Let's open our Bibles to Mark
chapter 16. Let me tell you what a joy it is to be with you again,
especially on this night when we can worship around the table
of our Lord, remember Him, remember His sacrifice. The night when
your pastor is here and feeling as good as can be expected, I
suppose. I know you'll be very glad to
have him back preaching to you Sunday and to have a time of
fellowship afterwards. It's a great joy. Pray the Lord
will bless us. The Gospel of Mark presents Christ
to us as God's servant. It's interesting, Mark doesn't
tell us anything about the birth of Christ or those years growing
up or anything. Mark just begins his gospel right
at the beginning of our Savior's earthly ministry and just goes
from event to event, just rapid fire, you know, without even
taking a break. And throughout this gospel, Mark shows us more
of the details of the miracles that the Lord performed than
the other gospels. Because those miracles are the
works of the servant. Mark shows us those things to
show us the power and the authority of God's servant so that we'll
understand what your pastor just talked about. How the servant
came and he finished the work that the father gave him to do.
That's why Paul said in Philippians chapter 2, the Father had highly
exalted him, given him a name which is above every name, because
as the servant, he finished the work. He accomplished all the
work that the Father sent him to do. And after our Savior worked
out a perfect righteousness for his people as the servant of
God, being obedient to the law, and after our Savior suffered
and he died for the sin of his people as our substitute, as
our sacrifice, He lay in the tomb for three days, and then
he arose from the dead, because the sin charged to him is gone,
put away under his blood. And at this story of the resurrection,
Mark records something that our Lord said, and I think about
this statement every single time I ever think about the resurrection.
Look here beginning in verse 5 of Mark chapter 16. And they,
entering into the sepulcher, saw a young man sitting on the
right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were
affrighted. And he said unto them, Be not affrighted. Ye seek
Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place
where they laid him. But go your way, and tell his
disciples, and Peter, and Peter, that he goeth before you into
Galilee. There shall ye see him, as he said unto you. It seems
like the Lord specifically instructed this angel to say, now you be
sure to tell Peter. You be sure to tell Peter, I'm
risen and I'll see him in Galilee just exactly like I told him
he would. The title of the message this
evening is, And Tell Peter. Now we think of Peter, there
are several things that immediately come to mind. We think of a man
who at one moment, he is so strong in faith, just so strong. And
a minute later, he's so weak. At one moment, this man is so
bold. It's just, you're so impressed
with his boldness. And then just a minute later,
he's so full of fear and trembling. Does that sound like anybody
you know? I feel like I know Peter real well. I wonder if
his middle name is Frank. I don't know, but I feel like
I know him real well. Well, I'll tell you how Peter
summed up himself. When it came for Peter to describe
himself, he called himself a sinful man. Remember that night the
disciples fished and they caught nothing. And they're coming back
in and we're just going to wrap it up for the day. The Lord told
them, now you let down your net for a haul of fish. I said, I
don't know, but they did, and they caught so many fish, the
net broke. And Peter saw the Lord Jesus
is the Lord of the sea, and he bowed, and he said, depart from
me, for I'm a sinful man, O Lord. That's the way Peter described
himself as a sinful man. Well, since our Lord has risen
from the dead, we have a gospel. We have good news to preach to
weak, sinful people like Peter. If you can identify with Peter
like I do, I've got some good news for you this evening. Look
here at verse 15. He said unto them, Go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. You preach the gospel to every
creature. To everybody who listens, you preach the gospel because
Christ is risen from the grave. And because he's risen, we have
good news to preach. to sinners from everywhere. Now,
what is the good news that we have for weak, sinful people
like Peter? Now, Peter knew the Lord died,
didn't he? He saw the Lord died. He knew the Lord was buried.
But I'll tell you what Peter didn't know. Peter didn't know
the Lord had arisen. And since he didn't know the
Lord was risen from the dead, Peter didn't know. All the great,
glorious blessings that Christ had accomplished for his people
through his death and his resurrection. At this time, I'm just sure of
this, Peter thought he was just like Judas. What's the difference
between Peter and Judas? He thought, there's no hope for
me. Judas betrayed him, I denied him. There's no hope for me. Well, you go tell sinful people
like Peter, people who don't have any hope left in themselves. They don't have any reason to
expect salvation or mercy or grace. You go tell them the good
news of the gospel. You go tell those people who
have no hope in themselves what Christ has accomplished for his
people through his death, his burial, and his resurrection.
