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A MUST

Speaker: Pastor Keith Goullette
Theme: Easter
Thesis: You?
Scripture Text: I Peter 1:3 (next week: II Corinthians 3:7-11)
I. Blessed - v. 3a
II. Born-Again - v. 3

Scripture Readings

ROMANS 6:5
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.

I CORINTHIANS 15:3-4 & 12-19
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

PHILIPPIANS 3:10
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

I PETER 1:23
For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

SCRIPTURE TEXT—I PETER 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• Christ was DEAD. But DEATH could not HOLD Him.
• He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. - Matthew 28:6a
• In John 3, Christ said 5 TIMES in 6 verses: you MUST be BORN AGAIN
• D.L. Moody before his death:
  • Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead.
    Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now;
    I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house
    that is immortal—a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint;
    a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.

    I was born of the flesh in 1837.
    I was born of the Spirit in 1856.
    That which is born of the flesh may die.
    That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.

• Fanny Crosby:
  • Blind 6 weeks after birth, yet wrote thousands of hymns and lived her life as a LIVING HOPE. See Pastor Keith's summary on Fanny Crosby listed below as "NOTES" (also available on the Resources page).

Sermon length: 37:52