. They refused to believe.

There's not a day goes by that I don't think, I am so thankful that God's not like me. If these were your disciples and you just suffered for their sin, died, rose again for their justification, let me ask you, If they wouldn't believe the messengers that you sent to tell them that you'd risen from the dead, what would you do to them? I wouldn't appear to them. Would you? I mean, I'd go somewhere else.

Salvation, remember, is a hall of grace. The Lord appeared to them anyway. Verse 14, and afterward, he appeared unto the 11, as they sat at meat, and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them, which had seen him after he was risen. Now, their sins forgiven, just like our sin is forgiven. Our sin is forgiven. But now, there's never an excuse for our sin, is there? Their sin is forgiven, but the Lord upbraided them for it. The Lord corrected them for this thing, but clearly their sin was forgiven. Because in the very next verse that we'll start to look at next week, what did the Lord do?

He took these men who had refused to believe that he had risen from the dead and sent them into all the world to preach the gospel. Now why would he do that? Couldn't he have found some men with, you know, stronger faith? Couldn't he have found some men who, you know, were better off than these fellas? Well, he probably could have.

But who better to sin to preach the gospel to sinners than another sinful man. Who better to sin to preach the gospel to other believers who struggle with sin and unbelief than a man, now he trusts Christ. He believes by God's grace he trusts Christ. But who better to tell the story of salvation by grace that it's all of grace from beginning to end than a man who struggles with sin and struggles with unbelief the same way you do.

That's who the Lord sent to preach the gospel. And by the power of his spirit, those 11 men, and later they'll add Paul the 12th, are going to turn the entire world upside down by preaching that salvation is by grace, that our sin is forgiven by grace, that God calls his people by his grace, not because we deserve it, by his grace. and that he keeps his people to the end by his grace. God doesn't keep any of his people to the end because they're so devoted and so faithful.

Now, we should be. We should be devoted to him. We should be faithful to him. But if God keeps us to the end, it's gonna be by grace. It's gonna be by grace and it has to be by grace because there's still so much sin left in us so that we desperately need God's grace today just as much as we did the first day God ever revealed himself to us. And isn't it comforting to hear that nothing has changed from 2,000 years ago to today? God's still being merciful and gracious to his people, and he appears to us. He blesses us through the preaching of the word, the same way he did his disciples in that day, even though we don't deserve it. That's my prayer, and it's yours. that God will be pleased to be gracious, continue to be gracious to us, just like he always has been. All right, Lord bless you.