So here's the first thing we tell. We tell poor, sinful people
like Peter, Peter, there's rest in Christ. God's servant finished
the work. There's no work left for you
to do. Now you rest in Him. Look at that in verse 1 of chapter
16. And when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary
the mother of James and Salome had brought sweet spices that
they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning,
the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the
rising of the sun. And they said among themselves,
Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away,
for it was very great. Now these women came right after the Sabbath
day. And you know what the Sabbath day is. The Sabbath day is a
picture of God resting from all his work on the seventh day.
On the seventh day, God rested from his work of creation. Now,
God didn't rest because he was tired. Why did he rest? He rested
because the work was finished. There was no more work left to
do. That's what happened because of our Savior's sacrifice. He
gave himself to be crucified, to be slain, to be sacrificed
for the sin of his people. And he died. They put a dead
body in that tomb. And there his body lay, resting
on the Sabbath day. And he was resting there, not
because he was tired. He was resting there because
the work of redemption is finished. It's completed. There's no more
work left for you to do. There's no more work left for
him to do, and there's no more work left for his people to do.
When he cried, it is finished, brother, he meant it. It was
finished. All the work of redemption was
finished. So you go tell Peter, and you
go tell all those other weak, frail, sinful men and women who
are just like him, you go tell them what that means. I'll tell
you what it means. Quit trying to make up for your
sin. You know, we always think, well,
I've done all this horrible things, but if I could do a few bad things,
it'll at least help, you know, balance the scales and God be
happy with me. Quit it. Just quit that. And rest in Christ. He finished
the work. The work's done. So quit trying
to plead God by what you do, by your works. And just rest
in Christ, who already completed the work. Salvation cannot come
to us by our works. All of our works are sin and
filth and decay. The only way sinners can be saved
is by faith in Christ, who already finished the work of redemption
for his people. So quit. Just quit. Whatever
it is, quit it. Quit trying to please God by
going through all the ceremonies of religion and just rest in
Christ your Sabbath. Salvation will never be found
in the form and the ceremony of religion. You never find salvation
going through the motions of morality. Salvation is in Christ. Now you come to Him and you rest
in Him. Oh, what sweet rest. This is the thing about human
nature that amazes me. Everybody wants to rest. Everybody
wants to go on vacation and do nothing. Everybody wants something
for free, for nothing, except salvation. What a clear indication, if that's
the right word, of our fallen, depraved nature. We want to rest
in every way except for salvation. Christ, His body lay in the tomb
and He arose from the dead. The work's finished. Now you
come rest in Him. All your life long, you rest
in Christ. Look to Him at all times. He's
already finished the work. Jonathan, you don't even have
to roll a stone away. The stone's already rolled. The work's finished.
Now you rest in Him all your life long. And when the time
comes for you to face the death of this body, you rest in Christ. Now, you rest in Him. Our Savior
already rose from the grave. He went to the grave and He came
out. These sisters, they saw a tomb
that was empty. He's already come out of the
tomb. He's made a way out. Now, you rest in Him. In His
time, He'll call you out of the tomb, too. You rest in Him. Rest
in Christ's love for His people. The first recorded words after
our Lord had arisen were words he gave the angel to give comfort
to his people, the people that he loves. He told the angels,
when these ladies come, you tell them, don't be frightened. They're
going to be frightened. They're going to have stones
rolled away. They're going to see you sitting here. You tell them,
don't be frightened. You've got nothing to be scared
of. Here these ladies came, but where were the rest of the disciples?
They were off hiding somewhere, weren't they? They were so scared. They were scared what had happened
to their master was going to happen to them. Nobody wants
to go through that. They were scared. They were so
disappointed. All their visions of grandeur
and an earthly kingdom were all dashed. And they were scared.
They were disappointed. They were full of fears and doubts. Even though the Savior said,
I'm going to die, but I'm going to rise again on the third day.
They still doubted, didn't they? And yet, he still loved his people. His first words after his resurrection
were words of comfort for weak, frightened, frail people. That's
love. Now you rest in Christ's love
for his people. There's rest for sinners there.
Secondly, what's our message to people like Peter? Salvation
is by grace alone. through faith alone. Look here
at verse 9. 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. And she went and told
them that had been with him as they mourned and wept, and they,
when they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her,
believed not. 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 believe
they them." Now, how many times did the Lord tell his disciples,
I'm going to rise again the third day? Here it was. I know they're disappointed.
I know they're frightened. But three days ago, their Lord
was buried. And several witnesses came to
them and said, the Lord's risen. I've seen him. I've talked to
him. And the disciples would not believe. Now you'd think, somewhere in
the deep recesses of their mind, something would click and say,
you know, he said he'd rise again the third day, and this is the
third day. Could be they're telling the
truth. It could be that the Lord did exactly what he said he'd
do. Wouldn't that shock us? That the Lord would do exactly
what he said he'd do. And they would not believe. I can identify with weak faith,
can't you? Well, here's the good news. Salvation is by grace, through
faith, through God-given faith. Now, there's no salvation apart
from faith in Christ. Look at verse 15. Yeah, verse
14. Afterward he appeared unto the
eleven 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. And he said unto them,
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be damned. Now there is no salvation apart
from faith. He that believes will be saved.
He that refuses to believe will be damned. Now I know this is
true. It's not our sin that damns us. It's not. Christ saves sinners
from their sin. So it's not our sin that damns
us. I tell you what damns us. It's our self-righteousness.
What damns us is our insistence to rely upon ourselves, to rely
upon our own works, and to rely upon our own understanding. These
brethren refused to believe that the Lord is risen because they
couldn't understand how a dead man could rise from the grave.
If you and I refuse to believe something that we don't understand,
we're going to be damned. That's right. Because who can
understand God? Who can understand how God was
made a man? Who can understand that? Who
can understand how God was made sin? Who can understand how God,
who is life, died? Who can understand how that God
man? through the sacrifice of himself, through his suffering,
through his death, could put away the sin of somebody else,
much less untold millions of people. Who can understand how
a man rose from the grave by his own power and then ascended
back to glory and sat down on the throne of heaven? Who can
understand that? Nobody. But I tell you this,
if we don't believe on him, we'll be damned. There's no salvation
apart from God-given faith. And I also know this about people.
Nobody will believe on Christ. Nobody will. Until God gives
them faith. Faith is a gift of God. I can
tell you exactly when a person will believe on Christ. I know
the precise moment somebody will believe on Christ. When He reveals
Himself to them. When He appeared there in verse
14 unto the 11, Then they believed, didn't they? They believed because
they saw Him. And you and I will believe when
we see Christ. Not with fleshly eyes like the
eleven did, but when we see Him with the eye of faith, we will
believe Him. When He reveals Himself to us,
we'll believe Him. And this is the gospel that we
preach to weak, sinful people like Peter. Peter, salvation
is by grace. Now, that is good news. You think
about poor old Peter in these last few days. Peter swore, Lord,
I'll die with you. He took that knife and he was
going to fight a battalion, you know. I'm going to die with you. And then the moment trouble came
from a little girl, he ran like a scared jackrabbit. Peter said,
Lord, These others might leave you. Oh, you're kind of doubtful
about old John. They probably, you're right, they probably will
leave you. But I'll never leave you. And then he denied he even
knew who the Lord was. Peter's heartbroken. Can you
imagine how heartbroken he is? Now, I know Peter believed God.
I know he did. He believed Christ. He said,
I'm not going anywhere else. To whom should we go? We believe
we're sure. Thou art the Christ. He believed
Christ. Yet his faith is so weak and
Peter has to think. Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior. He didn't come save me. I'm too
bad. I've just... I've withstood Him
to His face. To His face. I'm too far gone. Nobody can be more unworthy than
me. Well, the message of God's grace
is for just those people. Those people who say, I'm too
bad. I'm too far gone. I'm too unworthy. And to you, who are like Peter,
I've got good news. Salvation is by grace, not because
you deserve it, but because Christ earned it for you. Salvation
is by the unearned, undeserved favor from God. Salvation is
God giving us what we don't deserve. Peter, You're right. You deserve
damnation. You deserve eternal wrath. But
the Father poured out that wrath upon your sin, upon Christ your
substitute, and the blood of Christ paid for all of your sin,
paid the debt. His blood even paid the debt
when you deserted the Lord, and tonight you even knew Him. Oh,
that's the kind of grace I need. Salvation is by grace. Our message
to Peter is, Peter, Christ is risen. He's not dead. The tomb's
empty. And here's the result of the
resurrection of Christ. Peter, you're justified. Christ
rose again for your justification. The tomb's empty because when
Christ died, he justified you. The grave could not hold him. He had to rise again. Now, Peter,
everything's all right between you and God. not because you
did anything right, but because God's servant got the job done
for you. He justified you by His sacrifice,
and you're complete in Him. Look over Romans chapter 4. Romans the fourth chapter, beginning
in verse 23. Well, look up at verse 21. And
being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was also
able to perform. God's going to do what he said
he'd do. Abraham believed that. And therefore it was imputed
to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom
it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again
for our justification. Salvation is by faith, through
grace, in this servant that got the job done. He was delivered
from our offenses. He was made sin for his people,
and he put it away. So that not just as if you'd
never sinned, but so that you have never sinned. Your sin is
put away under his blood. He got the job done. Now sinner,
you come believe him. You come to him for grace and
for mercy. I say it again. It's not our
sin that damns us. It's not our lack of good works
that damns us. It's not even our mistakes that
damn us. It's our lack of faith in Christ and our insistence
to trust something other than Christ alone. Salvation is by
grace, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and even a sinner like you shall
be saved. Thirdly, what's our gospel? Good
news for weak, sinful people like Peter. It's this. Salvation from sin is through
union with Christ. Now that was pictured in the
way our Lord told us to confess him in Believer's Baptism. Now
we're not saved because of anything we do, is it? We're saved because
of what Christ did for us. We have that salvation through
union with Christ. Salvation is ours through representation. I know you all know this. God
only, when he looks at the human race, he only sees two men. And
he sees all of those two representative men, the first Adam and the second
Adam. And he sees all of us in one of those two representatives,
either in Adam or in Christ. Well, here's the good news for
weak, frail, sinful people like Peter. Yes, Peter, I know. Everything you've ever done is
sin. I know. Peter, I know everything you do is a mistake. You can't
help yourself. I know. But Peter, here's the
good news. God doesn't accept you in what
you do or what you don't do. God accepts you in Christ, your
federal head, your representative. Peter, when Christ lived as a
man, he obeyed God's law perfectly. And so did you. If you believe
Him, if you're in Him, when Christ obeyed the law, you did too.
When He was perfectly obedient, you were too. And when Christ
suffered and He died for your sin, so did you. You died in Him. Justice against
your sin is already satisfied. You already died. So justice
is satisfied. You died in the person of your
substitute. And the Holy God will never demand
you die twice for the same sin. You've already died. Justice
is satisfied. There's a movie, I like The Green
Mile. And if I'm channel surfing around,
every time I see it, I stop and watch it, at least a little bit
of it. It's a movie about these prisoners on death row and the
guards there on death row. And it came time in the movie,
one of the prisoners was to be executed. And they executed him. They electrocuted him, and he
was dead. There he lay on the slab or the
gurney or whatever in the morgue. And one of the young guards come
in making fun of that dead body, just talking ugly to him, making
fun of him. And one of the older guards grabbed
him and stopped him, said, now you stop it. He's paid his debt. You can't touch him anymore.
He's square with the house. I love that. He's square with
the house. Justice is satisfying. And everyone who's just like
Peter here this evening, I tell you, if you believe Christ, God's
law is not hunting you. God's justice is not hunting
you. You're square with the house because Christ, your substitute,
has already died. and you died in him. So the law
is satisfied. Fear not, you're square with
the house. When the Lord Jesus obeyed the
law as a man, you did too. When Christ died, you did too. And when Christ arose again,
you did too. You arose again to new life.
Look in Isaiah chapter 26. Here is a precious promise of
this in the Old Testament. When Christ arose, his people
arose in him. Isaiah 26, verse 19. Thy dead men shall live. Together with my dead body shall
they arise. Awake and sing ye that dwell
in the dust. For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth
shall cast out the dead. It's not possible for it to hold. It's going to cast out the dead
because when Christ arose, you arose in Him. All of God's elect
are going to rise together with the dead body of our Lord Jesus
Christ. When He arose, we arose in Him. God's elect live because Christ
our head lives. We arose together in Him, together
with His dead body. That's what the old timers and
what this, I don't know if that makes me a new timer or not,
I repeat it all the time. That's what the old timers called
the vital union with Christ. This union is so vital because
you can't live without it. You can't have eternal life without
being connected to Christ our head. That's the only way we
can be square with the house, is through union with Christ.
Now, what's the gospel we preach to weak, sinful people like Peter? Well, we tell them, rest in Christ,
the work's finished. We tell them, salvation is by
grace through faith. We tell them, salvation is by
union with Christ. And fourth, we tell them this,
salvation in Christ will be confessed publicly. Look here back in our
text, Mark 16, Verse 16, he that believeth and
is baptized should be saved, but he that believeth not should
be damned. Now, what does that mean if a person is baptized
or saved? Well, it doesn't mean that a
person's soul is saved or a person's soul is cleansed when some preacher
dunks them under the water. H2O cannot cleanse your soul.
It can't reach to the defilement, pollution of our soul. Cleansing
from sins only found in the blood of Christ, not in a pool of water
in some tank. And a person can be baptized,
but not be saved. Simon the Sorcerer was baptized,
he wasn't saved. And a person can be saved and
not baptized. As far as I know, no Old Testament
believer was baptized. The thief on the cross wasn't
baptized, but they're all saved. Well, Frank, are you saying baptism's
not important? Absolutely not. Of course baptism
is important. All you need to know is if you
wonder, is baptism important? The Savior commanded it. Then
it's important. Our Savior gave believers two
ordinances. We're going to observe one of
them tonight. He gave two ordinances that we're
to observe to confess Christ. He gave us the Lord's table and
He gave us baptism. And those ordinances are given
for us to confess publicly that our salvation is totally, completely
accomplished by the suffering, by the death, the burial, and
the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's table
is a picture of the Lord's suffering. It's a picture of how Christ,
our substitute, suffered for our sin when his body was broken. That's what the bread represents.
These men hand out this bread. You look at it. That's a picture
of Christ's body being broken, being bruised and crushed and
battered. Because he was bearing my punishment. It's my punishment. I know it's
yours too, but he did that for me. And that wine is a picture
of the shed blood of Christ. You don't get wine from the grape
until you crush it. His body was crushed. When the
blood is separated from the body, not only is there death, there's
suffering, showing us how Christ suffered for the sin of his people.
And when we take that bread and we take that wine and we eat
it, what we're confessing is all my hope of salvation is found
in the Lord Jesus Christ, that when he died, He died bearing
my sin. His blood was shed to pay for
my sin. He's my substitute. That's a
good way to remember Him, isn't it? And the second ordinance
is baptism. Now, baptism doesn't save us.
Baptism is a confession that Christ has already saved us,
what He's done for us and what He's done in us. And that's what
a person says when they're baptized. They're publicly saying to everybody
who's here, Christ is all my salvation. I'm saved through
union with him. When he died, I died in him. He died because my sin was charged
to him. He died because he died the death
that I deserve. And when he was buried, I was
buried in him. His death is real. I was buried
in him. But the grave is no place for
my Savior to stay. The grave is no place for life
itself. Christ the Savior had to rise
from the grave. Why? Because he put sin away. All the sin that was charged
to him is put away under his sacrifice, so he had to come
out of the grave. Now, when we baptize a person,
we dunk them under the water, don't we? Dunk them under the
water, out of sight, to represent the death and the burial of our
Savior. But we don't hold that person
under the water, do we? No. We bring them up out of the
water. The grave isn't a fit place for
them either. Not anymore. Not since Christ
rose again for their justification. Christ rose again, so His people
must live. They must live eternally. He
lives and we live in Him. And when God saves a sinner,
sooner or later, That sinner will confess Christ. He'll just
have to sooner or later. They can't help it. Because life
always confesses itself. If you've ever been around a
newborn baby, they deliver the baby in those first seconds.
Nobody's begging that baby to cry. You know why that baby cries? It's alive. That cry is a confession
of its life. You don't have to beg it to cry.
You might want to beg it to quit crying at 3 a.m. some morning,
but you don't have to beg it to cry. Its cry is a confession
of life. That's why your pastor never
begs anybody to be baptized. If God saves him, life will confess
itself. They'll have to confess him publicly
sooner or later. We just preach the gospel to
them and wait. The Lord will call out His people. Now, if
you're as weak, and you're sinful as Peter, and the Lord reveals
himself to you, you'll gladly confess him. You mean to tell
me that I can publicly identify with the sacrifice of Christ?
Oh, that's a great joy. What a salvation. What a Savior
for poor, weak people like Peter. Let's be sure. to go into all
the world and tell that good news, the good news of the gospel
to people like Peter. I promise you, they'll never
hear better news than that. All right. Lord bless you. Frankly, that was a blessing.
Thank you. And the ordinances, baptism and the Lord's table
are so simple that they're just amazing. And baptism, I want
to publicly identify myself with
the gospel. He was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification. And there isn't anything that
thrills me any more than this, to think that when the Lord died,
he was delivered for my offenses. And when he opened his eyes,
there's one reason. I was justified. And when we take the Lord's table,
listen to this passage of scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 26. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till
he come. Now every believer in here that
takes the Lord's table is going to be doing some preaching tonight.
We're showing forth the Lord's death. Oh, His death is all in
our salvation. Let's pray together. Lord, how eternally grateful
we are That everything you require, you've provided
in your Son. And that we are eternally complete
in Him. Lord, it makes us anguish to think
of Him bearing the filth of our sins in His own body on the tree. Lord, we don't understand that,
but we believe that He did that. And Lord, how we thank You that
He finished the work that You gave Him to do. And even now,
that's what we're showing forth. That He finished the work You
gave Him to do. that He glorified you here on
the earth and He saved every one of us from our sins eternally
and completely. We give thanks in Christ's name
we pray. Amen.